#but it genuinely so fucking hurtful when people assume the worst of you. like that's one of the major reasons i've like

[kalkydra]

such a nothing of a bitch but i just remembered when i asked the eds subreddit for advice going into my first gyno appointment asking about a hysterectomy and in it i mentioned that one of the reasons i didn't want to birth kids is that i'm severely disabled and wouldn't be able to take care of children how they need and deserve, and that's not even mentioning how pregnancy would wreck my already crippled body and someone like ignored the other reasons i mentioned (like dysphoria and a family history of cervical & uterine cancer and my sister having multiple miscarriages and Not Wanting To Be Pregnant) and was like "you really shouldn't correlate being disabled with being unable to take care of children" and it's like. yes i know that that is like a very serious and personal issue that is especially touchy for people with genetic disorders. however. that is not what i was saying. i was not making any generalizations. i know this because i have ocd and spent three days writing the post trying to make sure it covered all my bases and was as thoughtful and inclusive as i could be. actually i think they said the same thing about me mentioning dysphoria and how i shouldn't imply that trans men can't and don't want to be pregnant. and i was like. 😐 NOT. what i SAID.

[ddejavvu]

Spring Fling - Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader (Part Five) (18+) / Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

Summary: You should have known the ‘no refunds’ detail on the website for Spring Fling was a red flag. But you paid no mind to it, eager to be assigned a quick fuck for spring break. When the man that walks through your cabin door is none other than Jake 'Hangman' Seresin, your wildly infuriating fellow pilot, you have two choices: bicker the entire time and have a miserable spring break, or fuck.

Contents/Warnings: smut, minors dni. fem!reader, pilot!reader, enemies/rivals to lovers, lots and lots of arguing, could these two people be any less cooperative, sex seven ways to sunday and then some, seriously like so much smut it'll make your eyes bleed, makeouts, rough sex, oral (m+f receiving), penetrative sex, will add as i post

WC: 7.0k / navigation / inbox

A/N: Thank you all for waiting for this chapter! I know it took me longer to finish this one than it did the others but it's the longest chapter so far, and I also had a lot of major life events go down in the time between this chapter and last. I appreciate each and every single one of you who stayed patient with me, and I hope that this chapter and that the rest to come are worth the wait :) <3

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

You’re doing a terrible job at paying attention to where you’re going as you take the elevator, jamming your finger against the 12 button so hard it hurts. Pizza is on the twelfth floor, and you’re hoping Daniel will be there early like you so that you can forget about Jake and his tyrannical rule. 

It’s clear as day to you; Jake thinks he has control over you just the same way he has control over the girls that drool over him at the Hard Deck. He thinks one glance will melt your brain into mush, but it won’t. It doesn’t, and you’re not letting the cockiest man you know believe he’s won you over. Especially one that you work with. If anyone found out- if any of your fellow aviators knew that you’d succumbed to Jake’s charms… you’d risk losing the respect you’ve fought hard to earn on the tarmac. You’re not letting your career take a nosedive because Jake won’t stop bragging about getting his dick wet. He doesn’t get a say in your life if he has nothing genuine to contribute to it. You know him well enough to know that caving in and fucking would be the worst decision of your life, and you refuse to let him feel like he’s won you like a prize. You’re standing up for yourself; if he can shit-talk Daniel, you can shit-talk Miss Melons.

Your skin prickles with annoyance the more you think about the woman that had approached you both- seriously, did she not consider that she was being intrusive and rude? You assume Jake has snagged her away from her roommate by now, and they’re probably having a better time than you are. 

Everything feels unfair, down to the coincidental roommate placement. It’s like the universe had heard you needed a break, and wanted to punish you for it.

Cracking open your book helps, but it takes you a while to get into the groove. You’re sitting poolside across from the pizza place, eyes glancing from page to parlor every once in a while to check for a certain bearded man. The main lead is compelling, and your stomach soars as you imagine Daniel in a cowboy hat. You’d save that horse.

Peace is hard to find while sitting poolside on a cruise, but chaos is actually the perfect white noise for you to read, and your concentration isn’t broken until a shadow falls over your lounge chair. You glance up, but it’s not the man you’d wanted to see.

“Hey.” Jake’s already frowning, his face apprehensive like he thinks you’ll scream at him to get away. You want to, but you don’t want to cause a scene.

“What, Hangman?”

“I’m not trying to control you.” He pushes despite seeing your gaze back on your book, “I just don’t think you’re meant to be with Daniel. But I shouldn’t have given you a hassle for doing the same thing to me. I just… I do it because-”

He stops short, glancing sideways at a man running despite the clear no running sign on the lifeguard tower. You decide to help him in his moment of need.

“Because you’re used to women who let you walk all over them. Even if you’re not trying to control me, you’re used to having that control. It’s familiar for you, so you expect it, even if you don’t know you’re doing it. But I’m not like that. You can’t keep me waiting on you.”

The scoff he lets out is accompanied by an expression that looks truly pained, “That ain’t it at all. But forget it. Don’t worry about why I do it. I just thought maybe you were doin’ it to me for the same reasons. But never mind. I’ll shut up about Daniel. Truce?”

You glare up at him, book still open in your lap. He extends an uncharacteristically helping hand, and you wait a truly uncomfortable amount of time before taking it and shaking once.

“Truce.”

He takes the chair beside you, stretched out in the sun. Unfortunately, it seems like your reading time is over as his head turns to you, “So, Dudley showed up yet?”

“He’s coming for lunch.” You cling to your novel, trying desperately to ignore Jake and his instantly broken promise, “What about Melon girl, they weren’t ripe enough for you?”

“She wasn’t my type.” He starts, and there’s a heavy silence before he continues, “I don’t like a woman who thinks it’s fun to get between a couple.”

The sideways glance you send Hangman, the ‘I-told-you-so’ smirk, is lethal.

“Anyways.” He continues, tone more casual now, “Fancy a swim, darlin’?”

“I’ll read instead,” You offer, “But you have fun, Hangman.”

“Party Pooper,” He accuses, standing from the lounge chair he’s occupying and stretching briefly, “You’re an absolute mood-killer. No fun, the most boring person on this boat.”

“I’m about to be more of one: have you put sunscreen on?”

“Nope,” He grins, “You volunteering to do the honors, you sleazy thing?”

“Absolutely not. But you can use the stuff in my bag.” You nod at your tote bag, “Don’t use it all, though.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Jake nods, folding into a seat on the edge of the lounge chair beside yours, “So, what’s going on in that book, they boning yet?”

“Mhm.” You nod absently as Jake begins smearing sunscreen over his arms and legs, “Real sexy stuff.”

“I’ve got somethin’ sexier for you.”

“It’s a porn book, Hangman,” You clarify, in case he’s forgotten, “I’m trying to read porn. Leave me alone.”

“There’s porn right here!” He calls, arms out to show off his impressively tanned and toned chest, a thick layer of sunscreen giving it a sheen that glistens in the light. As reluctant as you are to admire anything about Jake, you can’t lie; he has a body worth ogling. But you will not ogle it.

“This porn’s better,” You hum, glancing up at Jake through your lashes, deceptively inviting, “This guy’s got a cowboy hat on.”

“I’ve got a million and one cowboy hats,” Jake insists, slowly inching towards you and away from the edge of the pool, “Is that really all it takes, darlin’? ‘Cause I can slap one on in seconds, if that’s what you’re after. ‘Even brought one with me in case my roommate was into it.”

“Mm, maybe,” You let him get closer, excitement clearly swirling in his eyes as he advances towards your chair. He doesn’t notice the shifting of your feet until it’s too late and one is shoving firmly against his chest, knocking him off balance and sending him tumbling backwards into the pool.

There’s not anyone in his immediate vicinity besides you, so you take the brunt of the splash, but it’s worth it.

“But I like it better when the hat’s on a real gentleman!” You call, laughter interrupting your words as Jake emerges from the pool well and truly soaked, shaking water out of his hair. He’s been thoroughly underwater trained, so he’d been able to catch his breath in time despite the surprise of it all, and there’s no real harm done besides the initial splash.

“You dirty rotten minx,” He calls, water dripping from his short hair into his eyes, “You lured me in with the promise of cowboy hat sex just to push me in the pool?”

“I can’t believe you fell for it!” You’re still laughing, but maybe this bout of giggles is only to annoy him, “That’s, like, the oldest trick in the book. Well, maybe besides the cowboy hat sex thing. But you shouldn’t have gotten so close!”

He braces his elbows on the wall of the pool, the border surely burning his skin. But he stares at you regardless, “I thought you were finally givin’ in.”

“It’d take a lot more than a cowboy hat to make me give in, Jake.” You laugh, turning back to your book, “Like, a full personality transplant.”

Jake hears Danica’s words repeated back to him in his head, ‘Show, don’t tell’.

“Noted. I’ll look into one’uh those,” He quips, smile sarcastic and empty as he resorts to swimming alone, “Hey, when you’re done with that chapter, you should join me.”

“No.”

“Alright.”

You glance away from the book’s pages at Hangman’s unusual, immediate acceptance of your refusal. But he lifts himself out of the water- no stairs, no ladder, only his forearms against the deck, and your stomach sinks as you realize he might be playing a game of wills with you.

Instead, he sits beside you again, this time facing away from you, “Will you rub some sunscreen on my back?”

You want to say no. You would, if he were only asking to feel your hands on him. And maybe that’s part of it, but you also know that as much as he tans, he could burn, and his back is the only part of himself that he can’t reach. You’d want someone to do you the solid too, so you sigh and set your book aside.

“Fine. But you owe me.”

“Mhm.” He nods, passing you the sunscreen, “I’ll rub it wherever you want, Y/N.”

You whack him upside the head with the bottle, and when he hisses in pain and pitches forwards, you squirt some of the lotion onto your palm and begin applying it to the broad, tanned, muscled expanse of his back.

You’re no masseuse, but apparently you’re rubbing all the right places, because Jake lets out grunts and groans that are borderline pornographic. If they were coming from anyone else, you might have squirmed in your seat, but each one sends your eyes rolling skywards as you cover Jake’s skin in goopy sun lotion.

“Damn, you’re good.” Jake grunts as you dig into a knot beneath his shoulder blade, “Do that again?”

“I’m putting sunscreen on you, Jake, not working out muscle tension.”

“Oh, come on, just a little more?” He pleads, turning so that he can glance at you from the side of his gaze, eyes shining in prayer.

You dig extra hard into his muscle, and you take some sort of wicked pleasure in the way that his resulting groan is more of a pained yelp than something of enjoyment. 

“There, Hangman.” You whack the middle of his back, between his shoulder blades, “You’re all oiled up.”

“Aren’t you glad you were the one to get to do it?” Jake grins blindingly, and you bury your nose in your book again to avoid answering his question.

“Oh, you can stick your face in that book all you want,” Jake drawls, and you hear the displacement of the water he steps in as he lowers himself into the pool, gracefully and by choice this time, “But I know you liked having your hands all over me, darlin’.”

You want to gripe something back- something witty and cutting that will tear him down where he stands, but he’s turned away from you, already submerging himself to begin swimming laps. You admire his dedication to exercise even while on vacation- you have no plans to visit the gym in the lower decks.

Jake sees the diving board just as you do, and you keep him in your peripheral vision as he climbs out of the pool to make his way up the ladder. Your novel is begging to be read, but your eyes stick firm on one fitting word- ‘abdomen’ so that you can watch Jake from the corner of your eye as he prepares to dive.

Fortunately, you don’t need to continue the ruse of reading because Jake bellows from across the deck, “Y/N, look!”

You’re met with a grin when you look up at him, his arms raised above his head and joined flush together in diving position, “I’m gonna dive- watch me.”

“I’m watching.” You call, injecting your voice with as much disinterest as you can manage without feeling guilty, “This feels like babysitting, Hangman.”

He dives instead of quipping back, and it’s an impressive one, not that you’ll sing his praises for it. He comes up on the side of the pool closest to you, arms flinging an arc of water onto the concrete before you.

“Was it good?” He asks, panting slightly, hanging onto the wall.

“Yes,” You reply, a sickly sweet smile on your face as you condescend to him, “You did so good, honey.”

“Shut up,” He sends a wave of water splashing over your sandals, and you can’t be mad at him after all the teasing you’ve been inflicting upon him.

“I’ve been workin’ on my diving,” He goes back to swimming around, this time more casual as he keeps his head above the water to speak with you, “My nieces back home are learnin’ to swim so I’ve been in the pool a lot lately. Anytime they drag me in there I dive in and splash them.”

His arms cut through the water with strength and ease, confident strokes as you mull over his words. The image of Jake urging a toddler in floaties to cross a 3-foot gap into his arms is- endearing, not that you’ll admit it. You hum in acknowledgement, and tuck back into your book.

There’s not many people in the pool this early- most are probably still in bed with a hangover and a mess to clean up - and it’s large to boot, so there’s plenty of room. Your eyes drift left and catch sight of a jacuzzi, and suddenly your beach chair seems to pale in comparison.

Okay, you won’t join Jake in the pool, but you’ll relax for a couple of minutes in the jacuzzi. Just until Daniel gets here.

Jake doesn’t notice that you’ve stood until your chair is empty, and you have a perfect view of him floundering, scanning the entire deck until he spots you half-submerged in the hot tub.

You get to laugh at him again, and he grants you a good-natured grin instead of getting annoyed.

“I thought you’d finally found what’s-his-name,” Jake swims over to the separation wall that keeps the hot water parted from the cold, “Mind if I join you, Y/N?”

“Only if you’re- careful!” You shriek, trying desperately to protect the pages of your book from his sopping wet skin as he scales the barrier, “Hangman, if this book gets wet, you’re replacing it for me.”

“Alright, alright! I’ll take you on a shopping spree, relax. Hey, if I’m buyin’ you porn books, doesn’t that make me somethin’ like a sugar daddy?”

“You’re not getting any sugar,” You shrug, “But sure.”

“Just call me daddy, Y/N.” He grins, “That’s all the sugar I need.”

You hide behind your book so that he can’t see the way your face wrinkles into a grimace. The heat from the jacuzzi spreads inexplicably quick all of a sudden, warming your neck, your ears, your face, and Jake lets out a thick, heavy groan as he settles into the warm water.

“This is nice.” He muses, eyes closed, “Real relaxing.”

“It’s less relaxing when someone’s talking the whole time,” You peek across the side of your book, “Shut up, maybe?”

Jake snorts, leaning his head back against the edge of the pool, “Alright, alright your majesty. I’ll stay silent.”

You don’t verbally thank him, but you don’t make a scene when his leg drifts across the jet currents of the jacuzzi to brush against yours.

You cover a good chunk of your novel before a voice calls your name, and this time it’s the two people you’d been hoping to see all morning. Danica waves giddily at you and Jake, who’s picked his head up from where you thought he’d fallen asleep and is already mad-dogging Daniel. You wave back to Danica, and cast a quick glance down at your bathing suit before standing to greet Daniel. It’s just as tight and showy as you prefer it to be. 

You pay no attention to Jake where he gets out behind you, too focused on Daniel to care. But perhaps you should have, because you’re two steps from meeting Daniel in the middle when Jake’s strong arm shoves you sideways, and your book is wrenched from your grasp as you fall sideways into the pool.

It’s cold, colder even because you’d been soaking in the hot tub. You’re surprised, but you suppose you can’t even really be mad at him considering it’s just payback for what he’d done to you.

You’ve barely righted yourself in the water before there’s another splash beside you, and when you finally emerge there’s hands reaching for your waist, Daniel’s as you realize he’d jumped in to help you. 

“You-!” You splutter at Jake with bleary, chlorine-soaked eyes, attention split between Daniel who’s trying to ensure you’re alright, and Jake who’s snickering while holding your book in his thankfully dry hand.

“You asshole.” Daniel finishes for you, “She could have drowned!”

“I know how to swim,” You brace a hand on Daniel’s chest- startlingly bare, but riddled with coarse, brown hair, “It’s fine, I- I pushed him in earlier.”

“Relax, Prince Charming. It’s just a bit of payback. And look,” Jake waves your novel in front of you, “Dry as a bone.”

“Well I am- uh, not.” You stand half-submerged in the pool, Daniel still holding onto your waist, “So, I guess I will go swimming.”

“Great. You can swim with us.” Daniel smiles, warm and inviting as he keeps his hands on you.

“Yeah, us.” Jake agrees, taking Danica’s towel and spreading it over a sunny lounge chair for her.

Jake helps lower Danica gently into the pool, holding her hand while she takes the stairs, before jumping in beside you so that you’re splashed by the wave he creates.

“You are an asshole,” You laugh, breaking away from Daniel’s grip to shove at Jake’s shoulder. The grins on your faces are bright and genuine, perhaps the first time you’ve both been able to laugh with each other the entire trip. It feels nice, and you don’t fight when he shoves back at you with strong arms.

“Hey- hey!” Danica shouts, standing behind Daniel with a hand on his shoulder, “Why don’t you turn that pushing and shoving into a game of chicken?”

“I’m down,” Daniel seems thrilled to be opposite Jake as he lowers himself for Danica to climb atop his shoulders, “Y/N, you okay on his shoulders?”

Jake does the honors himself, dunking himself under the water and coming up between your legs. You barely have time to plant your hands on the top of his head, fingers twisting instinctively into his hair as you accidentally tug it while he stands at his full height again.

“Shit, sorry Hangman.” You let go of his hair, hoping you hadn’t yanked too hard. He’s forgiven, for now, so you won’t resort to childish things like hair-pulling.

“That’s okay, darlin’.” He grins, craning his neck back to meet your eye, “I like it when you tug on my hair.”

You have to overlook Jake’s suggestive comment as Danica’s already reaching for you, and you eagerly engage in a shoving match while the two men beneath you plant themselves into the bottom of the pool. You manage to get a leg up on Danica, and they’re both pushed backwards by the force of your shove, but Daniel surges forwards and ends up knocking you and his roommate right into each other.

You collapse against Danica, forehead-to-forehead, giggling like little girls. Her eyes are bright and shining with amusement, and her breath smells minty- like gum, not toothpaste. You’re more than happy to begin pushing at each other again, and though you’re confident your navy-built muscles are going to prevail, she lands a critical shove against your shoulder that throws you off-balance and sends you toppling off of Jake’s shoulders.

The water is cold, colder than you remember as you splash into it, and when you come up for air, already laughing, Jake’s facing you, having turned when you’d fallen from his shoulders. He’s grinning too, a hand already outstretched to help you up, but upon seeing you stand his eyes widen and his face drops.

“Shit.” He lunges for you, cutting through the water as his arm wraps around your back to yank you tight against his chest. You protest, grunting with exertion as you try fighting against his grip. But his muscles are impressive, and you’re trapped against his chest despite your best efforts.

“Would you cut it out? I’m trying to help you. Your top came untied.”

“What?” You splutter, water trailing down your face as you quell your instinctive struggle against his crushing hold. You realize that the reason for the extreme cold had, in fact, been because your bikini top had abandoned ship, and you barely have time to process the feeling of your bare tits slammed up against Jake’s hard, toned chest before he’s fishing the bathing suit out of the water and feeding it around your waist.

“Up,” He instructs, lifting his eyes to the expansive blue sky above you so that you can separate yourself from his chest for long enough to cover your own again. It’s- a strange gesture of courtesy that you would have expected from Daniel, sure, but not Jake. Perhaps that’s why you’re so sluggish, why it takes you longer than expected to fit your top back over your tits and grapple with the strings.

“You decent?” Jake asks, and when you grunt in confirmation he drops his eyes again. He notices you struggling with the ties and reaches for them himself, gently swatting your fingers away as he uses his advantage of sight. It presses his muscular shoulder up against your face, and you turn so that your cheek rests against it instead of your nose. Suddenly you’re held against his chest like a slow dance, and something terribly and inexplicably squirmy happens in your stomach.

“Done. I double knotted it.” He hums, and it’s such a sincere tone, one that’s completely vacant of all his usual dickishness, that you lose yourself staring at his face when he pulls away. You begin examining it for any sign that perhaps he was murdered and replaced with a poorly-trained doppelganger.

His hair looks right, albeit sopping wet. His eyebrows are growing slightly bushier than usual, but nothing you’d consider a complete and total imposter. His nose is still the same: strong, slightly downturned (though not as far as Rooster’s), and there’s a tiny patch of sunscreen that hasn’t been rubbed in near his right eye. His mouth is set in a determined purse as he double knots the strings of your bikini top together, and his eyes- his eyes are different.

Miles different than you’ve ever seen them. The outside edge of his hazel-green rings is softened, like someone has blurred their usual sharp border and lined it with suede. His pupils are huge, and they’d be eclipsing his irises if those weren’t so big and puppy-like. He is, in every sense of the word, gentle, inside and out. 

Jake has never been gentle before. 

“You alright?” He asks, and you snap back to reality with his large hands spread over the expanse of your bare back, the eyes that you’d been examining firmly and concernedly fixed upon you. Only a few meager strings separate his skin from yours, and you nod once, steadily as you gently push his arms off of you.

“Let’s go again,” You call to Danica and Daniel, your voice a piss-poor attempt at strength and nonchalance as it lacks its usual life, “Good hit, Danica. But watch out, I’m gonna kick your ass.”

“Bring it,” She grins gleefully, and her giddy gaze drifts downwards to Jake’s face when he lifts you onto his shoulders yet again. From the looks of it they share some sort of silent conversation- some inside joke that you’re not privy to. 

Something about that, something about her excluding you from a conversation with your own teammate makes you shove her, not enough to knock her off of Daniel’s shoulders, but enough to show her that you’re not going easy on her. She shrieks giddily as she writhes to stay balanced on Daniel’s shoulders, a smidge less broad than Jake’s. You’re thankful for that, for the steady mount you’ve got, as you resume pushing and shoving at Danica.

Jake is going insane. Not only does the phantom sensation of your bare tits- nipples hard from the chilly pool water - stick to him like a wet t-shirt, he can feel you against the back of his neck, your warm sex nestled snugly against him with only the bottom half of your bikini to separate you. Your thighs bracket his head, close enough for him to reach out and bite at, but he has to focus on keeping his stance sturdy so that you can play properly. Daniel’s glaring viciously at him across the few feet that separates the four of you, and he’s not going to let Mr. Mailman win. 

This time, Jake suspects you’ve used that military muscle of yours, because Danica slips backwards off of Daniel’s dewy shoulders and splashes into the pool. Your hand cups beneath Jake’s chin, tilting his head upwards and leaning it back into your lap.

“Nice one,” He grins upside-down at you, and you bump your fist against his when he offers it. Then you’re craning your neck down, surely uncomfortable as you leave mere inches between your lips and his, and his ears are ringing.

“Back up,” You murmur, disguising it as a congratulatory speech while Daniel helps Danica back onto his shoulders, “Get them to chase us and we’ll use the momentum against them.”

“Darlin’,” Jake proclaims, pride puffing up his chest that your legs are resting against, “You’re my kinda woman. Always looking to win.”

“Just do it, Hangman,” You scoff, but your eye-roll is less than irritated, fond if anything due to your partnership as Jake drops his head to face Daniel and Danica once more.

Jake stands in place where he’d been before, but when Danica engages with you he begins backing up. Slowly, carefully, ensuring that his feet are planted steadily each step so that you’re not tipped over, he makes his way towards the drop off towards the deeper end of the water. Daniel follows, taking the bait, and soon enough his predicament becomes obvious: he’s not as tall as Jake.

He stands somewhere close to six feet, surely, but not past it like Jake does. Your partner’s head is still comfortably above water, smirk in full force as Daniel’s beard becomes waterlogged. 

“That’s not fair!” Danica laughs, petting sympathetically at Daniel’s sopping wet hair, “Poor guy, we’ll get you stilts for the next round.”

Daniel lands a teasing pinch against the curve of her ass and she shrieks. You lunge for her, using her momentary shock to catch her off guard as you send her tumbling backwards into the water behind Daniel. 

You don’t have time to celebrate before Jake is ducking down and slipping himself out from beneath you, his strong arms bracing your fall so that you barely sink a few feet into the water. He crushes you in a celebratory hug, his laughter harmonizing with your own. He turns you both to face Daniel and Danica as they splutter to catch their breath, his cheek pressed flush against your own. 

“Chicken Champions,” He declares, holding you tight to his side at his own height, which means your feet float above his own in the water, “I’d offer to go again, but that’d just be cruel. You ladies wanna chatter in the hot tub while Danny-Boy and I show off on the diving board?”

“I brought a book,” Danica hums, face dripping with water you feel only mildly guilty for submerging her in, “If you wanna read, Y/N, I’ll do it with you.”

“Perfect.” Daniel nods, already cutting through the water on his way to the diving board, “I’ll be careful not to splash you guys.”

“I won’t.” Jake supplies helpfully, his grin turned shit-eating as he eyes you up, “No point in reading one of them smutty porn books if you’re not soaking wet.”

“Splash me and I’ll throw your room key off the side of the boat, Hangman,” You promise, “You’ll be begging strangers to take pity on you in the elevator.”

“Nah, that’s not my style,” Jake’s voice is dripping with intent while Daniel takes position on the diving board, his swim trunks dripping steady trails of water. You don’t know why until he continues, taking his own bait, “I’ll leave that to Daniel.”

You blame Jake’s comment for why Daniel’s dive nearly turns into a belly flop. It’s instantaneous, really, Daniel’s changing of posture as he register’s Jake’s biting words, and you have half a mind to admonish Jake for riling Daniel up during a dive- that could have ended badly. As it stands, Daniel does a sort of cannonball, though not intentionally, and you and Danica cringe in unison when he lands, sending water splashing well over the divider into the hot tub. Your book remains mostly unscathed- only a droplet of water lands on the cover and obscures the male lead’s face, blurring out his beard and making him appear clean-shaven. 

Jake is already scaling the ladder, and when he gets to the top he surveys Daniel emerging from the water.

“Six,” He shrugs, sneering down at Daniel from the highest point on the deck, “‘Could’ve clinched a seven if you hadn’t splashed the ladies, but your form was still shit.”

He doesn’t give Daniel a chance to fire back- or maybe the man is just too smart to take Jake’s bait - before he sets his arms together above his head, and seamlessly, impeccably cuts through the water. For someone so muscular and bulky, his form is graceful- not that you’ll ever tell him that. Water arcs outwards from where he’d landed, one half of the splash practically targeting Daniel where he stands watching.

He swims farther, nearly reaching the other end of the pool before he emerges, shaking water from his hair like a dog as he looks intently at you and Danica in the hot tub for a rating.

“Ten!” Your reading companion shouts, blessedly unaware of the tense atmosphere- or again, too intelligent to fall for Jake’s lowly antics- and you look at the water-stained cover of your novel.

You smear away the water droplet with your dry thumb, and the male main character’s beard returns.

“Four.” You call, voice deadpan as you lock your eyes on your novel, “For playing dirty and sabotaging the other contestants.”

Hangman’s grin is open-mouthed and cemented into place as he stands taller than Daniel in the water, tanned skin standing starkly out from the blue of the chlorinated water, “Dirty’s the best way to play, darlin’.”

Danica shoots you a look from behind the spread of her novel that you’ve sent many-a-girlfriend before. It’s the wide-eyed, restrained smile that screams ‘We’re talking about this later’, and you mirror her expression with your own disdain.

“Leave us alone,” You call, grinning apologetically at Daniel so that he knows he’s only a bystander, “We want to read.”

“Let’s leave the ladies to their smut, Dorian.” Jake calls, louder than he needs to be as he stretches to display his toned abdomen and muscled arms, “We can find our own fun. Wanna see who can swim the fastest? Place your bets, ladies: pilot or mailman?”

“You swam pretty slow when you crash-landed in the Pacific that one time,” You muse, fighting to keep a smirk off of your face, “I remember thinking you would die in the time it took for you to swim back to shore.”

“Wouldn’t’ve gone so slow if I wasn’t hauling my RIO back to shore. He hit his head on the way down,” Jake dips his head towards Danica, happily regaling her with the tale,  and you realize you’ve only fluffed his ego more, “So he was unconscious. Well I couldn’t just leave him there, ‘poor guy was only a trainee. So I took him along. It did slow me down, but,” He heaves a disgusting, gaudy, fake sigh, “It was worth it to send him back home to his mama.”

You taste a hint of blood where you’ve apparently chewed through your lip. You let it go and hope nothing escapes your mouth. It would be a shame to stain the pages of your novel red.

You’re trying very hard not to pay attention to Jake and Danica where he’s engaged her in a staring contest. Well, you suppose it’s not much of a contest that she can win: the point is that you’re losing. Jake’s showing off his impressive build, still running his mouth with every vaguely self-complementary anecdote he can embellish, and Danica is taking the bait, which means that your rampant attempts to cool Jake’s ego have failed. 

You let the warm, borderline-hot water sink into your skin and simmer alongside the building irritation that threatens to blow beneath the surface. You’re tired. This was supposed to be a relaxing vacation for you- or, if not relaxing, a good way to blow off steam. You were supposed to be bent in half up against the shower wall by now, not bending the pages of your book with the strong grip you’ve cemented onto them while you mediate Jake’s ego and the willingness of so many women to accommodate it. 

Part of you wants to let loose and have fun- not with Jake, of course. Never with Jake. But part of you wants to act rationally, forget the constant rivalry between you two and let him shack up with whoever will show him her tits first. But the other part of you, the one that cheers every time he places second in a show of skill, wants to knock him down a peg. It’s why you’re so persistently humbling him- or, trying to, at least. Something about him putting on this cocky persona- erasing all human emotion to make way for pure sleaze puts you on edge, and you pity the fool who believes it.

You can’t tell if Danica’s that fool yet, because she’s turned back to her book with a smile, but to her credit she doesn’t ogle him while he’s swimming. It would be easy to- he’s all tanned muscle and gestures that show off just the right curve or vein. He knows how to preen, but Danica seems to be minding her own business. That makes it easier for you to read your own novel; you don’t feel like you have to keep an eye out for her anymore.

You’re not sure whether it’s a love for the act or a wordless competition to outswim the other that keeps Jake and Daniel occupied with lapping the pool for so long, but as more and more people filter out of their rooms and onto the deck, there’s not much room for recreation anymore.

“Are you done?” You ask Danica, peering over at her after someone unknowingly sends a wave of water straight for you both, narrowly avoiding soaking your novels.

“I think I’m done.” She nods sheepishly, rushing to stand and keep her book dry, “Should we run away before the men notice we’re leaving?”

“Excellent plan,” You laugh, but you can practically feel Jake’s eagle eye upon you as you race for your towel, leaving soaked footprints behind on the wooden deck, “We should go get some pizza. They’re making more now that it’s a little busier out here.”

“You shouldn’t stare like that.” Daniel’s irritatingly smooth voice, pitched up slightly from Jake’s and entirely free of Jake’s rugged charm, makes Jake’s lips yearn to curl into a sneer.

Jake pivots in the cold pool water to face Daniel rather unimpressed, a scoff begging to burst from his lips, “Like what?”

“Like she’s a piece of meat, or something.” Daniel’s arms are crossed, and Jake plants his feet firmly against the concrete floor of the pool.

“Oh, you’re so virtuous,” Jake drawls, his skin burning and not from the rays of sun hitting it directly, “You frenched her in an elevator, Daniel, you’ve got no room to be talking to me about class.”

“She wanted me to kiss her. She kissed me.” Daniel insists, and Jake laughs- actually laughs, a grit of his teeth and a forceful exhalation of air, “That’s different than staring at her ass while she runs away from you like you’d flip her skirt up at a drive-in movie theater.”

“Flipping skirts,” Jake laughs, sadistic grin in full force, “Daniel, I’m not that old fashioned! Please, she’s in a bathing suit that she chose, for a sex cruise that she booked, and you know what? She probably wants you to be staring at her ass in it. And you don’t seem too concerned with the other people on the deck, I’m sure a few of them are looking too. And are you worried I’m looking at Danica’s ass?”

“You’re not looking at Danica’s ass.” Daniel nearly bites his tongue in an effort to keep his voice level, “Because you’re not interested in Danica. You’re interested in Y/N and you can’t have her. She’s not yours.”

“She’s not yours, either.” Jake spits, and there’s a moment of silence where both men’s chests heave with barely-suppressed tension. Jake realizes that he’s admitted to Daniel that he has no real claim over you, but the other man doesn’t fight back against not having one of his own. But you are his, you are Jake’s, in the way you’d fallen asleep in his arms last night, in the look in your eyes when you’d stared into his own earlier, in the stain on his pajama pants.

You’d moaned his name- his name, not Daniel’s.

Someone knocks into Daniel from behind, backing right into him and nudging him slightly off balance.

“Oh!” The woman shrieks, “I’m sorry! I wasn’t paying attention.”

“It’s fine.” He offers her a tight smile, heading for the ladder, “Don’t worry about it.”

Jake hauls himself up out of the pool with nothing but his forearms, using his towel to dry his hair if only to show off the expanse of his chest to any who may be watching. He checks- you’re not.

“So,” Danica leans forwards into your space at the pizza counter, eyes meaningfully wide, “Tell me why he’s acting like this.”

“He always acts like this.” You scoff, and when she levels you with an unimpressed glare, you insist, “No, really! He’s just- everything is a competition to him, everything. I met his mom once, and she told me that he used to have races at the dinner table to see who could finish their food first. He kept making himself sick but as long as he’d beat his brothers he didn’t care. He always has to win, and right now, he’s competing for us.”

“No, he’s competing for you.” Danica corrects you, “Is he winning?”

“Hell no. He’s- he’s not really competing for me, not meaningfully. He just wants to say he ‘got me’, you know? That would be major bragging rights on the tarmac. But that’s exactly why I can’t give in- I can’t be known as the woman who slept with her fellow pilot! Then they wouldn’t see my achievements anymore, just my mistakes.”

“I get that.” She nods, “But how do you know he’s just gonna dump you?”

“I’ve watched him dump the whole of San Diego,” You scoff, “That’s what he does. He doesn’t do love, he’s the kind of guy who’s only ever interested in something quick and dirty.”

“Everyone does love.” Danica frowns, “Some people just start later in life than others. And I think he’s starting now. With you.”

“Love,” You laugh, and sure, it’s dramatic, but if it gets through to her, you don’t care, “A man who loves me would not have tormented me for my entire career.”

She tilts her head thoughtfully, “I think he does. Even if he doesn't act the way you think he should, even if he doesn't act the way you would, I think he does love you. I think he just loves differently. I think he's new to it. What has he done to torment you?”

You huff, grateful for the opportunity to vent, “He constantly tries one-upping me- again, he can’t lose. He just- he pokes and prods and teases me like we’re on the playground or something, and it’s non-stop. It’s not like he’s sweet most of the time and then there’s a few bouts of light teasing, it’s- it’s constant, and I can’t ever let my guard down, or I’ll lose.”

“So you’re fighting to win, too.” Her eyes narrow slightly, “Why?”

“Because. I can't be second-best, and I can’t be known as the woman who slept with her coworker. I’m not doing that.” You repeat.

“Oh," She laughs, "So you're both stubborn. You don't want to lose, either. But second-best is temporary, rankings come and go. And I understand your thing about not wanting to be known for sleeping with him, but even if you did sleep with him, the whole Navy doesn’t have to know.”

“They will, Hangman will brag. He always brags.”

“He won’t- not if he’s in love with you, not if you want him to keep it private.”

“He’s not in love with me-!”

“Four slices of Pepperoni, two cheese?” A large tray is placed between you and Danica at the counter you’re both leaning against, and it snaps the two of you out of your debate.

You turn to see one of the employees looking expectantly at you, and Danica stammers, “Uh, three cheese.”

“Sorry.” He smiles placatingly at her, scooping another slice onto the plate, “Three cheese.”

“Thank you.” You take the pepperoni pizza, leaving Danica to collect the cheese. You feel bad for walking away, even if you know she’s hot on your trail, but you feel frustratingly suffocated, like everyone is urging you to make the biggest mistake of your life and never considering why you simply can’t. She doesn’t know Jake, she hasn’t spent the last decade with him as he’s blown his way through tourist after tourist, bragging all the while. And he doesn’t understand what it would be like- even if he wasn’t looking to win, even if he did just want to try casual sex for fun, you’d never be able to escape that reputation. 

You feel like you’re going crazy, and you plop down between Jake and Daniel where they sit at opposite sides of a table, ready to stuff your face with pizza instead of dealing with any of it.

feedback is greatly appreciated! comment, reblog, talk in the tags, send me a message, tell me what you think!

[raythekiller]

Can We have a Creepypasta Reader who gets hurt and how Creepypasta males & Female’s react please? Make sure to eat and drink some water (●’◡’●)ﾉ

🗒 ❛ Reader Gets Hurt ༉‧₊˚✧

Featuring: Jeff The Killer, Ben Drowned, Ticci Toby, Eyeless Jack, Masky, Hoodie, Clockwork, Nina The Killer, Kate The Chaser, Jane The Killer

#Notes: this is the most people I've ever written for holy shit

pronouns used: they/them

˗ˏˋ back to navigation ´ˎ˗

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Jeff The Killer

One of the only moments he shows genuine concern about you, even if in his own twisted or weird way. Focuses more on finding out how you got hurt than trying to help, absolutely ready to murder someone in case they were the one to injure you. There's just an anger in his voice and expression that is difficult to shake off. Will bring you to EJ and tell him "You fucking better take good care of them," in a low and menacing voice. Calls you an idiot and tells you to be more careful after, and although he sounds mad, the way he ruffles your hair affectionately says different.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Ben Drowned

Honestly, thinks you're kidding at first and laughs at it. When he notices you're actually, genuinely hurt, he panics. He died a long time ago, so now he doesn't have a good understanding of what's fatal for a human and what isn't, so he might honest to god consider the fact you might die even if it's a minor scratch. Will try to patch up the wound, failing miserably and just bringing you to EJ instead. Probably hugs you after, more so to bring comfort to himself rather than to you. He just got scared for a second, okay?

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Ticci Toby

He can't feel pain, so he doesn't have a good understanding of how much something might hurt. He just assumes the slightest of wounds must hurt like hell for normal people, so he's immediately freaking out, asking you if you're okay. He actually knows basic first aid, since it's one of the musts for being a proxy, but doesn't trust himself to not hurt you further by accident, so he's another one who'll rush you to EJ. Will be super clingy with you after, mumbling about how glad he is that you're okay.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Eyeless Jack

As a previous med student, his first concern is making sure you're physically okay. Focusing on that helps him calm down his nerves, since he's honestly panicking a little. Will patch you up in complete silence, to the point where it's a bit awkward, only to whisper a low "What happened to you?" once he's done, almost like he's scared of the answer you might have. Hugs you gently after you explain, careful as to not touch the wound, letting out a relieved sigh.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Masky

Similar to Jeff, his mind will immediately jump to the thought that someone deliberately hurt you, which makes his blood boil. Will be very loud and aggressive when asking what happened, making your breath hitch at the sudden protectiveness he doesn't normally show. Let's out a sigh once you explain it was an accident, calling you stupid before going to grab something so he can fix you up, his hands surprisingly gentle. It's a shockingly tender moment.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Hoodie

Gets worried, but not as much as the others. He's not one to think the worst about a situation, so he just concludes you probably tripped and fell or something, so he doesn't really question you any further. It's up to you if you tell him what happened or not. He's always gentle when handling you, but now you find his touch almost ghost-like as he fixes you up, then asking if you feel any better or would like to see EJ for a better inspection. A forehead kiss after he's done in definitely in order.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Clockwork

Doesn't even try to hide it, she's freaking out. Will grab your wound to take a closer look as she frantically asks "What happened? What did you do? Did someone do this? Does it hurt?", her mind is just racing and she doesn't know what to make of the situation. Terrible at patching you up, but does it anyway, she's not letting anyone else go near you when you're hurt and vulnerable. Kisses your cheek once she's done and tells you to be more careful.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Nina The Killer

Her face is literally split open, I don't think she'd be too worried about some minor injury. Just kind of coos at you something along the lines of "Aww, baby got hurt?" and offers to kiss it better. You'll have to tell her if it genuinely hurts, or else she's not going to take it too seriously. Like most of the others, will take you to EJ if you're actually in pain, sitting besides you and stroking your back and hair gently the entire time.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Kate The Chaser

Doesn't express much of a reaction, either. That doesn't mean she isn't concerned, she just can't express her emotions properly. Will calmly inspect the injury and, if it's out of her first aid abilities, will bring you to EJ. It's the most vocal anyone's ever seen her, asking him if it's too serious and if you're going to be okay. Holds your hand gently as he patches you up, caressing the back of your hand with her thumb.

꒰⸝⸝₊⛓┊Jane The Killer

Behaves like a mom. Will coo at you lightly while going "Oh, your poor thing. Come here", taking a hold of your wound and gently cleaning and addressing it, to the point you can barely feel her touch on your skin. Once she's done, she kisses your forehead softly, her black lipstick leaving a mark on your skin.

[khattikeri]

drives me nuts when people treat jin guangyao or wei wuxian like they're socialist revolutionaries like no! they're not!! in fact their respective roles in society and complacency regarding its hierarchies is why ANY of the story even happens to begin with!!!

jin guangyao doesn't hold bitterness just because he was born lower class. he is bitter because others deride him and his prostitute mother in spite of both their intelligence, skills, and efforts to climb the ladder.

why do you think we were shown scenes of other prostitutes in the brothel deriding meng shi for being literate, for "trying" so hard? why do you think we were shown scenes of anxin taunting meng yao and throwing shit at him because he was trying to learn cultivation at his mother's behest?

why do you think jin guangyao arranged for the arson of that brothel, burned to the ground with everyone except sisi inside? that's not the behavior of someone who believes in true equality and the inherent worth of sex workers as human beings!

that's the behavior of someone who thinks he's better than them. the behavior of a man who already came up on top through political games and war crimes, backstabbing and spying for the sake of the "greater good".

i won't rehash his argument to nie mingjue that he didn't have a choice-- he had some choice, but no matter what he does his class will come up and people will always assume the worst and try to hurt him for it, which forces his hand to do whatever will protect him best (hence 'no choice').

jin guangyao did everything he could to secure his own safety and a place among those already higher up. and by that point, he'd won it.

the fact that the temple rebuilt on the brothel site is to guanyin, the goddess of mercy, is even more ironic! the fact that jin guangyao has the goddess's statue carved to look like his own mother is proof that he viewed both her and himself as higher than them. more worthy than them.

of course he cared about the general welfare of others (read: the watchtowers). but consider also that there is no watchtower near yi city, which ended up being one of xue yang's playgrounds. jin guangyao can and will turn a blind eye to certain sufferings if it is convenient to him.

sure, jin guangyao made undeniable contributions to cultivation society and accessibility, but he is not at any point trying to topple existing class structures. his adherence to them is in fact integral to his own downfall in the end.

it brings with it the inevitability of society conveniently ignoring his triumphs and genuine moments of humanity to deride him once more as an evil, disgusting son of a whore once his crimes come to light.

now for wei wuxian. he's the righteous protagonist of the story and he doesn't give a fuck what society thinks, yes, but he wasn't out there trying to cause an uprising so that all the poor servant classes and lower could become cultivators. he wasn't trying to redistribute wealth or insinuate that those who are lower deserve to be viewed as equal to the gentry.

the most critical and non-explicitly stated fact of mo dao zu shi is that wei wuxian has always been resigned to his position in the social hierarchy.

his unreliable narration, especially regarding his own past and thoughts, is so damn important. he doesn't EVER tell the reader directly that people treated him any which way at their leisure because of his parents' differing social classes.

no. instead we are shown how much prestige he is afforded as cangse-sanren's son-- reputation as a talented and charming young cultivator, made head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang-- and how little respect he is given in the same breath, as the son of servant wei changze.

the way he is treated by others is as fickle as the wind. if he obeys and does as told, there is no reward. of course he did that, that was the expectation to start with! if he does anything even slightly inconvenient, there is a punishment. of course he has no manners, what else would you expect from an ungrateful son of a servant?

wei wuxian's righteousness is not a matter of adhering to principles he was explicitly taught, the way nie mingjue values honor or the way jiang cheng always tries to prove himself. wei wuxian does the right thing regardless of what the consequences are to him because his good deeds are always downplayed and his bad deeds are always singled out, no matter who or how many people were doing it with him.

he has faced this double standard since childhood. there are points in the novel where it's clear that this sticks out to wei wuxian, but does he ever fight back against that view of himself? does he EVER, at any point in the story, explain his actions and choices to jianghu society and try to debate or appeal to their sense of reason?

no. because he knows, at his very core, that any explicit deviation from their interests whatsoever will be punished.

slaughtering thousands of people is fine when they want him to do it, and when the alternative is unjust torture, re-education camps, and encroachment upon other sects' lands.

slaughtering thousands of people who are trying to paint him as evil for not going along with their genocidal plans, however, is punished.

wei wuxian knows his acceptance among the higher classes is superficial and unsteady. from the age of 10, when jiang fengmian took him in, he knew subconsciously that he could be kicked out at any time.

he knows that cultivation society doesn't care about war crimes and concentration camps and mistreatment of the remaining wen survivors of the sunshot campaign. but the right thing to do now that they aren't at wartime is to help them, plus they'd punish him either way for it, so he will.

in this regard wei wuxian is more self-aware of his position than jin guangyao. he does care about common people and he does try his best to help them as an individual. even if that ends up with him disabled, arrested, targeted in sieges, or dead.

but is he revolutionary? in the full equality, fight the establishment, rewrite laws, change social structures and people's perceptions of class sense?

no. no. he isn't.

now my knowledge of chinese society and history is fairly limited to my hindu diaspora upbringing and our shared cultural similarities ... but speaking to what i absolutely know us true, adherence to one's social class is expected.

this is rigid. efforts and merits might bring you some level of mobility, but in the end, the circumstances of your birth will always be scrutinized first, and your behavior compared to the stereotypes of where and how you originate.

mdzs is not about revolution, and none of its characters are able to truly change its society. there is no grand "maybe cutsleeves aren't inherently bad" or "i'm sorry for persecuting you and believing hearsay, you were truly a good person all along!" at the finale.

people ignore history and repeat it again with the next batch of ugly gossip and rumors.

wei wuxian, lan wangji, and luo qingyang find peace only by distancing themselves from cultivation society and its opinions.

jin guangyao and wei wuxian both cannot ever escape from others' perception of their origins and actions. regardless of their personal beliefs, they are not revolutionaries.

[milomaxxy]

Something I wish I could vent about without IMMEDIATELY getting fucking dogpiled by people who have zero fucking critical thinking skills and automatically assume shit about me, is how covid (and having long covid) has affected my ability to mask.

I got covid (at least) twice- and that's what I tested positive for. I have long covid now, and that affects so much that I do. I can't walk as far, I can't tolerate the heat as well, I can't eat or drink some of the things I used to, my sense of taste has wildly changed, and more; but the worst part is how it affects my breathing. I can't breathe without basically panting anymore. Even lying in bed right now, I can't breathe properly and have to breathe through my mouth to get proper air flow. If I get too hot, or even too warm sometimes, I end up gasping for air like I'm actually choking on the air I'm breathing. My head gets light, my vision blurs and gets dark spots, my mouth gets numb, my limbs tingle and prickle, and I get an overall weakness. Hell, there's been times I've almost passed out from it and had to sit down bc I couldn't stand.

How does this affect masking, you ask? Bc with my regular breathing being hindered already, any kind of extra hindrance can really fuck me. Like, quick in-and-out, less than 5 minutes? I can do it, not perfectly fine, but not really worse off. If I have to actually take time somewhere tho? Like, if I have to do grocery shopping, or go to an appointment, or do my taxes? It has made me actually end up having AMR (the ambulance) called for me by staff before. Bc I basically fainted (for like 5 seconds), fell over, and looked like I was actively dying. I've had to take breaks while grocery shopping bc I have issues breathing as is, but wearing a mask makes it genuinely Difficult To Breathe to the point of hurting me.

And it fucking sucks, bc I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE THIS. I don't want to sound like a fucking anti-masker who probably thinks covid was made by the U.S. government when I try to explain my health problems. I don't want to have to disclose the fact that, even tho I followed ALL THE PROTOCOLS, other people got me so sick that I can't wear a mask without hurting myself. I don't want to have to disclose my medical information to have a "valid reason" to "break the rules" bc I KNOW how important masking is. I KNOW what the risks are, and I DON'T WANT to take those risks. I'm basically stuck between the decisions of "wear a mask, but not be able to breathe and end up in the hospital *again*" or "don't mask, risk getting sick again, and deal with people who don't want to hear eXcUsEs". As if "I genuinely can't breathe even sitting down and resting, much less moving around with a mask on and I HATE that" is an excuse and not me trying to explain how much I don't want to have to even think about not masking.

I just really wish I could vent about how much I want to cry about this, without someone accusing me of lying about my health. Without someone accusing me of being a fucking fascist, anti-masker, antivaxxer, POS just bc they don't believe me. Fuck

[itneverendshere]

hii! just wanted to drop by this message to say I’m currently obsessed with the series of ‘loved you at your worst’. It has dragged me to pull out all folklore songs again 🥲 I just loooove your writing style and it amazes me how you can redact so amazingly <3 can’t wait for more chapters to see what’s next. Quick curious question: can you give us some more context on how invested was Rafe in the relationship with y/n? I’m curious how their dynamic was when both were stable lol. (I’m sorry if there’s misspelling, English is not my first language hehe).

your english is perfect don't worry, it's not my first language either!

im gonna try to summarize their relationship pre-big break up: rafe was SO obsessed with her, like genuinely all-in on this relationship. when things were good, they were perfect, they just clicked in this undeniable way—emotionally, physically, spiritually, they were just meant to fit. he wasn’t just invested; he was borderline consumed.

but it wasn’t just love, it was also their shared trauma. both of them had been through so much, and that’s partly why they felt so seen by each other. she got him in a way no one else did, and he craved that understanding (that's why shit hit the fan when she didn't coddle him when ward died). when they were stable, he actually put in effort to be open with her (his version of it), and she was his safe place and vise-versa. you’d look at them and think, “they're meant to be" yk??

but when things went wrong...it was a shitshow.

neither of them knew how to communicate their needs properly, so they’d just explode instead.

they’d go on those “breaks,” but they were still obsessing over each other, stalking socials, making each other jealous with a little flirting, just overall trying to be mean and hurtful but also checking in, very much toxic.

if they want any chance at real happiness together, they’re both gonna have to do some serious inner work, “heal your childhood traumas” level of work.

therapy? mandatory.

individual and couples counseling. they’d both need to face all that baggage, which is a LOT, honestly, given their history. 

i know everyone’s mad at rafe for dumping her just because she called out his father—even if she wasn’t wrong—but remember, he was not in his right mind. he was drowning in grief, numbing himself with alcohol, desperate for any sense of validation, so yeah, he filled her space with someone else just to feel needed. it's messy as fuck and desrespectful, but it wasn't a calculated choice.

and here’s the thing: it’s been from reader's POV so far, so we haven’t seen everything. yes, she’s hurting, but she’s not entirely blameless either. there were so many situations she could’ve handled better, and you’ll get to see those moments from a different angle soon.

honestly, both of them need to grow up. while i love my baby reader to pieces, part of why she feels so isolated now is because she put all her energy into rafe and rafe alone. she never took the time to build friendships or let others in, assuming he’d always be there and she’d never need anyone else. so yeah, she’s alone while he still has people around him, but that’s not entirely his fault, either. they both need to work on themselves if they want to heal.

[mari-lair]

That’s a lot of questions, but I’ll try my best to answer them all!

.

Aoi doesn’t care about an individual perception of her, she genuinely has no interest in a stranger because she always assumes they have bad intentions. They want to hurt her: It does not matter if they are jealous or worship the ground she walks on, they they will hurt her. Which is a sad way to view the world, so she defends herself.

Her attitude is a big wall that says “If I don’t care about you or your opinion, you can’t hurt me��. 

She detaches herself from it all, preferring apathy over being vulnerable and opening herself to be hurt. This lack of confrontation, this apparent lack of care (she doesn’t seem to ask even simple things most kids would in her situation “Why are you bullying me?”) makes her feel arrogant, which feeds into people’s bad view of her and prove her trust issues right, which gives her more reasons to believe she is right and became more arrogant.

Akane was always there to stop anyone from going too far when messing with her, so she can look down on others even when they got aggressive without fearing for her health. She can’t be hurt emotionally in her indifference, and she doesn’t care about physical injuries, not when the most she’ll get with Akane around to protect her is a scratch.

So she keeps this up to the point Akane genuinely starts believing she is a tough girl that doesn’t care when people are mean to her.

But she does.

She just pushes it all away, and pretends she is above it all. Growing genuine in her arrogance after training herself to not care all the time, convinced the way the world sees her doesn’t matter, because they don’t matter.

Aoi can’t use this defense when she already cares about someone, but she still naturally assumes the worst of people when it comes to how they view her, so something as small as a petty fight with someone whose views she deeply values can be extremely hurtful.

She is scared.

“Akane hates me, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he never liked me in the first place!"

She is also visibly angry: She hates that she cares, she hates that she can’t hide it. Notice how she doesn’t say anything or try to run after Akane. She is trying very hard to convince herself she “Doesn’t care”, she wants so badly to ignore Akane, or to hate him, but she can’t do either, so she defaults to being angry at herself.

The reason Akane finds her crying so cute is not because the tears look cute, is because it shows how much she cares about him. Under all that bravado and arrogance Aoi is a sensitive girl who wants to be loved, and she is very attached to the people she considers friends, she can act tough all she wants but if a loved one says "I hate you" she is so distressed she cries.

Aoi hates how sweet and 'weak' her heart under all her icy defenses. Akane finds it cute.

Akane was her only friend for most of her life, so the person she pays the most attention to, and the one she compares herself to the most is Akane.

Akane is the direct opposite of her: People are unfair to Aoi and she react by closing her heart so no one can hurt her. People are unfair to Akane, making him do annoying work without giving him anything in return, and he reacts by loudly acknowledging people are being unfair instead of bottling up any discomfort, and trying his best anyways instead of running away, keeping his heart open and wearing his emotions and feelings on his sleeves. 

Akane doesn’t care about others opinion of him, he’ll swing his bat like a crazy person at school and be rude as fuck to people he just met, but he help other because he wants to help, he is a nice person.

In comparison to Akane, Aoi feels selfish, cruel, and cold. She only ever cares and worries about her close friends because their opinions matter to her.

Akane is someone even she, with all her walls, can’t help but love. And since she is the oppose of him... Is easy to come to the conclusion she is unlovable. She may not care about a stranger calling her a slut, but she can see people don’t like her. Again and again, people always find some problem with her.

She hates herself too, so she is convinced even the people that claim they love her don’t care about her, they just love the sweet personality they come up with after seeing her pretty face, and they’ll hate her when they realize there is more to her than a cutesy smile.

She is unlovable by design, so she assumes the only reason her friends don’t hate her yet, is because they don’t know her true self.

The “cute, sweet, and friendly, popular girl with a pretty face!” is loved. She is Nene’s best friend, the girl all the guys want and all the girls envy.

But Aoi? The arrogant and distant coward that is scared of caring too much? She isn’t loved by anyone. She is sure she will be rejected if she act honest, so she doesn’t even try.

Her life was never a “perfect life”. 

Aoi is either by Nene's or Akane’s side. She isn’t close to anyone else.

The manga is in Nene’s point of view so her situation is narrated through rose tinted glasses: Nene lives in a fantasy world where Aoi’s life is perfect since being popular is Nene’s dream, so Aoi’s popular life must be amazing! Right?

Nene can’t break this view. Even when the truth stares her in the face. She does not change her view.

Aoi was a wreck when she tried to apologize, but she does regret trying to kill Nene, she wants to apologize, so she tries her best to get out of her comfort zone and face her biggest fears for Nene: She is willing to have a confrontation instead of hiding

Instead of asking Aoi how she feel, or making any questions about her behavior, Nene immediately dismissed all of Aoi’s actions. Nene doesn’t want to deal with Aoi’s problems, she just wants her popular bubbly friend back.

Their hug in chapter 96 means Nene embraced the “popular girl bff with a pretty face” and rejected Aoi. 

Aoi is hurt by this, but she is a coward, so she accepts it, pretending nothing happened. (I go into more detail about Nene’s views, and why Aoi doesn’t open up: Here.)

Despite all her flaws, Aoi is not nearly as bad as she sees herself as, she is mostly insecure, desperate to be loved even when she feel like she doesn’t particularly deserve it. 

She is harsh on herself, wanting to keep all her emotions under tight control, but she is sweet to her friends, she genuinely loves them and tries to fight her bad habits. She wants them to be happy! 

She’ll get invested in topics she doesn’t personally care about, because she knows Nene likes it, and worry about Akane’s health for the simple reason that she cares, she wants the best for them.

Her sweet side clashes with her bad habit to always assume the worst.

Despite being a sweet girl at heart, caring about others is still very painful. It does not come easy for Aoi, who has trained herself to be isolated from her peers.

She wants her friends to look at her, she wants to be important and be reassured she is loved! But even when she is shown love, she doesn’t believe in it

She convinced herself they don’t care about her, just like all these strangers don’t care about her. And she is arrogant enough to believe she is always right, so if she can’t see this ‘wonderful girl’ Akane sees, it just means Akane is the wrong one. That this isn’t her insecurities talking, Akane is the one lying, he is the one that doesn’t truly love her. 

 Aoi believes she has misled him just like she had misled Nene, and she wants to talk about it, she wants to be honest, she is so tired of hiding her flaws! But she is too scared to risk losing the love she is given so she will keep hiding, she’ll keep lying to herself that it doesn’t matter, as she has done since she was a small child.

All the things that she claims to hate about Akane, the things that make her feel envious, and lacking in comparison, are also what she wishes she had, things she genuinely admires about him. Things that make him so special and “easy to love” in her eyes.

The idea Akane isn’t lovable does not compute to her. She never says “he is not my type” even when she is neck deep in denial because to Aoi, only an idiot wouldn’t see how lovable Akane is, and Aoi is too arrogant to lower herself to the level of an idiot.

She adores him so much that even when she believes the “cute humble and popular Aoi” is the only Aoi he’ll ever love, she can’t let go. She keeps him at arm's length to not get too attached, but she can’t bring herself to truly run away, to reject him point blank.

She wants him after all, when we get a glimpse of her alone with her defenses down, she melts just from watching him work hard.

She wants them to be closer (unrelated but I can’t get over how she went “watching Akane from my window isn’t enough, let me lean on my balcony, so we are closer.”)

She wants them to be side by side. She wants to accept his confessions. But she is too scared to admit even to herself that she is smitten.

Opening up is hard for her after all, and admitting he cares about him so much? That’s terrifying. 

So she runs. 

Because if Akane gets too close he might see her flaws, and if her “unlovable self” make him stop loving her, if her flaws make him leave her, she will crumble.

When her usual defense of “I don’t care, you can’t hurt me!” isn’t effective, her second one is to distance herself from what is hurting her so she has some ‘control’ of the situation.

The drug no.6 gave her may have lowered her empathy, but “discarding people so they can’t hurt her” and “running far far away” has always been an itch she had. She always dismisses any stranger from her life, because she doesn't need them. She always runs away when she is hurt.

Is a desire born from the ugliest, most selfish, and insecure parts of her heart, something her kinder and friendlier side never allowed her to act on. But it is a part of her, the one she hates: this is the “unlovable Aoi” to the extreme, fully out.

Is a part she constantly tries to hide, but is always there, as important to her character as her kindness. A part of her that is resentful of the world and wants to stop caring altogether, to hide and hide forever, make it so only she can hurt herself.

She assumes if Nene asks Akane out he’ll accept, despite how much Akane only focuses on her, so she spends a week without going to school to spare herself the pain.

She accepts Akane “have been lying and secretly still likes Lemon” right away because of a silly ghost game, going straight into depressive mode and running away from the pain.

She genuinely wants Akane to be happy, and while she wants him to be happy with her, she hates her possessive nature, using her usual defense mechanism and trying to convince herself she doesn’t care about him, that he is disposable.

She doesn’t want to hurt anyone but she is arrogant, so she doesn’t protest or do anything to show she likes Akane (even when its obvious), going “I hope you’re happy” and running before she says what she really wants and ‘ruin their fun’ and ‘give her feelings away’.

She wants control over the situation: To leave before others ‘inevitably’ leave her. And Akane knows.

But he genuinely like her for who she is, he know how sensitive she is under her smile, so he always run after her to calm her down.

Akane is her biggest weakness and Aoi despises feeling weak and out of control. So her crush on him is a two edge sword.

She genuinely believed Akane doesn’t love her real self, but she also used it as an excuse to have control over her crush, to justify her lack of courage to pursue a relationship. 

She is still the same scared kid that cried when Akane said he hates her and got mad at herself for crying about it.

She is too arrogant to admit Akane has control over her feelings even when her composure is shattered.

Part of her genuinely doesn’t want to care, she wants to raise her walls and keep Akane away so he can’t hurt her! That is why she stabbed him and tried to throw him away in the first place.

She tries so hard to use her usual “I don’t care about you, so your opinion can’t hurt me” strategy with him, it's frustrating that it doesn’t work. 

She is a flustered mess by the point Akane start gushing about a flaw she hates so much and makes her life difficult.

The reason she is uncomfortable with Akane is because she is uncomfortable when she can’t control her emotions. And Akane? He could make her blush even when his approach was so tactless she dissociated from his shower of  neverending compliments, so this assertive approach, practically forcing Aoi to accept that he likes her for who she is and that she can’t run away from his love no matter how hard she tries, it’s as much of a dream (she always wanted to be loved fully) as it is a nightmare (he is too direct! He does not give this poor coward a break!!).

He doesn’t allow her any escape. He is taking her far far away from her comfort zone. Her panic is completely and utterly genuine. Help her cause she does not know what to do.

She isn’t able to give him a verbal answer when Akane asks “Do you like me, even just a little bit?” but Akane never expected an answer.

He only acted so bold in the first place (holding her and kissing her neck) because at this point, he already knows she loves him.

Aoi doesn’t deny his claim, she doesn’t use meaningless excuses like “We can’t marry because that would make me Aoi Aoi” , she just... cling to him, holding on.

Only after she hugs him back (which is a silent “I love you too” in this context) does Akane go for the kiss.

Let's compare when Akane tries to kiss her to a similar scene where she is genuinely uncomfortable so I can show you she is more nervous and flustered by his advances than truly scared or uneasy.

In chapter 24 Hanako possessed Nene and tried to ‘seduce’ Aoi. Aoi had no idea supernaturals exist at the time, and she even goes “Nene-chan...?” to show she fully believes this is Nene, not some ghost possessing her friend. 

There is a lot of focus on Nene’s reaction, an attempt to make it comedic, but Aoi is extremely uncomfortable with this forceful behavior.

Aoi likes Nene, Nene is one of the two people she considers a friend, but she hated this: She is sweating, there isn’t even a hint of blush on her face, and she keep her hands far away, having her back on a wall. She likes to hold hands with Nene, comfortable being touchy with her friend, but in this situation, her instinct is to lean away. She doesn’t want it. She is uneasy.

Now let's go back to chapter 69. There are a lot of similarities, both Hanako (who she assume is Nene) and Akane hold her chin before trying to kiss her and both have her backed into a wall. Akane should arguably be worst cause she hasn’t been touchy with him in years while she is constantly holding Nene’s hand, but not only does Aoi blush, she doesn’t try to run from her feelings like usual, she reaches for him, holding on to his jacket.

She isn’t confident, she is sweating and shocked, (which makes sense considering how chaotic her night have been) but there is light in her eyes: She is scared, but she wants to kiss him too.

She have craved to be closer to Akane for ages but this talk didn’t magically heal her issues, no matter how much she dislikes this part of her, she is still an arrogant coward at heart: This kiss is hard for her. Any sort of intimacy is. It goes agaist her instinct to hide and sabotage herself.

That’s why she always blushes hard and gets extremely nervous with Akane when he gets too close. Even when what he is doing isn’t forceful, it feels overwhelming to Aoi.

She needs to hold back the urge to run. She needs to fight the urge to think about the worst and trust him, allow Akane to have sway over her emotions.

She still have a long way to go, and I’m rooting for her.

[malkaleh]

Rings of Power 2X08

FIRST OF ALL HOW I AM SUPPOSED TO WAIT UNTIL 2026 UNDER THESE CONDITIONS. HOW.

Secondly CHARLES EDWARDS YOU OWE ME INFINITY TRILLION DOLLARS IN EMOTIONAL DAMAGES. INFINITY.

(I still very much think Celebrimbor actually willed himself dead there, as the last thing he had left he could do :((((( :/)

(Also the horrible awful intimacy in whatever torture had clearly been going on for a while there - that face caress was so so creepy and awful and the blank spaces FUCK).

CHARLIE VICKERS YOU ALSO OWE ME INFINITY TRILLION DOLLARS. ACTUALLY THE WHOLE CAST OWES ME BUT THE CHARLIES ESPECIALLY. AND MORFYDD. AND ROB. AND BEN. AND ISHAMEL

(You know the worst thing is, the absolute most horrible thing is that I do think Sauron’s tears/words there about regret were completely genuine. Like, completely).

(For fic agenda reasons I also need to point out that in one of the drafts in the unfinished tales Sauron wanted to attack Lorien and Rivendell first and just like he wants to get his beloveds back UGH okay I know tactical reasons but also)

LEAVE MY SWEET BABY BIRACIAL ELROND ALONE YOU FUCKS. YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKS. (He is so soft and so kind and so gentle still and the way he stands in what I assume will become Imaldris is just MY HEART HURTS).

Sauron really was ‘soon as they unblock me the weddings are back on’ like I swear (I think he was extremely angry that Celebrimbor was going out of his reach).

(Still hasn’t mentioned Luthien, is still terrified out of his mind)

HI GANDALF.

ARONDIR LIVES MY BELOVED.

kemen i hope sauron sacrifices you first or an eagle eats you. Or you die slowly after stepping on Eressea/Valinor.

Hi islidur and theo are brothers now and also THEO IS GOING TO BE FINE HE IS NOT GOING TO BE EVIL I REFUSE.

ADAR. FUCK. (The way he loved his kids so much and yet by that love going wrong he fucked everything up is just ://///. Also GLUG IS FINE. HE IS FINE. HE IS GOING HOME TO HIS WIFE AND BABY GLUG).

(Sauron’s ex’s really are unionising/understanding each other)

Somewhere in mandos Feanor is like GET YOUR BITCH ASS HANDS OFF MY HAMMER LET ME AT HIM (Celebrimbor is getting ALL THE HUGS when he arrives okay, from EVERYONE).

Galadriel is continuing the family tradition of Dramatic and I love that for her. Also MORFYDD MORFYDD.

MIRIEL IS GOING TO BREAK MY HEART INTO PIECES. MY DARLING MIRIEL YOU ARE GOING TO BE FINE YOU ARE. YOU AND ELENDIL WILL BE GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING KIDS AND IT WILL BE SO CUTE.

Oh Earien :(((((. I love her i just…

The way you fall matters, even if that’s all you have left. Even if you will not win through, even if it is hopeless - it matters that you were kind, that you were good and you held to love and light and maybe you will not live to see it but the dawn will come is so…I really really needed that.

Gil-Galad Is an incredibly stressed dad (tm) and also oh my heart his face when he sees they are hurting Elrond could you please tell him in words (also stop with the microaggressions).

Islidur COME GET YOUR WIFE.

No really I keep imagining Celebrimbor arriving in Mandos and everyone, I mean everyone including Mandos and Manwe and Varda and EVERYONE just hugging him and reassuring him and bringing him tea and blankets and hot chocolate.

(Finrod is going to GO BACK TO MIDDLE EARTH AND FIGHT PEOPLE STAY AWAY FROM HIS SISTER AND HIS HUSBAND AND WIFES BEST FRIENDS GREAT GRANDCHILD. Fingon is also going)

(Sauron really really did not want to not have Galadriel and Celebrimbor and Elrond beside him as consorts like please I need all the fic about this please trop writers please also include Elrond)

In conclusion eleven trillion stars out of five how am I supposed to wait two years, this cast owes me emotional damages.

[ichiharas-familiar]

Maiden Rose post below the cut. We are all friends here we are holding hands in a circle and you are reading this post in good faith. Standard Maiden Rose warnings apply.

The thing about MR is that it plays the romance tropes straight, and plays them to their logical conclusion. YES Klaus is the ideal of a dom who gives you everything you want without having to ask for it, YES Taki is the pure maiden with a secret desire. But how long can you preserve that dynamic. Doesn't it hurt you to play that forever? Don't you have to change? Don't you have to open up eventually? What if you didn't. What if you kept following those roles down into hell.

The sex Taki and Klaus are having has always been dubcon-y- the audience knows what Taki wants, because we can see inside his head, but Klaus can't, and Taki *cannot* verbalize desire. We see this explictly, in the hospital scene, when he says something like 'before you, I never knew how to want anything'. It's not just that he can't speak up because of his fear of the hammer of god coming down on him and his people for consenting to sex, it's that he straight up does not have the language. So Klaus has to assume. And Taki WANTS him to assume. This is all very typical bl convention.

But once they get to Japan the dubcon turns pretty clearly into noncon. Taki is now explictly refusing rather than just hesitating, things become more and more violent until we get to the rape in the shed which is the moment where Klaus breaks, and finally all the guilt of what he's been doing crashes down on him. He is ready to die for this, but Taki won't let him. So he has to live with that guilt.

And then it doesn't fucking stop. Taki unties him when he's delirious (against Klaus's explict orders) and Klaus hurts him again. IMO, Taki knows what might happen when he does this. And Klaus starts realizing he's stuck playing this part. That he is *not* in a bodice ripper romance novel where the heroine opens up after her initial reluctance, that this is from now on the only way he's going to get anything from Taki. He will be the monster everyone thinks he is until he dies. The retconned-out-of-existance curtain scene is so painful because of this. Klaus is trying to establish a boundary, is trying to say 'Let me be your sword and nothing else, I can do that, I'm okay with only that. Let me have something I can still be proud of after all the shameful things I've done to you.' And then Taki *initiates contact* for the first time in... basically ever. And we see his thoughts, 'please don't go back to just being my friend'. This is, in the strained, highly structured relationship they have now, an implied request for more, despite being only a hug. But I don't think Klaus can do it anymore. I don't think he can take the implied requests, the suggestions, the hints of desire. I don't think he wants to be the one to blame anymore, but I don't know if Taki is capable of being anything other than a 'sacrifice', as Klaus calls him.

I talk a lot about sub!Klaus and it sounds silly but I think it might genuinely be the only solution to this problem. Klaus, the Klaus we have now, can't initiate. Every time he initiates any sort of physical contact (even if Taki is okay with it), he takes on the role of monster more and more, he is reminded of what he did, and it's hurting him. A Taki who would order him around, who would *have* to verbalize his desires? That's like a dream to Klaus.

(All of this is not of course to put the blame on Taki. Like I've said before, Klaus is a guy whose stupid purity kink is coming to bite him in the ass in the worst way. If someone reacts to sex the way Taki did you should not, in the real world, have sex with them. Klaus did it anyway and here we are. They are both in unwinnable positions due to their roles in the larger society but ALSO due to the roles they've been playing with one another.)

[oneforthemunny]

if you could headcanon angst fot each eddie what would it be? (youre hesrtbreakingly good at angst)

mafia!eddie’s is easy. angst about you getting hurt bc of his job. he got ‘sloppy’ (he didn’t) and trusted the wrong person or did the wrong thing. it’s his worst fear come true, repeating history. he’d go into nearly a mania state of paranoia trying to prevent it. a spiraling rampage and just completely loses his mind in a way.

older!eddie i’d say it’s the angst of gina. past relationship trauma and really the verbal and mental abuse she put him in. specifically, left him in when they divorced. how self conscious it made him, how anxious it made him, how deeply just fucked up and skewed his perception of love was.

modern!eddie it would be a good old fashioned break up. he’s too immature in the relationship. one too many fight about forgetting things, her having to do everything. just too much, really, and they break up. he’s in a deep depression after. genuinely heart broken but tbh needs to happen bc he’s gotta grow up a little.

rockstar!eddie is definitely when he does coke and is with the kids. i’m standing with that anon from ages ago (i think it was on the old blog maybe?) but twins are newborns, he’s trying to balance still working and touring and making music, being a dad to four young kids, and being a husband. he’s exhausted but he can’t be, does some coke, nb notices somethings off with how weird he’s been and finds it. she leaves him and goes to farrah’s. he absolutely loses his shit, spirals way out of control, checks himself into like a rehab spa place bc he’s not addicted really but he wants to learn healthy coping skills. has a teeny tiny nervous breakdown too from just everything.

cowboy!eddie is coming. trust.

dom!eddie this feels generic but he takes it too far. not physically but emotionally if that’s makes sense. i think early in the relationship, they’re kinda figuring out what they like, what they don’t. it’s easy with physical things bc he can see it. but he wants to do emotional too. says some hurtful shit in the name of “degrading” which she takes personally. he didn’t mean it but why did he say that, let alone think it (spoiler he heard it in a porno and thought it would be good to say lol). just very angsty miscommunication. definitely helps them establish hard lines on what goes and what doesn’t. realizes she likes being humiliated more than degraded so important in their dynamic but yikes. not fun.

bouncer!eddie he cheats on her. he’s so flirty anyways like that’s just his personality. he’s drunk, she’s not there, gets his dick sucked in the hideout bathroom after a gig when he’s so fucking drunk he can barely stand and sobs after he cums. he’s a wreck about telling you. decides not to lie (bc people there def saw it) and it’s horrendous. absolutely just angst and more angst and he didn’t mean to, you don’t believe him. worst of all you have to WORK together omfg. very not great.

janitor!eddie i pretty much destroyed him with ‘some sunny day’ so that? if it was with reader related, it’s definitely when he gets jealous over nothing. accuses her of cheating and flirting and taking advantage of him and being horrible, because one of the other teachers were flirting with her and she was uncomfortable. but he doesn’t try to hear her side of thing, just assumes and accuses and is deeply insecure, and like can’t be doing that lol.

[cinnbar-bun]

Important Message

So... haha... been almost a month since I really did anything on this blog...

Listen, I'm gonna keep it straight to you guys, the months leading up to my hiatus were, to put it mildly, some of the most disgusting I've seen in my years as a fanfic writer and fandom enjoyer. This is a bit of a vent post, because, well, genuinely, I really hope the fandom can get better. I'm assuming most of the bad experiences I've had came through people a bit younger/newer to fandom or tumblr/fanfic culture in general. If you want just an update on the blog, I will be posting that shortly after this one.

I'm going to list out some of the shit I had to go through (that I am sure many fanfic writers, but more specifically, POC fandom creators go through). This is a long post. Yeah, also, this is obvious but TW FOR: Racism (including slurs), Islamaphobia, sexism, death threats, suicide threats, harassment, and just flat out horrible behavior.

I'm gonna go list some of the slurs I've been messaged or called, I'll even rate them for you guys <3:

Camel jockey: oooo, haven't heard that one before. get more creative, 3/10

camel fucker: nice, bit more crass, still not original. 3.5/10, just a bit funny

Terrorist: wow, dude, oh my gosh, I can't believe I've never heard that one living in post 9/11 America! Wow! 0/10 try harder

I also don't know where the assumption came from that I was a hijabi... I am not. Calling me a BMO? Pretty unique but sadly does not fit me. :(/10

This barely scratches the surface of what I have dealt with after having been open about my heritage. I'm sorry my very existence offends you and requires you to come out and send me shit about hoping my family dies or that my favorite character brutally hurts me. I have read your messages, and after long consideration, I have decided to no longer be Middle Eastern. Yep, that's right, guys, I am no longer MENA! Don't worry about my family history or anything, I just choose not to be that anymore. There, now you don't have to send me messages about hoping my family gets killed <3

Let's see what else we should tackle.

Should I tackle the fact that I've gotten messages from others to update a fic or answer a request or they will try to self harm or commit suicide?

Should I tackle the fact that some have tried to pressure or guess my sexuality (dude, what the fuck)?

Should I tackle how I got messages from others assuming my place because of my religion?

Should I tackle how I've gotten weird ass messages from people getting mad at me because how DARE I not write certain things during Ramadan?

Should I tackle those things?

I'll save you the hassle, no, I really shouldn't have had to, but fact is, the One Piece fandom has to be some of the worst I've seen and interacted with purposefully in a long time. And I was in the Hetalia fandom way back when. I should not have dumb shit about "liberating" me or oh, oh, oh, I love this one! People asking me if I have 'full armament haki' (I hope you genuinely, genuinely, get the fuck off your phone and go outside. Maybe have a walk and go talk to actual people.)

I've met some genuinely lovely, beautiful, and kind people. They truly are some of the most talented creators I've seen, and I'm grateful they chose to befriend me. The good does outweigh the bad. But the bad? Oh lord, I think you guys are genuinely some of the most disgusting pieces of shits I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.

Fanfic writers are not your slaves. I have a full time job, I have a full time life outside of my tumblr and my writing. I write when I want to because I like to write, and fanfic is a good creative outlet. You sending dumb messages crying about no updates after four days of me posting a new chapter, or threatening to harm yourself because of this is disgusting.

POC creators, especially, are not your fucking tokens. I'm not here to break down every racial stereotype for you. I'm not here to be sitting there mocked with crap I already hear in my outside life. And I sure as HELL am not here for fake support only to be called slurs and mocked the minute I don't do something for you. You are gross, you are not funny, you are genuinely a horrible person and if your ideal vision of humor boils down to the Instagram comments section, all I'm saying is, I'm not wishing you anything positive.

If you read this far, thank you. Truly. This was difficult to place and write down, but it needed to be said, because even to this day I still get messages similar to before.

Do better, One Piece fandom. Do better. Because you are only going to lose the fans who really care and who put effort into making things. How far can you harass fanfic creators, and especially POC ones, with your bullshit before you lose out on things?

I don't need to 'move on'. My identity and my existence is on a completely separate wave than so and so idk, liking a ship or a character. One is fake, and one is literally who I am. Putting false equivalencies to the issues within fandom because it makes you 'sad' is shitty.

I've only given you an idea of what I had to deal with. Now imagine this constantly by random people, both on tumblr and AO3, and then imagine that also in your daily life, on the media, in the news, in the music, on the radio, in the books- fucking everywhere. It's exhausting.

Just... fucking do better. Actually fucking listen to POC. I got nothing else to add that wouldn't just be me repeating the same shit I and others have tried to say.

Just be kind, for gods sake, and remember that creators are human, not the silly avatars we choose.

[halfetirosie]

☁︎✴☁︎ KUYA IS THE WORST THERAPIST OF ALL TIME!!!!! ☁︎✴☁︎

(Elysium 10-11 React-os!)

Fair warning, I'mma be a bit of a hater in this one...🤦‍♀️

1) KUYA, WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?!?!

First of all: kidnapping is fucking ILLEGAL!

Second: this is just too far. It's already bad enough that Olivine will have to answer embarrassing questions in front of an audience, but having to do so in front of the kids--????

I was rooting for you, Kuya! But then you go and be a dick again!!!!

😡

2) Damn, what an awful way to die....

I HATE bugs, they're so gross---

Plus, this situation is already ASTRONOMICALLY STRESSFUL; having a big, ugly, threatening bug crawling all over you will make it even worse!!!

3) My thoughts exactly, Eiden!!!!

Why is Eiden the only sane person here???

It seems like Kuya have set things up to be as agonizing as possible, and that just feels EVIL to me.

This is why I really hate that damn fox sometimes. He keeps causing genuine pain to people, hitting them right where it hurts, and it's [at least partially] only for his own entertainment.

4) (｡Ó ᗣ Ò｡)

Olivineeee, sweeetieeeee!!!! Come here and give me a hug!!!!

This is so depressingly relatable.... Amiright, fellow degenerates? 😅 Gotta laugh about it or else you'll cry...

Olivine is really GOING THRU IT. I can't imagine having to admit something like this to my family/friends!

I am so fucking stressed!!!!

5) FUCK!!!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!!

LISTEN. I GET THAT OLIVINE NEEDS TO FACE HIS FEELINGS PROPERLY INSTEAD OF AVOIDING THEM. Aside from the damn fox's entertainment, that is what "the point" of this trial is.

Accepting your feelings is necessary for healing.

But you know what doesn't have a point? FORCING OLIVINE TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION IN FRONT OF THE MOST FRAGILE AND INNOCENT PEOPLE IN HIS LIFE, WHOM HE REALLY CARES ABOUT!!!!!

I feel like I'm just repeating myself at this point, but seriously, this is so fucked up! If I were Eiden, I probably would've interrupted and tried to end this shitty trial, too...

6) Kuya, you are seriously such a dick....

I think Kuya is partially up to his Tsundere Bullshit™ again; I think he's pretending to be casually "observing" things when really, he's searching for some sort of answer. (After all, this is the same dude that has been alive for longer than we can imagine, and has struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past)

The reason he calls the trial participants "boring" is likely because they didn't give the answers Kuya wanted---I suspect that this trial has served as Kuya's fucked up way of searching for meaning in life.

But what really pisses me off is the demeaning way he talks about humans; even now, during a trial whose questions focus on one's true desires and personal values.

HE'S the one always prattling on about how humans shouldn't judge himself, a yokai, by human standards. And yet, he doesn't have the decency to do the same???

Humans live a much shorter time than him, after all. Of COURSE they'll put value in different things than him; especially if they're someone who frequently spends time in a red light district.

That might be why he assumes Olivine's morality is a "mask," but at the same time, he actually knows Olivine personally (at least, to some extent), unlike the strangers he's tested in this "trial."

I don't think I can give Kuya the benefit of the doubt anymore. This lack of empathy isn't "out of his control," IT'S A FUCKING CHOICE. AND THAT IS WHY I'M ANGRY!!!! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Kuya shouldn't be allowed to conduct this "trial." This "trial" shouldn't even exist. What HE needs---what Olivine needs---what EVERYONE needs---IS SOME ACTUAL PROPER THERAPY!!!!

7) CONFIRMED: Eiden is me in this event

Is this hinting that this whole trial is an illusion, maybe?? As in, there isn't actually an audience here??

Honestly tho, at this point, that doesn't even matter to me. Kuya is still being a dick and putting Olivine through HELL, and it is so unnecessary!!! 😡😡😡

8) It just keeps getting worse and worse...

Watching this trial is giving me such intense second-hand fear/sadness, bro---I'm crying very real tears. It's literally hurting me.

This really didn't need to be done in front of an audience, dude... Shit like this is SUPER private. It shouldn't be made into a spectacle like this...

BITCH, KUYA MADE OLIVINE CRY!!!!!!!

(｡Ó ᗣ Ò｡)

WHY!!!!

THE FUCK!!!!!

DID HE HAVE TO DO THIS!!!!!

LIKE THIS?!?!?!?!

9) HELL YEAH, OLIVINE!!!! PREACH!!!

I can't believe we went through all of this just so Olivine could give the most obvious answer of all time---

⊹ ࣪ ˖♡ LOVE ♡⊹ ࣪ ˖

That's also the answer that our foxy bitch friend was really searching for...

10) OH FUCK, THANK GOD!!!!

I AM SO FUCKING RELIEVED, THE KIDS WERE JUST ILLUSIONS!!!!

I don't forgive Kuya for pulling that stunt, tho. I stand by my opinion that it was COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.

11) TRUTH:

It's honestly kind of wild to see Olivine explaining the value of love to a mean old foxy grandpa, but hey, here we are!

It's Olivine's turn to be the therapist! The right way!

:D

12) You're a much more patient person than me, Olivine...

(ᵕ—ᴗ—)

I held on for as long as I could, but I can no longer be generous when his antics cross a certain line... I'm giving this fox the silent treatment for the next three weeks!!

13) *heavy sigh*

Yeah, that's true...

Olivine and Kuya actually have a fair bit in common, when you think about it; specifically, their history with Depressive Episodes and--as Olivine puts it here-- their "struggle to live."

I think the main difference is, because of Kuya's long-ass life, he's much more set in his ways; thus, it's harder for him to let go of his destructive tendencies.

He may not be as violent as he used to be, but he still has a terrible habit of emotionally harming others...

Do I think this excuses his behavior? No.

Do I think he deserves another chance; to be treated with compassion and helped? Yes.

But he ALSO deserves to see some actual consequences for his actions.

☁︎ End of report ☁︎

[ewingstan]

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9-11 for whatever Worm characters come to mind! (Or Sophia/Calvert/Taylor/Krouse if you have any thoughts!)

Fuck it. All of em for all of em.

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

Sophia: I'll be real I don't feel super strongly about her. She's written to be hateable in an effective way, but she's less of a full character than Emma despite being in much more of the story. And her shit kinda gets bogged down by racist writing (a lot of the worst of it happening right before Aisha's introduction, which is also pretty racist). She's involved in a lot of cool and interesting moments but they're rarely interesting because of her.

Coil: Works really well as the first overarching villain in Taylor's story. He's able to sell the "I'm a bad guy but in an excusable way that's not really too bad" well enough, but also has a lot of obvious red flags even before the Dinah reveal. So you can understand perfectly well why Taylor, a kid who really wanted to continue hanging out with the undersiders and do things that made her feel like she had any control, would go along with him. But you can also take a step back and say Jesus, only a kid who really wanted to continue hanging out with the undersiders and do things that made her feel like she had any control would go along with him.

Taylor: Wildbow has a reoccurring tendency to focus on characters who are both incredibly smart and can get an incredible amount of info quickly, but only in specific limited ways. Its true of Taylor, Lisa, Sylvester, Kenzie, Mia—a lot of my favorites. But the interesting thing is that they're never smart in the same ways, never collect the same sort of info. Lisa has general super-induction but no great skill at making plans. Sylvester can read and manipulate people to a superhuman level but is constantly getting blinded by his own resentments and desires. Taylor's hyper-vigilance gave her the ability to see and react to everything external around her, but no means or real incentive to know whats going on internally with people around her. And it makes sense! She's incredibly afraid of letting people in who'll end up hurting her; people who've genuinely been kind to her in the past have used their previous closeness to hurt her later! Knowing that someone doesn't mean her harm now isn't gonna reassure her, so its safer to assume everyone's a threat and not worry too much about what they're actually thinking.

And then there's Rachel, who she not only connects with emotionally, but is the only person who's able to make an emotional connection with her! And since you understand why its not the norm, its all the more incredible to see!

Krouse: oh I'm glad you asked

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

Sophia: I like that she and Lung both get wrapped back up in the end for Skitter's Gold Morning missions. I wish she got to do more in those, but I do like it as a story beat.

Coil: How high he got and how far he fell.

Taylor: Man the escape from Coil's trap is a fucking great chapter. She's a one-woman horror movie. Single-handedly sells her as a villain who'd get national attention, and its not even a moment the public knows about. And its in such a great place in the story too, where all the tricks she's using have been established so its not feeling like a weird escalation in her abilities, but she hasn't all employed them at once or to such incredible effect yet. It’s the real culmination of her taking “lessons” from Bakuda about being scary.

Krouse: One of the moments that really sold me on him was when he was getting attacked by Case 53s, and immediately started thinking about how he could take them down, before he interrupts his own thoughts to go "wait, what am I doing, I should just run away." It just sells so much of his whole deal. He's a great on-his-feat thinker, he can be an incredible strategist when he's on his own, but he also doesn't share Taylor's suicidal urge to face any problem head-on. Its kind of the inverse of one of Taylor's early establishing moments: after getting attacked by Rachel, she reaches for a reason to calm down, realizes she doesn't have one, and immediately retaliates hard enough to get blood on her boots. God they're such good foils, its weird that the extent of their relationship is mutually disliking each other. Not even intense dislike in either case.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

Sophia: That the black member of the trio is the one that consistently gets physically violent, is characterized as the athletic one compared to the others in general (instead of "the cute one" or "the prep" she's "the track star"), gets described as being savage multiple times, doesn't have much of a character outside of sucking despite being in a work that's otherwise really good at giving internality to people who act shitty, all that jazz.

Coil: How little sense we got of what Calvert's dominion would really look like. That we didn't get much of his takeover without other disasters interfering actually works—it fits the themes of constant conflict interfering with stability and safety. But I still want more of a sense of what Calvert wanted.

Taylor: I didn't care about her reunification with her mom. I say a lot that the ending of Worm is one of the best endings of any story I've read, and that's true of Gold Morning as a whole, but I don't actually care much about the last epilogue. The Brian reveal certainly doesn't help there.

Krouse: Do you know how much it sucks that when people ask me who my favorite worm character is, the tumblr sexyman is in contention?

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

Sophia: any story that takes her basic parts, gets rid of the obviously shitty stuff, and develops her into a real character.

Coil: Disney Channel sitcom

Taylor: Well I already tried expy-ing Khepri into my tabletop campaign, and that got mixed results, so I'll take TTRPGs off the list. I'd be interested in her getting put in a medium where you'd have to be creative with how to represent the bug cloud, like live theater.

Krouse: I was gonna say Mob Psycho but then I remembered that they already had a guy who teleported around being a jackass. But I would like too see a well-animated version of his fighting style.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Sophia: I'll Make You Sorry by Screaming Females

Coil: For some reason I get an Everything Everything vibe from him? Maybe Photoshop Handsome or Breadwinner.

Taylor: I don't actually read her as trans but Dysphoria Hoodie is what immediately came to mind. I'm at least theoretically still making a Cicada Days animatic about her. I think portions of BCNR's Sunglasses fits with whats going on internally with her in the Mannequin fight

Krouse: Want to make a Prowl Great Cain AMV for him one day. Lyrics fit perfectly, and the way its sung gets the same otherwise inexpressable intensity of how I feel about him. Darnielle said “This is a song about betrayal. A lot of songs about betrayal are about betrayal and redemption. Not this one.” And yeah, that's Krouse!

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Sophia: Oh, no

Coil: It would prolly be fine except for how he'd torture a branch of my psychological continuity and then effectively kill it by destroying that reality whenever I leave the dishes out too long. Don't correct me on how his powers work

Taylor: Uhhh probably not. Even if I wasn't much older, I don't really talk to my roommates unless they're the talkative sort. She's been stuck living with clamshells before, it wasn't good for her.

Krouse: I'd have to kill him

10 and 11: alright these are "could you be best friends with" and "would you date" and in both cases the fact that I'm 23 means no. I don't have Blake's ability to form rich friendships with people much younger than me. And I'm not interested in Calvert as a friend or a lover.

[damnfandomproblems]

758288740790796289

"Hatred at the end of the day is hatred, sure, it might not be the racist or homophobic flavor of hatred, but it's still hatered. And no one should hate anyone, at least not for the things they can't control (because fuck pedos/rape-philies in general and murders and genuine racists of course, they can all go get shot, don't get me wrong and twist my words like I know some of y'all are just dying to do)"

I could let this go, but I love analyzing rhetoric. Anyway:

First of all, knowing what people are like nowadays, I feel like you might not know what pedo actually means and thinks it applies to fictional characters. Or you heard that it's bad from others and never looked up what it actually is. Even then I think it's weird when people use it casually like this because it feels like they're making it a bigger issue than it is. Yes, actual child molesters are criminals. Yes, it's a serious crime. More serious than murder? I think that's up to personal opinion. Is it way more widespread than murder? I don't know the statistics, but I don't think so from casually looking at the news daily. Y'all are making everything and everyone out to be pedos. "It's everywhere!! Everyone you pass on the street is one!!" (Satanic panic round 2). Y'all default to that even in situations where this no evidence of it and other explanations are more likely. That's...concerning. Why the obsession? The way you worded this makes me kinda believe it's just pointless virtue signaling like it almost always is. I never get the impression it's really about protecting people/victims. Always feels like an ego thing.

Lastly, don't genuinely wish death on people. Ever heard of "self-fulfilling prophecy"? You assume these people are the worst of the worst. If others do as well and no one gives them a chance, why should they try? Even if they change, people will still assume things, so why should they try to be good. People think they're evil then they might as well live up to those people's expectations, trying is hard nothing will change after all. And for racists/bigots/ect, you're giving them ammunition, "this person wants me dead! All I'm doing is defending myself!". You're just validating their bigotry in their mind. They don't think highly of you and to them, you saying these things are proving them right.

Y'all're trying to bring back the witch trials. Do y'all know how many people died? How many of them were most likely innocent? But because someone had a grudge against someone else's lover, was jealous of their neighbors' cows, someone walked into them but didn't apologize, or they just wanted to join in, because of petty things like that, so many people needlessly died. And as harsh as this sounds, if it happens again, you won't be safe. Someone will accuse you even if they make up a reason. You'll be found guilty because people are blinded by fear. You don't want to open those floodgates because you'll go down same as everyone else. You and the other people saying things like this are not exempt from harm. If you allow people to hurt others you'll get hurt too no matter which side you're on.

Tl:dr: I can't believe saying maybe we should try to be kind is controversial nowadays.

Posting as a response to a previous ask.

[stanmammon]

Hey, first of all love your writing. You're one of the blogs I check regularly to see what's new. Could you maybe write something where MC is in denial when Asmo asks to go out with t Like when asked out they scoff and go "Nice try but I'm not falling for that." Like they seem so confident in everyday life, speaking confidently and knowing they are good at what they do, but really they have low self esteem when it comes to looks and romantic relationships. I was jokingly asked out a lot as a kid (either laughed at right when I said yes or stood up) so, when someone genuinely asked me out, I acted like a fucking asshole because I thought the person was making fun of me. Didn't realize until a mutual friend chewed me out. I was wondering what that would be like with MC and Asmo, because I can see MC thinking "Asmo's too out if my league, this is probably a dare or something."

Asmodeus:

Asmo is kind of stunned at your rejection. He knew that he had a bit of a reputation and he never hid the fact he liked to date around but it’s not like he was just pulling some prank. If he disliked you or thought you were unattractive, he never had a problem saying it! He’s hurt that you think he’s being dishonest with you and it might cause a fight as Asmo, despite having all the self-confidence in the world, can still be hurt by someone assuming the worst of him. His teary eyes are the first clue that you might’ve taken it a step too far as him asking you out on a date was innocent enough, and assuming Asmo was like all the other assholes you’d met before was unfair.

He’s a little harsh too, telling you perhaps you should stop believing the worst in people, especially when Asmo was your friend. He had never treated you poorly and you had already judged his character if you were friends, so why were you acting differently now?

Asmo does become even more determined to prove to you that his feelings are genuine. He’ll give you the ultimate Asmo dating experience, ready to show you off to the entire Devildom to claim you as his own! He would even cut back on at least 50% of his flirting to prove his loyalty! He was a demon who needed attention and adoration but the hearts in his eyes (and the one beating in his chest) were meant for you, only you, and he’d do anything to prove it.

[rickytickychow]

Ok uhhhh initial thoughts cuz I'm SO dazed

FIRST OFF THE ANIMATION KICKED ABSOLUTE ASS WHAAAAAT the fight scenes the goofy little gags the goddamn FIGHT fight everything was so smooth and atmospheric whaaaaat

This got way longer than I anticipated lmao enjoy?

Okay so uh. As cool and awesome as the Cherub b plot was (AND SWEET AND ADORABLE THAT THE REST OF I.M.P. FOLLOWED BLITZ??? AAAAAWWWWW) I think we all Understand What's Going On there so imma dive into the MEAT of this one pun intended lol

Ummmmmm so first of Blitz VERY CLEARLY CARES AND IS ANXIOUS ABOUT SHOWING STOLAS A GOOD TIME???? But since their relationship has been technically "friends with benefits+" all he knows about Stolas is the sex stuff. He didn't even know how to describe the mood!! The MOOD!!! Alexithymic whore. He had NO idea Stolas wanted an emotional conversation because their full moon meetings were Always "hey sexy let's do this" bc they both enjoy each other's company. Blitz's problem is that he sincerely believes that anyone could truly enjoy just his company.

As for Stolas???? Goofy ass bird. Good god. Like he's outta meds he very clearly didn't mean to start their meeting with such a somber tone or make it about his book. While he was talking about Blitz being tied to him, in Blitz's view it very easily sounded like Stolas was the one who felt "tethered." Blitz outright denies this at first because of the routine they've built; he is SO attached to the idea that Stolas only wants sex because it keeps his feelings safe, so when Stolas sprung this on him and actually meant it OF COURSE he got confused.

Hot-and-cold out of meds repressed emo bird or not, Stolas should Not have started it off so emotionally without warning; he then misinterpreted what Blitz was trying to do with the gifts and attitude the imp brought. He cares about Blitz's business, but didn't make it clear that that's what he wanted to talk about. Like starting that off with "I need the book back permanently" when he REALLY should've led with anything else shows how easily a conversation can go south when two people aren't on the same page.

They both tried to do something nice for each other that the other wasn't prepared for. Blitz does care about Stolas but IMMEDIATELY assumed Stolas was getting "creative" with his advances, genuinely confused by the tone-shift compared to their previous meetings. Given the joke sinstagrams and what little full moon fuckery we see in the show, their meetings probably ALWAYS started playfully. Stolas IMMEDIATELY threw a curve ball that Blitz wasn't ready for and takes the imp's Very Inappropriate response as rejection.

It wasn't a rejection, but the way Stolas didn't think for a second WHY Blitz might not believe him to have feelings??? Or even ask???? Fucks me up but at the same time makes sense. Stolas got up and walked away because he was upset, leaving Blitz to be confused and alone in that room.

Who wouldn't get angry at that? Of course Blitz, thinking all his worst fears were being confirmed, finally lashes out about how he feels in his position. He took Stolas's initial words as "I don't want to be stuck with you anymore," found that Stolas really did want to talk about deeper feelings but never clearly expressed it, and Blitz got confused about their normal routine getting disrupted and his own efforts seemingly going unnoticed. And then Stolas leaves him alone. So fast, all of a sudden. Of course Blitz screamed after him, and Stolas doesn't know that this is how Blitz is when he's hurt and angry. It doesn't excuse the lashing out, but Stolas should not have made assumptions so quickly or turned his back on Blitz just like that. But he did, for understandable reasons:

All Stolas knows about Blitz is that his business is important to him.

All Blitz knows about Stolas is that he likes getting laid.

They do not know each other well enough for Stolas to have started that conversation immediately. There should've been a warning, a greeting, anything, but since he's off his meds and on his feels shit, Stolas doesn't get that.

Like AT LEAST SAY "Can we talk first?" Maybe call Blitz and say you have something important to discuss before springing it out of nowhere?????? But of course Stolas didn't think to do that, because he has no idea how Blitz sees himself. He has no idea that Blitz ignores his feelings in favor of actions to the point he can hardly even name them because they do not know each other.

Blitz had no idea that Stolas was being genuine. He had no idea that his push to get back into a normal routine would hurt Stolas because Blitz is not used to those honest conversations. He didn't know Stolas wasn't in the mood based on his posture because they do not know each other. Also Blitz, as we all know, can observe a room to death but cannot READ a room for shit. Autistic fucks both of them.

Stolas ran away because he felt rejected. Blitz screamed at him because he felt abandoned.

Idiots. Queer hypocritical emotionally stunted situationship of situationships I love this cartoon so much

wish my ex-relationship wasn't an early-twenties rendition of this shitshow but thats life lmao (yeah you'll never guess which half I am /sarc)

(Also so fucking cool how the crystal is attached to Blitz's glove).