#but like for the people who know exactly what I'm talking about just imagine how funny this would be

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Did you ever write a meta about the First Wizarding War?

I am just so curious about it, although we know almost nothing of it. I know in fanfictions, people tend to make the war something very open, very active, with the Order fighting the Death Eaters in the streets but it feels... off to me?

Like, first of all, how would they know when the DE attack? By the time they would learn about the attack, it's most likely the DE would already have left. And overall, when you read about the 2nd Wizarding War, they never attack place like Diallon Alley or Hogsmeade, but rather kidnap people like Ollivander and Fortescue. Which make me wonder how Voldemort was able to ask teens James and Lily to join him (like said in JK's interview).

When you read what Arthur said about this war:

"You-Know-Who and his followers sent the Dark Mark into the air whenever they killed. The terror it inspired… you have no idea, you're too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you're about to find inside… Everyone's worst fear… the very worst."

Well, it sounds more like they would attack people at their home, so the DE are more likely to target people when they attack, while they would cause havrock in the Muggle world. Something that made sense since they don't want to destroy the Wizarding World and the wizards.

Although to be fair, it's not like they have much place to attack in the Wizarding world: the only place we know are Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley and the Ministry.

I just have a hard time imagining how the war would be like, considering the Ministry was not taken by Voldemort. It's like this world is too small for a war of that kind.

Also, it makes me wonder what was really the role of the Order? Like what did they do? What kind of mission would they do? How would they know when to intervene? I know Remus had missions with werewolf during the 2nd war, but we don't know if he had the same during the 1st. Sirius was away busy with a mission during Harry's first birthday, but I wonder what he was doing. Was it a last minute battle?

"No, but believe me, they thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the Wizarding race, getting rid of Muggle-borns and having purebloods in charge. They weren’t alone either, there were quite a few people, before Voldemort showed his true colors, who thought he had the right idea about things… They got cold feet when they saw what he was prepared to do to get power, though. But I bet my parents thought Regulus was a right little hero for joining up at first.”

It's implied people actually thought Voldemort had the right ideas, which makes me wonder if back then, the muggleborns were less accepted. What was the climate that made it happen? Was it that a bit like with jews, which is how Hitler got to powers?

Also the line in bold always interested me because it didn't feel like the Blacks knew about the Horcruxes, so I wonder what else would give them cold feet.

Sorry for the long text, I just never found someone to talk about it. Nobody seems to get me when I try to think too much about how it was like lol

Hello 👋

Honestly, this is really interesting and I have written about the first war as part of my Voldemort analysis here and here and also here and here. And I'm honestly really curious about the timeline of the first war and what exactly the Order and the DE actually did.

I would say you're right about it not being a war. I mean, for a war, you need armies and countries, and there wasn't a single army involved in this war.

The DE are somewhere between a cult and a terrorist organization. In the first war (and in the second one while Voldemort manages them, tbh) their operations are limited to more targeted killings and in general spreading fear and chaos while keeping a not-super-high death tool (in the first war) and avoiding hurting muggles when possible. Like, up until 1979, basically no one died. We have less than 10 unnamed and named characters that might've died before that and the rest died afterwards. Like, almost all deaths happened in the final 3 years of the war.

Then you have the ministry, which doesn't have an army, it has law enforcement. The aurors and DMLE are not an army and don't really function as one. They are trained to catch criminals, not to fight large-scale battles (not that there were any battles in the first war).

The Order, which if we're generous we can call a paramilitary group (but realistically it's a vigilante armed civilian group).

So, it's hardly a war when it's small-scale attacks and skirmishes fought between a cult/terrorist organization, the police, and an armed civilian group. Its timeline and death tool and how it operates as a whole really doesn't fit a war. Well, it's a terror guerilla sort of war, but not your traditional kind of war. The second Voldemort war was more of a real war than the first one, and even that wasn't a traditional war in any sense and I would hardly call it one. But at least it had battles. Like 2.5 of them.

I outlined more of the timeline here with the evidence for it, but in general:

1967ish - Voldemort returns to the UK and has his interview with Dumbledore. At this point, he already has somewhat of a following. Unclear if these were his "friends" from school or their children, but they are likely the older "friends" from school:

“Then if I were to go to the Hog’s Head tonight, I would not find a group of them — Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Dolohov — awaiting your return? Devoted friends indeed, to travel this far with you on a snowy night, merely to wish you luck as you attempted to secure a teaching post.”

(HBP)

1970 - the war starts.

“You can’t blame them,” said Dumbledore gently. “We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”

(PS)

Since Dumbledore says this on November 1981, it means the DE started operating in late 1970. Arthur tells us Death Eaters outnumbered the Order 20 to 1, but I think the Order only started operating later in the decade.

I believe that in the early 70s, they weren't too violent yet. There were some attacks, some chaos similar to what we see in the World Cup perhaps:

I suppose they had a few drinks tonight and couldn’t resist reminding us all that lots of them are still at large. A nice little reunion for them,” he finished disgustedly.

(GoF)

Attacks that strawn fear and unrest and stretched the ministry and the DMLE thin with how many obliviations had to be done — but no one died, not yet. At least, no one important. We know all of the Order members that died were only killed after the infamous photo was taken much later, so it seems in these early days of the war, they didn't really kill anyone perhaps a few muggles here and there (but not as many as the fandom sometimes like to think!) but no wizards died, at least not at first.

I assume this period is mostly marked by small-ish riots and growing normalization of anti-muggle and anti-muggleborn propaganda.

This is the point where Voldemort amassed his followers and purebloods like Walburga and Orion Black thought he had the right idea. Even during the time in the books, muggles are seen as beneath wizards, and muggleborns like Hermione are quietly pressured into not talking about their muggle families because no one cares. Muggleborns like Hermione and Ted Tonks clearly leave their muggle families behind and don't look back and that's accepted as the norm in the wizarding world.

Even in the 90s we see Slughorn is surprised Hermione, the muggleborn, is so talented. Bigotry is still very much present and as I calculated here, muggleborns are only around 5% of the population, with the majority being purebloods (or wizard-raised half-bloods). The blood purity agenda was always there, Voldemort didn't even believe in it himself, he just used it because it was an easily accessible platform that was just there. It was an easy way to gain followers and create unrest, so he took it. It was opportunistic.

So, in that way, yes, it is similar to Nazi Germany. Antisemitism was already there and prevalent in the culture for centuries, Hitler made use of the ideology already present and normalized it, and even made it righteous to believe in his horrid and bigoted ideology. He pushed the culture to more extremes, but the ideas and philosophies were already there, he didn't invent antisemitism in Germany. It was opportunistic. It didn't come out of nowhere and it wasn't just recent either. Antisemitism has a long history in Europe which I'm not going to go into in this post.

1975 - the war gets more violent and wizards are actually killed. We know from Pottermore that:

Eugenia Jenkins 1968 - 1975 Jenkins dealt competently with pure-blood riots during Squib Rights marches in the late sixties, but was soon confronted with the first rise of Lord Voldemort. Jenkins was soon ousted from office as inadequate to the challenge.

(From Pottermore)

It's said Jenkins was ousted from office "soon" after the rise of Voldemort, which again, suggests the more violent attacks only started mid-70s, around 1974 and 1975. From the list of deaths in the post I already linked throughout this post I posed the deaths that ousted her from office were Mr. and Mrs. Bones who we don't have a death date for and were likely important enough in the magical community to send the shockwaves of war that would get the minister kicked out of office. After all, you need something big to rock the wizarding community, a few muggle deaths aren't going to cut it.

(Also the mention of pure-blood riots earlier in the 60s show blood purity was nothing new, just something Voldemort took advantage of that was already there)

This is the point where Walburga and Orion probably got the cold feet Sirius mentioned. Because it's not just muggles and muggleborns anymore. Two pureblood wizards were killed — and that scared the shit out of purebloods who were a little smarter. The realization Voldemort would kill them too if he thought it necessary. It's not that they grew to care about muggleborns or blood traitors, it was self-interest. They realized that Voldemort didn't have any limits and that they weren't safe just because their blood was pure. That's at least, my take on it.

1976 - The Order of the Pheonix is founded

The Order of the Phoenix was likely founded around 1976-1977 after Voldemort and the DE got more violent and a few people actually died and it became clear to Dumbledore the ministry couldn't handle it on their own.

I believe the Order was kinda late to the party (considering how late Dumbledore was when dealing with Grindlewald). I think he advised the ministry on what to do and really hoped the ministry and the DMLE could resolve it at first. When it appeared they couldn't, that's when he founded the Order.

Now, you're right, the first war doesn't seem to have had any actual battles, my guess is that is was as I mentioned above — targeted attacks and skirmishes.

During the first war, Voldemort holds a pretty tight leash on his Death Eaters and who they kill. That's why they kill at homes and kill only specific ministry personnel and Order members for the most part. It's very targeted and specific. They aren't rounding up muggleborns as Lupin says these laws were new in the second war:

“People won’t let this happen,” said Ron. “It is happening, Ron,’; said Lupin. “Muggle-borns are being rounded up as we speak.”

(DH)

This is only in the second war. In the first one, there was no muggleborn registry or compulsive attendance at Hogwarts. The first war was all targeted terror attacks. The DE didn't have the ministry the way they did in the second one. Yes, they had quite a few members in the ministry who probably tried to pass various laws, but it wasn't the complete control they had in 1997-1998.

I assume, what the Order did in these years, was try to gain intelligence about where and when these attacks would happen so they could wait for the Death Eaters there. Again, sort of skirmish warfare and not quite open battles. Very few combatants were probably present for each of these fights.

Most of the Order missions would've been along the lines of:

Protecting expected DE targets

Recon missions and gaining intelligence through various means

Blocking DE in the ministry from getting the intel they are after or passing their laws.

Stuff that is more targeted and doesn't require a full-scale army.

1980 - The Prophecy and Potters going into hiding

(Edit: More notes regarding the timing of the photo and corrections to this section here. James and Lily went into hiding in the winter of 1980, but the Order's photo was taken while James and Lily were in hiding in July 1981, meaning all the Order members died in the 4 months between Harry's birthday and the end of the war)

The prophecy was made about two months before Harry was born:

He stepped forward. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball. In spidery writing was written a date of some sixteen years previously, and below that: S. P. T. to A. P. W. B. D. Dark Lord and (?) Harry Potter

(OotP)

We also know from Harry's birthdate that Lily would've gotten pregnant with him around late October 1979. Due to how the Fidelius Charm works I believe the Potters went into hiding before Harry was born, right after the Prophecy was made, so around May 1980. All this means the photo Moody shows Harry was taken at some point in 1979 or early 1980 before Lily's stomach was showing with the pregnancy, but I'm leaning towards late 1979.

This means that almost all deaths in the war (and all the deaths of the Order) happened after 1979. This was probably caused by two things:

Voldemort escalating for some reason (after 1980 the prophecy might've had a hand in the escalation of violence for various reasons I discussed in the linked posts)

Wormtail started spying mid-1980:

“DON’T LIE!” bellowed Black. “YOU’D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED! YOU WERE HIS SPY!”

(PoA)

So it's possible Wormtail revealed exactly where and when the Order was waiting for the DE and the DE could get the jump on them with more wizards than the Order thought there would be.

These two combined factors practically wiped out most of the first Order.

But we're still talking about skirmishes, just larger ones with a higher death tool, but still no large-scale battles like the Battle of Hogwarts. Enlisting the giants wasn't really because Voldemort used them in the war, there were no battles to use them in. They were a threat, kinda like nukes. It was something you have so your enemies won't attack you. Werewolves were similar, although they were probably employed in some of the skirmishes.

This time period since 1979 is probably when this quote from Sirius becomes the case:

“Imagine that Voldemort’s powerful now. You don’t know who his supporters are, you don’t know who’s working for him and who isn’t; you know he can control people so that they do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You’re scared for yourself, and your family, and your friends. Every week, news comes of more deaths, more disappearances, more torturing . . . the Ministry of Magic’s in disarray, they don’t know what to do, they’re trying to keep everything hidden from the Muggles, but meanwhile, Muggles are dying too. Terror everywhere . . . panic . . . confusion . . . that’s how it used to be.

(GoF)

More wizards are now being killed/targeted. Most of them probably get tortured/imprisoned rather than killed. Like Neville says about the Carrows:

“Doesn’t matter. They don’t want to spill too much pure blood, so they’ll torture us a bit if we’re mouthy but they won’t actually kill us.”

(DH)

These are terror attacks meant to create compliance. So most are tortured, kidnapped as ransom and assurance of loyalty, or imperious rather than killed. Those that are killed would only be those that really have no hope to turn them onside — like the Order, hence why Voldemort allowed them to be killed.

1980 - The added deaths and skirmishes caused another minister to be kicked out of office:

Harold Minchum 1975 - 1980 Seen as a hard-liner, he placed even more Dementors around Azkaban, but was unable to contain what looked like Voldemort’s unstoppable rise to power.

(From Pottermore)

As I mentioned, in the final years of the war, shit got way worse with more deaths happening in the span of these 3 years than all the 8 years of "war" before combined. So another minister who doesn't know how to crack down on the terror organization is kicked out.

October 1981 - Voldemort goes after the Potters and the war ends.

And we know what happens from here.

These are my thoughts about the timeline of the first war and how it went. We don't know as much about it as I would've liked to know, but this is my impression of how it went down more or less.

[justagaycryptid]

Actually the more that I think about it, it would be infinitely funnier if yeah Randall had a great time as a furry, but he still also decided to go kill people because the furry drama videos on him would be just straight up gold

[forgotten-daydreamer]

doctors and nurses should be forced to work in retail before being allowed anywhere near patients

[indecisivemuch]

Look at me

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Summary: Being oblivious to Luke’s feelings, you tried to get over him by getting a boyfriend, who just does not know how to treat you right. Inspired by the song ‘Boyfriend’ by Dove Cameron ~ “I could be a better boyfriend than him.” (jealous luke, friends-to-lovers, fluff, angst, pining, happy ending.)

Warning: Just the boyfriend being an asshole and unwanted physical touch for a split second, but nothing serious. Sorry if your name is Cole. Violence (physical fighting)

Note: I’m sorry if there are a lot of errors, I haven’t had the chance to edit this thoroughly so if it feels like a train wreck, then I'm sorry. I just needed to write this out, get it out there, so I can go back to revising for my exams in peace lol, cause this plot/idea has been at the back of my head, I could not stop thinking about it or study properly. Lowkey hated how this one turned out, but whoops.

Word count: 4.8k

“People say that eyes are the windows to one's soul,” you once told him. You two have been best friends for a very long time: five years of being attached to the hip. Yet, you were completely oblivious to the way he looked at you. Even everybody at camp noticed and thought it was bound to happen. They were so sure that Luke and you would end up together. So imagine everybody’s surprise when something else occurred.

It happened right in front of Luke: Cole - a boy from Cabin 5 and son of Ares - asked you out, and you said yes.

It has been two months since that day. All Luke could do was sulk as he watched his best friend slip away. Of course, you still tried to spend as much time as possible with him. But even then, things have changed. There were no more of those content silences between the two of you. There were no more carefree laughs that made Luke feel like you two were the only ones that existed in this place. He used to walk you back to your cabin every night, hugging you good night or kissing your forehead close to your hairline if he felt brave enough. Moments like those convinced him you two would be like that forever. But his solace was taken in a split second. Now, you were so near, yet so out of reach. 

It didn’t help that he saw you every day, like right now, as you sat in the middle of a gathering hosted by your cabin. Gods, even the wind seems to be in love with you, judging by the way it was blowing through your hair as if it was trying to twirl itself around those lovely locks that Luke himself used to always tug behind your ears. The sight of you always bathed him in this warm feeling, like the morning sun. Hence his nickname for you: sunshine. 

Then his brown eyes landed on the figure next to you, and they hardened. He has witnessed it all: Cole’s backhanded compliments, ignoring you on your birthday, leaving you alone to talk to his friends, occasionally flirting back with girls who batted an eyelash at him, and then blatantly telling you that you were overthinking it. Luke knew he could treat you so much better. 

You were sitting with your boyfriend and his group of friends, who often gave you weird looks or snickers. Gods, if it was him you were with, he’d never make you feel excluded. He would have his arms around you and defend you if his friends ever made snarky remarks. Not that that would ever happen anyway; you were well-loved at camp, and all his friends loved you. But he would treat you well, nevertheless, not like that dumbass sitting next to you.

One of your favorite songs started playing, and Luke watched as you genuinely smiled for once tonight. You touched your boyfriend’s arm, muttering something to him. Luke knew exactly what you were saying to Cole because you and Luke used to do this together. Except, you never had to ask Luke. 

Whenever your favorite tunes were on, Luke would immediately pull you out of your seat and dance with you, laughing as if nothing mattered at all. Nights like those, he liked to imagine that the stars above envied them and what the two of you had. Now? He felt like one of them, watching from the outside. 

Luke’s jaw clenched as he saw Cole shrugging off your hand on his arm. Gods, Luke felt like that idiot was taking you for granted, and his blood boiled. Before Cole, Luke used to always orchestrated some excuse to have you touch him - getting injured on purpose sometimes just to watch you frantically panic over his wounds and take care of him, volunteering to help you out with swords training just to touch your hand and pretend to adjust the way you were holding it, hugging you every time he greeted you and so on.

For a second, your mask slipped, and you had that look on your face, like something had left you emotionally wounded. It was the kind of look Luke would kill to never see again, and oh, the things he would do to get rid of Cole. Luke had to wrestle with the thought of marching up to Cole and beating him to a pulp. However, he did stand up to approach you.

You felt a hand touch your shoulder. When you peered at the person standing, your eyes immediately glimmered as they caught Luke’s. However, something foreign was gleaming in his eyes. The Hermes boy has always looked at you sweetly. But the way he was looking at you right now was filled with something much more intense - borderline fervent, like an obsession. 

Cole finally glanced over at you for the first time the entire night. Unlike you, he instantly recognized the look in Luke’s eyes: hunger and longing. It was clear as day to everybody but you.

Luke extended his hand out for you to take and you understood right away. For the first time in two months, your hand touched his. Luke’s chest sunk and his breathing lost its usual rhythm for a second as your skin made contact with his. The Hermes boy finally looked over to Cole, and the Ares boy saw an immediate shift in his eyes. Now, they were filled with animosity and - the most obvious of all - heated jealousy. 

Luke led you away from Cole and started twirling you around. You let out a laugh - the kind that was infectious and has always brought a smile to Luke’s lips. You both sang along to the lyrics. For once, your relationship felt restored, just like the good old days. Was it wrong that this was the happiest you have felt since you got together with Cole? You shrugged away the thought as the song slowly ended. Luke settled with both hands on your waist while yours were around his neck. Usually, you would put your head on his chest as you both slightly swayed around. But now that you were in a relationship, you kept a bit of distance between the two of you. You gaze up at Luke, who was already staring at you sweetly. The moment was perfect. Gods, you almost wished to stay in it forever.

Meanwhile, Luke hoped he could convey his thoughts through his eyes - the unspoken words he wished he had told you sooner. Could you not see the infatuation coursing through his veins whenever he was with you? Could you not see that you got him at your beck and call? 

The look you gave him almost convinced him that you heard his thoughts. You leaned your head on his chest, caught off-guard by the speed of his heartbeat as it soothed you along with the music in the background. Feeling a heated look over his way, Luke glanced around and locked eyes with your boyfriend. Cole narrowed his eyes while Luke gave Cole a look of resentment and immense loathing. 

Gods, he could be a much better boyfriend than Cole.

“Hey, man,” when you heard your boyfriend’s voice, you lifted your head from Luke’s chest and withdrew your hands around his neck. “I’ll take over from here,” Cole practically pulled you away from Luke and started swaying with you. Instead of feeling happy that Cole finally danced with you after two months of dating, you felt wrong. Cole's hands were on your waist, but they felt sluggish like his heart was not in it at all. Your ear was against Cole’s chest, so you caught the sound of his heartbeat. It sounded…too calm, almost cold and shallow, causing you to twist your lips into a frown.

You glanced up at your boyfriend but saw him staring behind you instead. So you glanced back and caught a glimpse of Luke before getting pulled around by Cole, who roughly yanked your face towards him. He kissed you almost aggressively. There was something cynical and bitter about the way he was kissing you. 

Cole opened his eyes and conceitedly made eye contact with Luke. The Hermes boy glared at the sight of Cole handling you so roughly, claiming your lips so smugly. If it was him, he would be kissing you for you; he would be kissing you to show you how much he worshiped you and the ground you walk on, not to prove an empty point.

You finally managed to pull away when Cole let go of your chin. “All right, we’re done for the night, don’t you think?” your boyfriend muttered, quickly leaving you to return to his friends as if nothing had happened. Despite feeling slightly aggravated at Cole, you hated that you couldn't care less of his words at that moment, and the first thing you did was look in the direction Luke had been before. 

Yet, he was not there anymore.

~~~

Your cabin was not on the same side as Luke’s cabin for this match of capture the flag. You were fighting off some people who were on the blue team. Years of training with Luke paid off because you managed to point your sword at the person’s neck and grinned when they put their hands up in surrender. You continued perusing through the area, trying to regroup with your team or take down another blue team member. However, you almost tripped as you witnessed Cole on the ground with Luke on top of him, repeatedly punching his face..

“Luke!” you called out, watching as Luke’s action faltered, and his eyes darted around frantically around like a lost wild animal. However, Cole took advantage of Luke’s momentary distraction to land a hit on Luke’s face. The Ares boy got off the ground as Luke stumbled and went for another punch. However, Luke dodged it effortlessly and rammed Cole against a tree instead.

“Hey, knock it off,” you yelled, standing between the boys to stop their flight. Luke immediately backed off, afraid he would accidentally hurt you if he didn’t. But Cole, in the middle of his blind rage, still swung for Luke and ended up striking you across the face instead. Right when that happened, Luke pushed Cole again and rushed to your side to assess your injury. At that very moment, Chiron approached the scene with one of Cole’s friends next to him, who promptly told the man:

“It was him. Luke initiated the fight.” 

~~~

Luke wished for somebody to put him out of this misery as he stared at you from afar helplessly. He was so dotted that it hurt. Somebody must have answered his prayers because your eyes met his from across the field. There was a bit of sadness behind them, perhaps regret from how things ended yesterday. You whispered something to your boyfriend, but Cole did not even spare you a glance and waved his hand as if dismissing you from the discussion. Luke’s hand once again curled into a fist. He bit the inside of his cheek from the pain induced by his injury. The Hermes cabin counselor felt no bit of guilt in his body about his physical altercation with Cole. He felt smug at the sight of Cole with one black eye, busted lip, swollen cheek and a body sporting way more bruises than him. 

You deserved better. 

“Hey, stranger,” you greeted, sitting beside Luke. Almost immediately, he hooked one finger under your chin, tilting your head lightly as if he was afraid he might break you. The boy scanned over your injury, sighing at the sight of purple forming under your skin, indicating an emerging bruise. Even so, under the moonlight, you still looked heavenly to him.

“Devon said you initiated the fight. Is that true, Luke?” Luke frowned at the mention of Cole’s friend. Great, now he knew another idiot’s name. Meanwhile, you have asked this because you knew him. There was no way the boy you knew would lose control like this and swing his hands first. 

“No, but what’s the point of telling Chiron that? It’s two against one,” he breathed out.

“Luke, you’re literally the friendliest and nicest counselor here. Of course, he would believe you,” you reasoned. You sighed disappointingly as Luke only shook his head in response as if asking you to drop it.

Now, you two sat in silence. It felt the same as the comforting ones you have had with him before - the ones that made you feel like you were at home in front of your fireplace, curled up with a book. 

“Why are you with him?” and with that, the comfort evaporated as the air thickened. You and Luke rarely argued or even disagreed, so it felt like an unfamiliar territory every time it felt relatively tense between you two. 

“I know you, which is why I know that you’re absolutely miserable with him, so I don’t understand why you’re still with Cole,” Luke commented, though his voice was quiet because he was considerate of drawing this type of attention to you. He had seen it before - Cole causing public altercations and storming off and you running after him with tears emerging from your eyes. He did not want to put you in the same position.

“Y/N, please, as your best friend…” there it was again, the word that used to make you smile brightly, was now the same one that brought you pain. You wanted more. “...You deserve better,” he uttered, his eyebrows slightly scrunched as he looked at you with those eyes. There it was again, the look so intense that you were convinced they could swallow you whole. Yet, you could not interpret them. So, you looked away.

“Luke…” you said his name almost like a warning sign. The boy sighed at this. 

His fingers gently tilted your chin towards him, urging you to face him. There was so much contrast in the way he touches you and the way Cole does. You knew precisely why Luke wanted you to look at him: your eyes were your tell for him. Years ago, after you told him that eyes were the windows to one's soul, he told you that he knew this already because he had learned that your eyes will always tell the truth for you. That’s how, in so many instances, he would be the first to notice whenever you're upset. 

“Y/N, does he make you happy?” you stiffened at the question. Words choked up in your throat as your mouth opened to answer. You wanted to say yes so you both could get over this conversation. But you knew he would be able to tell you were lying. The way he looked at you right now, as if you were the only thing that mattered. He seemed so vulnerable. Little did you right at this moment, Luke was willing to surrender and let you go if you said yes.

“Oh, this is who you left me to talk to?” Cole's voice broke you both out of the trance. “The person who beat your boyfriend?” Cole passive-aggressively spat, sneering from above as he looked down at the two of you. You called out to your boyfriend, but he quickly cut you off with a quick “Unbelievable,” before walking away. But Cole did this on purpose. He liked the attention he drew, even if they were at your expense, especially because he knew you would chase after him.

“I’m so sorry,” you muttered to Luke on your boyfriend's behalf as you stood up to run after him. Luke frowned as he shook his head. If you were his, he would never allow you to apologize on his behalf, nor would he give a reason for you to ever do that.

“Uhm, what are you waiting for?” Annabeth’s voice broke Luke from his irritated state. “Go after her,” the young girl nudged.

“I doubt I should do that, Annabeth. Last time I was with him, he ended up in the infirmary.”

“Yes, but you need to go after her before it’s too late.”

“It’s already too late.”

“No, it’s not,” the girl stated sternly, and when Luke peered over at her, he recognized the look on her face. From experience, he knew better than to doubt when Annabeth was right. So, he stood up and walked in the direction where you disappeared after your boyfriend.

“Stop it, Cole. I don’t want to…” Your voice grabbed Luke’s attention as he started walking in that direction, eyebrows furrowed.

“Come on, this is the least you could do to make it up to me,” Cole replied. 

When Luke reached the scene, he almost went into an uncontrollable wrath when he saw Cole trying to take off your shirt as you objected and struggled out of his grip. 

“I said ‘let go,’ Cole,” you yelled this time, pushing him back. Upon finally doing so successfully, a figure stormed past you and immediately flung at Cole’s cheek, right at the spot that was already bruising. The impact knocked Cole to the ground as he wailed from the pain. Averting your gaze to the person, you saw Luke. Like a deranged bull, Luke grabbed Cole by the collar and lifted him up, going in for another hit, but you quickly stopped him, calling out his name.

Cole, who did not learn his lesson, spoke again, “Gods, of course! He runs to your aid again. You must be a good fuck for him to get this attached. How many times have you fucked him, huh? Gods, you’re such a whore, you know that?” If it were not for your hands stopping Luke and removing his grip from Cole’ shirt, Luke would have ensured Cole no longer had a face. 

“Cole, stay the fuck away from me. We are over.” Your words seemed to affect Luke more than Cole. It was as if Luke could feel an immense weight being lifted from his shoulders. “Let’s go, this is not worth it,” you told Luke. Cole barked a laugh at this.

“Man, you’re more trouble than it's worth. Do you know why no guys ever asked you out? You’re fucking difficult and clingy, that’s why. If it was not for that fucking bet, I would not have either.” Luke was about to launch at Cole but was caught off guard because you had already done it yourself. You punched him, aiming for his nose and teeth, making sure to break a few.

“You fucking bitch!” Cole spoke after he howled in agony. He spat out blood as his nose started bleeding, “Gods, you’re gonna pay for this.”

“Oh yeah? Come on!” you challenged him, motioning him to come over. Any sense of calm or restraint you had was long gone. “I’ll be the one sending you to the fucking infirmary this time,” right when you started approaching Cole again, you were quickly stopped by Luke. He stood behind you, one of his hands soothingly rubbing your back in an attempt to calm you down. Luke averted his gaze to Cole.

“If you know any better, then leave, Cole. And don’t come near any of us again, or I promise you…” Luke trailed off, shaking his head as his eyes bore the weight of the promise he left unsaid, leaving it to Cole’s imagination as to what Luke would ever do to him if he ever saw the boy again. Something seemed to dawn on Cole as he saw the dark look on Luke’s face. Cole finally decided to leave the scene, limping away from the area as he muttered some insults under his breath.

You turned around and inspected Luke’s hand, which started bleeding again through the bandage. Taking his non-injured hand in yours, you wordlessly dragged the boy to the infirmary. Despite the excruciating pain spreading through his injured hand, Luke blushed at your action and followed you like a lost puppy.

The Apollo person on shift was someone you knew, so you managed to convince them to let you do the work on the Hermes boy. You observed his hand again, peeling off the dirty bandage from it. As you went to grab disinfectant, Luke softly held you back by flipped over his hand that was in yours so that he could take a look at your hand instead.

“Are you okay?” His words made you swiftly look over at him instead. There was a sad look on his face as he sat on the infirmary bed. You haven’t seen him this hurt and dejected in a long time.

“Am I okay? You’re the one with the bleeding hand.”

“You punched him quite hard.”

“He deserved it,” you settled on answering, hesitantly pulling your hand out of his so you could grab the things you needed. 

“You know I had that handled, right?” you asked mindlessly, trying to fill the silence as you disinfected his hand and wrapped a new bandage over it. “I don’t need you to defend my honor or anything, Luke. I can hold my own ground,” you tried joking.

“No, I know you can hold your own ground. Besides, I wasn’t defending your honor,” he spoke softly, watching as you delicately held his hand with so much care. He wished you could hold him like that as well. A quivering sigh escaped his soft lips, his voice much less firm than he wanted it to be: 

“I was defending the girl I’m in love with.”

You immediately looked at him, only to see him already gazing up at you. It was as if a blindfold had been taken off, you finally understood what your other friends were referring to when they said that Luke had always “looked” at you. His eyes were filled with adoration. However, this time, they were also decorated with pain.

“I could be a better boyfriend than him,” he stated, almost like it was a fact, and your gut knew it was true, too. 

“So….Why not me? I watched you give Cole - a complete asshole - a chance with you. I watched him give you so much less than what you deserve. It pains me, but I still sit here and wait for you to look in my direction for even one second in the way I have always looked at you. I could be so good to you, Y/N. I waited for you to realize I could be the one who loves you so endlessly and treats you way better than all these guys combined. So…why? Please tell me why and put me out of my misery. Why is it not me?”

“Luke…” you rasped out his name. Despite the pain he was in, his heart could not help but throb for a second as it yearned for the sound of your voice calling out to him again. He almost scowled at himself for the way he was reacting to you. Gods, you managed to unravel him through the sound of his name from your lips. He hesitated for a second, wondering if he would even be able to take it at all - if he was given a chance with you. Would he be able to handle the way your skin felt against his, or would his heart burst into unstoppable flames? Would he ever be able to move on if you ended up breaking his heart, or would it remain in scattered pieces of you?

“I love you,” he uttered so effortlessly, which almost convinced you he had said it a thousand times before. In a way, he did, but only in his mind after every time he bid you goodnight. Gods, never did you think he’d say it out loud and put it out there. You almost said it before as well - out loud to the universe, but never brave enough.

“Luke, I never knew,” Luke wanted to sigh as he looked away from you. For the first time ever, he did not want to be vulnerable and let you see his eyes. The same ones that had been looking longingly at you for the past five years, and you were too blinded to see.

He could have sworn that he had been laying it on thick for the past years - all the touches, the looks, his actions. Luke would always linger near you and select you first every time he had to go on a quest. And if he ever were selected to go on one without you, the first thing he would do after returning is wrap his arms around your waist as he pulled you into a hug, breathing in your presence like it would bring him back to life from the gruesome battles he had to go through while out of camp. Did all those actions throughout five years not show you enough that he was infatuated with you? He wanted to reassure you that what Cole said previously was not true. Many guys wanted you but never asked you out because they knew he would be first in line no matter what. 

"Luke, please, look at me," Of course he obeyed. His eyes met yours - the ones he always tried to find in a crowd of demigods.

“I never knew that you were an option. I did not know that I could choose you. I thought that even attempting to tell you about my feelings would break our friendship forever. I didn’t know you felt this way, too. In fact,” you dryly chuckled. “I was giving Cole a chance because I was trying to move on from you.” Luke tugged you closer to him, his fingers lingering on your hips. Thousands of thoughts speared through him as he tried to collect himself. A glimmer of hope presented itself as his mind toyed with the idea of you wanting him too.There was no way he was letting you move on now, not when you both have mutual feelings. 

“I thought I was deep in the friend zone. Did you not see all the moves I pulled on you?” he asked.

“What moves?”

“Uhm—the physical contact?”

“I thought you were just touchy.”

“I walked you back to your cabin every night!”

“Well, I thought it was just a best friend thing?”

“The first thing I do after every quest is search for you, you’re always the first one I want to see.”

“I really, really thought it was because you were my best friend.” He groaned at all of your responses.

“But do know, Luke. You have always been my first option in everything. And I would have chosen you again and again, the first pick every round…if I knew you were up for it.” He groaned again, but this time out of temptation and satisfaction. He didn’t think the metaphorical butterflies were real. He slowly but surely stood up from the infirmary’s bed and wrapped his arms around your waist. You reciprocated, your hands around his neck. He leaned closer to you and gulped. He wanted to say the right words, do the right things and not mess this up. He took a deep breath and finally settled on what to say next.

“Can I kiss you?” He muttered in a low, raspy voice with a restrained manner, as if he was holding himself back. Five years of pining led him to this point. You almost melted at the sound of his voice.

“Kiss me, Luke.”

And he did. He pulled you up and arched down, connecting your lips together. He dove in as if he had been waiting for this day his whole life. He felt every breath knocked out of his lungs. He sunk himself into this moment like he was living for it rather than in it. He kissed you as if it was the only time he could and as if you would evaporate if he stopped. His hands moved to your face to embrace your cheeks in his palm.

You started moving your hands up his head and played with his curly hair. You tugged it slightly, and the action drew a moan from Luke. The sound caused you to break away. It made you flustered that you had evoked such an alluring sound from the Hermes boy. 

“I wanna go slow for you, I really do. But it feels like I’ve been waiting for so long. I want to be a gentleman and not skip steps. But I can’t wait anymore,” he whispered before whimpering against your lips, “please be mine.”

He went in for another kiss again, but you pulled away. His heart clenched at this. The boy bit his lip and wanted to scowl at himself for attempting to speed things up. He was too greedy and wanted things too quickly for you. He almost whined at the thought of losing the chance he barely had.

“That was not a question, Luke. Ask me, and I’ll give you an answer,” he stared into your eyes, and it almost set him on fire. He never saw that much passion in them before. It almost matched his, and that made his heart fasten again.

“Will you be mine, sunshine?”

“Yes, Luke. As long as you’re mine too.”

“I have always been yours.”

——————————

masterlist

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[lobautumny]

So like, the Reddit strike going on right now, yeah? I've been seeing a lot of people comment on how they appreciate the protest and then go on to say that this has the notable downside of them constantly looking up questions and not being able to easily find the answers because all of the easily-findable answers are exclusively on Reddit. I am not sure if most of the people making this observation are within the line of thought of "man, maybe this protest isn't such a good idea after all" or "man, it really sucks that we've let the internet get so consolidated," and I'm really hoping its the latter.

Like, all of this? This right here? Reddit making a shitty, anti-consumer grab for money and control over how people are allowed to access the information on their servers, and the website going dark in protest causing tons of people to not be able to access important information? This is exactly what people mean when they say that it's bad that the internet has shrunk down so much and is mostly comprised of, like, 10 websites. It's a fucking problem that one company making one bad decision and causing their website to crash and burn can jeopardize so much of humanity's cumulative information.

This two-day glimpse into the internet without Reddit is the warning shot. Imagine what will happen if Reddit actually goes down for good for one reason or another one day. Imagine what will happen if/when Discord or Fandom bites the dust, or gets rendered practically-unusable without paying an ever-increasing premium because they're owned by blood-sucking corporate leeches.

Another big thing is Twitter clamping down really hard on your ability to DM people if you don't have Twitter Blue. If this goes through, it'll put a ton of artists and sex workers who rely on Twitter DMs for their business operation into a shitty situation. Now, obviously, it's not gonna be the end of the world for them, but once again, it feels like a warning shot to me. Twitter is a sinking ship, and unless something changes and it starts to course-correct, I worry that it'll go under and all of the creators who rely on it will suddenly be in an extremely precarious situation.

These are the sorts of things that we, as the users of the internet, need to seriously think about as time goes on, and if we don't find an adequate answer sooner, we're going to pay for it later. I still hold that the best solution is to start making and using more individual, niche websites. Things like Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. have their place, of course, but I seriously think a lot was lost through the death of things like individual forums and the existence of many different wiki-hosting sites.

We need a concerted effort, not just on the side of larger creators, but on the users themselves, to stop exclusively using these larger websites and support the creation and growth of smaller, more niche websites, and prevent a catastrophe before it actually happens. I simply hope that people with larger platforms than my own pick up on all this and start talking about it and swaying people to act sooner rather than later. I know it's possible to correct the problem of the mysteriously tiny internet before a modern Library of Alexandria moment happens, I just don't know if that correction will actually happen in time.

[cainsau]

A Game of Updog || The Boys Imagine

(Platonic) Soldier Boy x GN!Reader Featuring: Butcher, Hughie

Summary: Set in S3E7. The car ride to Mindstorm is too quiet for your liking. You decide to spice things up by trying out the updog trick on good ol' Soldier Boy.

Warning: None, just silly stuff

"Do you smell that?"

Soldier Boy, who's sitting next to you in the passenger seat, looks at you weird and starts smelling the car, "What?"

Hughie does the same in the front seat, "I don't smell anything."

"Really? 'Cause it smells a lot like updog in here."

Hughie manages to keep himself from smiling, not that you can see it, but he knows exactly what you're trying to do and will not mess it up for you. Soldier Boy, on the other hand, squints at you in confusion, "What's-"

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Butcher interrupts, also aware of your trick, and is trying to stop it. "We are NOT on a fucking road trip to the Dolomites. Can i just have a tiny bit of peace while i'm driving?"

Soldier Boy raises his eyebrows at Butcher. He seemed fine with you and Soldier Boy talking just an hour ago.

"Sorry," you tell him, "It's just... i'm bored, and the car smells like updog."

There it is again, the word he doesn't understand. Hughie was kind enough to explain new words like bluetooth and internet, so maybe this is another new thing... or it's a sensitive topic to Butcher, judging by how aggressively he reacted. Soldier Boy opens his mouth to speak, but Butcher beat him to it again.

"Fine!" Butcher rolls his eyes, "If you can't shut up, why don't we talk about Mindstorm, hm?"

"Okay." You sigh, leaning back into your seat, then turns to face Soldier Boy. "Do tell us about him."

"Well, he can read your mind." He says, matter-of-factly.

You look at him, waiting for him to continue, but he doesn't say anything else. "Is that it?" You ask.

"What, don't you know him?"

"Nope," You shake your head, "I don't know much about him, or you, or any of Payback to be honest."

Soldier Boy seems surprised. He thought that his former team was popular. Perhaps the times have changed and the younger people are no longer taught about the predecessors of The Seven.

"Oh, but it's because i used to be indifferent about these things, not because you're not famous." You assure him. "You heard it yourself, the things Homelander say about you."

"Right. Anyway," He shrugs it off, "Mindstorm can get inside your head too, so don't look him in the eye."

"Where am i supposed to look, then?"

"Anywhere but his eyes." He answers with a cheeky smile.

"Okay."

"And he's also kinda strong."

"Is he as strong as updog?"

"What's updog?"

"I don't know, what's up with you?"

Finally! The moment you've been waiting for! Your eyes sparkle with delight as you grin from ear to ear, celebrating the success of your little game.

Soldier Boy only stares at you, eyes furrowed and speechless, trying to process what just happened. Hughie is looking outside the window, failing to hide a little laughter. Next to him, Butcher groans loudly, mumbling curses under his breath.

[jude5bellingham]

post to story ౨ৎ jude bellingham

pairing: jude bellingham x f!reader

summary: when attempting to document a trip to madrid becomes a soft launch.

warnings & notes : reader has something already established with jude, is good friends with jobe, and other people in jude's circle. in my head i imagine that the set of stories are spread out throughout the day or week!! also sorry the plot is so loose 😔

yourusername added to their story!

💌 judebellingham has replied to your story:

when did you get here

why didn't you say anything

are you still out?

yourusername

yeah

see you in 10

you know where i am bellingham

judebellingham

you're the worst

i'll be there in 5

💌 gioareyna has replied to your story:

ain't no way

yourusername

no hello? hi ??

a waving emoji would've been enough too tbh

gioareyna

yeah you don't deserve that rn

don't do anything i wouldn't do

yourusername

not exactly sure what that means but

thanks dad

gioreyna reacted 👎🏻 to a message

💌 jobebellingham has replied to your story:

the dots...

yourusername

there are no dots

jobebellingham

if you say so..

yourusername added to their story!

💌 jobebellingham has replied to your story:

looks an awful lot like my brother

yourusername

blehhhhh

jobebellingham

you're the worst

yourusername

and you sound just like your brother

jobebellingham

oh! you're definitely the worst!

💌 camavinga has replied to your story:

no need to tease us

we know who

yourusername

teasing is my specialty

camavinga

keep that between you and jude

yourusername

who said it was jude 🤨.

camavinga

yeah ok 😂😂😂😂

yourusername reacted 👎🏻 to a message

💌 judebellingham has replied to your story:

your song choice is making it seem like i'm some whore

yourusername

...

judebellingham

wow

i see how it is mate

yourusername

no need to mate me now

judebellingham

?

pretty sure you'd like that

yourusername

i think that's more than enough out of you jude

judebellingham reacted 🤐 to a message

yourusername added to their story!

💌 trentarnold66 has replied to your story:

tell me the lad put on a good show at least

yourusername

not better than you

trentarnold66

obviously not better than me

yourusername reacted 😂 to a message

but still

💌 jobebellingham has replied to your story:

HELLO??? THEYVE CONNECTED??

yourusername

what are you talking about

jobebellingham

THE DOTS

yourusername

STOP.

jobebellingham

i knew it...

yourusername

my turn now

you're the worst

jobebellingham

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

yourusername reacted 👎🏻 to a message

💌 judebellingham has replied to your story:

didn't know you were in the stands

why didn't you tell me you wanted to watch

yourusername

didn't want you offering me the same seats you give every other girl

or the goal dedication

judebellingham

bit presumptuous of you

who says i would've offered you seats

or dedicated my goal to you

yourusername

oh?

you wouldn't have?

judebellingham

of course i would've

would've written your name on my undershirt

blown a kiss and everything

yourusername

same treatment every other girl gets?

judebellingham has reacted 👎🏻 to a message

judebellingham

there aren't any other girls

yourusername

that's not what a certain someone said 🤐

judebellingham

i'm killing jobe

yourusername

just kidding

your mother got me that seat

judebellingham

i told her to do it

yourusername

yeah sure

good job today brum boy

judebellingham

me when they say good boy 😝

yourusername

I DID NOT SAY GOOD BOY

judebellingham

you did now 🤤🤤🤤

yourusername

you are SICK.

judebellingham

sooo... see you at 5?

yourusername

can i say no?

judebellingham

no

yourusername

🙄🙄🙄 see you at 5 then i guess

judebellingham reacted 😁 to a message

yourusername added to their story!

💌 camavinga has replied to your story:

kiss already

yourusername

EDUARDO.

camavinga reacted 😂 to a message

💌 jobebellingham has replied to your story:

your plausible deniability is running out btw...

yourusername

no it's not

innocent until proven guilty actually

jobebellingham

mum said you stayed over

yourusername

ON THE COUCH

jobebellingham

WITH JUDE

yourusername

you know what

i'm not arguing with you jobe

jobebellingham

cause you would lose

yourusername

no

jobebellingham reacted 👎🏻 to a message

jobebellingham

why can't you guys just give it up

it's not like you have to tell the world

but you don't have to lie to me

yourusername

...

it's cause me and your brother aren't anything jobe

jobebellingham

GIVE IT UP ALREADY

yourusername

i'm serious jobe

we haven't talked about it

jobebellingham

so you went all the way to madrid to see a guy who won't ask you out officially

yourusername

not just any guy 🙄

he's your brother

ALSO I DID NOT GOT TO MADRID JUST FOR THAT

jobebellingham

he's just another guy if he won't ask you out officially yn

he is my brother but stand up ☝🏻😀

yourusername reacted 👎🏻 to a message

yourusername

...

can you stop being real with me jobe what the flip

FINE

i will start the conversation

jobebellingham reacted 🙏 to a message

1:27 AM

jude

yn

uhhhhh

??

grrrrrrrrrr

you alright?

AHHHHHHHH

AHHHHH

why are we screaming

jude you know i like you right

i like you too yn

what is happening

jude what are we

oh wow

yn you are ruining it

oh

NO

that came out so horrifically wrong

i'm so sorry

what i meant to say is

i have dinner reservations for 2 at 6pm

and you just spoiled your own surprise

ohh

nice save jude

🙄🙄.

fine

yn you make me really happy

and i hate that i haven't brought this up earlier

would you let me be your boyfriend

weeeeeee

okay now you're ruining it

i'll see you at 6 mate

wow...

yourusername added to their story!

♫ The Daughters of Eve ⠂Hey Lover

💌 camavinga has replied to your story:

so can you finally admit it was jude

yourusername

🙄🙄.

camavinga

have fun tonight 😉😏😏

yourusername

EDUARDO CAMVINGA.

camavinga reacted 😂 to a message

camavinga

i didn't say anything 🤔🤔

yourusername reacted 😒 to a message

💌 jobebellingham has replied to your story:

did he ask you out

yourusername

yes...

jobebellingham

are you guys together now

yourusername

yes...

jobebellingham

so the dots connected

yourusername

yeah...

jobebellingham

go ahead

yourusername

you're the best jobe

jobebellingham reacted 😼 to a message

💌 gioareyna has replied to your story:

did you never see that clip dortmund posted

yourusername

which one

gioareyna

who wouldn't you let date your sister

yourusername

... i saw it

gioareyna

congrats though

he's yours to deal with now

yourusername

i'm sure you could steal him back anytime

gioareyna

let me know if he's too much for you to handle

i'll take him off your hands

yourusername 😳 reacted to a message

💌 judebellingham has replied to your story:

really?

the last story was unnecessary i think

yourusername

yeah he's a little odd looking

but he's my boyfriend

judebellingham

...

yourusername

speechless?

judebellingham

i have a bad feeling this is just the beginning

yourusername

of our relationship 💔💔?

judebellingham

no

good feeling about that

bad feeling about

your future story posts...

yourusername

yeah you're probably right

don't get caught lacking now mate

judebellingham

again with the mate...

can you go back to calling me your odd looking boyfriend

yourusername

alright

if that's what you prefer mr. odd looking boyfriend

judebellingham reacted 🙃 to a message

yourusername added to their story!

💌 jobebellingham has replied to your story:

wow this is brutal

💌 gioareyna has replied to your story:

oh he is not living this down

💌 camavinga has replied to your story:

poor jude

💌 trentarnold66 has replied to your story:

give the lad a break

💌 judebellingham has replied to your story:

this is just cruel

and evil

and mean

and

:(

yourusername

isn't my boyfriend just the cutest lil guy ever?

judebellingham

well if you put it that way...

yeah

yourusername

great! so it's staying up

i'm gonna add it to my highlights too

judebellingham

you evil woman...

yourusername

tagged judebellingham

liked by judebellingham, jobebellingham, and 201 others

yourusername silly strange odd boyfriend making silly strange odd faces on our silly one year anniversary 🤍

view all 60 comments

camavinga he never learns does he 🤦‍♂️

yourusername nope!

jobebellingham he's finally moved up to feed post 🥳

yourusername yep! 🥳

judebellingham WHY DID YOU POST THEM IN THAT ORDER

yourusername wdym

judebellingham why didn't you post the normal one first

yourusername cause that is least representative of my boyfriend duh..

judebellingham ...

judebellingham one day i will get you back for this...

yourusername never🥸

judebellingham one of many years to come 🫶🏽

yourusername almost makes me feel bad for the order of the pictures

yourusername jk

yourusername 🤍🤍

judebellingham yeah 🙄 love you too🤍🤍

yourusername thanks mate 🤍🤍

judebellingham ...

[heartiis]

the big apple ꩜ .ᐟ pt.1

pt.2

pairing - ellie x reader

synopsis - you've just moved to nyc and ellie's your new neighbor. she hates you though and you don't know why :((

cw - mean ellie, eventual side gig dealer ellie, eventual weed, eventual tattoo artist ellie, cigs, drinking, no smut this time but there will be eventually, swearing, reader is feminine, descriptions of outfits, uhh can't think of what else I'm new to this

a/n - this is my first fanfic and english isn't my first language so yea !! there's going to be multiple parts, I'm not sure how many yet. I hope u like it. lots of wish fulfillment here bc I'm not american and would love to live in nyc. I tried to imagine what ellie, jesse and dina would be like irl but I also just did what I wanted to do loll

Your new apartment in New York was dingy, run down and just the slightest bit smelly. But that didn’t matter. You loved it because it was yours, just yours. You were going to pay the rent and everything, and you already had a job at a coffee shop lined up for when your savings ran out.

Then there was the matter of the neighbor. You see, very often, the smell of weed crept under their doorway and made it’s way into your apartment, and into your nose. It wasn’t that you hated it. No, unfortunately for you, you loved it. You wanted so desperately to know who it was that was stinking up your apartment, and what they must be doing every time they got high.

Did they listen to music, the same kind you did? Or did they just lay there, thinking about life? Where they talking to someone? Touching someone…?

You wouldn’t be so nosy, you imagined, if you had your own weed. But moving to a city where you knew no one was complicated. Finding a plug was complicated, even if it was in New York, and it would be great if you could befriend your neighbor and ask them for a referral.

Your question about what they looked like was suddenly answered when you came out on Monday morning for your first official shift at the coffee shop. On that day, your neighbor who you’d never seen before just happened to leave their apartment at the same time as you, and as soon as you saw her, you were struck by how hot she was.

Dressed in baggy, stylish clothes, with auburn hair cut to her shoulders and tied back in a haphazard bun, she was your idea of walking sex. The place you’d be working at didn’t have a uniform except for an apron with its logo, and suddenly you felt sheepish in your dainty goodwill floral dress and sneakers.

Everyone in New York was so cool, with studded belts and graphic tees from bands you obviously wouldn’t know, that your style which had suited you so well living in your small hometown now felt boring. You’d run away to the big apple to be where the action was, to meet cool people and live a full life. But it was growing increasingly clear to you that maybe those people wouldn’t be as eager to meet you.

You turned your head to look at your neighbor, who was exactly the type of person you’d envisioned would be a part of your new amazing life. She had freckles all over her nose and cheeks, creeping down her neck. And she had a beautiful tattoo on her arm. A tattoo! The grand majority of people in your hometown were too conservative to have those, even the young ones. You found yourself wanting to trace it with your fingers…

You realized you were staring, and tried to snap yourself back to reality. Work. You were in the elevator because you needed to go to work.

You straightened up as the elevator bell dinged, then started to walk out—and tripped. The stupid old machine had stopped just below floor level, making it so that you had to step up a bit as if climbing stairs, which you hadn’t done.

Right in front of your extremely hot, extremely-your-type-neighbor. Except it didn’t matter, did it? You didn’t want a complicated relationship with your neighbor (not that you had any confidence she’d be interested in you like that) and there were so many other hot women in New York.

But when you looked back, she was smirking, and it was the sexiest thing ever. So it did matter, a lot.

At least you’d managed not to fall.

You tried to gain back composure, laughing slightly so it was less awkward. But she just kept that same shit-eating grin on her face. Then she scoffed. Actually scoffed. Goddamn. What made it worse was that her distaste for you only made her hotter, more desirable, in your eyes. You were screwed.

You realized you weren’t moving when she walked past you with her hand reaching into her back pocket. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and did not look back at you as she walked out of the building. You wondered were she was going.

The rest of your day was anxiety inducing. You felt a growing swarm of nerves in your stomach as you were introduced to your co-workers and taught the ropes of your job. You were just thankful they didn’t have you dealing with clients yet. During the early hours of your shift, there had been a steady line at the cash register full of all kinds of people, some of them nice and patient, others not so much. You’d clearly chosen a busy spot to work in.

Then again, wasn’t that most places in New York? You smiled to yourself. Things were indeed nerve-racking, but they were also so very exciting.

As the week went on, you began to settle into the motions of your job. Making more complicated drinks was still very hard, but there were simpler manual tasks you would do were you didn’t have to think much about what your body was doing. And in those quieter moments, your mind would wander to that elevator, and the embarrassing moment you’d had.

After the inner panic at the thought of it would fade, you’d think about your neighbor. You wondered what her life was like here. What she did for a living, what her weekends looked like, if she participated in the nightlife of the city you had no friends to explore with yet. You wanted to know her name, and who her friends were, and if she had a girlfriend (because you were pretty damn sure she liked girls). But unluckily for you, you received very little hints.

After that first day on Monday, you hadn’t seen her in the mornings, nor in the afternoons when you came back home. All you had of her were those moments where the slight smell of weed rose up in your apartment, making you wish you could just knock on her door and join in on the smoke sesh.

Then Friday night came. You were spent from your busy first week and decided to stop by the supermarket on the way home to get yourself some cheap wine and a single wine glass.

It was a warm summer night, so you sat on the fire escape window in your little pajama shorts and tank top, setting down the things you’d bought next to you. You’d already opened the wine, so you poured it in the glass and took to sipping. When the first glass was done you poured yourself another, already starting to feel a little tipsy. You had just begun to drink it when you heard the sound of your neighbor’s window roll up, accompanied with a man’s laughter.

He stepped out onto the fire escape with a beer bottle and leaned against the railing. He wore clothes with a similar, baggy style to your neighbor’s. Then came out a pretty girl with dark hair pulled into a ponytail and heeled black leather boots.

“Come on, slowpoke!” she said, extending a hand.

“Alright, alright I’m coming! I was just checking my phone.” Your neighbor grabbed the girl’s hand and stepped onto the fire escape.

Girlfriend? You thought, feeling like you were deflating.

“You got a message from one of your little fuck buddies?” The girl teased.

Not a girlfriend. Oh, and your neighbor had fuck buddies. You found it kind of hot, of course. Because you were always into the girls who might as well be walking around with the word “danger” written onto their foreheads. It also did makes you feel a little weird, because you knew she wouldn’t fuck you, and even if she did, you’d just be a fuck buddy. But what did it matter? It wasn’t like you even knew her enough to be able to want anything more. Still, you felt weird.

“Clients, actually,” she responded.

“Yeah, Dina, you think Ellie would even deign to give any of those girls her number?”

So, her name was Ellie.

“Asshole,” Ellie said as Dina laughed.

Your time spent staring at her was cut short when she noticed your presence, looking directly at you. You couldn’t help but notice her grin slide right off her face. You picked up the wine glass and tasted the drink nervously.

“Hey!” The guy said, with a bright smile on his mouth. “You must be the new neighbor.”

“Yeah,” you said, hesitating. You watched Ellie’s reaction to this closely. She seemed annoyed her friend was even making conversation with you.

“Much cuter than the last one,” Dina smiled. You smiled back softly.

“Well, it’s not really hard to compete with Stinky Steve,” Ellie said, and your smile faded.

“Dude.” The guy shot her a look. “Anyways, my name’s Jesse. I’m Ellie’s friend.”

“Nice to meet you. My name’s y/n.”

“So,” Dina cut in. “Are you living alone or have you got a roomate that’s cute like you?”

“Um, I’m living alone. I’m new to the city, actually, so I don’t really know anybody yet.”

Jesse leaned onto the railing closest to your side. “Well, you know us now.” He looked at Dina and Ellie, taking a swig of his beer. “You know what? We actually came here to pre-game. We’re going to this club in like an hour, if you want to come with.”

“Jesse.” Ellie looked like she wanted to deck him.

“What? She seems cool!”

“Yeah, Ellie, don’t be such a dick. Be nice to your neighbor.” Dina poked her. Ellie didn’t say anything else, just sat down on the window ledge and looked brooding.

“So, what do you say y/n?”

You thought about it. Maybe the wine was making you more confident, but you kind of wanted to say yes. Not just because you wanted to get closer to Ellie, but because Dina and Jesse seemed cool too, and you really wanted to go out partying in the city. You looked at Ellie, who was staring off into the distance. You’d feel uncomfortable saying yes, knowing she clearly didn’t want you to go. But then you thought it wasn’t fair for her to keep you from making friends. It didn’t make sense for her to hate you so much. You hadn’t even done anything to her.

Yeah, fuck her.

“Okay. I’m just going to get ready while you guys pre-game, is that good?”

“Hell yeah!” Jesse clapped his hands. “Knock on our door when you’re ready.”

“My door,” Ellie interjected. You thought to yourself that you were going to find some other hot girl to dance with, so you could forget about your rude neighbor.

“Oh, one thing,” Jesse said. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen.”

“Same as Ellie! You got a fake id?”

Ellie scoffed. “Definitely not..” She said it under her breath, but you heard it anyways.

“Of course.” You smiled.

“Attagirl.”

Dina smiled and looked pointedly at Ellie.

You climbed inside your apartment, heading straight to your room. Your excitement was taken down a notch when you opened your closet. Jesse, Dina and Ellie were all wearing stylish clothes. Dina had on a hot club girl outfit, while Jesse and Ellie looked like attractive people you’d see at the skate park. They all looked like they’d be stopped by one of those tiktok street interviewers who would ask them to talk about their outfits. You thought about Ellie’s clothes. She was wearing jorts and a shirt with the sides cut out, revealing her Calvin Klein sports bra at the sides. You bit your lip, then shook your head, turning to the task at hand.

Your floral dresses were out of the question. You had a few basic crop tops and tanks which would do for a top, but you didn’t want something that would just do. You were a resident of New York City now, and you wanted to look the part. Then you remembered something. One of the coolest girl friends you had back in your hometown had given you a dress because you’d said you thought it was hot.

You sifted through your things and fished it out. It was a simple black dress with thin straps, but it was quite short and meant to cling onto your body. You’d never worn it before, in part because you hadn’t had many occasions for it, and also in part because you were worried you’d feel self-conscious in it. Especially because it could easily ride up and expose your ass. Whatever. You took out from your closet some tights you could wear underneath and called it a day.

You slipped it on and put on a few rings and your favorite necklace, then went back to the bathroom to put on some makeup. You put on lots of eyeliner and eyeshadow around your eyes, creating a sort of smokey eye look, then stepped back to look at yourself. Finally, you sprayed on some of your favorite perfume. Perfect. You smiled and walked out of your apartment, knocking on Ellie’s door.

Dina answered. “Oh, shit, you look hot.”

“Thanks.” You tilted your head, a little shy but happy.

Jesse came up next to Dina. “Ready to go?”

“Yup,” you replied.

pt.2

[il-miele-che-scrive]

Go for his brother part 2

Part 1 here

Part 3 here

username1 DOUBLE BETRAYAL 😭

↳username2 wdym bro wtf Arthur is just getting his karma, he CHEATED on Y/n with her best friend

↳username2 and Y/n only got with his brother after the breakup

username3 It's so crazy to me how not long ago Y/n was with Arthur at Charles' race and we could see them all lovey dovey and now she's with Charles 💀

username4 I hope they actually like each other and it's not just something Y/n schemed to get back at Arthur

↳username5 And even if it is, so what? Both Leclercs deserve this if she's doing it for the sake of revenge

username4 What did Charles ever do to you 😭 he's a literal pookie

username6 I am BEGGING to find out Arthur's reaction

username7 I wanna see this on Drive To Survive lmao

↳username8 The most interesting thing in the whole season lol

username9 Exactly! Men driving in circles? Nah, fuck that, give me family drama

yourusername The Art & The Artist

view all comments

charles_leclerc I took way more than these 2 pictures, should post them all

↳yourusername some would get me banned🤭

username1 MY OH MY

username2 What did she say 😐

username3 I'm jealous but haven't decided if I want him or her

username4 Arthur better not read this comment section (I hope he will)

francisca.cgomes Thanks for blessing my eyes 🫶

↳yourusername You're welcome bestie🫶

username4 it's so nice to see Y/n found a friend who won't steal her bf

username5 You can't be sure, it's Charles Leclerc we're talking about. You think he wouldn't go for his best friends' girlfriend who is now his own girlfriends' best friend after pulling what he's just pulled?

username4 ngl girl I got lost in whatever you're saying

yoursister In your iconic girl era ❤️

↳yourusername I slayed didn't I 💅

username6 Honestly guys I believe it's not just a revenge scheme

↳username5 What makes you think that?

username6 Given these pictures and the pictures from the gossip page they look pretty much happy to me, too happy for it to be fake

username5 Whatever you say, we'll see. They have to get tired of pretending one day

exbestfriend Glowing ✨🩷

↳yourusername 😐

↳francisca.cgomes 😐

↳yoursister 😐

↳charles_leclerc 😐

↳pierregasly 😐

↳georgerussell63 😐

↳carmenmmundt 😐

↳alex_albon 😐

↳lilymhe 😐

username7 Y/N AND HER COMMENT SECTION ARE ICONIC 😭

↳username8 I can't stop imagining them having a gc and she sent a screenshot of her ex best friend's comment like "you know what to do, guys" 🤣

username9 I just know Arthur is screaming crying throwing up because LOOK AT WHAT HE LOST

username10 Lol who's next? Toto Wolff?

arthur_leclerc My favorite love story is ours ❤️

view all comments

exbestfriend So happy we found each other ❤️❤️

username1 💀

username2 Alright they both have the audacity

username3 your love story is cheating on Y/n lmao

username4 Imagine they have a kid one day who'll ask mom dad how did you meet lol

↳username3 I'd be EMBARRASSED

username5 They deserve each other tbh

username6 Hey but... What if this pic and Y/n's pics were taken on the same day...

↳username7 wdym

username6 Arthur wanted to keep and eye on his ex and his brother from afar 😭

username7 it's terrible but possibly true lmao

exbestfriend I'm so sick of people judging us

↳username2 That's what you deserve, the both of you

↳username4 when actions have consequences:😮

yourusername Back at the paddock ❤️

view all comments

username1 At least she didn't downgrade right?

yoursister You guys look so good together

↳yourusername Thank you 🫶 ily

↳charles_leclerc Yes we do 😊

↳username2 Y/s/n never commented anything like this when Y/n used to post with Arthur😭

lilymhe It was nice catching up with you when the boys were playing

↳yourusername maybe next time you and Alex could come over so the boys can play some video games together

username3 Pls they're just two single mothers bonding over their toddlers being besties😭

username4 I NEED TO KNOW IF ARTHUR WAS THERE

↳username5 You crazy? Ofc he wouldn't have come, he's too scared of confrontation

username4 Okay but then what if one day Y/n and Charles get married? Will Arthur just skip his brother's wedding?

username5 I think some time will pass before Charles decides to settle down. And not with Y/n, that's for sure

username6 Why not? Y/n makes a much better couple with Charles than she did with Arthur

username5 Charles would never take her seriously lol she dated his brother, Charles is just having fun with her while letting her have her moment

arthur_leclerc Are you wearing the dress you wore on our first date?

↳username2 SHE'S WHAT?????

↳username3 wtf are u doing here

↳yourusername Maybe...

username4 Mother keeps slaying 😭👏

username7 I aspire to be like Y/n fr

alex_albon Lily said we should have a double date

↳yourusername Let's do it then @/lilymhe @/charles_leclerc when and where

arthur_leclerc I just wonder when will you get bored of this

↳yourusername Bored of what exactly? Going to races? You know I've always enjoyed looking at cars go vroooom

arthur_leclerc You know what I mean

arthur_leclerc Of pretending to like Charles just to prove me some delusional point

yourusername You really think I'd waste my energy on that? It's a funny coincidence indeed, but I do like him actually

arthur_leclerc Mhm sure I give you maybe 6 months more, can't keep pretending forever

charles_leclerc A family gathering & the morning after

view all comments

username1 OH GREAT HEAVENS

pierregasly Now that's something none of us expected

↳username2 bro speaking facts

username3 They said fuck you Arthur you'll get a proof we're not pretending😭

username4 Well at least the family already knew her

↳username5 Pascale liked Y/n so much she said girl you have my blessing no matter which one u marry

username3 Guys do you think Arthur was there? You know, it's a family gathering, so he had to be there, right?

alex_albon Charles settling down wasn't on my bingo card this year

↳lilymhe Neither was it on mine but I love it

francisca.cgomes Girl you realize there's no going back now? 😂

↳yourusername I hope so😜🫶

arthur_leclerc I still can't believe how disrespectful you both are

↳charles_leclerc Look who's speaking of being disrespectful

↳yourusername stfu arthur maman literally had to kick you out of the party

username3 The way it used to be "Thurthur" and now it's "stfu arthur" 😶

username2 at least the "maman" is the same right

username5 I feel like Pascale likes Y/n more than she likes Arthur

username7 wtf guys PASCALE HAD TO KICK ARTHUR OUT OF THE PARTY 😭😭

↳username8 That's crazy, imagine how's the wedding gonna look like

carlossainz55 Getting engaged after a few weeks? Is she pregnant?😂

↳username9 Not funny

username10 Chill that's just millennial humour from back when pregnancy outside marriage was a disgrace

↳charles_leclerc We've known each other long enough to make this decision 🫢

carlossainz55 Valid point

arthur_leclerc But for majority of this time she was my girlfriend

charles_leclerc On which you cheated

arthur_leclerc @/yourusername did you use me just to get to Charles? Was it your plan from the beginning?

↳yourusername Sure because I have nothing else to do lmao

↳yourusername We've talked about it yesterday arthur, don't start again

arthur_leclerc I just still can't believe Charles would do something like that to me

yourusername And half a year ago I believed you wouldn't have ever cheated on me

charles_leclerc I said it yesterday and I'll say it again, Arthur I will always love you as a brother, but you messed up big time, you can't be mad at us

[probablyaseamonster]

fuckimg beware the tags on this bitch I went OFF and it's kinda dark in there with the lights turned off iykwim

OK so I've been thinking.

(Nearly) everyone in the Captain Underpants fandom talks about Krupp finding out about that he turns into Captain Underpants and that he'd get pretty mad about it.

But does anyone talk about the opposite:

Captain Underpants finding out about him being horrible to kids and George and Harold as Krupp?

Like it'd be an interesting concept to play around with.

C.U would probably feel terrible for mistreating kids (let alone George and Harold) and would probably try to avoid water so that he doesn't turn back and mistreat them during school.

I'm pretty sure that Krupp would be steaming mad about finding out that he literally strips down to his underwear in order to be a superhero. (Not to mention taking his toupee off)

Idk, just the concept of the two finding out about each other is entertaining to me.

[pinkslavicdoll]

𝓑𝓮𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓓𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶 𝓖𝓲𝓻𝓵

｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ

everyone has their own definition of a dream girl - a girl who is simply everything we want or everything we want to be. i strongly believe that discipline and the law of assumption can help anyone become their own version of a dream girl. so why not just manifest that into your reality?

start by figuring out exactly what it means to be a dream girl to you.

what's her name? what does she do for a living? how much money does she make? what about her education? where does she live? what does she look like? what does her body look like? what kind of clothes does she wear? what kind of person is she? what does her morning routine look like? what does her day look like? what does her night routine look like? what are her hobbies and interests? how does she see the world and other people? how do other people see her? what are her goals in life? what kind of people does she surround herself with? what does she do in her free time?

now the most important thing is to answer those questions like you're talking about yourself. not "she is..." but "i am...". i suggest you write it down somewhere just so you can come back to it whenever you need it.

answer those questions and add whatever details you want your dream girl to have. please remember that this is the version of a girl who is perfect to YOU. don't feel like your answers have to be something that other people consider perfect, just describe the version of yourself who is truly happy with her life.

now that you know what a dream girl is to you, tell yourself that you are that girl. i don't wanna hear any "oh but she's rich and i'm not" or "oh but she's this and that and i'm not". no! she is you and you are her. if you can imagine it you can have it. think about what your life would look like if you were that girl. daydream, make plans, journal, create vision boards, do whatever that helps you be in the dream girl state. you are your dream girl, that's it. you look like her, you talk like her, you walk like her, you are her. no matter what shows up in your reality, that doesn't matter, you're becoming your dream girl and nothing and no one can stop you.

something that will definitely help with that is doing the things on your list that are possible for you right now. if your dream girl wakes up early and you know that it's possible for you then start waking up early as well. if your dream girl does yoga and you have enough time and are physically able to do it, start doing yoga. you don't have to start with extremely expensive products and routines, just whatever is possible for you right now. do whatever will help you stay in that state and the rest will simply come to you :)

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[purplesuitcowboy]

this is so long, my god but i love a sexy maid moment.

tw: rape (under negotiated kink and consent with coercion)

This job had not been Brittney's first choice. She'd been working at the restaurant one night when a man far to wealthy to be eating at an establishment as shitty as the place she worked had gotten her attention and slipped her his card. He'd told her that if she was ever interested in expanding her work opportunities and entering into a lucrative new field, she should give the number a call. At the time, she'd brushed off his proposition, thinking him a creep, but she never threw out his card. Of course, she'd gotten fired a week later for tardiness and after weeks of fruitless job hunting, she had re-evaluated his offer. Maybe, it wouldn't be that bad? He was pretty posh so she didn't imagine they have her doing hard labor outside or anything.

She checked her bank account and the minuscule balance helped her steel her nerves. She didn't have enough money to pay her rent this month. The leasing agency had been lenient with her thus far but she knew that eventually their patience with her late or missing or incomplete payments would wear out and she'd be out on the street. She'd called and found out that the number was for an agency that matched attractive young women with wealthy clients who needed extra assistance performing common household tasks. She'd asked the agent for more information but hadn't been able to get more out of them then vague statements about client confidentially.

She'd agreed and gone through the strangest application process she'd ever experienced. She'd never been asked to submit her measurements to a job before. She thought that maybe they just had specific uniform standards but she never received anything. The only pro about the whole thing, other then the pay check, was that it didn't take them long to match her with a client. She was sent an address, date, and time to arrive, and was told not to be late under any circumstances unless she wanted to be terminated immediately. This seemed like a lot for a job cleaning houses but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

That's how she'd managed to find herself in the swankiest building she'd ever been in on an elevator headed to the penthouse. The doors opened to a small hallway that lead to an ornate door with a gold door knocker in the shape of a lion. She knocked once and stood there in front of the door. Just how rich were these fucking people? She heard a series of locks being released and then the door opened, revealing a older man with salt and pepper hair, and strong jaw. He was obviously in great shape for his age, and she struggled to find the right place to look at him so she wasn't just shamelessly ogling her employer. He had a stern look about him and Brittney was happy that she wasn't late. She did not want to what he looked like when he was angry.

"Oh, uh. Hello, sir. I'm-", she started speaking quickly, trying to introduce herself but he cut her off.

"I know exactly who you are Brittney. Please come inside," he turned on his heel and briskly walked into the spacious apartment, not bothering to check and see if she was following behind him.

She squeaked in surprise and followed quickly behind him. The door immediately shut behind her and she heard a series of clicks as all of the locks fell back into place. It was the nicest apartment Brittney had ever seen. Everything was clean and white with the kind of modern minimalist furniture that only rich people liked. The best thing about the apartment was the windows. It had the best view of the city, that seemed to sprawl out like an ocean beneath them.

"We have much to discuss so why don't you get changed into your uniform and then we'll talk."

"Oh, I don't have a uniform. I thought the company was going to provide something but nothing ever came," she told him apologetically.

"I'd certainly hope not. We have a uniform for you here. It's in the other room there. It's based on your measurements so provided you did not lie, it should fit just fine."

Brittney looked at him baffled. She waited for him to provide more of an explanation but he did not so she walked into room to get changed. It was guest bedroom with an attached bathroom. Laid out on the bed was what looked like a slutty maid costume which was odd. She wandered around the room, looking for her uniform. Upon finding nothing, she poked her head out of the bedroom door.

"Excuse me, sir. I don't see my uniform," she told him.

"It should be on the bed," he told her, which would mean that the skimpy maid costume was her uniform.

"Oh, I'm sorry I can't wear that."

He looked at her for a moment with an expression on his face that seemed to communicate that he thought was was very stupid.

"Tell me, Brittney. Did you happen to read the contract before you signed it?"

Her face redden. She had looked at it but not very carefully. It just looked like a normal contract to her so she'd signed it without much thought.

"I see," he replied, voice cold." In the future, I would suggest you read contacts before you sign them and certainly before you show up at a clients house for a job. If you'd read it, you'd understand that employed in this capacity I own you - all of you. If you wish not to continue, please tell me now so I can send you on your way and we can stop wasting my time."

Her eyes widened as the reality of what she'd signed up for dawned on her. She'd figured that the job was weird but she didn't realize that it was going to be this. He was giving her an opportunity to leave and she should take it but she knew that if she did she could kiss her check good-bye.

"My apologies, sir. Please forgive me. I'll get changed right away."

She ducked back into the bedroom, closing the door gently behind her. She changed out of her clothes and into the skimpy costume. She'd original thought that it was one piece but it was actually three. It also came with a matching choker, tights, and high heels, as well as a little metal thing shaped like a tear drop with a heart shaped jewel on the end but Brittney couldn't figure what that was suppose to be for.

The top was something like a triangle bikini top with a matching shrug that only covered her shoulders. The triangles of the bikini top covered her nipples, which had come to points in the cool air and were visible under the thin fabric of the top, but little else. The skirt, which had a white apron sewed onto it, was equally immodest. It hugged her hips well but barely covered her shaved pussy. She'd looked around for underwear but found none. Brittney tried to pull her tiny skirt down to cover a bit more of her ass but it was in vain. She hoped that he wasn't going to have her picking anything up because she'd be completely exposed. With the addition of the accessories and shoes, she was (barely) dressed in her uniform. She walked back into the main room of the apartment where her client was waiting for her, holding the small metal object in her hand.

"I'm dressed, sir," she told. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to do with this though."

He walked around her in a circle, looking over her body appreciatively.

"It fits you well," he told her, taking the item from her hand. "Don't worry. I'll help you. Now, I am going to tell you about this job and you are going to listen. Today is going to be unlike your other days here. Consider it an introduction to the job."

He slide the item in his pocket and with his hand free, he grabbed Brittney by the waist and pulled her towards him. She stumbled forward, landing with her hands on his broad chest. He cupped her ass with his big hands, squeezing and kneading the soft flesh. Brittney gasped, at the sensation of his hands on her. This was bad. He was her boss, he shouldn't be touching her like this and she shouldn't be enjoying it. Despite her reluctance, she said nothing, afraid of pissing him off and losing her job.

"As I previously mentioned, while you work in this capacity, I own you and I mean this very literally," he told her, as he turned her so that her ass was pressed tightly against his thick cock. He ran his hands up and down her lithe body, groping her full tits and upper thighs.

"You are going to do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and who I tell you to do it with," he continued. With one hand, he freed her tits from the confines of her tiny top, teasing her sensitive nipples with his fingers, and the other, he sneaks between her legs to rub at her little pussy. He runs two thick fingers against her slit, coating them in her juices, and then plunging two of them inside of her. Brittney moans in response, hips bucking to take in more of his thick fingers.

"You will not talk back, and you will not make me repeat myself. Do I make myself clear?" When she doesn't respond quickly enough, he pulls his fingers out of her cunt and roughly spanks her pussy, earning a yelp of surprise from Brittney.

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," she replied, but she quickly learned that this was not the response that he was looking for as he delivered another series of slaps to her pussy.

"Not quite, try again," he told her, his hand hovering over her wet cunt ready to deliver another series of slaps if she fucked up.

"Yes, sir."

"Good, girl," he tells her and she shudder's at the praise. "Now, I am a firm master but I am not unfair. It is expected that you will make mistakes but you will be guided and corrected as needed."

He slips his fingers back into her waiting cunt, scissoring them to stretch out her hole and then adding a third finger, pumping them in and out roughly. While he fucked her with his fingers, he used his thumb to rub her tender clit until her legs began to tremble. He lets her get close to the edge but denies her, over and over again. To Brittney, it feels like her pleasure stretches into eternity. She has no conception of how long they have been standing here in his living room with his devilish fingers playing with her pussy. Letting go of her tit, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the object from before.

"This, my dear, is a butt plug and it is apart of your uniform. I expect you wear it whenever you are working in this capacity. I'm sure this seems daunting now but I'm sure you'll grow to love it."

He pulls his fingers out of her cunt and pushes the plug inside, coating it in her juices. Brittney whimpers at the sensation but offers up no resistance. Slowly, he fucks her with the plug until she's close to cumming but slips it out before she can. He carefully pushes the plug against the tight ring of her anus and watches with satisfaction as it stretches around the toy. Brittney groans as her ass is slowly stretched and filled by the unfamiliar object. With the body of the plug snugly in her ass, the only thing that can be seen is the twinkling heart shaped jewel between her ass cheeks.

"That's a good girl. I think, you've earned an orgasm."

With her ass filled by the plug, his thick fingers in her pussy and against her clit felt even more intense. She came with a scream, as her legs buckled and she sagged against her employer's broad chest. She'd never cum that hard before. She felt like she'd been shot into space.

"Now that you've cum, I think it's time that you show your appreciation, huh?" he told her, as he pushed her to her knees and pulled out his hard cock.

[sanguineterrain]

YES. BODYGUARD JASON TODD.

He's used to being looked over, just seen as meat & muscle (he doesn't mind, it's part of the job) but you're the first "job" who actually sees him, talks to him, makes him laugh 🫠 he doesn't know what he'll do if someone actually tries to put their hands on you 🙂

hiiii aud thank you for the scrumptious jaybird thoughts <3 so begins my bodyguard!Jason agenda!

bodyguard!jason todd x gn!reader. fluff, pining, and tension so thick you could cut it with a batarang.

All fics are reblogged to @sanguinelibrary

****

"Y'know, I think you just keep me around to carry your bags."

You grin over your shoulder where the Red Hood trails behind you, always five paces behind. Your takeout bag is in one hand, your new shirts in another. He wears a red mask over the lower half of his face, like always. Only seeing his eyes used to unnerve you, but now it's a comfort, finding his gaze in a crowd.

"That's not true. I also keep you around for something nice to look at," you say.

He tilts his head. Your belly flutters. "Flattery will get you nowhere, trouble."

"Flattery got me outside of my hotel, Red."

He sighs. "Tricking the hotel concierge doesn't count."

You laugh. "Sure it does. I think it does." You stick your arm out. "Will you walk next to me?"

"You know my rule."

"But you can easily cover me if you're next to me! And I'm so good at ducking. See?"

You duck and straighten a few times in a row to demonstrate. A few people stare. You ignore them. Hood's eyes crinkle in a way that tells you he's smiling.

"Mm, incredible technique. Wonder who taught you that. A ruggedly handsome bodyguard, perhaps?"

"Always hungry for the credit," you say. "Despicable."

"Ain't I?"

You turn around and stop. He stops five paces behind. You take a step forward. He takes a step back.

"I wanna see your face when we talk," you say, face pinched.

"Not in public, trouble. It's for your safety. You know that."

"Can't you come a little closer?"

None of your friends are like this with their personal guards. A moment from a friend's birthday party resurfaces.

It's almost like you'd rather be with him than us. You know he's just doing his job, right?

Hood stays exactly where he is. "This is the ideal spot for covering you. Now, c'mon. Thought you wanted to shop."

You sigh and let your arms flop to your sides. He must be nervous today. You can't imagine why.

"Fine. Be that way."

You hurry ahead. Hood doesn't lag behind. Stupid long-legged bodyguard.

"You can be mad at me as long as you stay safe," he says.

You turn again, about to really bitch about how strict he's being. But his proximity stops you short. He's inched closer, so close that you can properly see his eyes.

"This close enough for you?" he asks.

Hood's eyes are warm in the light, mossy and rich. His lashes and brows are dark and thick. Once or twice, you've seen a splash of freckles across his nose. The bridge of his nose is crooked like it's been broken one too many times.

Dear God, you yearn to know him.

Your stomach does more flips. Hood watches you, half-lidded.

"What're y'doing, trouble?"

His voice is soft, the way it gets when he's trying to smooth over a tiff between you. You can't figure out why he does that. You always get over it. And so does he. He has no choice.

"I'm looking at you, Red," you say.

"Yeah? What're y'lookin' at me for?"

"'Cause I want to."

He blinks. "Me? Not much to look at."

You look at each other for another minute. The want bubbles up again, spills out of your mouth before you can stop it.

"Please walk next to me," you say. "I need to know you're there."

He leans in to speak, black curl tumbling over his forehead. He smells sweet, like apples and spice. You almost appreciate the danger in your life because it keeps you in the Red Hood's line of sight.

"Wha's the matter? Y'nervous? I'm right here."

Oh, you're nervous, alright. Just not in the way he thinks. The way you ought to be.

You turn around. For your sake and his.

"Not nervous. Just... just... never mind. You pick where we go next, Red."

"It's your day. 'M just the driver," he says.

"If you won't walk next to me, the least you can do is pick where we go."

"The least I can do, huh?"

It's clear he isn't going to choose. So you watch him instead. You turn the corner and sneak glances over your shoulder. You don't care much about shopping anymore anyway. It's only an excuse to go out. To be alone with him.

Your answer comes. It's only for a split second, but you catch it anyway. He taught you to notice things after all. Says it could be the difference between living and dying.

You immediately change course. Hood follows you easily, and you breeze through the bookstore's entrance. You sneak a look to gauge his reaction. He's looking around, but that could just be him clocking the exits and obstacles. You grab his hand. He looks at your joined hands, then at you.

"Feeling lost?" he asks.

"No. Just trying to keep you present. Nothing’s gonna happen in a bookshop, Red."

That crease in the middle of his forehead returns. "'S my job to plan for the worst. Keeping you safe is the only thing that matters."

"Not the only thing."

His eyebrows rise. "Whaddya talking about? 'Course it is."

You look at your joined hands. This is bad. This is really, really bad. You'd might as well pull your heart out of your chest and let Hood carry that too.

You start to walk, fingers slipping out of his. Hood doesn't try to rejoin them.

He stays closer in here, close enough that you can talk quietly and smell his apple pie scent.

"What do you like to read?" you ask.

Hood glances at you. "Clocked that about me, did you?"

"I was taught by the best," you say sweetly.

He hums. Doesn't joke or laugh. Just makes a soft sound. It's not often you render him speechless.

"I loved Frankenstein as a kid. I always hoped he'd love his monster, but..."

Hood disappears for a moment, lost in his head. You take his hand, heart be damned.

"Red?"

He looks at you again. His eyes are wild. Sometimes, it seems like they glow.

"My... my dad used to read it to me," he says. "One time I asked if he'd love the monster anyway. He promised he would."

You rub his knuckles. He flinches, like he's forgotten where he is. 

"Someone's devotion to our monstrous parts is something we all want," you say.

You spend more time in the bookstore. Hood attracts a few stares, like always, but you're left alone. He carries your shopping without complaint, without strain, and you wonder if your friend was right, if this is just a job.

You buy a special edition of Frankenstein under his attention. Then you turn around and hand him the book. He keeps it under his arm.

"Ready to head back? Y'hungry?"

"That's for you," you say.

"Hm? What is?"

"The book. It's for you, Red."

Silence. The second time that you've stunned the words out of him. You're on a roll.

"Y'don't have to do that," he says, gentle as can be.

"It's a present for you. A thank you."

Hood shakes his head. "You don't need to thank me for protecting you. Just doing my job."

"I'm thanking you for being my friend. Because... you are, right? My friend?"

This time, Hood's eyes on you are heavy. You wonder if he can see your heart beating, see your belly fluttering, see the real reason why you get nervous around him.

"Yeah, trouble," he says, book cradled to his chest like it's precious cargo. "I'm yours."

[dontbesoweirdkira]

howdyyy, what do u think of plat yan! dick grayson (or platonic yan father bruce wayne up to u) with a batsis who is very disinterested with him primarily bc when she was younger she idolised him a lot but now not so much. there are comics where grayson has cheated on his partners before so imagine batsis coming to realise as she aged and matured that her doting brother is a bit of a playboy…. a lot like a playboy actually—

You know, this is actually extremely realistic. There's nothing like the rose color glasses falling off and realizing just how messed up your family truly is.

I'd like to think that there was plenty of jokes and mentions about Dick being a playboy but Batsis would just be absolutely clueless. You probably just thought it was a reference to his charming appearance or the way he gets hit on at least once whenever he goes out. Not really that he was an notorious heart breaker.

Like i don't think the other batkids had serious talks about it in front of you because of your (then) age or maybe it was a request by Dick so he could keep on his perfect mask with you?

Ironically, he wouldn't want any man to treat his little sister (or any of them) the way he does to other women but he has a problem. I will say though, it makes absolute sense that Dick or even the others would have issues keeping relationships or even have sex addictions. I mean it's a real issue that many people are struggling with right now. But can you imagine your father constantly bringing home women and cheating your entire childhood? Like Bruce introduces some of these women to them, they get attached to this potential mother then it's ripped away to be discarded for the new catch. I think that definitely warped Dick's view of women and romance stems from that. *intense mommy issues* But also i mentioned before that it's hard for him to maintain relationships while taking on the fatherly role in the family. His obsession with making sure all of his siblings are cared for and protected(mixed with being nightwing), makes it all the more difficult. Maybe that leads him to just hooking up with and being sloppy in his relationships. Maybe its just a means of stress relief and that causes him to almost dehumanize/objectify the women he "romances".

I'm not saying this is justifiable, cheating is disgusting and his behaviors are something that needs to be corrected regardless of mommy issues but for headcanon sake we are entertaining the concept

I'm not sure how you'd exactly find out about it. Maybe one of the kids let it slip and didn't bother to do damage control because you're old enough now? Maybe you spoke to one of his exes that is still friendly with the batfam? Or maybe your brain started to develop and you realized he wasn't hanging out with that new super model as just friends all night...it was something more and his girlfriend definitely didn't know about it.

Regardless, I think when you finally found out about everything, your world crushed. I don't think you'd hate him but you just feel yucky about the whole thing. Now when you look at him something in your stomach just sinks. You might even wonder if you can trust him. I mean if he's got that much of a problem to be dishonest with his lovers, then why would it be so left field to suggest he lied to you too when he said he loves you or that you were his favorite? The transition from you idolizing him to being standoff-ish would be extremely noticeable to him. I mean it's hard to ignore when you were his mini me. Even as you got older you followed him around and never skipped an opportunity to be near.

He wouldn't think that it was because of the playboy thing, maybe just you needing some space as a teen. Everyone has gone through that phase before but when he notices your shift is only directed towards him, he's a little upset about it. He doesn't understand what he did wrong? One day you guys are eating ice cream together while having a sleepover in his room to you treating him like a disease.

Eventually your big brother corners you and makes you to confess whats bothering you. He apologizes if something he said rubbed you the wrong way but you couldn't keep treating him this way.

"uhm..i dunno, dick? I found out how you've been treating you partners and i think it's kinda gross. I guess i just don't really wanna be around someone who treats women like that right now..."

I think Dick's reaction would be complete shock....who tf told you?! He has no defense but he tries to muster up one before realizing this is just making him look worse when EVERYBODY knows how much of a whore he is lol. He'd back off of you and maybe even mutter an apology before walking away to go collect himself.

He's furious as well...whoever told you will be getting an earful because they just ruined something precious to him. (yeah they did. totally not his OWN actions) If it was one of his brothers, he will be throwing hands.

Dick does very much care about others perception of him, i've said this before. He knew he had a problem and his other siblings have spoken to him about it and it affected him but never enough to change. It's just a far deeper issue than wanting a quick fuck in the expense of his partners...But seeing his baby sister look at him with just so much disgust and disappointment was enough to cause him to spiral. He's not proud of his actions and knows he's hurt and discarded of many, many women for his own satisfaction. It's deplorable. I can imagine him taking maybe a few days to himself, he's just in his head while being overtaken by heavy guilt.

I'm not sure if Dick would actually change for you though? I think he is even debating it. Yeah he's a yandere for his batsis but is his obsession with you enough to kick the other one to the curb? That's up to you. A hopeful person would say, yes he would. Anything for his babybat! He's going to do whatever it takes to prove himself again, anything to make you proud. This habit isn't worth it if hes loosing you.

My opinion? No, he won't change after his guilt wears off. He'll just pretend like he's reborn. Dick would try for like a week and then go right back to doing his habits. He's a manipulative piece of work and yeah, lying to you is bad but he wants his cake and to eat it too. He's not willing to give up anything that gives him a euphoric boost. Shh...what you don't know, won't kill you.

[wh0reforcoriolanussnow]

Revenge, a Dish Served Colder than Snow || Young!Coriolanus Snow x Reader

GIF by @kvtnisseverdeen and divider by @firefly-graphics

A/n: I'd just like to say that this is not book or movie accurate whatsoever. Finnick is not even alive yet when Coriolanus was in his early 20s. I just really wanted to include him in this because he's hot and I love him. Also, lets just imagine he has been gone long enough that the next hunger games was about to happen.

Warnings: choking, swearing if there are others lmk

Wc:

P.t 1 P.t 2

Coriolanus Snow Masterlist

Previous

“Go fuck yourself Coriolanus,” You sneer at him as you turn around but was stopped when his hand takes a hold of your arm. “The fuck did you just say to me?” He scrunches his eyebrows, fury in his blue eyes. You shake off his grip, staring at him square on. “I said, to go fuck yourself. Or, if you find her, go fuck Lucy Gray!” You rage, spinning around and walking out of the bathroom.

Coryo stands there in utter disbelief at what had just happened moments earlier. The image of you causing a scene infront of everybody and that tribute from district 4, his hands roaming around your body shamelessly. He felt pure rage coursing through his veins as he slams his fist against the wall.

~

Coriolanus watched with curious eyes once he saw you enter the room. He hadn't seen you for a couple weeks after that day he came back and moaned out Lucy Gray's name while fucking you. Even under that masquerade mask, Snow could tell it was you.

His eyebrow quirks up when he notices a man by your side. "Who is that?" He points to the mysterious man beside you as Livia looks over to where he was pointing. A chuckle leaves her lips, "Jealous, snow?" She swirls the alcohol in her flute before taking a sip.

"That right there beside your dear y/n is none other than Finnick Odair," Livia wets her lips. "A tribute. From district 4," She continues as Coriolanus' eyes follow the two of you, Finnick's hand resting far too low on your back for his liking.

"What is a fucking tribute doing with her then?" He scoffs, leaning forward on his seat. "Has your time as peacekeeper in district 12 forgotten how much power Y/n has?" She looks at him as if he was an idiot. "She just vouched for him, convinced her daddy to let him stay with her." Liv shrugs.

Coriolanus lets out a scoff, "Are you jealous of a district boy? He is pretty handsome don't you think. A strong competitor for sure," She says before standing up and leaving Snow in his thoughts. A few minutes later, he gets up from where he was sitting and manoeuvres his body across the crowd of elitist members and other wealthy people of Panem.

"What are you doing here with him?" Snow pops a grape into his mouth as you pause your actions and look to him by your side. Of course he was going to be here. "And why do you care? Coriolanus?" You chastise, "Do not. Call me that," He mutters at you, a stern expression on his face as you smirk.

"Well, if you must know. I took a liking to the tribute and let's just say, gotten quite comfortable with each other," A smile makes it to your lips as you could see Snow visibly annoyed. "He's a fucking tribute-" "Oh isn't that rich coming from you, Snow?" You let out a laugh as you face him. "That's exactly what I thought when I questioned your intentions with Lucy-" "Y/n, don't" "And there you were. Moaning her fucking name while inside me!"

You harshly say as a couple people around pause to look at you both. Coriolanus could tell you had drunk a bit more than you could handle. "Y/n, let's talk somewhere else," He takes your hands, ready to pull you away. You yank his grip off of you.

"No! I'm not done!" Snow runs a hand down his face at your loud outburst. "I never knew that you could stoop so fucking low you know. First it was cheating so that your precious tribute would win, and then you go chase her in her district and-" You couldn't finish your sentence as Coriolanus lurches towards him, hand gripping the base of your neck as your look at him in horror.

He squeezes it enough to make you shut up and gasp slightly for air. The people around you gasp at what had just happened. "Shut the fuck up. Shut your mouth before I do something I will regret," He spat, his hand squeezing as he shakes you."Get off of her!" Finnick shouts, pulling Snow away from you as you hold onto him, your hand touching your neck.

You then push Finnick away before doing something that further fueled the fire inside Coriolanus. You bowed. Just like her. Exactly like how Lucy Gray bowed at the reaping ceremony. A few stifled laughs could be heard throughout the room as Coriolanus looks horrified. He gulps, loosening his tie as you smirk at him

Coriolanus quickly leaves the room, breathing heavily as he runs his hands through his hair. He didn’t know what took over him. But he saw red the second you mentioned Lucy Gray. He swore he never intended to harm you. But he couldn’t help it.

His pent up emotions from the past couple of weeks needing diffusing. And you were pretty darn good at pushing specific buttons within him. Coriolanus caught glimpse of your figure entering the bathroom, he follows you whilst looking around, making sure no one was around.

You stared at yourself in the mirror, tears brimming your eyes as you study your neck, already bruising from his iron like grip. You were horrified, shocked, and most of all hurt, by Coriolanus. He never once touched you with such violence and he always reassured you that he would never hurt you and here you were. Crying in the bathroom stalls.

Even after the events that occurred when he came back, you couldn’t stop thinking about Coryo. You just couldn’t help yourself. He was your first everything. You lean your hands on the counter as you drop your head, tears cascading down your cheeks.

Coriolanus immediately heard your cries the minute he’s close to the bathroom door. He pauses. Leans his ear against the door and lets out sigh before entering. His entrance caught you by surprise as you stumble back upon seeing his tall figure.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you.” He says, sadness and guilt laced in his tone as he looks at you in sympathy, his eyes flickering your neck where he caused damage. You refused to meet his eyes as you turn your head to the side.

“But you should know better than to publicly humiliate me infront of everyone-“ A loud scoff emits your lips as you turn to him. “Go fuck yourself Coriolanus,” You sneer at him as you turn around but was stopped when his hand takes a hold of your arm. “The fuck did you just say to me?” He scrunches his eyebrows, fury in his blue eyes. You shake off his grip, staring at him square on. “I said, to go fuck yourself. Or, if you find her, go fuck Lucy Gray!” You rage, spinning around and walking out of the bathroom.

Coryo stands there in utter disbelief at what had just happened moments earlier. The image of you causing a scene infront of everybody and that tribute from district 4, his hands roaming around your body shamelessly. He felt pure rage coursing through his veins as he slams his fist against the wall.

Before you walk through the door, you stop and turn to face him. His expression angry, his hands were bawled up into fists, the wall beside him had a whole where he punctured it with his hand. “Don’t ever try talking to me again, Coriolanus. I mean it. Or I’ll do something you’ll regret.” You conclude before turning back around and walking away.

Coriolanus Snow knew without a doubt that you were capable of so many things that would hurt him, and his reputation. And he did not need further damage. So he listened. Regret seeped into him every single day as he left you alone. He would always watch you from afar though, he loved you, there was no denying.

What occurred that day with Lucy Gray was a mistake, a mistake he wished he could take back more than anything.

Taglist: @valenftcrush @ghostlycrystobalove @esquivelbianca @duds31 @threeinchminimum @shadowsepiphany @novacaneformybrain @crazylokonugget @unclecrunkle @darkqweenn @marihoneywk @beckinator7 @stelleduarte @1950schick @celineandtulips

[teaboot]

While I'm happy that the word "gaslighting" is more known than it used to be, and that people at large are learning to recognize what it looks like, I feel like we need to be careful not to turn it into something soft and casual we throw around off the cuff without meaning.

Being gaslit is psychological abuse that fucks you up very badly, very slowly, at such a gradual pace that you don't usually know it's happening until it's already re-wired your brain.

If you're unfamiliar with the term, "to gaslight" is to intentionally persuade someone that they cannot trust their own perceptions of reality. It's a destabilizing form of manipulation that leaves you constantly anxious, off-balanced, confused, and dependant on others.

This is done by lying about events that have happened or about things that are happening, invalidating feelings and observations, and either denying, refusing to acknowledge, or deflecting away from hard facts.

As someone who has experienced gaslighting as a form of abuse, this is what I remember from when I didn't know anything was off:

"Oh, I must have forgotten what really happened."

"I'm just not seeing it from their point of view."

"Everyone has their ups and downs. This is normal."

"I guess I wasn't thinking about what I was doing."

"I must have been wrong."

This is what I remember from when I first started realizing something was weird:

"How come every time I'm convinced they did something wrong, they just talk to me a few minutes, and I end up asking for their forgiveness? What has me so convinced I was right in the first moment?"

"I should start writing things down when they happen, so I can go back and check later when I'm confused."

"If every relationship like ours (familial, romantic, platonic) works this way, how come I never hear about it, or read about it, or see it anywhere else?"

Getting out and adjusting to the real world is hard, too, and comes with rapid swings of unfounded guilt, shame, fear, anxiety, and self-deprication that are completely unfounded in reality.

You've been conditioned to believe that you are entirely helpless and unable to think for yourself, possibly "crazy" or otherwise fundamentally impaired, and that there is a singular source of guidance that knows exactly what is right, and all of a sudden that pillar of support has vanished.

The immediate "after" that I recall looks like:

Constant uncertainty. Because nobody is there to tell you what's real and what isn't, you approach every situation thinking at it from all angles. Every question has fifty possible answers and most of them are wrong and you don't know which. If you choose wrong, the world will end.

A sense of helplessness. You feel that nothing you do is correct, and it's easier to make no choices at all- or you make wild, reckless, impulsive choices, because you feel you have nothing to lose.

Memory loss. I don't understand this one, but it's not like memoriescare being erased, but more like... you're so used to treating your memories as dreams or imaginations that you reflexively dismiss anything you recall as fake, and you can't believe anything you recall because you don't think it was real. Your abusers voice is in your head, wiping things away and telling you that you did the wrong thing. And you believe them, because they're the only constant you can rely on.

Missing the abuser, or the abusive dynamic. Because you know now that it wasn't healthy, but at least you knew where you stood. As long as you said the right things and acted the right way, agreed and obeyed and did as they expected, you felt like thevworld made sense. Now you have to figure out which parts of you really are broken, and which parts are working fine in a really weird way, and it's like tuning a piano when you've never played one before.

The long term "after"- for which I can only speak for myself- looks like:

Having to double-check, triple-check, and continue checking hard evidence of an event before responding in an active way.

Consulting with trusted friends to verify that your observations are legitimate and that your perceptions are valid. Following up with them to see if someone is really angry at you, or if you're just projecting anger onto them because it's what makes sense to your old pattern.

Obsessive collection of "evidence"- saving pictures, writing detailed journals, making recordings and video, never deleting emails or old texts, because you still don't quite trust yourself all the way and you're afraid that someone will cause you to doubt yourself again.

Continued self-doubt and being "gullible": I have straight up seen people flip me off to my face in front of witnesses and then immediately tell me, "No, I was just waving", and my first instinct is to believe them. For a few seconds, I *really do* believe them. Your brain is so trained to latch onto what people tell you to believe that its really, really hard to hold onto information that you already have.

Learning to take ownership over your own actions. (I didn't mess up because I'm "crazy", I messed up because I'm a person and people do that.)

Instinctively seeking approval. (Takes a lot of work to remind myself that I don't exit to make people happy, and that some people suck ass, and I can tell them to piss off.)

I don't intend to invalidate anyone currently struggling with this- if you feel that something is wrong, it probably is. That's the thought that got me out. Trust that feeling that something isn't right.

I just want people who don't know what to look for to know what gaslighting *actually* looks and feels like, so they don't just roll their eyes and think, "Oh, that word doesnt apply to me- I'm not some snowflake".

('Cause we all saw what happened with "triggered", right?)