#but they’re changing so much about themselves and it’s scary

[yanderenightmare]

TW: noncon, yandere, omegaverse, subjugation, some type of sexism, angsty, also a little fluffy?

fem reader

Discussions about superiority and inferiority between Alphas, Betas, and Omegas have become more popular lately. It’s always been many people’s opinion that the weak should cater to those stronger than them—but a debate with that as its topic is unsavory. Unfortunately, they’ve found new ways to phrase it. 

A resonating “Unmated Omegas are a danger to themselves!” garners much more sympathy…

And with the rise of people talking about it in the media, it was only natural to move the conversation into school as well.

You keep your head bowed in class as the chill runs down your spine. You feel the glare of thirty fellow students—the points of their teeth, too, and how they snicker under their breath. It’s always been rather scary being an omega, but you can’t say you’ve ever felt quite so alone.  

The teacher’s an alpha, so why should he care how what he says impacts you? He’s preaching to the choir, and you’ve never had the right to sing. The three other Omegas in your class have all chosen to stay home. They probably have the right idea—wait it out until it all blows over.

But you don’t know when that might be… You don’t know if that will be.

Society is on the precipice of critical change—new politics, new laws, new systems, new rights that separate you from them. You wallow in fear of the outcome, lying awake at night and scrolling through the news under the safety of your duvet. The statements seem endless. You wonder, why are all politicians Alphas?

You don’t want any of the things they’re suggesting—mating homes to help you find the perfect Alpha to bond with, systematic pairings done from birth, auctions. Is no one going to suggest they put shock collars on all Alphas and Betas to keep them in check? They’re the ones who need to—

“Your scent is distracting the whole class—don’t you feel ashamed?” 

It’s too easy for him to have you bent over the desk, your wrist on your back in his big fist as he wraps his tie around them. He and his goons stand around, all smiles—watching—enjoying it. It’s as if they’ve planned the whole thing, the way two of them peel away from the crowd to grab each their pick of your feet. Parting them, they use your own shoelaces to tie them to the desk legs.

The ringleader laughs. There’s an awful smell coming off him in waves—it makes you quiver. He flips your skirt up and whistles at the sight, showing everyone your ass and cotton undies. The bulge he presses against you is enough to make your tears spill despite how hard you’d fought to keep them at bay, knowing it only arouses them further.

“Aww, don’t cry, little bitch. You should be happy,” he coos, leaning over your trapped form to whisper right at your ear. “Don’t you know? You’ll never feel happier than you will bouncing on my big Alpha dick. It’s all your little Omega cunt dreams about, isn’t it?” He snickers, fiddling with his belt buckle—you flinch at every sharp clink as he jostles the metal. “Well, salvation is here—”

“Keep it to yourself.” Another voice breaks through the sounds of hollers and cheers.

Your eyes open to see him. You despise how your heart jumps in relief.

“Oi, you—” the guy at your back challenges, stepping away from you and toward the interruption.

“Yeah, me,” he states blankly, jaded. He eyes the rest of the guys with disinterest—five betas, zero threat—before telling them, “All of you. Scram.”

They all take a step to walk out as if his voice alone had compelled them, but then the previous guy interjects, making them stop in their tracks again. “Tch—you know what they’re saying. All unmated Omegas are free game, and I won this one. So back off.”

It was like watching a match of tug-of-war.

“Heh,” the intruder laughs. “That rule only counts for Alphas.”

You spot your aggressor's fists curl—there’s a growl rumbling in the back of his throat. “I am an Alpha, asshole.”

“Really?” he feigns, sizing him up with a cocky tilt of his head. “Couldn’t tell.” He doesn’t seem fazed in light of the aggression—actually, it seems to amuse him if anything. “To me, you smell no different from all these other Beta losers.” 

He takes a casual step forward, hands in his pockets and a smile on his face—baring canines with grace.

“But if you wanna prove it, I’m ready when you are.”

It’s quiet after the declaration. The betas are unsure who’s side to pick, none of them eager to get caught in the middle. It becomes a competition purely between the two Alphas.

Without backup, your aggressor backs down and leaves.

“Thought so,” your savior jeers, showing the crowd out, closing and locking the door behind them.

It’s quiet after they’ve left.

You hide your face. Listening to his footsteps approach—he sighs when taking the place of the former guy. He doesn’t touch you, though.

“Y’know…” he starts. “That guy might be trash, but he isn’t wrong…” He picks up your skirt and drapes it back in place. “None of this would ever happen if you weren’t unmated.”

You speak through grit teeth. “Untie me.”

He chuckles familiarly at that, clicking his tongue at you. “What? Aren’t you gonna say please?” But he does what you say anyway. Squatting down, he starts with your ankles.

The scent of your fear still lingers in the air despite your tough act. You’ve always been so steadfast, ever since you were kids, even when it does you no good. He frees your feet—one, then the other, slowly—he even reties your laces into pretty bows before he’s done. 

He remembers it being so obvious. The sun rose in the morning and the moon at night, and you were supposed to be an Alpha while he a Beta at best. You promised you’d be by his side to keep him safe forever, and he wanted nothing more.

But then puberty hit, and nothing was as you’d imagined.

He stands and unknots the tie keeping your wrists restrained.

You immediately push him off—already storming away.

“Do I get no thank you, no nothing? Always so stubborn—” He grabs your arm.

You spin around, an unnatural snarl on your face. “Let go!”

You’d have been a terrifying Alpha. But as fate has it, you’re not. And you shouldn’t act like it. It only lands you in trouble.

But he doesn’t say that. 

“You been watchin’ the news?” he says instead, ignoring your cry and keeping a firm grip on your arm. “Seems like auctions are winning the voters. You know what that means?”

He feels you flinch, followed by a quiver. He can tell. No matter how good you are at hiding it. He can see—the way you’re fraying at the edges, barely holding it together. Always acting so strong. He can’t tell whether you enjoy torturing yourself or if you’re just that good at convincing yourself you’re fine.

“Pretty soon, new authorities are gonna come storming in here, roundin’ up every sorry unmated Omega they find, and put ‘em all on a farm where pompous Alphas can have their pick of the litter.”

He can never tell what you’re thinking, but he knows he doesn’t need to tell you any of this. You’re not stupid, you never have been. He knows you already know. But…

“You should decide now while it’s still your choice.” 

You must be terrified. He understands. But truly… it’s obvious what you have to do, isn’t it?

“It’s not like you have many options.”

It’s obvious. It always has been.

You don’t meet his eyes. You haven’t for a long while. Actually, you haven't since both of you got your test results. He understands this wasn’t what you had in mind, but you can’t afford to mope about it forever—

“How am I supposed to choose any Alpha when you’re all such assholes…”

Your mutter stunts him. It wasn’t what he expected. Or, the words were more or less exactly something he’d expect from you, but that voice—quiet and soft, dangling on the brink of sweet. If you’d said anything else, he’d have taken it as a confession.

“Can't argue with that,” he ends up chuckling again.

You hate how easy this is for him. He would cry at every turn when you were kids. It’s unfair. 

“But you can’t keep doing this, either,” he states. His voice is soft, paired with that ugly authority they all have when talking to you—talking down to you. “Just look where it gets you—scared and exhausted because of it. At least have the brains to stay home.” He says it as if it’s a joke, but you both know it isn’t. His chuckles are light—far from fullhearted.

He bends down, trying to find your eyes. He still holds onto your arm, knowing you’d sooner stomp away than listen to him. His other hand brushes your cheek gently, tucking your hair behind your ear.

“You hear the call from the rafters—it’s not about what you want anymore. It’s about what you need.”

That’s what they say, isn’t it? What you need. You want to slap him. Scratch him with claws, bite his throat out—make him choke on his own words. Need? What you need is for them all to fuck off.

You mean to say it with the same sentiment, but something hard and rough in your throat makes all your words come out wobbly. “Mate an Alpha to stay safe from other Alphas. What a joke.”

You bow your head further. The tears return. They burn as they trail down the sore streaks from before.

He’s never seen you like this. He won’t lie, it makes his pants tight—feeling the urge to suck your cheeks, hold you close and comfort you. But knowing you right, you’d probably never let him. Your face would probably scrunch up in disgust, punch his gut, knee his groin, then turn on your heel and leave him on the floor wheezing.

You really would have made the most terrifying Alpha. 

“The world isn’t fair,” he agrees. “But you get nowhere cryin’ about it—do it my way, and you’ll never—”

“Have any freedom,” you cut him off with a sniffle. 

It’s about the most adorable thing he’s seen in his life.

He gets why you don’t like Alphas—they’re all gross. He makes himself sick sometimes. He can’t believe he’s getting off on watching you have a mental breakdown. There’s something seriously wrong with his side of the species. His throat’s tight, mouth watery with the urge to reap your vulnerability. 

Suppressing it only makes his inner beast furious. Some of that aggression comes out in his next words.

“I’m sorry, but the world doesn’t give a shit about your freedom.” 

The grip around your arm tightens, and you look up in shock—watching his narrowed eyes through your watery ones. 

“What you need is safety—now more than ever. Or do you like being preyed on by every Alpha around the corner?” 

Your bottom lip trembles at the reality of it—a little while ago, you were almost— 

“One of these days, I'm not gonna be here in time, and you’ll be a slave to some fucking—” 

He huffs and hangs his head. His hand loosens up—it trembles where he holds you in place.

“In all honesty, I think I’m more scared than you,” he whispers under his breath. “I think I might kill—”

He stops himself again. You don’t know if it’s in an effort not to frighten you or himself.

“Speak about needs…” he begins anew, now softer. “I need to know you’re safe. I need to—” He looks up. His eyes are back to being round. “I need you more than you need me, probably.”

There’s a desperation on his face. It almost looks like he’s on the verge of tears himself.

“So… please?” he begs. “Will you keep me safe like you promised and stay by my side?”

Your tears dry and prickle. Looking into his eyes now, you see the same boy you knew back in your childhood—that one who’d chase you all over even when you’d call him a sniveling crybaby. You realize, Alpha or not, he hadn’t changed all that much at all. 

“It’s not like you need my permission,” you end up saying.

You’ve always been so hard-headed. He has to smile. “No, but I want it.”

You nibble your lip. You can’t believe you’re at the mercy of this big dumb hunk of… you don’t have the words to describe him. He wasn’t exactly a crybaby anymore. 

“Okay. You win.” 

His eyes widen as you bear your neck with a stretch. Head high and shoulders slack. 

You swallow thickly. “Get it over with.”

He shudders at the sight. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but now it almost seemed too soon. 

“We should be supervised by a professional—you know how wrong things can go—”

“Hurry up before I change my mind.” Your eyes remain shut, and your lips pursed.

His tongue grows thick in his mouth at your bark. A sudden stroke of performance anxiety makes his palms sweaty, hands heavy and shaking. But then the sight of your soft neck has his mood shift, becoming drowsy.

He has no control over the growl that begins rumbling from his gut.

But he doesn’t apologize for it either.

He bends forward—breaths on your chest before he licks your throat. You can’t help but whimper at the warmth. He watches you through hooded eyes—your usually angry face is now all cute, riddled with anxiety you try hiding paired with the grim anticipation of pain.

“Shh,” he soothes, kissing the spot softly. He sways you against him, then lifts you up on the desk for you to sit. Grazing your neck with teeth when feeling your hands tangle two fistfuls of his shirt. He expects you to push him away, but you don’t—you tug him closer instead as if silently telling him to hurry up.

But he doesn’t want to rush, doesn’t want to lose himself—that’s how accidents happen. So he sticks to sucking gently, only tiny nibbles that leave your skin hot and lightly bruised in their wake.

You give a moan once he finds the spot, and he growls in restraint upon the pretty sound—feeling you relax despite being threatened with his teeth right at your artery. He almost humps your leg in return, feeling the boil of blood pump him hot and heavy in his pants—breaths turning equally hot and heavy, each one laced with rust.

Drool coated your neck in a cool sheen, soothing the marks made beneath it, while his lips and fangs aroused pleasure in the spot that now ached for the sting of his bite.

“Please,” slipped from your mouth while tugging him closer. 

His eyes, completely drunk on the pretty prayer, had only a slim rim of color left surrounding the hungering bottomless pits, blown full and black with opium.

No one could come and take you away from him now. Not with his print so pretty on your neck. You were his—just as you were always supposed to be.

♡ BNHA – Deku, Kirishima, Natsuo, Amajiki, Mirio ♡ JJK – Yuji, Yuuta ♡ HQ – Kuro, Miya twins ♡ DS – Tanjiro, Zenitsu

♡ FEM x M INSERT masterlist ♡ GN x M INSERT masterlist

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[angel-in-your-basement]

It’s wild that you’re not OK with age play but you’re OK with saying that assault is a kink …. rape is not a kink! Why do so many people not understand that it’s CNC or it’s assault? Do y���all just do this for attention or what because I’m really confused on why you would think such a terrible thing could be considered a kink. Coming from someone that was raped before I was even five years old.. I just don’t think that we should sit here and act like rape is ever OK. like I said you’re looking for the term CNC, not rape. please stop contributing to men thinking rape is OK because they’re out here assaulting people in the real world when y’all do shit like this making it seem okay when it’s not. whether you think your little dumb posts are contributing to real world assaults or not, they absolutely are.

Hi there,

I can see you’re feeling really triggered by this, and I am going to explain my thinking, but first, I want to gently encourage you to take some time to self-soothe and take care of yourself, because engaging with this in a state of heightened emotion is not going to make you feel good.

I am answering this now out of the understanding that you are hurting, and this may be a good opportunity to share my perspective on these ideas, but I’m not going to answer any further asks about this. I don’t come on here to debate things.

Anyways, if you, or anyone else is interested in my take on this, here it is under the cut.

I’m going to address a couple different things here, with a reminder that is my perspective, and you absolutely don’t have to agree.

1. “You’re not okay with age play”

I actually am okay with age play, and there are some aspects that I, myself, enjoy. The reason it’s in my DNI is not bc of the kink itself, but bc of how much shit I’ve seen on tumblr of people actually being under age or seeking out under age people and using that type of tag/fantasy/etc. to do it, and I want nothing to do with that entire side of tumblr, as much as I can avoid it. Undoubtedly, there are people on here that are into age play that do so in consensual, risk-aware ways, and I support that, but I don’t actually engage with it online bc of what I said before.

2. “Rape is not a kink / it’s cnc or it’s assault”

So, we agree on this, except on the semantics of the language. Part of kink is exploring shameful and taboo topics in a safe, consensual way. It’s important to understand the limits of where play can become harm, absolutely, but I think that is very individual, and nitpicking how other people explore with no understanding of why they might be doing that is not productive.

With that understanding, it doesn’t make sense to me to say “well it’s okay if someone wants to be held down and have someone hurt them and not stop even if they say no, but they can’t say the word ‘rape’.” Language does matter, but it becomes counterproductive if we spend too much time prioritizing semantics over context and meaning. I prioritize safety, curiosity and connection, because that is what kink is about to me. I feel secure in myself that I can explore these dark fantasies without harming myself or other people, and that doing so is healthier than shaming myself for it.

3. “Do you do this for attention?”

I’m going to gently remind you here that I am also a person, who has my own set of trauma and bad experiences, and who chooses to process them in the way I choose to process them. I created this blog as a space to express myself in ways that I generally don’t get to in real life, because it’s not socially acceptable to talk about the scary/dark/repulsive thoughts that we all experience.

We are so conditioned to feel shame, and to shame others, and shame causes more damage than anything else does in humans, in my experience. Shame doesn’t make people change, it just makes them isolate and repress themselves, which leads to them dealing with their thoughts, emotions and urges in unhealthy ways. I choose to acknowledge the darker parts of people, and to be open about it so that we can learn to deal with it in healthier ways.

And yes, I do enjoy the attention, and I enjoy that people enjoy the content I create.

4. “You are contributing to real world assaults”

My question with this statement is basically: where do we draw the line? If I made the exact same posts and never used the word “rape”, would that make it okay? If I put a disclaimer on every single post, would that at all discourage someone who already thinks it’s okay to do these things without consent? Should I post about cnc at all, knowing it may be feeding into someone’s shitty ideas about the world? How much responsibility is on me, specifically, to prevent people from being assaulted?

Basically, it’s an endless rabbit hole. We have no control over other people. I choose not to take on the burden of feeling like it is my job to be perfect so that I never contribute to anything bad happening, because that is impossible. Instead, I choose to focus on the good I put into the world, and what feels good for me so that I can continue putting good into the world.

More importantly, if you want to make change in something as huge and pervasive as sexual assault, is your energy best spent lashing out at random people online? Or is it finding ways to help yourself heal, so that you don’t hurt yourself and other people? What about finding ways to support people who have through similar experiences? Or working through activism to support changing the systems at large?

I am very satisfied with the ways in which I put good into the world through educating people, supporting people and doing my best to be authentic. I have made a lot of meaning out of my suffering by helping other people.

If you genuinely want to make things better, find better ways to do it.

[juniperhillpatient]

I have talked about this a lot before but it’s on my mind & also it’s something that really should be discussed more in Buffy fandom -

People are constantly talking about how Spike defies all the rules Buffy was taught about demons & vampires & rightfully so. A vampire falling in love with a slayer & fighting for his soul for her is such a romantic notion & I do love it but the nuance of Spike’s arc is even more interesting than that! He does love Buffy but not only that he befriends the Scoobies too. He brings flowers for Joyce after she dies. He helps prove that Tara is not a demon when her family tries to gaslight her & isolate her. He becomes a pseudo big brother to Dawn.

And yet none of that is even what I’m here to talk about! Spike IS a hero & he does have a long spanning redemption arc before the soul (& we’re NOT here to talk about Seeing Red right now, as usual that topic is too expansive & requires its own post) that should be acknowledged & his character is rightfully praised but he is NOT the only exception to vampires having nuance & it drives me crazy that we act like he is. The Judge isn’t just talking to Spike when he says this:

“You TWO.” He’s talking about Drusilla too! He says that they share affection & jealousy. That Angelus in his total sociopathic lack of human emotion is the odd one here.

Then you have things like this -

Conversations with Dead People has Buffy sharing a very long & deep conversation with an old acquaintance turned vampire. And it’s far from the only example in universe of a vampire retaining some sense of camaraderie with people from their life!

That’s right this entire rant has been a lead up to talk about my best girly Harmony Kendall. You’ve fallen for my ruse if you’ve read this far muahaha! Admittedly Harmony’s strongest moments are mostly unfortunately on Angel but even in season four of Buffy when she dates Spike she is clearly intended at times to be sympathetic. Season 4 is also interesting because we see a lot interactions between various gangs of vampires like Harmony’s so-called minions & even Sundays gang where they’re very much evil but also sharing in living (existing?) space & acting like bickering roommates or siblings. Like creatures with bonds & personalities & intricacies.

The point I’m trying to make is that the show never truly wants to grapple with the existence of Spike in all his nuance but it’s also not just about him! In general there is so much to grapple with in the idea that vampires can change & be redeemed & I’m not saying I’m anti scary evil vampires I’m just saying the universe gave us these hints of nuance & then the characters never grappled with it & that’s lame. For Buffy killing things that have a shot at redemption however small would be a major emotional blow if she ever addressed it! Especially in her season 5 “am I just a killer 🥺” arc. Let’s deal with the implications!

Let’s deal with Xander’s trauma about killing Jessie & just how much it would/should hurt for him to see Spike increasingly choose good & work with the Scoobies. I would LOVE to know Xander’s reaction to Harmony’s arc on Angel or Cordelia befriending her & letting her go ina world where the writing acknowledges that he drove a stake through his best friends heart!

It’s just that the writers accidentally complicated their own lore & then totally refused to ever let their characters address what the cracks in the stories they tell themselves mean. Giles says that a vampire is no longer the person but instead the thing that killed them. What’s scarier: the idea that your loved one was killed & something wears their face like a mask OR much more insane (to me) the idea that your loved one came back very wrong but it’s still them? Your brother eats people now but he still remembers how you like your eggs & can quote every episode of the cartoon you watched as kids. Your mom murdered that woman from the PTA who always talked too much in cold blood but she still remembers the recipe for your favorite pancakes. The show wanted scary vampires but it got so caught up in never addressing the infinitely more complex & scarier vampires it accidentally created & sticking to the more simplistic initial idea that it did both the characters & lore very dirty. And I’ll never shut up about it!!!

[bengals-barnesbabe]

Fuck Around & Find Out

Ja'Marr Chase x Burrow!Reader

Des: A weekend of surprises and showdowns built up by years of feelings and friendships. Would you rather that everything return to normal, or is this the time for real change?

TW: 18+ | angst, language, implied smut, arguments, drinking, reader grows a backbone, flashbacks.

Main Masterlist | Previous | Part 5/6 | Next

Word Count: 2023

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ★ .* . ∅ ° ☆ * ･

Justin's POV

Justin knows that when days start out slow, they never stay that way. But today was a scary type of slow. 

He and Ja’Marr were meeting up first. The Bengal wide receiver wanted to pregame, which he respected. But Justin’s not exactly sure which event they’re pregaming for. It’s Super Bowl Sunday, and the Eagles taking on the Chiefs in their hometown was a sick redemption arc.

But that’s not what he’s preparing for. The real event, whether they want to talk about it or not, is Joe versus Ja’Marr; he knows that will not be pretty.

Over the last week, a series of wildly unfortunate events occurred, and Justin’s not well-versed in what happened, even though he watched most of it. But if you asked him to summarize this impending fight, this is how he would do it.

9 Months Ago

Around the time he and the guys were chilling in Paris, Ja’Marr expressed his interest in this girl he knew. And of course, wanting to help his boy out, Justin gave him advice to pursue the girl he wanted to impress. They discussed date ideas, what to wear, how to ask her out, and where to go. What they didn’t talk about was who the girl was. 

August 2024

Right before the season starts, Justin likes to check in line one last time before going ghost and locking in. So he and Ja’Marr got online and logged into GTA.

The conversation was cool, both their training and game prep were going well. Ja’Marr was a little salty about not getting his contract done yet, but they both knew the Bengals were just digging themselves a bigger hole to dump his money in. Then, to ease out of that topic, Justin asked about his date with that girl. And only then did Ja’Marr admit that it was their mutual friend and Joe’s only sister, Y/n.

Justin immediately went into a rant about how much of a horrible idea that was and that Ja’Marr should just quit while he’s ahead. Because if there’s one person Joe Burrow does not play about it’s his little sister.

They met her for the first time at the Natty’s. (She was also there for Joe’s Heisman win, but they didn’t get to really meet her.) Y/n was 19 and in her freshman year at Columbia, studying public health.

Joe was on another level the second she confirmed her attendance for their game. They could tell just how much he loved his sister from the start. He ensured every practice ran smoothly, everyone was on their A-game, and nothing was left unsaid about their team’s performance.

It was clear he wasn’t just focused on winning the championship. He focused on impressing his sister with how good her brother was and how far he had come to perfect his craft.

The day before the game, Joe invited his close friends to a dinner where they could meet Y/n. And she was breathtaking, especially to Ja’Marr, who literally stopped in the doorway of the restaurant when he saw her. Justin quickly snapped his friend out of it and guided him to the table. They said their formalities and the dinner went great. Everyone loved Y/n, and she got along great with them as well, but most importantly, Joe was happy.

Then, their 3rd string Tight End, Garrett, walked in when Joe was paying and killed the mood.

Garrett walked right up to Y/n with the confidence of a lion but gracefully as a newborn giraffe. He crashed into her after bumping into a chair, gaining Joe’s attention. 

“What up, baby?” He said with a cocky grin and the worst NOLA accent you’d ever heard before he was grabbed by the collar by our red-faced quarterback.

“The fuck did you just say?”

No one had ever seen Joe so pissed before, except Y/n, who just sunk into her chair and finished her drink.

“I-I just w-wanted to know if she was good?” Garrett’s stutter might have made Joe even angrier as he dragged the guy out of the restaurant and had to be pulled off him in the parking lot.

Ja’Marr was dumbfounded, and without having to say anything, he looked at Justin, whose face said, ‘That could be you’. So he just nodded and pushed his feelings to the back of his mind.

Present Day

“You’re an idiot,” Justin said before his friend could fully sit down at their booth.

Ja’Marr rolled his eyes and ordered a beer. “You told me to go for it.”

“That was before you told me it was Burrow’s sister.” Justin shook his head as their drinks arrived. Ja’Marr didn’t say much after that. But from what he could tell, he and Y/n sure weren’t together anymore, but it definitely wasn’t a good thing.

“Was it amicable?” He asks as they walk out, the tension lighter than when they first arrived.

Ja’Marr sighs. “Nah, I fucked up,” his hands in his pockets and face sullen.

“And Joe hasn’t talked to you at all?” Ja’Marr shakes his head at his question. “Have you tried to talk to her?”

“Blocked.” Damn.

“You really fucked up.”

“I really fucked up.”

Your POV

The flight to New Orleans was tense. You knew Joe wasn’t just going to play it cool when he saw Ja’Marr, but nothing you could say would change anything about the situation. But that was partially your fault, there was a clear answer to fix the friendship between the Bengals players, but you were scared to act.

From the moment you met Joe Burrow, you knew your life was about to change. You finally had someone in your corner to help and protect you. Meeting the Burrows, being fostered and then adopted by them, was all you ever wanted back then. As a kid, it didn’t matter that your siblings were lifetimes older or almost out of the house in Joe’s case, you had them.

So when you got to high school, and boys started asking you out, you didn’t care when your big brother threatened them and forced all of them to stay 10 feet away from you. He was just looking out for your best interest.

When he graduated, you took that as your chance to actually start dating, but Joe always found a way to end those as well. At that point, it was getting annoying, so you hid all your relationships and heartbreaks to keep him happy. Now, Joe's transfer to LSU was perfect; you finally got your freedom, and you didn’t have to worry about your big brother finding out. 

Then you met Ja’Marr. From how Joe talked about him to meeting him, it was life-altering. You were in trouble but hopeful at the same time. You saw him for the first time at the Heisman ceremony, and your heart skipped a beat. He looked incredible in his grey suit, fresh braids, and charming smile.

Then, what really stood out was how he described your brother. He was adorably kind and funny and clearly respected the hell out of Joe. He checked all the boxes you didn’t know were there. Not to mention the amount of Insta-stalking you did that night; you lost count of how many times you caught yourself drooling at the wideout. He was something special and extremely off-limits. So, you became friends. 

He was there when you graduated from Columbia, helped you move into a downtown Cincinnati apartment, and easily became one of your best friends. Somewhere along the lines, things shifted between you. He’d come over after practice for lunch or ask to stay the night after you spent hours playing Uno and dominos. His boyish smile around you and only you began to pop up in your dreams, echoes of his name when you walked around the city, and he became the first person you heard from in the morning. Seeing, hearing from, or watching Ja’Marr became your favorite part of the day.

Week After the 2024 Paris Trip

It was incredibly hot in Cincinnati; every part of you was slick with sweat, and your dark blue blazer and slacks only worsened the heat. You had a half day working at the health department and couldn’t get out of that even hotter building fast enough. To make matters worse, your car was still being serviced by a mechanic, so you called the first person who came to mind.

“You look rough, Columbia.” Usually, that Louisiana drawl would make you swoon, but today you just wanted to smack the smirk off his perfectly structured face.

“Shut up, Popeye.” You got in the car, exhaling when the cool air of his working air conditioning hit your damp face.

“So, how was your day?” Your eyes were closed but you could hear the playful undertone in his voice.

“I’ll tell you when I’m not dying of a heat stroke.” Ja’Marr chuckled causing you to also, as he set off for your apartment. The deep infectious laughter between you died down as he pulled into the parking lot in front of your building. “Wanna come up?”

You asked the question but didn’t need an answer as he turned the car off and followed you up the stairs into your cool, climate-controlled home. Ja’Marr went straight to the fridge while you trekked to your room to get rid of your sticky clothes.

“You mind if I take a quick shower?”

“Nah, take your time, I’m good.” Another answer you didn’t need but loved to hear.

12 minutes later, you felt fresh, clean, and calm as you walked back into the living room with a lounge short set on. “Where’d you get that?” You asked, sitting at the kitchen counter as a bowl is placed in front of you.

“Your fridge.” He says simply, taking the seat next to you with an identical bowl of taco salad.

“I didn’t know I even had ingredients for this.” You mixed around the contents, marveling at his ability to take random ingredients and create a meal. 

“That’s what happens when you live off takeout and can’t cook.” He smirks, spooning a large amount into his mouth.

You chuckle, knowing he’s right, and take a bite of the food as well. “I should let you make me food more often, this is really good. Where the fuck did you find guacamole?”

“I brought it over the other day when we had nachos, figured you’d use it more than me.” He shrugged, making you take a mental count of the amount of times he’s left groceries in your place versus the amount of times you’ve gone grocery shopping.

“Damn, you realize you practically live here? Like you have a whole ass house, but all your shit ends up here.” You state the obvious as he turns to face you with a look you can’t identify on his face. “What?”

“Can we stop this bullshit? You want me here?” He asks, and you nod your head.

“Of course, I want you here. Ja’Marr, what’s going on?” You frown, turning your body towards his. He takes advantage of the position and dwarfs your hands with his. The pout quickly melts off your face as his strong, soft, familiar fingers fold between your small, dainty ones.

“We’re not supposed to be friends, Y/n.” You look up wide-eyed at the use of your given name instead of the nickname he gave you when you told him of your Ivy League attendance. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

“You’re not making sense, Ja’Marr.” You gulped; his first name felt foreign on your tongue and even more to his ears as he grimaced like he’d been wounded.

“Listen to me.”

“I’m listening…" You trail off as his hands gently caress your face and hold your jaw.

“I've never done any of this for a friend, baby. You mean way more to me than anyone; let me show you.”

So you did.

a/n: ha this was not in my drafts for two months at all... part six soon?

[ametrictonofaudacity]

Hi! I love your blog so much. I was hoping you could write what yandere!batfam would do if the reader just barricaded themselves in a room and does everything to make sure batfam can't get in. I hope you have a great day and drink plenty of water.

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoy my blog, and I am absolutely going to do a snippet for this!

Warnings: (implied) hunger striking, captivity, themes of obsession, violence, and threats of restraints as well as physically restraining someone.

“You know that’s only going to hold us out for so long, right?”

It’s Jason. You don’t respond, keeping silent. It was just another trick, you knew, to get you to open the door.

Not that they only needed a door. You’d shoved the massive bookcase in front of the window, shoving your bed in front of it. Your desk, and the final bookshelf, had gone to block the door.

You had no doubt it wouldn’t hold them long. It just had to hold them long enough.

“Come on, kid, think about this. Open the door, and I’ll try and talk the old man down from taking the damn door off it’s hinges.”

You hiss softly in alarm, because you had thought Bruce was gone. You thought he was away, in Nepal, in a business trip. Otherwise there was no possible way you would have been able to pull this off, you knew.

“You didn’t know the old man was back? He got a call from Dickiebird, he’s on his way to the Manor as we speak, kid. You really want him to start breaking down the door? He will, you know it.”

You keep quiet, fingers buried in the soft carpet, and try to focus. Try to breath. Bruce being here changed things. Dick being here changed things.

“Who’s all in the Manor?”

You manage to croak out, and Jason pauses.

“Not sure I should be telling you that, kid. I’ll cut you a deal, though. Tell me why you’re pulling out the anti-siege tactics and I’ll tell you some names.”

You shake your head, before you remember that Jason couldn’t see you. That was fine.

“No deal.”

You weren’t going to be explaining to them that you felt suffocated, more often than not. That they were always there, constantly hovering, a hand on your shoulder or an arm linked around yours. That you had so little agency that you felt you were going insane, on a good day.

“Then guess you’re gonna be in the dark. Head up, though. Golden Boy’s pissed.”

That manages to rip the air from your lungs. Dick was scary as hell when he got angry, scary enough that out of all your siblings captors, his anger would immediately send you into a near frenzy. He got fucking mean when he was mad, and he knew how to use his words to cut to the bone.

“What and you aren’t?” You taunt, frantically trying to stop the way your heart thunders in your ears and the way your blood pulses in your veins.

“Oh no, I’m pissed. Pissed enough I’m keeping this door between the two of us, because I don’t want to traumatize ya.” It’s- it’s almost cheerful, the way he says it, so matter of fact, but the words are phrased in a way that you know they’re true. Every syllable is tense and clipped, not quite grit out and hidden behind the easygoing bluster.

“Yeah, well, I’m also pretty into keeping the door between us.” You snap, because you are impulsive and dumb and holy shit you did not think this through.

You hear the faintest sound from Jason, and when he speaks again, his voice is sharp, sharp enough you cringe back and try not to panic.

“I fucking bet, you brat. What exactly are you planning to get out of this, huh? Planning on going on a hunger strike or something?”

The door rattles in the frame, and you yelp, alarmed.

A sigh, and when Jason speaks again, it’s softer. Cajoling.

“Listen. Bruce and Golden Boy are gonna be here soon. We can do this two ways. You either open the door, apologize to me for being an absolute menace and driving me insane, or it gets busted down, and you leave the room anyways, except with a lot more yelling and a lot higher chance of Bruce not letting you out of his sight for months. Literally.”

You bite your lip, hands fisted in the rug.

“I’m not opening the door, Jason.”

“Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

You hear his footsteps leave. For a second, you take a moment to breathe, air whistling between your teeth, the AC loud in the quiet room.

“Open the door.”

You jump, nearly leaping a foot in the air, and the startled sound dies in your chest, eyes wide.

Bruce. Bruce was on the other side of the door, right now, and he was pissed. Pissed enough that his voice had that gravelly, rough quality it got when he was being stern and already mad as hell but trying not to show it.

“No.”

Your voice sounds small, even to you. You try to ignore it.

The door rattles on it’s hinges. It seemed, with a locked door and several heavy oak dressers between you and him, he was determined to move both. It rattles again, this time louder, and you shriek in alarm when the desk creaks. How fucking hard was Bruce hitting it?

“(Y/N), unless you want me to break this door down, open the door.” Bruce sighs after he speaks, and then breathes in, like he was trying to calm himself down.

“I know you’re scared right now. But just open the door and come out, and we can talk about why you did this, okay? I’m sorry I frightened you.”

You feel tears prick at the side of your face, feel the anxiety and the nervousness and the fear. You want to shake your head.

You don’t say anything, and he sighs again.

This time, it’s not just the door that rattles. The desk shudders, straining against the weight thrown against it, and the shelf creaks, then sways.

You’re smart enough to back up and away before it comes crashing down. Not that you don’t doubt Bruce knew you were away from the shelf, or he never would have risked toppling the heavy thing.

When he ducks through the doorway, picking his way over the shattered desk and shelf, you back away, hands trembling. He pauses.

“(Y/N). Why don’t you come over here so we can clean the mess up, and we can talk about this in a bit? Just take a breath, okay? Are you hurt?”

You shake your head. It makes some of the anger drain from his features, that you weren’t hurt, but you don’t get any closer and his lips press into a thin line.

“(Y/N). Come here.”

It’s stern. It reminds you of the same voice he uses every time you try and escape or fight with your siblings. It makes your stomach twist.

Your eyes flick to the door, and Dick, who was standing not far from the door way, sharp blue eyes watching you for any movement.

You make your decision, swallow, and ease forward.

Warm arms wrap around you the second you’re in reach, pressing you against Bruce’s chest, and you feel a bit of the tension in his shoulders unwind, just barely.

“This isn’t happening again, (Y/N). Do you understand me? What if you had gotten hurt, when the shelf came down? What if you had gotten hurt when you were in here and couldn’t say anything?”

Bruce was pissed, and he grips you tightly, tightly enough that you squirm in his hold, which only makes him grip you tighter.

“I wouldn’t have gotten myself hurt! It’s practically an empty room half the time, what could I have hurt myself with?”

God, you hated it when your mouth ran faster than your thoughts.

“That’s not what matters.” Dick cuts in. “The issue is that you could’ve, and we couldn’t have done anything about it!”

He pissed, practically spitting out the words, and you can hear Bruce’s frown.

“Dick, you need to calm down.”

“No! This is the fifth time this month they’ve tried something, you have to do something, Bruce! It’s stressing everyone out!”

You open your mouth to argue, ready to defend yourself because you hadn’t asked for any of this, but Bruce speaks before you can.

“I will.”

And suddenly you are far more preoccupied with trying to prevent Bruce from picking you up, twisting and squirming to get away, but he catches you easily. He presses you against him, this time the action restraining, and lifts, taking your feet off the ground.

The entire trip through the Manor, you are twisting and pushing against him, trying to escape. You nearly get close, once, when he was adjusting his hold and you had snapped your teeth at him, but Dick had lurched froward for a moment and it had startled you so badly that you had frozen, giving him time to readjust.

You’re dumped on a medical cot, and when you see the straps on either side, it nearly takes the both of them to hold you down long enough to get them on. Bruce looks pained the entire time, as you kick and flail, and when they’re both done, your arms are strapped securely enough that yanking on them does nothing.

“Stop. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Bruce frowns, and then sighs, moving the cot. You’re moved with it, and you glare. “This is only temporary until we find a more permanent solution, (Y/N). Until we can trust you not to be a danger to yourself, alright? It won’t last long.”

Dick doesn’t look like he agrees.

You don’t either.

[plaidos]

Hi, i hope this isnt inappropriate to ask. Do you have any tips for like, being confident in being a woman? I'm not trans, I'm cis, but lately I've been confronted with the fact that transitioning out of misogyny is an option that I could take. And I kind of hate myself for not just going for it, especially when it feels like I'm only a woman for very vapid reasons like fashion, liking my boobs, having a partner that would probably break up with me if I transitioned. It makes me feel like just another brainwashed woman choosing looks over anything else. Even though that's probably internalized misogyny to believe that, idk. I figured that since you had to make a massive and very scary choice to transition instead of stay closeted even when trans women are treated a lot worse than cis women, you'll probably have more insights about this. Or maybe a different way to look at it.

so first of all if they said that to you, you should break up with your partner. you deserve better than somebody who would (theoretically) rather you die in the closet that express who you are. even if you are 100% cisgender, this is not a person who respects you.

secondarily, you can in fact love your boobs & fashion etc and be a guy. Many of the trans guys I know are like this. Some of the coolest fashionistas with the biggest tits I know are men.

thirdly, if the respect of being a guy is the only part you’re interested in, don’t worry: whilst trans men are treated better than trans women, institutional transphobia is still very much a thing. Like, don’t let that stop you from transitioning if you wanna be a dude — if you think you would be happier this way, go for it, no matter what — but it won’t be a magic swap from misogyny to everybody treating you with respect. trans men might be beneficiaries of misogyny & the patriarchy in some circumstances, but they’re also blatantly victims of it in others, and even when they pass perfectly, they still have to deal with institutional transphobia (like the passport thing in the states right now, as an example that passing can’t circumvent)

if you want an answer to your question, how to be confident in being a cis woman — you must simply choose to be. i know, i know, it sounds like the hardest thing in the world. but i’ve said before & i’ll say again — in my youth i had chronic confidence problems that interfered with my life, so i’m saying this as somebody who got over it but the major difference between somebody who is confident and an equivalent person who is not is because the latter person already believes themselves to not be confident. it’s a self-defeating loop. this is what people really mean when they say, “fake it til you make it” — when you see other confident people, you are only seeing the thoughts and actions they are choosing to share with the world/take, and that dynamic works in reverse too. you don’t need my help to be confident — you’re already confident, you’re confident enough to ask questions like this, confident enough to make a change. you just need to convince yourself. you’ve already convinced me 🤷‍♀️

sincerely, i do think it’s worth thinking over your thoughts about transition and interrogating them more; do you want to be a man? do you not want to be a woman? try and take politics out of the question for a moment and ask yourself what you would look like or present like in your perfect world. not enjoying being a woman is not necessarily internalised misogyny — there are plenty of ways women are mistreated — and it isn’t vapid to like parts of yourself that people associate with womanhood, no matter what gender you are (anybody saying otherwise is sexist!).

i’m not gonna tell you who you are or how to be. but regardless of who you are, be it proudly, make it your choice. not what you think somebody like you should be, not what would be easiest. in my experience, the happiest cis women are the ones who take the same approach to their womanhood as trans women take: “i didn’t choose this for myself, but i sure am gonna own the fuck out of it”

[bitchy-craft]

What Their Personality Is Like | Pick A Pile

Hello and welcome to this Pick A Pile! In here you'll find out what your fs personality is like. I hope you guys enjoy and find this useful. Do make sure to leave comments down below on your experience! I do want to remind you all that this is a General Pick A Pile which means this is for a lot of people: therefore keep what resonates and leave what doesn't.

Masterpost > Questions > Paid Readings

Pick A Pile!

Pile 1:

Your future spouse isn’t confident, they’re rather shy and find the thought of the future nerve wrecking and possibly scary, they try to avoid thinking about it. They are intelligent, and are able to speak up when they believe they need to, although they try to avoid it as much as possible.

If they care about someone or something they’ll carry it with pride and be incredibly careful with it, preventing any loss of said thing.

They’ll make sure that the thing they care about is always happy and get whatever they need, but they often forget to also choose for themselves, to put themselves first. They hardly do that, so when they start to care for you, make sure they don’t start walking over themselves.

Pile 2:

Your future spouse is someone who can easily get carried away with someone, they are someone who are really popular, at least in their school career, possibly their work career.

They might be known as a player around those times, which might be the reason why you two won’t immediately get into a relationship. But they’ll make sure to convince you they changed, and they will do their best to keep you happy, do things with you etc.

They are confident and love people’s attention and care a lot about people, although they find it difficult to express emotions and tell people how they feel, how much people care about them.

Pile 3:

Your future spouse is a confident person who will do whatever they need to, to accomplish their goals. They are immensely passionate and have many ideals and wishes they want to succeed in in life, a lot of dreams they want to fulfil.

They are hard-working and great at team work, they understand how some things can only be accomplished with help of others, and that asking someone’s help isn’t anything bad, it’s helpful, sociable and great.

Because they are so hard-working and want to achieve so much in their life, they tend to get carried away from time to time. They will be so focused they won’t realize how they don’t give other things attention, possibly lacking to give you enough energy from time to time.

[meteor752]

The Watchers, my take on the lore

I love me some characters, and I love me some lovecraftean entities, so this was honestly inevitable

Most watcher lore seem to kinda group the watchers together as one entity, with very little room for individuality for them, which I think is kinda boring, so you know I’m changing that for funsies. This is not gonna be based on Martyn’s lore fully, I’m gonna keep some elements and then just kinda run with it because why not you know lol. Also I’ve only watched a little of EVO, but it’s not really gonna be based much on what happened in that series anyways.

So Grian, or Xelqua or whatever, created the concept for the games when he first became a Watcher, but despite that he’s not the actual gamemaster. Every series has had a Watcher in control, who’s been looking over the games, made sure they ran smoothly, and also occasionally meddled. With the existence of eight games now, we’ve therefore met eight Watchers.

First we’ve got Ihcá, the gamemaster of Third Life. Ihcá is very by the books, to an almost scary degree. You give them a task, they will complete it exactly as you asked it to be completed, no funny business. It’s because of this that the rules of Third Life are the most simple, the initial pitch for the life series was just that, three lives, red life you get bloodthirsty, once you’re out you’re gone. Unlike the other Watchers, Ihcá did not spice this up to any degree, as they saw no need to. They are cold, distanced, and keep to themselves.

I also wanna go over the relationship every gamemaster has to their respective winner, which is an interesting case for Ihcá, since their winner is not only a fellow Watcher, but also someone who broke the rules of the game. Grian and Ihcá could not be more different, and they never really cared much for him, even after he ascended to Their ranks. What did matter to them however, was when he killed three people with a trap, even as he was a green. If it had been anyone else, Ihcá would have taken them out right then and there, but Grian does have immunity against their powers thanks to his status. They do resent him for ruining their game, but it’s not something they mull over. As I said, they’re quite detached.

Next we’ve got Quevik, the gamemaster for Last life. Unlike their predecessor, Quevik changed up a lot of the initial design of the games, all to make it worse and more brutal for the players. The difference in the amount of lives you start with to spark more jealousy, only one enchanter to encourage stealing, and of course, the boogeyman, a seed for deception and betrayal. Quevik is creative and adaptive, they saw what the players focused on in the first game, and went in hard on it. They thrive in chaos and unease, and especially likes to feed on loneliness, hence the rules that Red Names were to be shunned from their teams. To them, Last Life was perfect in every way, except for one.

This is to no one’s surprise, but Quevik absolutely detests Scott. Just like how Grian defied Ihcá’s rules, he had defied Quevik’s, and they were not happy. The betrayals that the boogeyman curse brought was to their absolute delight, their favourite players were easily BigB and Bdubs because of it, but here stood Scott, refusing to take the life of his teammates, and instead going down to red. Quevik heavily considered just killing him right then and there for his infringement, but since it was right before the final session, they allowed him to live, just for the possibility of him betraying his allies in the final battle. Not a day has gone by where they haven’t regret that decision, you can still sometimes Hear them grumbling about it.

Tae & Nha is the watcher for Double Life. Tae & Nha is an interesting case of being two entities, but still only being one individual. They function very strangely, often switching between which primary voice to use when speaking, especially when interacting with players. Watchers feed on all emotions, and one of their favourites is confusion. For Tae & Nha, the soulmate system was a very obvious choice. After all, they are two entities with one “soul”, so they just took from their own experiences when designing it, made it easier. Most of the soulmates pairs were made random, but they did customise some things, such as Martyn’s separation from Ren, and Grian and Scar being together. So simple, yet effective way to torture them both.

Just like the winners before her, Pearl broke the rules of the game by not sticking to her soulmate, even if it wasn’t by choice. But despite that, Tae & Nha love her. From the beginning, Tae & Nha knew that there would only be one winner, and that the despair that the final pair would feel when they found out they would have to fight and kill the person they had spent all season with would be delicious. But Pearl delivered that devastation and more in the very first session, and retained it throughout all the series. Scarlet Pearl was such a delight to them in fact, that they let her keep some of those feelings even after the series ended, and the next one began. They delight in their winner, and the suffering they let her keep.

For Limited Life we have Gemíín, one of the most powerful Watchers in the roster. Gemíín is also one of the most daring ones, taking the concept that was first laid out by Grian and changing it up a lot. They’re kinda the opposite to Ihcá, and the rest of the Watchers in general, always thinking outside of the box. They are however more short tempered than most of their kind, and more quick to jump to extremes, especially when it comes to punishments. Why do you think Grian was unconscious for an entire session, or Cleo and Pearl got possessed? It’s not a good idea to piss Gemíín off, they won’t kill you but they will get to you.

There is no place this is reflected better than with Martyn. The Listeners favourite, one of the biggest nuisances back on EVO, and just someone generally disrespectful. The previous three may have mainly let him be in favour of not interfering with the games, but Gemíín is more spiteful. Taking away his beloved king was the easy part, but it wasn’t enough for Gemíín. Throughout the entire game they were whispering, whispering words that they knew that he would Hear. Encouragements, lies, threats, just about anything. Two out of three victors lost their humanity to win their series, and Gemíín was aiming for a third. A goal which they achieved, as Martyn struck down his own ally, and backstabbed his way to the top.

The Secret Life gamemaster is Vdari, who’s almost on the same power level as Gemíín. Vdari did what no other Watcher had done before and involved themselves directly in the series with the role of “The Secret Keeper”. Going into Secret Life, Vdari had a very similar mindset as Quevik, in that they looked at the previous series to see what was the most effective, and doubled down hard on that. This being, deception, and resentment. The series is built around lies, around unstable alliances, around not being able to trust one another, and without regeneration, a simple punch, push, or even just a friendly nudge is huge, and grudges will be held. An unfortunate side effect of the series structure is that Vdari stretched themselves extremely thin, with needing to constantly keep track on every player at all time, to see if they failed their task or not. Because of this, they tended to pay less attention to the players who’d already finished their tasks, which meant that when Scott and Lizzie traveled to The End they payed them no mind, which is why they weren’t able to stop Lizzie from falling into the void, thus ending the Canary Curse. They tried to do damage control, killing Jimmy as quick as they could, but in the end it didn’t matter. The other Watchers were…not happy.

And maybe they could’ve made sure that no one would have died before Jimmy, if they hadn’t been so preoccupied with Scar. Vdari had Seen Scar in previous seasons, and the way that he would get when pushed over the edge, and more importantly, the way that that would affect Their dear Grian. So Vdari made him the villain. They kept him in isolation with his tasks, forcing him to do more and more vile things to his fellow players. What Vdari hadn’t expected was how fun it would be to see Scar suffer, how much enjoyment one can get from being the reason a person breaks. They hadn’t intended for him to be the winner, but they were so delighted when Pearl fell, so delighted in fact that they kept him alive, instead of going to the winners lounge with the others. It’s truly a win win situation, Vdari gets to keep their tortured pet around, and the other Watchers are satisfied with poor Grians confusion and devastation over his absence.

Then we’ve got Armhék for Real Life, who is quite different from the previous gamemasters , in the way that they truly just wanted to get their game over with. They like doing one thing and one thing only, Watch, and is not interested in actually running a game, but was unfortunately forced to because it was their turn. They gave the most half assed attempt, just reusing the Third Life formula, but distorted the players visions and messed with their limbs, all to make them all die quicker, and then just set them loose. Since Vdari had already broken the canary curse, Armhék didn’t make an attempt to uphold it (Honestly, they probably would have broken it themselves cause they truly did not care). But yeah, their lack of any and all effort worked out in their favour, and Real Life is the shortest series that has taken place thus far. Every other Watcher is very annoyed.

If you somehow got the ability to ask Amhék who won their game, yeah they’d have no clue, Cleo means nothing to them, which like considering the way that Vdari is toying with Scar, that might be the best outcome for her.

And then, Wild life, with the surprising gamemaster of Grian himself. It was a controversial decision to let him lead the next game, but despite being a runaway, he’s still a Watcher, and so it was decided to let him hold the reins, under close scrutiny of course. Grian’s decision to lead the games was rooted in one simple fact; fun. The last couple of games had been rough on all of them, but especially the victors, so Grian designed Wild Life to be differing and fun to play. His only mistake was the snails, that turned out to be way deadlier than he thought, and so he ended that session early, which was an almost fatal decision, as the Watchers do not enjoy having their entertainment cut short. It was agreed that Grian could continue with the series, as long as he would never do anything like that again.

It was because of Grian’s attempt to keep the games friendly and fun, that Joel became the first victor since Last Life to win his game with his sanity intact, which we applaud. It’s once again something that the Watchers scold him for, but since it’s technically not a requirement to break your winner, it’s not something they can condemn.

And then, finally, the gamemaster of Simple Life, Zghula. Somehow, Zghula being chosen as the next gamemaster managed to be even more controversial than Grian, because Zghula was young. And I mean, really, young. There is no official ranks amongst the Watchers, but They all can tell who among them is more powerful, and therefore deserves more respect, and a lot of these powers come from experience and age. The best way to describe it, is that Zghula is basically the Watcher equivalent of an intern. They’d only ever Seen two games prior to Simple Life, so when it came to designing it they were very inexperienced, especially when it comes to the limits of what Players can take. Like, Armhék’s game was short on purpose, but for Zghula it was a complete accident. They just had no idea that a flat world could be so deadly, or that a few simple mobs were strong enough to take half the players to red. So yeah, whoops. Also, no one told them about the canary curse, and since no game they’d witnessed had had it, they didn’t even think to have Jimmy die first.

Somehow, Simple Life managed to bring shame not only to Zghula, but even more so to poor Quevik. Because not only was their victor someone who defied his game, no, now they had to share him with another, much weaker, Watcher. Like I said, not a day has gone by where they haven’t regretted keeping Scott alive for the final session of Last Life.

Other Watcher things!

The two EVO watchers have not been gamemasters, and therefore were not included here. I do headcanon them to be the two strongest Watchers, and so the de facto “leaders”. They are the ones who chooses who’s the next to lead a game, though as a Watcher you can put in a request to do so. If you’ve been chosen, you can’t refuse. The EVO watchers are named Kvī (Watcher 1) and Jagail (Watcher 2)

Kvī and Jagail are the two that came up with the idea of having death games in the first place, and are also the makers of the curses. Some of them, like Jimmy’s canary curse or Grian’s widow curse were planned from the beginning, while others, like Tango’s Inferno curse and Joel’s Red Haze curse came up as the games progressed. If a gamemaster fails to uphold a curse, without Kvī and Jagail’s explicit permission to break it, there will be dire consequences.

The reason for the blindfolds is mainly to keep them grounded. When wearing it, a watcher can still see everything around them, but if you’re for example hiding behind a wall or something, they can’t see you. If they take off the blindfold, they immediately get omnivision, and can see everything on the server. They for the most part tend to keep their blindfolds on, as they can otherwise be overwhelmed, but when leading a game a gamemaster always keeps their blindfold off

The blindfolds also make them more approachable and appealing to players, as when they’re off, all their multitudes of eyes can be seen, so they mostly keep them on the few times they actually approach a player. If they’re aiming to intimidate or scare however, the blindfold is always off

The reason Grian doesn’t wear a blindfold is that since he wasn’t “born” as a Watcher but ascended into their ranks, he doesn’t have the omnivision They have, at least not to the same scale

Grian is not the only person in their ranks who’s ascended, though he is the only one who’s ever rebelled, ever

The Watchers all have individual voices, but when one speak they all speak. If two Watchers were to be having a conversation, both of them would be saying all the words, but the one who’s actually speaking’s voice would be more prevalent than the other voices. It’s very confusing to listen to, and if you’re not used to it you will mix up who’s saying what.

Watchers tend not to speak much tho, as they are technically a type of hive mind. Their thought, opinions, and feelings are all shared between one another, so they rarely find a need to say anything to each other.

All the Watchers were made using Hero Forge

Also if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask :)

[youngyoo-apologist]

I was thinking about OG!Cale, and like the Thames family in general and I thought it would be cool if the Rings of Life was this kind of unsettling power.

Imagine looking into someone’s eyes, and you see thousands and thousands of circles layered upon themselves, of course, it isn’t really that many, and there shouldn’t be anything in those eyes at all, but the longer you stare the more they appear. You blink, and they’re gone, but the gaze they give you isn’t any less scary.

I’ll be talking about both Jour and OG!Cale in regards to how I think this power affected them. Like idk I just think it would be cool cause being able to see time is such a power, it’s so scary, and it’s so all knowing. I feel like anyone who has it, and uses it often would just have such an unsettling gaze. It’s like their stare is reading you like a book, as if your story is something they can easily unlock with just one glance.

Jour Thames:

I think Jour would have this kind, and calm personality.

She’s bright but at the same time, when she looks at someone she gets eerily quiet which is a contrast to her normal talkative self.

Knowing so much, seeing the fate of others at just a glance is something that would burden anyone. After all, time is not something humanity is supposed to walk hand in hand with. Humans follow time just like everything else does, but the Rings of Life whisper time’s plans into the Thame’s ears.

I think the scariest thing about her would be how casually she would drop some life changing information. She mentions it like it’s just one verse in a poem, short, but impactful.

If you were to ask her what she meant, maybe she would smile and laugh before going back to whatever she was doing.

Original Cale Henituse:

I think in many ways, the Rings of Life would affect Cale like how it affected his mother. He’s committed to doing things right, just like she is. He would do whatever he could to make sure those he loved stayed safe.

No doubt, his gaze would be just as scary and unsettling as Jours. Those eyes stare through your soul and into the very inner-workings of your time and life.

His time is warped. He is an anomaly, someone who technically should have never existed as he did according to the very laws of the universe.

It is because of that fact that he is closer to time than anyone else.

Being close to time himself, I feel like he’d become used to time fracturing like it was normal. For him, that is what he’s seen any time he’s looked at himself with those powers.

Cale would be the kind of person to bring something up suddenly. How it felt like time didn’t work quite right for you, he would look you in the eyes and it would feel like he’s seen everything he needs to know about you.

You would ask him what he meant, but with the way he smiled blankly, it really felt like you shouldn’t pry.

[callsign-rogueone]

Do you have dad!sawyer head canons? Thinkin about him a lot lately.

I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk about him and peach and their perfect girls 🩷 and I am always thinking about sawyer too… I will never be normal about him and his first first year. love him so bad.

from the beginning:

it’s Sliseag who figures it out first, and who breaks the news to Sawyer so nonchalantly, when you’ve been sick for a full week and just can’t keep food down: “She’s not ill,” he says, sounding amused. “she’s carrying your child.”

of course, he goes protective mode times a thousand after finding out. even though peach is literally a healer, and her mother was a midwife, sawyer is making sure that you go to every appointment with the healers, that you’re eating enough… it’s a little over the top sometimes, but you know it’s because he loves the both of you endlessly and just wants the best for you.

he’s absolutely taking time off from rider stuff when his girls are born (because this is in the happily ever after, so there’s no war going on) and he helps you as much as possible.

I think he’s an only child, so he never was really around kids or babies, but he takes to it immediately, which relaxes you enough that you’re actually able to get some sleep and start to recover.

toddler era:

him and peach are having two girls, a few years apart — Daisy and Stella. their nicknames from him are flower and starlight 🥹 and Ridoc and Sweetheart are their godparents, of course.

the girls are attached at the hip, even when Stella is super young. Daisy has her mother’s healer instincts, and loves helping take care of her little sister.

I am never giving up my farm boy sawyer headcanon. so like him and peach, these kids are growing up digging in the dirt and helping around the house, learning to take care of animals and appreciating the land.

speaking of animals, they are both obsessed with daddy’s dragon. Sliseag is endlessly patient with them, and plays babysitter sometimes when they’re out in the yard, keeping them out of trouble.

when the girls are a little older (and can be trusted not to eat things that aren’t food, lol), Sawyer makes them tiaras and jewelry out of old daggers, and little play swords that aren’t sharp and won’t hurt them.

they both absolutely love sleeping over at Ridoc and Sweetheart’s, because Ridoc is the fun uncle with no kids of his own and is a little crazy, but sweets keeps things within reason.

Sawyer knows he’s protective to a fault, and he wants them to be safe, but he also tries really hard not to enforce gender roles on the girls and make them think that all they could be is a damsel in distress. but he also doesn’t want them to feel pressured into becoming riders. it’s complicated.

when they’re school aged:

Stella is the one who is more outgoing and as of age 7, wants to be a rider like daddy. she’ll probably do it. she has her mother’s wildness, which Sawyer finds both endearing and a little scary at times, lol

again, I’m still not done with OS (up to ch 30!) so I don’t know how fully sawyer will recover from his injury, and how much rider duties he’ll have going forward. BUT…

it would be sweet to think about him and peach becoming kinda like Nolon and Winifred, both working at Basgiath or some other outpost with Sawyer working in the forge, and Peach in the infirmary, their kids going to the little school they probably have there for the kids. he continues to walk them to school, even when they’re old enough to find their way themselves.

he doesn’t let his injury stop him from playing with the girls, sitting on the floor for tea parties, carrying them on his shoulders… but Daisy always notices when he’s tired out or in pain, and smoothly changes the activity or “gets tired” and just wants to lay down and read with him or something. world’s sweetest girl.

in conclusion, sawyer henrick is just so husband. the sweetest boy, who would take the very best care of you and your girls. I love him endlessly and I miss him so bad… I need to find the emotional bandwidth to keep reading OS for the chance of more sawyer content.

[nynyhaha]

Phantom Troupe - failed robinhoods?

As the new chapters told us,the Spiders started out as a revenge based organisation. That’s also what made them the way they are now.

But no one talks about the huge responsibility they have to carry to help their whole town.

Kurapika’s task for instance is to avenge the dead rather than changing the world to better treat the living. He doesn’t have a community whose situation he is concerned with. It’s tragic,but in a way that limits his responsibility. Leorio wants to treat people for free and actually addresses a bigger societal problem that was born out of a personal one.

The phantom troupe are very much concerned with avenging specific people,but they work on utilitarian principles. They’re ready to sacrifice themselves for the whole of Meteor City,so that no kids will be kidnapped again

For that they’re ready to throw away their own morals. Because kid Chrollo isn’t yet evil. He can’t think the same way adult Chrollo does,he’s not hat capable of committing a massacre but he already knows he will kill many people,without really understanding what that means. If you were to say something like this,would you know what it means? I wouldn’t. So in short,they’d chose to pull the lever and sacrifice one person for the five.(Unless it’s up to Paku and Chrollo is the one person)

If this wasn’t a revenge mission,what would it be?

Meteor City needs two things, protection and material goods.

Before the Troupe gained sufficient strength to have a say, the elders made a deal that exchanged people for the mafias “protection”. It seems heavily implied that the very same mafia who agreed to protect them was the one behind the kidnappings to begin with,they just exchanged children for adults.

In chapter 105 Leorio says the following:

Many years after the original deal,there was a second one, but this time the mafia offered goods. Why couldn’t they kept the “protection” deal?

Because the City no longer needed protection. Something must’ve happened for the mafia to take a step back and actually pay Meteor City rather than just not stealing their kids.

See how it’s a forced decision?

And the Troupe abolished even that.

Not only did the Spider scare off the criminals terrorising their town,they also put a stop to the mafia buying Meteor City’s loyalty.

Maybe it’s already pointed out by someone,but we need to talk about that more!

Suddenly their quest to steal makes much more sense. They’re not only scary guard dogs,but providers. It simply can’t be argued that the Troupe’s existence has no positive effects,when it changes everything for Meteor City!

Why then are they “failed” robinhoods? Because while they’re effective,they can’t change the world. They can only scare off the Mafia while they exist,should the Spider die it could all revert back. And also because they can’t help everybody. The cost of their constructive ends is destruction.

While I believe the Kurta clan massacre had other reasons,would it not be the perfect way to show the elders the Troupe is both capable of cruelty for the sake of their community and fit to provide money? “Oh you think you need the Mafia? Watch this.”

In that way they wouldn’t even need to hate the clan,it would merely be killing outsider children for the sake of Meteorian children.

It perfectly shows how trying to achieve radical change in an unfair world can drive one to insanity. “Robinhoods” seem noble. The work that the Troupe does can’t be noble. Just like Kurapika’s quest isn’t righteous,as much as he wishes it was.

Wanting safety for the kids of Meteor City is natural,but it seems unattainable.

Is the thesis here that you can’t help Meteor City without killing someone? Yes. It doesn’t mean killing the kurtas,but it means killing the Mafia. And killing the Mafia often= normalisation of killing. The more often you do it the easier it is,and the lesser justification is required. Eventually,that means killing the Kurtas.

The idea is that they couldn’t keep doing what they did without eroding their morals to the point they’re at now.

They can’t remain pure. But they have to do something.

Meteor City seems like an unsolvable tragedy. It’s sucks up all the misery and filth of the world, and while it’s supposed to represent hope and be a safe place for all the lost,that’s an unattainable ideal.

There will always be people in need is such a place. It’s like the shadow of the World, which is the actual problem. Meteor City is everything that is right and wrong with humanity.

And the saddest part? Any state of peace is fragile. ALL of the Troupe’s achievements might be lost once it’s gone.

So it really was all for nothing? And how is Chrollo supposed to keep caring about human lives back at home when he has ended countless lives himself? How can he feel any attachment to humanity when he uses bodies as bombs and sees himself as a worthless hostage?

If he doesn’t feel it tho..what’s even the point? No wonder bro is lost

[ssatorussuguru]

hi!! i saw in the author's notes section on one of your fics that you're open to sharing more fic recs, so i was wondering if you have any for dick? love your fics btw 💕

thank u so so much it really means a lot <33 this one took SO long because there are such an abundance of incredible dick centric fics but i tried organizing it as best as i can! fair warning there is a looot under the cut, and some of them arent in dick's pov but i included them if hes the main relationship

(adjacent to that is the trillion dick and dami fics i adore but didnt include bc theyre more dami centric)

dick + bruce

he just wants his dad - Or, Dick gets many hugs over the years, but there's one he needs.

big ears are made of these - Dick has opinions about Bruce’s Batman costume. Namely, that it isn’t scary enough. Luckily, Bruce is happy to let his nine-year-old ward make “improvements” in the name of justice. It isn’t until Dick is older that he regrets taking Bruce up on the offer.

synchronicity - (A young Robin and Nightwing swap places; Batman is always the constant.)

we'll live in spaces between walls - (Something is different about Dick. Bruce notices.)

baby dick!!

sweater weather - Dick Grayson is eight, Bruce Wayne is trying, and there's a walk home in the rain.

im so blue all the time - (Batman is human, Dick Grayson is not. This changes nothing and everything, all at once.)

little robin redbreast - baby dick and selina

dick + jason

everything goes away - Dick accidentally gets sent back five years in the past, before Jason died. It's up to him to save his little brother, and maybe learn to see him in a different light.

heaven shall never call our name - Renegade is stuck living what can only be described to be his worst life, but at least he can check in on his little brother from time to time, even if it breaks his heart that he can't be the big brother Jason seeks.

to my brother - Jason’s in a small town somewhere in the Russian wasteland the first time he sends a postcard to Dick.

hope is the thing with feathers - Or Jason Todd is a time traveler, and Dick Grayson is always his destination.

birds in rafters - That one where Nightwing likes to take naps in the rafters of Red Hood's office/safehouse/warehouse. And Hood's so used to him at this point he conveniently forgets to tell his guys Wing's not a threat

i need somebody to tell me it will be just fine - Dick doesn't understand what's wrong with Jason. He's nervous, anxious and he's been pacing in front of Bruce's study for 15 minutes. Surely he's not afraid of the man?

a bright light of silver - batman and robin meet baby jase

dick + dami

give me your armor - No place is ever truly safe. Even knowing that, Damian feels safe in Wayne Manor. It has nothing to do with Grayson's presence.

the stowaway - Dick tries his best to parent Damian. Damian tries his best, period. They’re both a bit clumsy, but they’ve got the spirit.

smeared with oil (like david's boy) - Damian gets de-aged.

the spitting image - A stranger in line orders Dick's coffee for him.

what's in a name? - He’d convince Damian that he was good. Somehow. Eventually. Maybe after a nap. He’d give Damian new titles. A ten year old should not be hearing the adults around him calling him ‘Demon Spawn’ or ‘Devil Child’ or whatever else. He’d give Damian new attributes to be proud of.

misc

prove that i'm worth something - Dick Grayson has never had much time for Stephanie Brown. But when the two of them find themselves stranded without a line to the outside world, he finds that they might have more in common than he thought.

their arms are extended (my eyes start to close) - In which Dick Grayson gets hit with fear toxin, Stephanie Brown imparts some wisdom, and Damian Al Ghul Wayne learns to forgive himself.

inhale peace - After being erased from the memory of his loved ones, Dick travels the world and tries to learn to heal.

it was not your fault, but mine - Dick gets caught and tortured. Tim finds him. Dick thinks he doesn't care enough to help him. Tim, frankly, doesn't care what Dick thinks.

chatterbox - Eight times that spells or serums affected Dick's ability to speak and / or their aftermath.

turncoat - Dick didn’t know how he felt about doing a job in Gotham. Honestly, it had been a surprise he’d even been assigned to it; he would’ve thought he’d be considered too close. Too likely to be compromised.

[personasintro]

corrupted | myg

↳ 𝐬𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬; what's worse than living in a fucked up and corrupted world?

⇢ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: yoongi x reader

⇢ 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: mafia au, angst (?)

⇢ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: explicit language, misogyny, no feminism here, everything is fucked up here (hence the title lol)

⇢ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 2.9k+

While the world's riots and country has been unsettled for a while now, rotten and violated by local gangs, it is not the most unsettling part though. Citizens say it is controlled by someone of a higher and more dangerous status. Someone whose people always lurk in the shadows, doing dirty business. One, many people don’t know any details of.

You being one of them.

Being just another person who has been forced into living in today’s world, not that anyone had a choice, there is not much knowledge. People talk, they gossip and jump into conclusions. It’s hard to say what’s true or not. So naturally, they speculate and it’s always something harsh and scary.

After all, that’s how it works now.

Unless you’re not a part of one of the gangs, earning your rightful place there and doing all the dirty work of all kinds, you’re just a basic human trying to survive and not get into any trouble.

People work where they can. Just enough to earn money and buy themselves food, somewhere they can live and stay. The amount of homeless people who steal has rapidly increased since the government is gone. Everything is corrupted. Empty. Without life. Just darkness and fear.

There were times when the world has progressed.

Not for women, it is hard to find yourself a good living. Unless you don’t want to be a part of any brothel that’s almost at every corner. People are desperate. Some women love to do it, perhaps they feel powerful that way. Some are not there because they want to be. They use their bodies to bring food and a proper living either to themselves, or to their families.

It’s one of the things you refuse to do. As anyone could imagine, it’s not the cleanest and safest work. One you really refuse to succumb to.

But enough to go out, praying no harm will come to you during your time out of the comfort of the rented small and old apartment that you're staying in.

Clubs and bars are no safer than what is outside, right behind every wall and door. You still consider it as a better alternative of how you could earn enough money to cover your rent and bring food for yourself.

Some women, actually a good part of them, latch themselves to a gang man. It is one of the choices that secures you at least some kind of protection, money, food and roof under your head. They’re known to have more money and security. You see a member of a gang? You run. You don’t indulge yourself with any of them. They’re dangerous. Don’t take no for answers. Most of them.

So far, you haven’t had the chance to really talk to any of them. You avoid them at all costs.

People come out to drink and have fun, even if they know that if someone just got killed at this very moment, only few would react. That’s how fucked up this world is.

No one is truly safe. Even under the fake facade of the world being relatively at peace right now — the words of whispers saying it’s the big boss controlling the country — no one guarantees you safety. Whoever is “up there” and is not afraid to kill or do different sorts of fucked up actions, does not care about anyone’s lives. So many people lost their lives.

People you knew.

And no one cared.

Relatives can’t get any justice. Not even revenge.

A gang member kills someone you know? Someone you loved? There’s nothing you can do, unless you or someone you care about wants to be killed. It’s fucked up.

It’s almost ironic how people dance to the loud music, seeming not to care about how truly fucked up it really is. It’s almost like the world hasn’t changed, people laugh, have fun and are getting drunk. However, there is still a shadow casting upon everyone’s head, filling up every inch and corner available. Nothing is the same anymore.

You would be stupid to tell yourself anything different. Even if it was under the mask of pretending. Even if it’s for a while.

Sitting on a hardened bar stool, you shift in your spot to make yourself comfortable which is very impossible. The bar is hectic. It seems to be doing well considering the amount of people here. One of your neighbors told you they could possibly hire you. It does sound a little silly considering there are no contracts now. They either take you and you do what they say, or you can forget about any job.

As you scan your surroundings in this dim lighting, you spot someone sitting in the corner of your eyes. An empty barstool between you as that someone happens to be a man. You wouldn’t pay him that much attention, you’re just merely cautious when it comes to anyone that’s an arm length from you. He’s just sitting there, enjoying the drink that’s in front of him. It’s hard to spot any of his features, the lack of lights here make it very difficult.

You’re in your own thoughts, focusing on the sounds around you which are just loud and blasting music when suddenly the stranger stares dead in your eyes. Something clenches in your chest, a good portion of shock at the sudden eye contact as he must’ve felt you watching him. There is so much darkness that you fail to notice the tiny smirk that curls the corner of his lips.

He’s got strong features, a smaller and slightly rounder nose — at least that’s what you guess from the seconds that he stares right back at you until he turns back and focuses his eyes on his drink. He plays with a glass, long fingers wrapped around its neck as his fingertips brush ever so slightly against it.

Gulping, you look away, embarrassed that he has caught you so easily. So much for staying low…

“Hiya, cheeks. What can I get ya?”

Head snapping at the bartender who chews on his gum, you suppress the need to glare at him and his stupid nickname, you clench your jaw for a second before you allow yourself to relax.

“Soda will do.” You almost wave him off, oblivious to the deadpanned look you so easily earn in return as soon as you look away from him, not paying him any more attention or eye contact.

That’s until he laughs, rubbing his nose. “Soda? That’s what you fucking order when you’re in this bar?”

Startled at the attitude and obvious mockery, you frown. “I’m not here to get drunk. I’m here on business.” you justify, even though you don’t feel like you have to at all.

But to avoid any more reaction or attention from this dumb fuck, you have to keep it casual. You don’t want to draw any more attention. Fucking hell, you’re the most clothed woman in here. You already do draw enough attention for people to think you’re weird or sketchy. The truth is, not many people have seemed to notice you and you would prefer it that way. Knowing it’s just wishful thinking, you gulp down any insult that wants to come out.

“Ah, got it.” He nods and for a split second, you sigh in relief. But then the dumb fuck has to open his mouth again. “Perhaps you would find the time for me after I clock off here too.”

He smirks, walking away too quickly for you to even react. Your mouth opens agape, knowing what he thinks of you and what he initiated. He thinks you’re a hooker. Well, they’re known for drinking and taking drugs. On rare occasions, there are some who don’t do any of this. Their clients prefer them to be not under any influence. But again, it’s just what you’ve heard and learned to know from a third party.

It’s the deep chuckle beside you that makes you snap out of your offended state. There’s no one beside the man, he’s smirking at his drink and undoubtedly, he’s heard the entire exchange between you and the shitty bartender. It’s the audacity of him that he laughs at that, clearly mocking you just like the bartender did if not even more. He hasn’t been even a part of that ridiculous conversation.

And before you know it, your ego and irritation gets the best out of you. “What?”

You say loud enough for him to hear. You know he does but he still reacts as if he doesn’t hear you. He’s smirking at his glass, tapping his fingers on it a few times. Enough for you to notice the rings on his fingers. It’s like an alarm ringing in your head but it’s already gone by the time he suddenly and slowly looks up. He slowly turns his head, giving you a look with a raised brow. Almost as if he’s questioning if you were talking to him.

And despite the little nervousness inside you, you keep your ground and still stare at him. Even have the audacity to raise your brow at him, making it clear you’re talking to him. The corner of his mouth twitches.

“Not a hooker, huh?”

Is he trying to be funny?

Narrowing your eyes, you hide your clenched fists in your lap. “What? You were interested?”

Oh fuck. Where is this boldness coming from? What the fuck are you doing?! You’re usually careful of how you speak to others. What if he’s a gang member and he’ll pull out his gun and shoot your brains out? No one would bat an eyelash here if that really happened. They would just be annoyed they have to clean your remains. God, the thought of that makes you almost gag.

He breathes out what sounds like a chuckle, it’s hard to tell because it’s too silent for this loud surroundings. “What a girl like you is doing here?” he asks instead.

A girl. Did he just call you a girl?

You’re sure it has something to do with your appearance and a choice of clothing, but the fact he hasn’t referred to you as a woman bothers you. Not that women mean something in this world anyway. Sad to say but for most men and parts, they’re good for sex and that’s about it. It’s a rotten world.

Women barely get any respect.

This time, you use your brain in a better way and settle upon honest and casual information, which you shouldn’t exactly share to a mere stranger. But what harm could it do? It’s not like you just shared your name or any personal information that could tell him your identity. For him, you’re just another… girl in this bar. Perhaps he thinks you’re strange to come here, not drinking and wearing the shortest dress you own. You don’t even do that anymore.

You can’t remember the last time you wore a dress. You choose not to, not wanting to catch an unwanted pair of eyes and attention which is brutally sad and upsetting.

“I’m looking for a job.”

“Here?” he chuckles humorously almost immediately.

You frown, “What’s wrong about here?”

“Why here out of all places?” he questions instead.

“I don’t know if you haven’t noticed, but we don’t have much choice. I gotta live somehow.”

“I suppose it’s better than visiting a brothel, no shaming though.”

“What? Because you’re a daily client there?”

He looks up again for a moment, breathing out a light chuckle once again. Are you this funny? “You don’t belong here.”

You frown in confusion this time, “And where do I belong?”

He licks his lips, reaching for his glass as he silently sips onto whatever drink he has there. The liquid is darkish brown, you would guess that’s neat whiskey right there.

“They shot the latest bartender here.”

“Are you trying to scare me?”

He smiles, but it doesn’t offer any sweetness to it. “No. Just being informative.”

“You barely answer any of my questions.”

“Didn’t know it’s an obligation.”

You groan, rubbing your forehead just as the bartender brings you your alcohol free drink. Fuck. Maybe you should’ve ordered alcohol after all. You definitely might need it for this odd conversation.

“What do you do then?”

He taps his fingers against the counter, relaxed and smoothly as if he has a world in the palm of his hands. “Just here and about.”

“Hm, informative as always.” you mutter, ignoring the burning glance at the side of your face. It’s your time to sip on your drink, enjoying the lack of attention you give him.

You could imagine what kind of dirty work he does. Everyone does one in a way.

“Why are you sitting here then, when you’re looking for a job?”

You sigh, “I’m mapping out this place. I won’t show interest when something might happen here.”

“I just told you someone got killed here like a week ago. Shit happens here.”

“Shit happens everywhere. Thanks to this corrupted world and whoever is controlling it.”

It’s a silence between you for some time. Your curiosity rising up. He seems to be a regular here considering he knows about the shooting. Perhaps he could’ve heard it. You don’t ask any details about that though, settling on something much more curious. Many gossips are around and you do wonder what could he bring.

“Do you know who’s behind this?”

He stays silent, slowly turning his head to look at you again. None of you seem to be looking at each other the entire time.

“Does anyone?”

“Well, people talk. Everyone assumes it’s a man. What if it’s a woman?”

He chuckles.

“What? You think a woman is not capable of ruling the country?”

“I heard a lot of rumors but never that one.” he admits.

“What did you hear then?”

He does that thing again — the corner of his lips twitch in amusement. You don’t care about that though. For once, you actually feel nice to have a conversation. You don’t get a lot of opportunities to talk about this kind of stuff. It is dangerous to be talking about it so freely. Let alone with a stranger. But this one, you’re cautious about but he seems to be chilled out.

However, your guess of people might be wrong.

“Whoever rules it is ruthless.”

“He must be. Who’s okay with killing, violence and drugs? And I just named a very short list of them.”

“He? I thought you considered a female here.”

Popping your chin on your palm, you rest your elbow on the counter. “When you think about it, today’s all about dominance, power and money. Women mean nothing here.”

It’s the brutally honest truth.

“Besides, I don’t think a woman could be so ruthless to the point when people just kill each other.”

“You would be surprised.”

You narrow your eyes at him, not quite agreeing. Surely there could be a woman that would match up to any violent man there is. “I’m not misogynistic, so I won’t completely disagree with that. What makes me think it’s a man is a fact of how it is in here. Women are left fending for themselves and the most protection or at least the slightest feeling of power they can get, is through men.”

“Hm, that’s an… interesting observation.”

“What? You don’t agree?” you ask, snapping your head at him as he chuckles, in a low and vibrating tone.

“Nah, I think you might be onto something.”

You sigh, staring ahead. “Well, I’m just thinking out loud. I don’t get anything.”

There’s a silence between you two, the blasting music remaining in the background as a loud noise which you’re trying to block. It’s not like you’re not a fan of rap but come on, you’re about to get a headache.

The man suddenly stands, chugging the rest of his drink as if it’s nothing. No grimace, nothing. He doesn’t look drunk to the point where he could no longer feel the burn of alcohol.

“You should not work here.”

Your eyebrows shoot up and a speechless grimace makes it on your face. “Why?”

“It’s not safe.”

“Is there any safe place?”

He chuckles, scratching his eyebrow as he stays silent, giving you no proper answer.

“What’s your name?”

“Mingi.”

You frown, “You don’t look like Mingi.”

He snorts, rubbing his mouth for a quick second. “What do I look like?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble honestly. “But it’s not Mingi.”

He doesn’t disagree, he lets you think whatever you want. Again, you don’t know this man and you have no clue whether he’s lying or not. You do have a suspicion because something radiates from him, you’re just not sure what.

“And what’s your name?”

You scoff humorously, “I’m not telling you.”

There’s a breaking sound on your right side, glass breaking and a few people yelling at each other. From the looks of it, it’s two groups getting into a fight where a security tries to take care of it. There are punches thrown and you gasp at the violent image, even though it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. People fight on the streets all the time. You just hope whenever you see someone laying on the ground is a homeless person, and not a dead body.

You turn around, guessing the man is already giving you a knowing look where he warned you about this place.

However once you turn around there’s no one there.

There's an empty spot, almost like he’s been a friction of your imagination. A ghost. Someone that wasn’t even here.

But then there it is.

The empty glass he drank from.

It is enough to assure you that he was real.

[clonemommy]

Lucky me

Summary: On a night out, something between Wolffe and you changes.

Pairing: WolffexReader

Warnings: Drinking, Making-Out, Teasing

Words: 3.2k

Auhtors Note: Should I make a part two of this? Like something.. spicy? perhaps?

Oh and this is not proof read

--

It was one of those nights that will never be forgotten. It was ‘no clone stays dry’ night. Clone or Padawan - it doesn’t matter in the end; nobody stays dry. Nobody wants to stay dry. Where else is the fun? May the liver be with us.

The first different aromas fill my nose as I enter the bar, 79s, of course. Let’s be honest: no bar on Coruscant is better than this clone bar. In addition to the pervasive smell of alcohol, the countless suits of armour immediately caught my eye. White, orange, blue, green… Besides the bright, colourful lights that radiate from the bar, the different colours are challenging to determine. But one colour I’m very sure I can see is the grey next to me.

Why? Because I came here with them. Our Wolfpack is close to my heels as I approach the bar. My own personal pack of wolves who will chase away anything and anyone who gets too close. The biggest and the most dangerous - Wolffie. Oh, no, sorry - Wolffe. Wolffie is forbidden, much to my regret. However, I could swear he secretly likes it, at least with me.

Boost called him Wolffie once, and he’s not far from the barracks for the next few days after that. Master Plo had to reassure him that nothing would happen to him. In any case, I’m enjoying my Big Scary Dog privileges to the full today.

As soon as my big, dangerous wolves and I reach the bar, we are met by an all too familiar-sunshine. With a big, wide grin on his face. ‘Cody, I didn’t realise you even knew places like this.’ Wolffe, next to me, naturally heads straight for his brother. ‘I can’t always be the spoilsport.’ Cody replies, and the two give each other a quick brotherly hug.

‘Oh yeah, who is it today?’ ’Bly. He and General Secura have a meeting.’ Cody looks at his brother for a second too long before turning his gaze to me. ‘Y/N, I’m always happy to have you here.’

Cody comes up to me and hugs me in greeting.

‘Hey, Kotes. Nice to see you again.’ He hugs me and then lets go of me with a smile. Wolffe, who is standing silently next to us, turns to me. There’s something in his gaze that I can’t quite put my finger on. Just as he seems to be about to say something, Cody speaks to us, ‘You must want to sit at our table. The others are already drunk, you’re pretty behind on the drinking.’ His grin returns.

‘That sounds very tempting,’ I finally reply, fuelled by anticipation. When I turn back to Wolffe, I realise that the rest of the Wolfpack has long since left. Only Wolffe is still standing next to me.

Some of them even salute, but they don’t have to. They’re just too cute, aren’t they? Wolffe would now say that they are loyal, not sweet. Then I would say that it moves me that even when drunk, they give themselves to us. Then Wolffe would retort that they were raised - no - programmed to do this, and so it would continue.

‘What do you think?’ His gaze shifts from Cody to me. His eyes - or rather his one eye - no, actually, his two eyes - soften. ‘Yeah, sure, I’ll come with you.’ I smile at him, and Cody starts to move. We walk to the other end of the bar, weaving our way past brothers and brothers.

But not today. I want Wolffe to relax and put his stubborn head aside.

And when I see the table that Cody is leading us to, this might be easier than I thought. ‘Look who I’ve picked up.’ Cody proudly presents his haul as we step up to the table. I see Rex, Ahsoka, Gree, Monnk, and others like Waxer, Boil, Fives, and Jesse. Ahsoka stands up as soon as she sees me and hugs me tightly. A laugh escapes me immediately. ‘Ahsoka, how are you?’

’Oh, you know, saving the galaxy here, fighting droids there… it never gets boring.’ That’s the Skywalker talking. I’m thrilled to see my old friend again. ‘And how are things going with you and Master Plo?’ ’It’s going great. Master Plo would have loved to see you.’ She releases me from her tight grip and sits down again. I give the rest of the gang a quick wave, and Wolffe… well, Wolffe is Wolffe. I’m sure he’ll have somehow communicated with his brothers while I was busy with Ahsoka.

When we finally sit down, I end up next to Gree, who gives me another quick hug from the side, and Wolffe sits next to me on my right. He sits at the far end of the booth. Ahsoka sits opposite us at the other end of the Booth. The rest are spread out in the centre.

‘Cody, tell me, what happened to our drinks, eh?’ Monnk addresses Cody, who is still standing. He replies plumb: ‘Huh?’ ‘Yeah, really, you were going to get drinks,’ Gree joins in. ‘He probably drank them all by himself on the way here, typical.’ Rex points to Cody’s seat. With a pile of empty glasses.

‘Woah woah woah. Stop a minute. I brought you something much better - Y/N. Oh, and Wolffe too, that was more or less intentional.’ The table laughs; only Wolffe looks more or less amused. ‘It wasn’t my fault… always on the commander…’ Cody finally turns around mid-sentence and heads back towards the bar.

Giggling follows at the table. At that moment, Wolffe asks me, ‘What can I get you? I’ll get drinks for us.’ His willingness makes me happy and gives me a good feeling in my chest. His silent existence from a moment ago seems completely displaced when he turns to me. ‘Can you bring me something not quite so strong? I want to enjoy the evening more before I’m useless later.’

Wolffe smiles gently at me. ‘Sure thing. Anything else?’, “Not for now.”, ’Sure?’ I can’t help but smile. ‘I’ll let you know immediately if I need anything else, Wolffe.’ His grin grows as I grin knowingly at him myself. He finally gets up and goes after his brother. My eyes rest on his form as he walks away.

I can’t help but stare after him. And honestly, who can blame me? If there were ever a ranking of the best-looking clones in the army - Wolffe would be my number 1. Always. Although millions share his face, his is the most beautiful. By all means, the hottest. But just as my gaze is about to wander down his figure, I feel a presence behind me, close to my face.

It is green and decorated with two red stripes. Need I say more? The alien himself. ‘Gree?’ When I turn round, Gree is close to me, looking in the direction I was staring. His eyes are narrowed and strained. ‘Mh?’ ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Oh, I just wanted to find out what you were watching. Or rather - who you’re watching.’

He leans back again and looks at me mischievously. He raises an eyebrow and looks at me expectantly. In response, I raise my eyebrow, too, trying to appear as clueless as possible. Gree now raises his second as well. - ‘Okay, you look stupid.’ I can’t help but not laugh at Gree.

He laughs, too, of course, after relaxing his eyebrows again. ‘Oh, no, do that again; I must take a picture!’ ‘Hell no.’ ‘Yes, you do; I’ll add that to my backgrounds on my holo pad!’ He looks at me suspiciously. ‘What if we do it in pairs? As a selfie?’ He thinks for a moment. ‘All right, but quickly.’ I can’t believe he’s agreed to this.

Gree takes out his helmet and holds it out in front of us. ‘Okay, Y/N, on three…’ ‘One’ “Two” ’Three.’ On three, we raise our eyebrows simultaneously and look into the helmet’s visor together. Gree pulls the trigger and lowers the helmet again a little later. But before he puts it down again, he quickly puts it on. A few seconds later, he laughs out loud. ‘Come on, let’s see it!’ ‘Yes, just a moment…’

And just as Gree predicted, my holo pad flashes a moment later, and a picture is displayed. We look divine. I can’t stifle my laughter. We both look modest. It’s so stupid that this is already one of my favourite pictures. ‘This will end up as my background.’ I smile so wide that the corners of my mouth hurt. But it’s precisely because of moments like this that these nights are so special.

The boys are special precisely because of moments like these. They are friends - brothers, not soldiers and followers of orders. My heart blossoms in moments like these. But that’s not the only reason my heart blossomed; a new presence appeared next to me, this time on my other side. And in the same breath, a drink is placed before me. I look over and spot Wolffe, who has just sat beside me again. Denser than before.

‘Wolffe!’ My smile is now even wider than before. ‘Hey.’ He greets me quietly with a gentle smile, which is typical of him and reserved for me. We are interrupted from the side as: ‘Wolffe can smile… Woah, did that apply to me, or…?’ Gree. Who else. ‘Shut up, Gree.’ He raises his hands in defence and turns away from us.

Cody, who has returned with Wolffe, hands out the drinks and squeezes through to return to his seat. ‘So… what did we miss?’ As the others briefly update the well-coiffed Commander, they don’t seem to have noticed anything about Grees and my embarrassing photo. At least that’s what I thought until…

‘Why were you and the alien next to you laughing like that just now?’ Wolffe next to me looks at me quizzically. He seems quite interested in the reason, but he’s wearing an impenetrable, hard expression. ‘We took a photo together, which turned out pretty trivial. Do you want to see it?’ He gives me a dodgy look and replies bluntly: ‘No, thanks.’ Oh. Good, then, no. That was pretty clear. If he knew that he was the reason the photo was taken…

Luckily, Gree didn't ask why I was staring after Wolffe like that. He would have always held that against me. Never mind. Change of subject. ‘What kind of drink do you have?’ Wolffe turns his gaze to his glass. ‘Beer.’ ’Beer was never really mine… it tastes horrible.’ The table instantly goes quiet. Oh boy. ‘Would you like to repeat that, Y/N?’

Monnk is the first to break the tense silence. ‘Beer tastes terrible?’ My voice is visibly - no, audibly - restrained. ‘Out’ The next moment, Rex raises his arm and points to the exit. ‘Out. Now.’ Ahsoka, next to him, giggles. ‘Wolffe, you must not have raised your Padawan properly.’ Cody joins in the discussion.

The one just named also looks at me sceptically. ‘I had just as little idea, Kotes.’ ‘Even Ahsoka drinks beer!’ Rex nods vigorously at her statement. ‘It’s not bad at all after a few glasses.’ I’m not convinced. ‘I’ve tried it so many times, but it still tastes just as bad every time!’ I can already tell that my defence is poor. ‘You’re not supposed to drink it several times on different evenings, but several times in one evening! Wolffe, your Padawan is lost.’

Monnk throws his hands in the air. The others loudly agree with him. ‘I don’t know…’ ‘Hey.’ Wolffe touches my side. When I turn to him, he looks at me gently. ‘It’s all right. You’ve got something to drink, and that’s good.’ My gaze wanders to his beer ‘Wolffe…. Do you like beer?’ ‘Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have ordered any.’ Of course. Stupid question. ‘Would you like a taste?’

The question is meant seriously. He looks at me calmly. Which is unusual because he never looks calm. It’s more like he’s about to bark at any moment. Just like Wolffe. ‘If I may.’ And there it is again, his gentle smile, which he only gives me. He lifts the glass and hands it to me. An idea occurs to me. ‘Here.’ I give him my drink in exchange. He looks at me in surprise.

‘I’d like to clink glasses with you. Go on, have one.’ Reluctantly, but still willingly, he accepts my glass, and we clink glasses. As the first bitter drops of beer touch my tongue, my face contorts, and a shiver runs down my spine. It’s worse than I remember. Have they changed suppliers here? Disgusting.

A soft laugh sounds next to me. Wolffe looks at me with amusement and carefully takes the beer from my hand, which I’m already holding out to him. ‘Not good?’ ‘Not good.’ He looks at me. ‘How can you drink that?’ ‘Probably a man thing.’ ‘Yeah, you can keep it. Women deserve better.’ ‘I know, they do.’

He’s still looking at me gently. His gaze stays with me most of the time. And that makes me happy, quite frankly. The moment is interrupted when the voices next to us get louder again.

From then on, the topics of the evening changed several more times. About missions, tactics, Jedi and the latest dramas that Fox had to tell. However, Wolffe’s uninterrupted gaze on me hasn’t changed.

But wait - one thing has changed. It’s Wolffe’s arm, which has quietly and secretly crept around my shoulder. And which holds me tightly. After a few more drinks, the atmosphere has become very relaxed. And so has Wolffe. He sits comfortably next to me and has pulled me to his side. The beer is in one hand, and me is in the other.

Is it crazy to say that it’s getting me fucked up? But in a good way. In a perfect way. With every drink, I snuggle more into his arms, which doesn’t bother him. On the contrary. He starts to draw gentle circles on my shoulder with his hand. And just as the others are conversing, I turn slightly towards him.

‘Hey…’ My voice is quieter than intended but still audible next to the loud music. His gaze immediately rests on me. ‘Hey. Are you all right?’ Of course, he’s worried. ‘Yeah.’ My voice remains a whisper, and he adjusts his voice, too. Thanks to our closeness, we understand each other very well. ‘Yes, of course. I’m with you.’ He returns my answer with a smile.

- Just by the way, I should keep a tally; the number of times he has smiled today, no, tonight alone, is a record. -

‘Everything all right with you?’ His smile lingers on his lips. ‘Of course, Méshla.’

There it is: Méshla. I know exactly what it means. And Wolffe knows it, too. I turn towards him, and his hand falls from my shoulder to my back. He holds me by the waist. ‘You weren’t in a good mood earlier, were you?’ I can’t help but look at him, a little worried. He looks at me questioningly.

‘When we arrived, I mean. You didn’t seem well.’

‘Oh, Méshla, don’t worry about it. You’re here, that’ll lift my spirits.’ I don’t quite believe him.

'Really'.

He puts his free hand on my chin and slightly lifts my head.

‘I promise.’

A small smile finally rises to my lips. My eyes look deep into his until they finally dart to his lips. And up again. And down again. I can’t make up my mind.

‘Hey.’ Wolffe puts his hand on my cheek. My eyes decide in favour of his eyes. He slowly comes closer to me. Which is hardly possible, as we were already very close before. Alcohol - I blame it all on the alcohol. But when I think about it, I can’t stay angry with it for long. Because the next feeling of Wolffe’s surprisingly soft lips on mine makes me forget everything.

At first, he’s gentle, but then he gets bolder. Our lips move faster, more intensely. A kiss like in any little girl’s dream. Or perhaps any teenager. Little girls certainly don’t dream of kisses like this. Not yet.

But the kiss is perfect in every way. Wolffe is perfect. To put it bluntly. But I think that was already known beforehand.

The kiss deepens, and my insides tingle as I feel his tongue on my lips, asking for entrance. I grant it to him, of course.

Suddenly, there is a synchronised clearing of throats. When we let go of each other, and I looked around, everyone else looked blankly at us. ‘Damn. Wolffe’s got it going on.’ Cody starts to grin.

When our tongues meet, the tingling turns into fireworks. It must be similar for Wolffe as he continues to rise in front of me. He takes me in completely.

The kiss is the epitome of hot. Demanding and passionate. I would never have expected to spend the night like this. And neither did the others.

‘Wolffe?! Y/N’s got it!’ Ahsoka cheers and looks at me excitedly. ‘That, kiddos, is how you kiss right.’ Monnk addresses the younger clones among us, grinning, some of which avoid Wolffe’s and my direction.

‘Jealous, Kotes?’ Wolffe surprisingly speaks up.

My first thought is that it feels surprisingly good. Not the armour, of course, but his presence under me, next to me, on me. And I want to stay like this forever. The others marvel at Wolffe’s directness but strangely say nothing about it. Probably because they know that they are not to be trifled with by Wolffe’s prey. A little hint: that’s me.

Cody looks surprised but grins mischievously, ‘Maybe.’ I’m surprised by his answer. Wolffe puts his arm around me again and pulls me close.

But in the next moment, ‘Y/N, can you get up for a minute?’ Slightly confused by his request, I do as he asks. Wolffe grabs my waist and pulls me straight onto his lap as I stand. Am I surprised? Yes. But then again, no.

Ahsoka gives me a meaningful and encouraging look before she brings up a new topic. I’m very grateful to her for that. ‘Hey.’ Wolffe draws my attention back to him. ‘You’re so quiet.’ He gives me a reserved look. ‘Sorry… I’m still trying to understand the situation. Despite the alcohol.’ I giggle, and a smile appears on his face. ‘Shall I explain it to you?’ I nod at him expectantly.

My Wolffe. My Wolffie. Mine.

‘You, Méshla, and I won’t just be Commander and Commander from now on.’ I giggle again. ‘We’re going to be more. Not to the others, of course. But I want you to make me yours. ‘Wolffie’ and all that stuff included.’ He kisses my neck. ‘In return, I want you to be mine. ‘Méshla' and all that included.’

He kisses the other side of my neck. ‘I can call you Wolffie?’ My eyes light up. ‘You already did it anyway. Now officially.’ He has a grin on his face. ‘Are you going to be mine?’

‘Only if you’re going to be mine.’

‘Méshla, that’s all I wanted to hear.’ Before I can react, Wolffe pulls me into another kiss.

Who would have thought that this night would progress like this? Lucky me.

[shrimptacodaniels]

when life gives you letters…

come out to your estranged younger brother.

(that’s how the phrase goes, right?)

enjoy ;)

—

Brendan Michael Hahn was better than anyone at letting things go. He had been since birth. Never much of a crier, just a sweet, agreeable baby.

“Like water off a duck’s back,” his father would marvel, watching young Brendan topple over and get right back up. “The kid just lets life happen.” 

Here’s the thing about letting life happen - too often, it turns into life passing you by.

Somehow, life’s led them straight to the post office. 

Somehow, even though they’re already here, Brendan can’t get out of the car. 

They groan in frustration. Taking life by the balls is hard. But their friends and their partner and their therapist and…well…a centaur and a chauffeur and a Renaissance painter (and their high school principal) are rooting for them. So. 

“Okay, let’s look at this one more time,” they mutter to themselves. Coaching themself through scary steps has proven to be very effective. Hands shaking, they unfold the letter once more. 

Hey brother, 

We haven’t talked in a while. Really, ever. You don’t know me for who I am. I’m sorry I never showed you, but I’m ready now. 

This is Brendan. Your older sibling. Surprise!! Not a guy. I guess that’s the first thing you wouldn’t know about me - that I’m nonbinary. I’ve never come out to someone in a letter, sorry if this is awkward. But that’s a good place to start. I think. 

I’m living in Los Angeles right now. Not too far from home. You got out of here, though! Good for you. You’re not missing much. LA’s mostly drugs and homeless people and comedy shows. Those sound fun - I haven’t been to one yet. Maybe someday. 

Dropped out of college my Sophomore year. It wasn’t for me - I was always good at school growing up, you know that, but I needed a change. I apprenticed under an electrician and I have my own practice. Film was the dream. I still think about it, sometimes. But it might be time to let that go. 

In happier news, I’m in therapy! Had a…very interesting intervention from some old friends. And now I’m really working on myself.

I’ve started watercolor painting at Griffith Park (remember Griffith?) I’ll walk around in the observatory sometimes, too. It’s a good way to meet people (which I need to get better at). 

Enough about me. You probably don’t need an older sibling now. You’re grown up - Ma says you’re doing well. Are you? You were always a smart kid. It’d be nice to hear you yell at me again. That sounds weird. Sorry. I just miss you. 

Remember your stint in Mock Trial? You were a Defense Attorney as a freshman, which really freaked you out. That ever go anywhere? You were good. Didn’t have anything to worry about. 

All that to say, I want to get to know you. I think that’s long overdue. If you don’t want that, though, I’d understand. So consider this an open invitation - take it or leave it. Ball’s in your court, Josh. 

Love you. 

-Brendan 

It’s awkward. It’s earnest. 

“But it’s honest,” they whisper. That’s more than enough. 

The letter gets tucked away, and with a stamp stuck squarely in the corner, they’re ready. They lock the car doors behind them as they walk up to the entrance. 

It’s not too busy inside. Just a little stuffy. 

Now or never. 

They run their thumb along the envelope’s edge once more, and let it go. 

Lets it go and go and go until it’s safe in the hands of an unsuspecting Joshua Azriel Hahn. He’s frozen on his own doorstep. 

“Hey, love?” he calls to his girlfriend, unable to tear his eyes away from the letter. “Can you come here?” 

And they read it together, jammed on his couch, because he’ll need to talk about it all after he’s done. He insists she needs all of the context. She’s just happy he trusts her. 

“You gonna write him back?” Rachel asks, resting her cheek atop his head. 

“Maybe.” He sighs. “Grudges suck, anyway. There are better things to hold on to.” 

Like a plane ticket, which is what Josh buys not even a week later. He packs his bags in the very early morning and kisses Rachel soundly as he leaves. This is a trip he’ll have to do alone. 

Katrina drives him to the airport. 

“Scared?” she asks, because she sees right through him, even in the dark. 

“Little bit.” 

She nods, keeping her eyes on the road. There’s nothing to say, really. Most people would cut in with a placating “nothing to worry about” or “just take a deep breath.” 

Katrina’s not most people. She lets the silence speak for itself. Josh knows she only asked because he needed to hear himself admit out loud that, although spontaneous, this trip isn’t easy. And that, even after acknowledging the fact of the matter, things were still okay. Hell, things could be better than okay. 

So yeah. He loves his best friend, honors her choice, and lets the sweet silence linger. 

Not for long.  

“Wakey, wakey!” she sings shrilly at him once they’ve pulled up to his check-in point. “We’re here.” 

He smiles softly at her antics, pulling her in with one arm to rest his head against hers. 

“Don’t kill anyone while I’m gone.” 

“Duh,” she snorts. “Who would my alibi be?” 

“Right answer.” He draws back, lifting his backpack and opening the truck door in one fluid motion. “Drive safe.” 

“Always.”

“Well-“

“Don’t,” she warns. “Don’t even start.” 

“Love you.” 

“Love you more.” 

“Love you mos-“ 

But she’s reached to shut the door in his face before he finishes. He flips her off through the window. She honks twice in retaliation, then weaves her way into the traffic. 

Yeah, he thinks as he walks through the airport’s automatic doors, this’ll be fine. 

—

Brendan’s just settled down to eat when someone rings the doorbell. They let it ring out for a moment, taking the time to ponder who it could be. One tap of their phone confirms it’s not one of their friends - they’ve got no new notifications. Weird. They shuffle to the door, squinting through the peephole. 

They can’t breathe. Frantically, they fumble to open the door. 

“Brendan?” the visitor starts nervously. “I’m your-“ 

Brendan throws their arms around him before he can properly introduce himself.

“Hi.” 

There’s a startled silence before either sibling can speak. 

“You look just like Dad,” Brendan whispers, “In a good way.” 

A startled laugh rumbles from Josh. “Thanks? You look nothing like him. In a really good way. Got lucky.”

The pair exhale a half-chuckle at the same time. Same timbre. Like they haven’t forgotten how to be a family. 

Wow. Maybe you never forget. 

(Maybe there are some things you always hold on to.)