#even though I've actually been able to imagine a future for myself

[angelanimedesaray]

Wings in the Dark Chapter 31: The Same Page

AN: Okay, this is the only other chapter I had sitting in my google drive hiding from you all. Next chapter is where I just picked up writing again the other week, rusty with writing Levi and everyone all over again, I'm gonna go back over it one more time and see if it needs another polish before moving onto chapter 33. I'm hoping to always have one chapter already finished while I'm writing the one after it (i.e. I'm publishing 31, 32 is already written, and I'm working on 33) just to give myself a cushion so I don't stress myself out about it.

Also, i love you guys, thank you so much for all the messages I've been getting all week celebrating my still living status and the return of the story, it made my week, really.

...I was going to make you wait until tomorrow for this, but I'm tired and I already have it all ready so I might as well just flashbang you with another chapter again with no warning hahahahaha, this is turning into a trend/pattern

Characters:  Levi, Vampire!Fem!Reader, OC Vampire Character (Emery), Hange (Briefly), Petra (Briefly), Erwin (Mentioned)

Pairing:  Levi x Vampire!Fem!Reader

Warnings:  Language, Spice but not Smut (Making Out, some wandering hands, a flash of some vivid imagination, steamy stuff like that), Discussion of Sex (Brief)

Word Count:  11569 (Remember when these chapters used to only be around 6000 words???)

<----Previous Chapter Masterlist Next Chapter---->

*Reader’s POV*

Emery hadn’t been expecting you to return so soon after the botched hunt.  Your appearance at his cave had been more than just a little surprise for him–the poor kid actually tried to jump you, thinking you were an intruder, which just ended with him flat on the back with the wind knocked out of him and a resounding crack of his head against rock that actually had you checking him over to make sure you hadn’t accidentally cracked his head open in the process of defending yourself.  Once Emery had caught his breath again and you were certain there wasn’t any blood matting the hair at the back of his head, you sat him down in order to have a precursor to the upcoming discussion.  Or rather, officially give him the warning, and try to lay some ground rules on Emery’s side in order to try and give Levi a bit more of a safety net coming to see the fledgling vampire.

Emery had already known that there was a human working with you, that knew your secret, so you didn’t have to give that part of the explanation.  Thankfully, that meant you were able to cut right to the chase and discuss why he was coming, and try to establish methods to help Emery not attack him when he came.

“I thought you didn’t want him anywhere near me because you were worried I’d attack him?” Emery asked once you’d told him of Levi’s impending arrival, shifting uncomfortably where he was currently seated on the floor of the cave.  Thankfully, there was still no hint of offense in his tone over your continued concern for Levi’s safety around him–Emery was painfully aware of how dangerous he was to humans right now, which was why you hadn’t heard any protest from him about living in isolation for the time being.  If anything, Emery seemed more concerned about Levi’s safety than why Levi would be coming.

You didn’t tell him that you were pretty sure Levi could take him in a fight easily, even with the vampire abilities, considering Levi could beat you in a fight.  You would rather Emery worry and end up not needing to have worried so much, than he didn’t take it seriously enough and something bad happened.  This was going to be Levi’s first face to face impression of the teenager, as well as a meeting that was going to basically decide Emery’s future–he needed to be taking this seriously in every way possible.

Your soft sigh still echoed around the deep chamber of the cave, though you remained still in your spot leaning against the wall further from the tiny, flickering fire Emery had going than his spot on the ground.  “That’s still a concern.  And he’s well aware that I’m not happy about it, that I’m concerned about his safety, but…he has his own concerns about my safety when it comes to what I’m risking to help you.  With how poorly things went last night, he needs to meet you for himself, and he’s going to have questions.”

“...what kind of questions?”

Emery’s voice was small, and for a moment, it looked to you like the shadows of the cave would swallow him whole and drag him into the depths of the small cave system he was currently using for shelter.  You weren’t doing much to put his mind at ease about this meeting, but it wasn’t a good thing that they were having it.  Emery’s refusal to really hunt had, as Levi pointed out, put you in a far more difficult position, and he needed to learn the gravity of the situation.

“I didn’t ask–I’m not his superior, he doesn’t have to run them by me, first.  And he has every right to be worried about my involvement with you and the position I’m in now, especially after hearing about last night.  He hasn’t been happy about me getting involved with you out of concern for my safety since day one, and now the problems are getting big enough he can’t stand by anymore.”

You could have gone into the strange power structure between you, Levi, and Erwin, how you answered to them but were also somewhat independent, at least with this, how Levi monitored you and Erwin made the final decisions, but you’d only told Emery about Levi because he’d been there that night when you’d met the kid face to face, and you hadn’t even told Emery Levi’s name in order to protect them if things went sideways with Emery.

And besides, Levi was the one who wanted to give Emery a ‘reality check’, and since you didn’t know how exactly he was going to do that, you were going to play your cards close to your chest in the meantime, at the very least so you didn’t accidentally ruin something for whatever Levi had planned.  You were just here to give Emery the heads up and a little bit of preparation in meeting Levi.

Emery, however, only seemed more confused by your statement.  “Why is he risking his safety to come up here and talk to me himself, rather than you simply being the one to say whatever needs said?  If this is about last night, you’re the one helping me, shouldn’t you be the one talking with me about what comes next?”

“Because it’s more than that.  Because he wants to meet you himself and get a first hand understanding of the situation and the person I’m trying to help before his part in deciding what comes next.  Because he’s of the opinion that I’m too close to this to effectively have this conversation, and…I agree with him.”

That was fear you could see starting to creep into his eyes.  The way his foot stopped its slow bounce under his crossed legs, the way his lower lip drew in like he was resisting the urge to start worrying it between his teeth, the way he drew in a breath he didn't fully release as the realization started to settle over him; all of it indicated that the severity of what was about to happen was starting to fall over him.

“This is sounding more and more like a conflict or a fork in the road kind of thing.  Are…are you…considering leaving me to fend for myself again?”

There was a shake in his voice that made your gut clench and your throat close, momentarily thrown back to the dark corner of the damp hovel you'd called home in Stonewood you used to curl up in when the emotions and loneliness was too much to bear enough to be functional.

…Levi was right.  You saw too much of yourself in Emery to be the one to have this conversation with him if you were getting emotional just hearing the fear of abandonment starting to creep into his voice.  You didn't think you had it in you to be the kind of firm he needed right now.

“That's entirely up to what happens when we have this conversation, and what comes of it,” you said softly.  “But there's not much I can really say before we do, since I don't know what's going to be said or what's going to happen.  For now, let's just focus on trying to make sure you're as ready as I can make you for being around a human that smells that good without attacking him.  I'd like for you to actually be capable of listening and having a conversation with him, and not in a blood frenzy the whole time.”

Emery seemed to be tuning some shade of green that looked extra sickley in the fire's light.  “Is his blood really that tempting?”

“To me, it's the best kind out there.  But that may be my relationship with him and how I see him.  It might not be so intense for you–hopefully not, anyway–but he still is alluring, even when he's not bleeding, we know from experience with not friendly vampires.  Which is why I still want to go over this with you.”

Walls forbid Levi's first impression of you is you trying to rip his throat out in a blood frenzy, even if that's what I've been warning him about since day one.  But if you got a whiff of him on the wall that day Maria fell and just didn't know it, and didn't attack him then, maybe we can get by and not have an incident now.

Emery got up, apparently unable to sit still with the mounting nerves as he started to pace around the fire, pulling on his fingers to pop them.  Despite the anxiety, he took a few deep breaths to compose himself, trying to calm down and focus on what you were about to tell him.  “Okay…Okay…what do I need to do?”

When you got back from your trip to see Emery, it was late evening, the sun starting to turn darker shades of blue with swaths of oranges and reds able to be seen further in the distance towards the false horizon.  It made you want to go find a good perch on the walls to watch the sky changing colors, capture the moment in your sketchbook even if the black and white of your drawings couldn’t do the colors justice in your mind.  It wasn’t the same as that one time you had sketched the horizon beyond Wall Maria, though.  Knowing there was another wall beyond your line of sight made it feel a bit more hollow, though–it didn’t have the same effect of boundless and rich unknown as the horizon beyond Maria.

Besides, there was somewhere else you needed–and wanted–to be, something else you needed–and wanted–to be doing.

So, you turned your gaze away from the colors of the sky as you started to slow your pace to something more human, coming up on the Scout’s headquarters through the forest.  There was the sound of ODM gear whirring through the woods, which made you a touch more cautious as you weaved your way through the trees, lest you get in someone’s way, get struck by falling debris, or get seen being a bit too inhuman.

A shift in the wind, however, erased the last concern, as you caught Levi’s scent carried to you on the breeze, prompting you to breathe deep and switch directions.  His presence in the woods doing ODM practice answered your question of what time it was, and also gave you a direction to head towards in order to find who you needed in order to finish your day.  The two of you needed to talk–about many different things–and after the frustrating interruption this morning and your own inability to stay awake last night ruining the chance of some much needed–uninterrupted–time together earlier, you were hoping to correct that tonight.

You refrained from putting yourself into his path while he was training.  Everyone was getting antsy with all the time that you’d spent not going out on expeditions, just waiting for something to change, practicing and drilling but not actually doing anything, needing to burn the energy.  Not to mention, with how much of that first stretch of time after the wall fell Levi spent recovering thanks to that incident with the hunters, you were sure he was still in the stage where he appreciated being able to move around and do things again, including the more routine training.

The thought of the hunters had something nag at the back of your mind, a relevant and troublesome little detail that you’d forgotten with how your focus had been elsewhere recently.

Later.  You could add that to the list for later–you didn’t want to give Levi the impression that the prep talk with Emery had gone poorly, no need for him to worry, yet–there was enough to worry as it was, and already almost too much to talk about.

You made your way back towards the treeline, but stayed deep enough in the trees that no one by the actual headquarters building would be able to see you.  Once you found the spot, you used your ability to jump much higher than normal to make your way up to a high off the ground but sturdy tree branch, sitting gearless atop it and waiting for Levi to come back through once he finished his practice.

You didn’t have anything to do with you, so you simply waited for a while, legs dangling over the edge and kicking slowly as you listened to the sounds of Levi practicing, sometimes far away, and sometimes much closer.  The whir from the cables operating, the whoosh of gas every now and then, the sound of his heart beating a bit harder than normal, grunts, the sound of legs, boots, and arms thumping across harder surfaces when he braced or kicked off something.  There wasn’t the sound of any blades being unsheathed, or titan dummies swinging through the air, so it really was just him out here right now, practicing the movements on the ODM gear itself.  You could envision what he was doing rather clearly in your mind’s eye, the way he twisted and arched through the air, how quickly he was able to weave around the trees with effortless seeming use of the cables–

You were pulled from the images in your mind when you heard him coming closer than he had while practicing, focusing back on the world around as his gear brought him closer to you–not directly to you, he hadn’t spotted you yet, but close.

Sure enough, with your enhanced sight, you spotted him headed towards the treeline off to your left before he saw you, though once you were within visual range, it seemed to only take a few heartbeats for him to spot the movement of your kicking feet and the out-of-place sight of you in uniform but without the gear perched on a tree branch so high above the ground.  As soon as he’d processed your presence, he changed course, reaching you in a matter of seconds and coming to a nimble stop on the tree branch beside you.

“How long have you been out here?” he asked, remaining standing even though you had yet to make any move to leave your perch.  There was a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead, hair a little damp seeming near the temples and nape of his neck, heartbeat still a bit quicker and breaths a bit heavier from pushing himself during his training.

A quick glance towards the sky revealed that while the light hadn’t disappeared entirely, it had gotten significantly darker since you first heard Levi in the woods, and the temperature appeared to be cooling, as well.  “Not too long.  The sun was already setting by the time I reached the woods.”

“Since you’re taking it easy in a tree branch instead of pacing a hole in my quarters, I’m guessing the talk with the kid went well?”

“More or less,” you admitted, which prompted a raised brow from him, but you waved it off, getting to your feet.  “We can talk about that once we’re settled in.  I’m assuming you haven’t ate yet, and it’ll get cold soon, so we should probably head inside before trying to talk about anything or we’ll end up here for hours.”

Levi let out a soft exhale, turning on the branch ready to take off again now that you looked like you were ready to get moving, yourself.  “You’re always fretting over me,” he grumbled, gaze turned back towards the headquarters.

“Someone should,” you returned, coming over to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek and brush your fingers against his hand–you would have given it a squeeze, but they were both still gripping the controls for the ODM.  “And I believe I’m perfectly qualified to.”

You only lingered long enough to allow Levi to return the kiss on the cheek with one of his own.  It was a swift one, since your own kiss to the cheek had been in passing as you coiled to drop back to the ground, but it still made your cheek warm and your gut squirm, glad the cooling air was able to whip passed your cheeks and help cool them back down as the forest floor rushed towards you in the drop.  Up above, you heard Levi’s ODM cables fire and start to draw him to the edge of the forest at an angle to meet you down on the ground where the trees stopped.

If there wasn’t so much you two needed to talk about, and he didn’t need to take care of himself at the moment, and you were a bit more confident about how physical you both were ready to get, you might have been tempted to act on the wild thought to pin him up against a tree for a more heated kiss, but that–what happened in his office this morning, or on the couch the evening before–that was still…new.  And was going to take a bit more figuring out–and maybe even a bit of talking–before you’d feel comfortable springing something like that on him.

Though you were certainly starting to think about it.  Especially after this morning.

Not wanting to come out of the trees and meet Levi with burning cheeks, you shook the thoughts away, focusing on the more serious topics the two of you needed to discuss, or hell, thinking about what you were going to get from the mess hall for Levi to take instead–or whether the two of you were going to risk getting interrupted again in his quarters or if you should find somewhere else to have your long private talk and…whatever else you two felt like doing once the serious stuff was out of the way.

You hoped it was something similar to this morning…

Focus!

You were glad you were the one that was the vampire with the enhanced hearing when you reached Levi at the forest’s edge, so he couldn’t hear your still-calming heartbeat as you approached.  Your hands itched to reach out and twine his into yours now that he wasn’t holding the ODM controls, but you were out on the main grounds now, and would too easily be spotted, so you kept them to yourself.  Still, Levi walked closer to you than strictly necessary, and the back of his hand brushed against yours here and there along the way, which was enough for you.  You knew it was intentional, and it put the slightest smile on your lips as you walked in comfortable silence to the mess hall.

Levi hadn’t really needed to come down and fill his own plate recently with how on top of things you’d been when it came to bringing him his meals, which meant you two got a few looks from other Scouts when you entered the room together, mostly Levi given the now-rare sighting.  You accompanying him and the two of you standing so close was normal whenever the two of you were seen around quarters, so neither of you bothered to take even a half step away.

Though you took extra care not to focus on the chatter of the room around you.  If someone was gossiping and theorizing, you didn’t want to know.

“So, where do you want to talk?  I know normally it would be in your quarters, but it’s starting to feel like we’re going for a record on how many times we can be interrupted when we’re in there,” you remarked as the two of you accepted the meager rations on your trays.  You tried to make yours look different from Levi’s without picking anything he’d rather not eat, and you were painfully aware of the lack of a kettle in the kitchens being heated for what would usually be his black tea now that it had been cut from the budget.  You’d have to heat some up yourself once you figured out where you were going to be for the night.

Levi scowled at the mention of the numerous interruptions the two of you had racked up recently, but kept moving down the line.

Neither of you commented on the fact that there was only a quarter of a roll on your trays, now, but you certainly noticed.  Already they had cut back to a quarter, when just yesterday you’d been plating half rolls.  That had to mean that they were trying to make what they had last longer.  What had changed in a day that you didn’t yet know about?

“My quarters are fine–I already talked to Erwin, earlier, so the only people that would be interrupting are people we can ignore or I can tell to fuck off,” he replied, grabbing the utensils he needed at the end of the line and stepping away from the line, you only a few seconds behind him.

You could see the squad sitting at their usual table, especially once Petra waved at you with a slightly brighter smile than normal, despite the obvious and rapid cutbacks on the rations likely glaring at everyone.  She was probably happy to see that you and Levi seemed to be on speaking terms again–and keeping to each other’s sides as usual, to boot.  You returned the wave, giving a slightly apologetic smile as Levi led your way not to the squad table, but back towards the door.  If you were going to give him your share of rations, you couldn’t exactly sit at the table and do it in front of everyone else.

Petra started to look a little put out–you and Levi hadn’t been sitting with the squad as often since the rationing got worse–but you gestured behind Levi’s back, miming with your hand a mouth talking and giving a half shrug, the apologetic smile still in place.  Her eyes lit up with understanding and relief, and she gave you a little thumbs up before turning back to the group and talking in an excited tone with the others, who had been watching the little exchange.

Well, if the rest of the squad were under the impression that the two of you were going to have a much needed talk, that might mean that was four more people you didn’t have to worry about interrupting the two of you–and almost all of the most likely candidates to be dropping by Levi’s office, thankfully.

The two of you slipped out of the mess hall without much fuss–Hange started to head your way and try to flag you down, but a few frantic hand gestures for her to stop, don’t, cut it out, shoo, and a handful of thumb jabs towards Levi’s back had her looping around to ambush Miche instead with a shit eating grin that had you convinced you were going to get ambushed by her, later.

Once you were out in the hall, you lengthened your strides just enough to come even with Levi again, resisting the urge to just start shuffling the contents of your tray to his along the way.  You also resisted any little touches, since there were a few people that the two of you had passed on your way to the mess hall and continued to see in the hall along the way.

Once you were a few halls from the mess hall, Levi suddenly broke the silence, to your surprise.  “Your hand signals could use some work.”

Immediately, your cheeks started to burn as you realized he’d caught you trying to silently signal Hange, or Petra, or both.  “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Flailing behind my back like that made that pretty clear.”

The sound that came out of you was somewhere between a whine and a huff.  “Well…that’s a few more people we don’t have to worry about being interrupted by,” you grumbled.  Levi simply rolled his eyes, opening the door to let you both into his quarters without another comment on the matter.

You went right to his desk, happily noting that there wasn’t any paperwork left to do as you set your tray down a bit higher than where he was going to sit so that he could get to it when he was ready.  You heard the lock click in the door to ensure you wouldn’t be interrupted before Levi crossed the room, you moving out of the way and over to the side to shimmy his tea stash out of its hiding place and start working on getting tea started for the both of you.

“No white sage,” he warned as you heard the chair scrape across the floor behind you.  Your eyebrows rose, and you glanced over your shoulder at him.

“I’m pretty sure I’m set for the next few weeks, you know, I have no intention of biting you any time soon.”

Levi didn’t elaborate further, simply started in on his food and let the request stand, which you complied to, since he had his necklace to at least protect him from any compulsion.

With a small sigh, you pulled out a black tea that didn’t have any white sage mixed into it, silently wishing you had the money for the expensive as hell vanilla right now to add to your own cup as you put a bag each in both cups and set the kettle over the fire.  “So, I suppose first thing’s first, how did the talk with Erwin go?”

“He’s not happy.”

“...I expected as much, but are there details in there that I should know about?”

“He’s worried your head’s not in the right place to handle the situation.  And while he isn’t worried about the meeting itself, he is concerned about the Military Police and the Garrison turning over the walls looking for the kid.  He can’t get anyone on the inside for the investigation, so he’s worried about us being caught in the crossfire.  No matter what, this meeting involves ultimatums–either there’s progress made, or we’re cutting the risk.”

“Which is pretty much what you told me last night,” you murmured, turning around to lean against the counter and look at Levi directly while you were waiting for the water to heat.

“What about your talk with the kid–how’d it go?” Levi asked, watching you out of the corner of his eyes.

“I didn’t sugar coat it, so he’s…stressed about it.  He’s aware that me continuing to help him is now in question, and he’s nervous about being able to control himself when you come, even with the little coaching I gave him before I left.  Which is preferable–I’d rather he be overly cautious about his control than not cautious enough.  He wanted a heads up on what kind of questions you were going to have for him.  I refrained, since I don’t even know how you want to handle this besides doing it ‘your way’.”  Your head tilted slightly to the side as you paused, appraising Levi for a moment.  “By the way, are you going to tell me anything about how you're going to handle this, or am I going to have to play it all by ear and figure out on the spot when I should intervene and when you need me to stay back?”

“If it goes well, it'll just be talking, with me in the sunlight.  If not, I'll enter the cave.  You can cut in if he’s starting to go blood crazy, but otherwise, I need you to trust me and let me handle it.”

Well, that was better than no heads up, you supposed.  At least now you knew he was thinking of a more in your face kind of direct approach if necessary, which told you to be ready to act in a split second if things went sideways.  Well, more urgently, anyway, if he entered the cave and there wasn't going to be a natural barrier from the sun.

You let out a small sigh, still worried about the whole thing and wanting to fret, wanting to keep Levi far from the vampire that lacked control, but he was right.  The situation needed to be handled, and you did trust him–you were just worried about all the ways it could go wrong.  Fretting wasn't going to do anything to help, though.

The kettle started to whistle, and you straightened up to fetch it from the fire.  “Okay, so Emery is nervous but prepped, Erwin is not happy but allowing what seems to have developed into an abrupt last ditch effort to put Emery on a sustainable course–when's our leave to do this, again?  And what's the cover story?” You tacked on, pouring a little water into one cup, then the other, swirling the teabags in the water and watching the color start to turn before filling the rest of his cup, then yours, and letting the tea steep with the occasional stir.

You heard Levi shift behind you–just a little, but enough to catch your attention and make you listen a little harder to whatever he was about to say.

“We have a day to prepare, so we're not leaving suddenly.   We have to make an appearance at one of the refugee shelter locations out that way to lend a hand and assess the situation.  And we have to be back before the weekend.”

There was a frown on your face with the declaration, head tilting as you figured in your head roughly how long the trip would take by horseback, tried to guesstimate how long the talk with Emery would take, and you had to add in a trip to a refugee camp that would warrant the travel in the more public eye.  Take that timeframe over by a day and Erwin hardly left the two of you enough time to catch a couple hours of sleep, daring to be well rested would mean pushing the envelope on when you needed to be back by.

“That doesn't give us much time to do much…why the rush back?” you asked, glancing over your shoulder at him.

“Erwin needs us close, not in another part of the wall.”

At that, you turned more fully to face Levi, studying him sharply after the comment as if you could pry the answers out of his usually so-well-guarded expressions.  “Something’s happening with the refugee situation, or the food shortage–or both.  Something I’m missing.  With rations like this, and Erwin wanting us back as soon as possible to be on hand…what is it?”

“You’ll know soon enough.  But for now, I can’t tell you.”

You didn't respond this time, simply took a moment to appraise him.

You couldn’t be in every circle, now, could you?  There were going to be things you didn’t know about.  So you let go of the thought of pushing for more, especially with the comment you would know what it was soon even if it couldn't come from him.

But now that the topic had been brought up and you were really looking at him, there was a shadow in Levi’s eyes, making them not as bright, not as blue.  A small crease between his brows that wasn’t normally there, his shoulders a little higher and pulled in from the tension he was carrying, and a bit more of a downturn to his lips than normal.  Not to mention the gloom that seemed to loom over his presence just out of immediate sight.  There was something, he’d confirmed it, but he couldn’t tell you.  How long had he known, whatever this was?  How long had he been lugging it around–and had you missed it because of the distance with your little spat, and your attention being elsewhere, recently?

Your instinct was to go over to him immediately, run your hands over his shoulder, kiss the corners of his lips and the crease between his brows, try to chase some of the shadows away.  Restraint was what you chose, instead–just for now.  He was still eating, and you had his tea in hand.  Not to mention there were still a few more serious topics to bring up.  But after…after the serious, that look on his face and whatever was hanging over him you couldn’t know about yet was going to get your undivided attention.

Dropping the topic entirely for now, you came over to gently offer him the teacup, waiting until he'd taken it before you ran the now-free hand over his shoulders and leaned down to kiss his cheek.  It was the best you could give him for now while he was finishing his meal before you pulled away, claiming a seat on his couch and starting in on your own cup of tea.

There was a silence after that, one that felt comfortable and content despite the topics the two of you had just been discussing, and the unknown you were aware of but couldn't get answers for.  There were a few more serious things you wanted to touch on, but it could wait until he finished his meal and the two of you were more comfortably situated.  Especially since what remained mostly had to do with the two of you, specifically, and that didn’t feel like a conversation to be had while you moved about the room or from the other side of a desk like it was Scout business.

Considering how many times you wondered it, you two should probably talk about what exactly the two of you were, but you didn’t think either one of you were prepared to answer that, yet.  Everything was too…new, still.  There were too many simple things you were figuring out and growing accustomed to, and the brief hiccup where Levi had withdrawn had temporarily put a wrinkle in things that required adjusting all over again while the two of you smoothed things back out.

A bit sooner than you had been expecting, you heard Levi get up from the desk, footsteps making quick work of the space between his desk and the couch before he appeared in your direct line of sight, effectively pulling you out of the contemplative state you’d slowly started to drift into as he dropped onto the couch with a sigh that normal ears wouldn’t have been able to hear.  To your surprise, he didn’t pause once he was on the couch, but pivoted and started to lower himself towards you while face up, prompting you to swallow the last bit of tea in your cup quickly so you could set it aside and out of the way, opening your lap up for him to rest his head.  Much to your amusement, he almost looked like he was on the brink of pouting, arms folded across his chest as he settled in, a small patch of his cheeks starting to look a little flushed, eyes closed so he didn’t have to see your amusement, and the slightest frown on his face even though he was certainly making himself comfortable.  He was still a little tense, like when you’d asked him to do this yesterday evening, but the fact that he was initiating it in the first place was sign enough that he was comfortable with it–though the tension was probably coming from not knowing whether or not you would be comfortable with it right now, or if it was a one time special occasion thing.

You chuckled as he started to settle down with his positioning enough that you could safely put your arms down, one hand instinctively finding its way into his hair to start the gentle threading through his hair you’d been doing yesterday.  As soon as you did, you could see the tension starting to drain out of him, even with the chuckle making it clear you found something about this amusing.

“Not so ridiculous anymore, I see,” you teased him gently, earning a muttered, ‘shut up’ from him in response that got another chuckle from you, your smile easy and relaxed as you watched how he reacted to the simple touch.  How the eyes squeezed shut softened so it didn’t look forced anymore, simply like he was enjoying it, like he would drift off to sleep if you kept going; how the small frown on his face was starting to go away as well, the corners of his lips smoothing out to more of a neutral expression.  The crease between his eyes slowly started to disappear as well, and more of his upper body weight rested against your lap, head tilted back so his face was looking up at you.  It also opened his neck up to you enough the marks from your usual feeding could easily be seen, but you were more focused on his facial expressions, the tension slowly bleeding out of him as your fingers gently threaded through his hair, ran from the part in the front back until your fingers were bumping into your thigh, and back.

Your other hand started resting on the back of the couch, but you felt it would be more comfortable resting at your side.  However, since Levi was currently stretched out where you would normally rest your hand…

There was a moment of hesitation, only because you still had yet to stumble across what level of intimacy was too far for Levi–or perhaps you were going so slow that the line was naturally moving further and further back before you could even reach it.  Still, you lowered your elbow into the gap between the couch and his side, and then very carefully rested your forearm little at a time across his abdomen.  You felt a small tremble beneath your arm at the initial contact, then a brief tension that went through his whole body and had you pausing before his continued silence and lack of pulling away made you feel comfortable with finishing laying it along his middle.  After a few long moments of simply running your fingers through his hair and letting your arm rest across his middle, Levi’s arms unfolded, and while one arm stayed laying haphazardly across his chest, the other reached down to twine his fingers into yours before resting the joined hands at his side.  The warmth from the moment that had been residing in your chest spread to what felt like every inch of you at that, your smile wide and heart fluttering for a moment before it calmed back down at a pace that seemed to match that brief tension flooding back out of Levi.

Not wanting to shatter the gentle moment he’d initiated, especially since he had just started initiating these little intimacies, you didn’t immediately bring up the last few things on your mind.  It was tempting to believe this little action of Levi’s answered one of your main questions you wanted to bring up, but you figured you should probably still ask, just to be sure.  So far, save Levi shutting you out briefly, you had been damn good at your communication with him–even before this budding more intimate relationship with him.  That was not a streak you wanted to break.  Communication and trust were two large cornerstones of this relationship, and you weren’t going to skimp anywhere on either value.

So, after relishing in the silent moment long enough you were worried even rarely-sleeps Levi would fall asleep if it went on any longer, you finally spoke up.

“I’m assuming with the way the past twenty-four hours have gone, we are, but I still want to ask just to make sure…we’re okay now, yes?” you asked him quietly, peering down at him and waiting for his reaction.

There was a beat of silence as he considered your question, and then a reassuring squeeze of your hand in answer before he opened his eyes to gaze up at you.  “We’re okay,” he confirmed quietly, causing a cool wave of relief to seep through you to hear it voiced out loud.

“Still a shitty situation with the kid, and…”  there was a moment of hesitation that you waited patiently during as Levi sought the right words for what he wanted to add.  “I’m still worried about the danger it’ll put you in.  And with all this shit happening we might need to revisit being reckless.  Calling it calculated or taking an opportunity doesn’t change when a move was actually risky or impulsive.”

You felt a touch of shame coloring your cheeks at the comment.  You’d defended your choice about helping Emery as calculated and opportunistic, if a bit risky, to Erwin, but Levi knew it was more emotional than that.  He knew that back in Sedalia it had been a snap decision based on emotion over logic–impulsive, and you’d doubled down on it and had been trying to just make it work ever since then.  The logic had been applied after the fact to try and dig you out of the trouble while carrying Emery out with you.

“I’ll admit that taking on Emery was more of an impulsive thing, and the planning was done on the spot as things unfolded–”

Levi interrupted you before you could get much further.  Again, he knew.  Starting to say it was possibly more of a formality than a necessity.  “Your heart may be in the right place with the kid, but you’ve got to use your head–you can’t do that impulsive shit.  That’s how people get killed in this life.”

There was a harder edge in Levi’s eyes as he said it, but beneath it, a flash of something buried deep that was clawing its way to the surface with the topic.  You didn’t brush off his attempt to give you words of wisdom–you’d already acknowledged that he had more experience than you in certain areas.  Levi wasn’t a fool, and you valued his input.  So right now, seeing that something stirring in the depths of his gaze that was riveted on you made you reflective, instead.

How many people had he seen die because of impulsive actions, unnecessarily risky decisions?  You knew he was worried about you, but what if you’d been causing more than that, what if you’d been scaring him with some of your actions recently?  Maybe all of this was about more than just the danger of the Emery situation: what if he was scared this kind of decision making would bleed into other areas–like out with the Titans–and cost you everything?  His early perception that you were nigh invincible when he’d first uncovered what you were had been shattered with recent events, he knew there were risks out there, he knew you could be hurt or killed, you’d told him yourself during that interrogation that the Titans still posed a risk to you in extreme cases or if you got careless or too brash.

The hand that had been running through his hair since he’d laid down in your lap moved so that it could instead rest against his cheek in reassurance.  “Levi, listen to me.”  You took care to keep your voice soft, but your tone held a firm resolve in it meant to reassure him that you were being serious about what you said, that you weren’t simply giving him platitudes.  “I know what I’m doing is risky, like we’ve talked about in the past.  I know that this was more of an emotional decision when I resolved to help Emery, but I’ve been doing my best to be smart about this from here on out without having to abandon him.  I know there are hunters after him.  I know the Garrison has a personal vendetta against him–for good reason.  I know the Military Police have gotten involved now.  I know going down into the Underground with him is risky to me as well, that it reopens the door to threats that we were trying to shut out.  I know that every time I go to visit him, and every time I go out on a hunt with him, I risk being there at a moment he’s caught by any of those three parties.  I understand that there is risk to me–and a great deal of it–with the situation as it is right now, and that change needs to happen to lessen that risk if we’re going to get anywhere.  And I understand that if Emery isn’t willing to be flexible enough to work with me, to learn what I’m trying to teach him, then it’s not worth the rise in risk and I’ll have to back off and leave him to fend for himself, as much as I don’t want to.  I understand that it was an emotional decision I made with heavy risks, and there is a very real possibility that if something doesn't change, the situation will reach a point where I can't help him without doing more harm than good on a larger scale. And I know you and Commander Erwin are of the opinion that I've already reached the point where I should have backed out by now.  But right now, as slight of a chance as it's starting to seem, I can still try to help him, if he listens.  And as long as there's that chance, I'm going to keep trying to help him.”

As expected, he didn’t seem to be entirely assured, since the risk still existed, but your acknowledgement of the specific risks to you, and the acknowledgement that it could get too dangerous to try to help and you would back off when it did, seemed to put something in his mind at ease, at least, and the hard edge in his gaze was softening again.

“Like I've said…just don't do anything shitbrained.  Think next time, don't just jump right to commitment,” he remarked, getting in one last chastisement–hopefully it would be the last one you needed to be on the receiving end of for this topic.

“While we're talking about potential future problems, or at least avoiding them,” you started to say, the statement stopping Levi from relaxing back into the silence again and prompting a raised brow.  You traced the outer edge of his lower lip as you considered your phrasing and tried to get him to relax without directly saying it wasn't anything bad you were about to say.  Just a little request.  The motion partially did its job, as you heard a slight catch in his breath as your hand and arm seemed to tingle at the light motion and the gentle press against the more plump lower lip.

“I'm okay with you needing space to think things through sometimes–I'm used to it by now.  And I'm fully ready to give you that space if and when you need it.  But next time–and realistically, there will likely be a next time–please don't shut me out like that again?  It's miserable for both of us, and not at all productive, it just lets things fester and…and I prefer when we're like this.  When we can talk about things.  Hell, I'll even take some heated arguments when certain topics come up over a stoic silent treatment.”

Levi's gaze was riveted to you, and you knew that even though the intimate touch was probably distracting, he still listened intently to what you had to say and took it in.  “I’ll remember that.”

“I should certainly hope so,” you mused lightly, hand still on his cheek instead of in his hair and starting to lightly stroke along his cheekbone.

“Is there any more depressing shit you want to bring up or are you going to finally kiss me?” Levi asked in response, cocking an eyebrow at you in an almost challenging manner you knew would melt away the moment you started kissing him.

“Depends, are you going to bite me again?”

The challenging air vanished almost instantly, and the light flush that had crept into his cheeks when he first laid down came back a bit stronger at the reminder as he averted his gaze, the hand still twined with yours tightening its grip.  “Shut up,” he mumbled, and you couldn’t help the amusement you felt at his embarrassment over something he did twice, and so confidently the second time.

Your fingers lightly traced his jaw, and you managed to keep any laughter in, though you were grinning down at him.  “Hey, it’s a legitimate question.  It was quite startling, I’ll admit–”

“You wouldn’t shut the fuck up even though Eld was right outside, so I did something,” Levi grumbled, cheeks continuing to flush and squirming slightly on your lap self-conciously.

“And how did that work out for you?”

He frowned, and actually met your gaze again, expression pulling into a scowl whose effect was ruined by the pink cheeks.  “You’re the one who moaned, how was I supposed to know you were going to react that damn loudly?” he accused.

“I can think of someone else that moans quite loudly when they’re–”

Pink cheeks quickly turned burning red, and he cut you off before you could finish the sentence, looking away once again and appearing so exasperated and flustered it was a miracle he wasn’t stumbling over his words in his rush to get you to hush.  “For fuck’s sake, just say you didn’t like it, you don’t have to tease so much.”

Ah, too far with the teasing, then.  Time to reassure and soothe, then, lest he get the wrong impression.

Gently, you tilted his head back in towards you and leaned down to kiss him just above a furrowed eyebrow.  “I never said I didn’t like it.”

Levi’s gaze snapped back towards you, eyes slightly wider to reflect his surprise, though the blush wasn’t lessening.  Your fingers found their way back up into his hair, your motions circular, relaxing, and hopefully reassuring enough to help keep him from tensing back up.

“I liked it.  Though maybe not the best move if you’re wanting me to be quiet–hence the teasing.  I certainly wouldn’t complain if you bit back more often.”

Levi scowled again, but there wasn’t as much irritation in it this time, and his gaze remained on you.  “Asshole.  Didn’t have to tease so much.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist, since you interrupted me with your teeth last time.”

His eyes narrowed on you, and you could have sworn you could see him weighing in his mind if he should bite you right now with the attitude you were giving him.  The fact it seemed to be more of a motivator than a punishment seemed to win out, and he let it go, reaching out tentatively and with more intensive focus than he probably wanted to admit with his free hand to gently run the back of his fingers under your chin, causing a soft sigh to escape your lips.

Standoffish and crass words juxtaposed with such tender gestures and what seemed like any excuse to be near?  Yeah, you were back on good terms again, and any worry that there might be some form of lingering friction because of the Emery situation evaporated from its dark corner in your mind.

“Before we get caught up in the moment, one more thing I wanted to ask–last one, I promise,” you remarked, adding the last part quickly and with a faint smile when you saw exasperation spark in his eyes.  “And besides, it’s on topic.”

Gently, your hand wandered once more away from his hair, down his jaw, lightly cupped around the back and side of his neck, moving down towards his collar.  “I just thought I’d ask ahead of time, since sometimes things get a bit more…heated, when we have more than a few moments to ourselves.  Are you okay with…”  It was your turn for your face to burn, doing your best not to let yourself choke on the actual question itself with the nerves squirming in your gut and trying to work its way up to strangle you into awkward silence.  “...with me…touching you more?”

Levi took in your flushed face, how it was your turn to stumble over the words with some self consciousness, and took a moment to study you closely before he pressed for a bit of clarification.  “...How so?”

“Nothing big, I’m not talking–I just mean…something like…like this,” you remarked tentatively, lowering your eyes to track your own movements as you let your hand dip lower than his shoulders without his prompting for the first time, fingers lightly trailing down the center of his chest until you were just above his navel.  Then, your hand flattened and pressed gently against the solid muscle you could feel beneath the fabric of his shirt, slowly running that hand back up before doing a slow sweep over his pectoral, thumb trailing behind and doing light repetitive strokes along the upper curve of the muscle.

You felt a slight quiver beneath your palm when your hand slid down to his navel and back up, could feel his eyes burning into you with their intensity and hear his heart rate pick up, hear the soft and pleased sigh that caught in his throat and he tried to hold as if worried it would break the moment while you came back up and he waited to see what else you might do.  He relaxed back into your lap at the touch, head heavier against your thighs.

You assumed, based on the reaction, that was a green signal for you to continue, that he was nothing but welcoming for more touches like this.  More intimate, more lingering–nothing too much, yet, but this was okay.  Running your hands along his chest to explore and feel above the fabric of his shirt, possibly his back, too, when you had access (unlike right now).  Maybe you could get away with resting a hand on his knee under tables from now on, as well.

And maybe, this little bit more would translate to kissing as well.

Your touch lightened, fingers trailing slowly back down the center of his chest.  This time you were more confident in the gesture, feeling every dip and crest of the toned muscles beneath from years of fighting and ODM gear.

As your fingers explored new territory much more carefully, you let your gaze drift back up to Levi’s face, catching a glimpse of his eyes half-lidded and appearing a silvery blue in the shadows of the room, gaze currently still locked on your fingers as they trailed along his chest, a slight part in his lips as if that gasp you’d heard him catch and hold was threatening to break through any moment, and you saw the smooth bob of his adam’s apple as he lifted his gaze and caught you watching him.  Before either of you could speak and potentially break the moment, you leaned down to finally kiss him again, eager to discover how much deeper it would go now.

There was still the lingering taste of the black tea on his lips, a taste that had become so familiar and so entwined with him that it brought comfort and reassurance once you tasted it.  Levi was apparently eagerly awaiting the kiss, because there was no delay in its return.  His lips met yours with eagerness, the sigh he'd been holding evaporating into your parted lips as you went deep at first contact.  The hand that had been resting under your chin and starting to trail a light line down your throat moved to naturally tangle in your hair, holding you closer to him while his lips hungrily met yours.

Still explorative, you let your tongue swipe briefly along his lower lip when you trapped it in your kiss, causing a shudder to race through his body and a soft moan that disappeared within the next kiss.  Each gentle brush of your hand along his chest and abdomen caused the slightest of trembles in him, greater when you traced your fingers along his abdomen, or lightly along the very center of his chest–it took more control than you wanted to admit to resist brushing your fingers along the arch of his pectorals where his nipples would be, feeling like that might be a little much if he ended up being sensitive there for where the two of you were in terms of intimacy right now.

His fingers untwined from yours, and as much as you hated the sudden lack of his hand entwined in yours, it found its place in the small of your back, encouraging you to start shifting position to be closer to him on the couch with how he seemed to be attempting to hold you closer to him.  Tentatively, his hand started to travel up your back as you shifted to try and stretch out beside him without taking up his space on the couch, his fingers splayed and carefully exploring the curves as he held you partially pressed against his side and partially atop his chest, his head no longer propped up and now lying against the couch cushion.  At least it still gave you a good position to kiss him deeply from, even if the attempt to both squeeze onto the couch without invading each other’s space too much but without breaking the make-out was an awkward angled mess from the waist down you were both attempting to ignore.

Still, you could feel his heart beating in his chest as you allowed him to hold you so close to him, a soft hum building in your chest as you pressed deeper in your kiss, testing to see if he’d let your tongue delve a bit deeper, your teeth trapping one of his lips with a bit more fervor.  He was hesitant at first, you could feel the hitch in the flow as he seemed to mentally puzzle out how he felt about it.  He allowed it–for now, with hesitance–so you didn’t push it much further for the moment.  You were content to enjoy the taste of him, the depth of it, the hunger burning in you that had nothing to do with vampirism with every touch and press, the security and warmth with the way he held you oh-so-close to him, his hand doing a slow map of the curves of your back and sides.

Levi’s confidence in what he was doing was returning again, the hesitance from the depth you brought to the kiss and the new things you’d been slowly trying melting away as he figured out how to meet you in stride with it through a bit of trial and error while letting you lead–not that you had a clearer picture of how this worked.  Still, you were pretty sure it was pride you felt sparking inside you alongside the thrill of excitement when you felt Levi’s teeth graze your lips like they had earlier, followed by a quick swipe of his tongue that was almost fast enough to be brushed off as accidental.  The fact that he did it a second time was what made it obvious it wasn’t an accident, and a moan escaped your control as his tongue dared to venture as deep as yours had wandered earlier.  His hands tightened their grip on you, while yours sought out more of him, one hand tangling in his hair while the other dipped closer to his waist at his side before planting in the couch edge beside him to give you the leverage you needed to try and shift positions slightly.

There was a slight break, a gasp for air from both of you as you hovered more over him, stomach brushing against his, getting ready to swing a leg over to try and shift to straddling him.  A shudder went through Levi, and his grip tightened, but this time it was to hold you back and away, just enough that you couldn’t silence him with a kiss and he could look at you, halting the movement before your legs could lock around his waist.  His heart was beating faster, and he looked…not panicked, but definitely flustered, and he seemed to struggle to reach for the right words to explain what had just caused the interruption that was the source of the question in your gaze.

“Wait–wait, not yet, none of that–sex–it's–shit, just…”  Miraculously, there was only the slightest blush on his cheeks and his ears, but he may have been too pressed to try and explain to be the embarrassed kind of flustered.  He struggled with the words, one of your hands resting just above his heart and feeling it continue its racing pace as he fumbled with what he was trying to explain.  “Not right now, It’s too–right now, it’s too…much.”

Even though he finally settled on the words, he didn’t at all seem satisfied with how he’d put it, like it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to say, but it was all he could manage in the moment.  But you were pretty sure you understood what he was getting at with just this bit, anyway.

You were admittedly a little thrown off by the voicing of the possibility of sex being on the table, even if it was a voicing just to set it aside.  You hadn't even thought of it as on the table in the first place, hadn't thought of it as an option yet, and it hadn't been on your mind as you'd been shifting your position to be a bit closer.

Not yet, anyway.  And now that he said it, you couldn't help but to think of it.  You couldn't help but wonder what he'd look like, mind presenting you with an image pieced together with moments from your kisses and the times you'd fed off him, your imagination filling in the gaps to give you mental imagery of Levi panting, head thrown back against the couch, hair cascading backwards and down to the couch cushion, heartbeat racing in your ears, eyes squeezed closed as they rolled from pleasure, eyebrows arched in a curve akin to his back coming off the couch as an unrestrained moan made it passed his lips–

Fuck.

You hadn't thought of it until he said it, and now your cheeks were burning as you desperately tried to shove the thought out of your head, shutting down the imagined sounds in your ears and trying to snuff out the stray thought of how unrestrained would he be if the two of you weren't pacing yourselves walking a blurry line in regards to intimacy right now that made both of you hold back in different ways.

No, no.  You hadn't even been considering it yourself before he mentioned it, he just said he wasn't comfortable with sex yet, so you didn't even want to think about it–especially not right now.  It was the first line–temporary or not–Levi had put down between the two of you, and you sure as hell were going to respect it, even if it took a couple seconds to wrestle down the images the mention of the potential future sex with Levi immediately coaxed to mind.

You'd even said yourself before trying this that you weren't thinking of doing anything too much yet.  You two…weren't there yet.  As much as the thought of Levi in the throes of sex made your heart pound in your ears and a flush of excitement try to flood through your system, sex was not the intention tonight, anyways.  You just wanted to test the intimacy behind closed doors between you two a little more, wanted to give both of you time to readjust to each other again considering how fresh and new your resolving the issues with one another was.

Not yet.  He was right.  Despite the reaction you had to the thought of it, sex was far too much right now.  Not yet.

Levi had stilled entirely beside and underneath you, holding his breath and watching every shift of your facial expression as he tried to read how you were reacting to his request, if he needed to keep trying to find the better words for what he wanted, trying to see before you spoke if he'd upset you with his request.

 “Okay,” you said simply in response, answering him hopefully before he felt the need to start explaining himself.

Levi’s gaze was trained on yours, searching every flicker of emotion he could see there.  He didn't look entirely convinced for some reason.  “…It is?”

“Yes, it is, Levi, I promise.  I don’t feel like we’re quite there yet, myself,” you responded, and when his expression seemed to turn even more dubious, you expanded a bit more on what you meant.   “It certainly feels like we might be, sometimes, but…I’d rather we continue figuring this part out, first, before we try tackling that beast.”

Levi’s gaze was still fixed on you, though the fact he had started to relax once again helped reassure you that he was accepting your explanation.  His hand shifted from its position tangled in your hair to instead carefully cup your cheek, thumb stroking along the arch of your cheekbone in slow, repetitive motions. You could have sworn there was a light of…perhaps a touch of amusement in his eyes, and this knowing look to boot that you couldn’t for the life of you understand why it was there.

“...What?” you finally asked after a few moments spent just like that, with him looking at you that way, cupping your cheek, stroking the arch of your cheekbone…

“Your eyes are red,”  He responded simply.  “Fading, now, but…they were turning red.”

You felt your cheeks heat at the heavy dose of implication in that seemingly innocent comment.  That little biological trait you couldn’t shake, at that time as the two of you were discussing sex?  Damned vampirism, giving you away like that.  He could probably guess pretty easily just where your mind went, and just how deeply those thoughts had been rooted in emotion.  It didn’t take much at all to figure out why your eyes had started turning red, and you really hoped he didn’t press on it.

He probably wasn’t going to, given that he was the one to state that it was too early for sex.

The hand removed itself entirely from your cheek, and you started to sit back as Levi shifted to get up.

“You should head back to your room.  Since you made it pretty clear we were going to talk, they’re going to ambush you in the morning.  You should be in your room, not missing from it.”

He had a point. You hated to go already, but Hange and Petra were almost certainly going to ask how the talk went and if you and Levi were on good speaking terms again as soon as possible. Saying they’d wait until morning may even be the optimistic idea of when they’d come looking for you.  If they knew you’d been with Levi ‘making up’ and you were mysteriously not in your room the next morning…

Yes.  You needed to head back to your room.

You were pulled out of your thoughts by a gentle kiss on the corner of your lips, coaxing you back to the present gently but quickly as Levi spoke again.  “You’re pouting like a child–aren’t you sixty something?” he jabbed.

You rolled your eyes at the comment, returning the kiss with one of your own on his cheek.  “Technically speaking, though I doubt you want to go over what I think about my age all over again.  It’s fine, I’ll head back.  We’re going to be spending practically the rest of the week together, anyway.”

“On business,” Levi reminded you.  “There won’t be time for much else.”

“I know, but still,” you murmured, resisting the urge to reach out and touch his knee, to try something else that could be taken as some kind of initiation or trying to explore a bit more instead of leaving.  Maybe he didn’t mean for you to leave immediately, but you were going to take it as a dismissal. If you didn’t, then you were likely to end up continuing to look for excuses to stay.

Still reluctant, but now resolved enough to move, you got up from your seat on the couch, looking back at Levi briefly.  “I’ll see you first thing in the morning tomorrow, yes?”

Levi’s brows rose slightly.  “Have I said otherwise?”

Rolling your eyes, you did allow yourself a gentle brush against his shoulder, giving it a small squeeze before you started making your way to leave.  “Goodnight, Levi.”

“Goodnight,” you heard him answer quietly a few moments before the door shut behind you.

You wished you could linger longer in the moment, but he was right about needing to be in your own room, you didn’t want to risk being caught out of it when everyone knew where you had been the night before.

However, you had the feeling the next few days were going to be…trying.  You doubted you’d have much time to even think about anything else once you reached Emery, and who knew what waited for you upon your return that had Erwin giving you such a small window to get this done and return inside.

That little moment on the couch was just going to have to tide you over until the two of you had more than just a few moments to spare, however long that was going to be.

Next Chapter---->

(Strikethrough's couldn't be tagged)

Everything Tags:   @antistellxr 

Levi Tags:  @clary-quinn @ayatosmlktea @whalerus @sunny-flo @thirstyforsometea @hauntedhousecat @peaches-and-clouds @imaginationmess @wubbawubwub04 @lollobos @pasteldays @itsmeaudriee @macaronnv @tokyo-banana @apuci-kis-szornye @momowantscats @yellowminb @ashikothedog @notgoodforlife @spnwinchestersd @xxdarkdarlingxx @joy-the-reader

Wings in the Dark Tags: @regalillegal @animeluver23 @theshylittleelfgirl @queenthorin1 @dilucs-thighs @lady-ragnvindr @subtlepjiminie @queenondeezmatatas​​ @linxiajei17 @levisbebe @toni-jones @pinkberrymilktea @ascybous @emmaandemmel @wolfie3616 @aot-fanatic @jencyib @zombiukas @notgoodforlife​ @syviis @captainyanag1

[khaoala]

I've been trying to interrogate my own feelings re. all the sulky/jealous First shenanigans, because I haven't been able to enjoy them as much as I wanted/expected to, and (bear with me on this, I'm still trying to sort it out in my own head!) I think it comes down to the fact that First hasn't quite received the same recognition as an actor that Khao has, and I don't just mean in terms of awards/nominations, but things like JoJo's dream cast including Khaotung, Gun, Fourth (and possibly someone else?) but not First, or Khaotung more frequently getting name-dropped by other GMMTV actors. I'm not saying First never gets praised, or that he's not considered an excellent actor, but I do think that if asked to name great actors, most ppl would think of Khaotung just that millisecond before they'd think of First. And I'm sure a lot of that is down to the nature of roles they've played and how a character like Ray or a subplot like Gaipa's mum in MLC are scene stealers that - understandably and rightfully - stick in ppl's minds. So this isn't me trying to say one is better/worse than the other or that there's a gross injustice in play (though I do think First as Akk should have received much more recognition!). But with that in mind, when there's talk about future collaborations and jokes about Khaotung moving on, even though I'm sure it's 99.9% unserious on First's part, I do wonder if that 0.1%, on some level, worries about being left behind or holding Khao back, not because I think that's in any way grounded in truth or that Khao himself would ever countenance that, but just because of that wider context I mentioned in terms of their relative status in their field. And also because we know that First, however confident he is in his abilities, is also an incredibly sensitive person. I'm trying to imagine a role reversal, where the same scenario played out but with someone wanting to collaborate with First, and maybe it's just me but I can't quite picture it playing out in the same way, and not because Khaotung isn't possessive/protective of their relationship, but just because...I don't know! It feels almost like there's an unspoken agreement that of COURSE everyone wants to work with Khaotung and of COURSE he's going to go on to great things, that I just don't quite feel would be applied to First in the same scenario, which means the joke wouldn't work in the same way. Or maybe it's just that First gets teased more full-stop and I'm the one being oversensitive! I promise I'm not one of those fans who catastrophises or sees disaster/estrangement in every tiny thing, and it's not that I'm worried myself about the future of their partnership. Like I said, I was just curious about why, despite the chuckling, I was feeling slightly uneasy, and that's what I came up with! We know First is ambitious as an actor, that he takes it incredibly seriously, that he WANTS to win awards, and no matter how selfless his love for Khao is and how proud he is of him, I think it's a little naive to pretend he's never once felt anything bout the fact he's yet to receive that same recognition, especially when they're working alongside each other - that doesn't mean he's jealous of Khao, or that he's a bad person or bad friend/partner, or make his happiness for Khao's success any less genuine. So yeah, I couldn't help but wonder if, beneath all the hilarity and silliness and OTT sulking, there wasn't just a kernel of genuine insecurity. I mean, it'd be very on-brand of First to turn his actual fears and doubts into a skit starring himself as the butt of the joke - that's just classic people-pleaser with self-esteem issues behaviour, and the reason I recognise it is cos I'm one too! Sorry for rambling. Don't really know why I felt the need to word vomit all over your blog - think I was trying the whole 'name the thing then the thing no longer has any power over you' trick!

ngl, this rise in talk about fk and vibes and interactions have been bothering me since it started a couple of weeks ago and i'll adress that now for the only time bc i feel the need to, like yourself anon, let this out just so i can feel a little better. pls know that despite referring to you, i don't mean to sound mean to you in specific, anon. it's more of a general impression of what i've seen on somsomtw recently and especially. i do realize that i'll sound a bit aggressive in this, but it's nothing personal to you.

people have been complaining about fk joking about this "moving on" thing, and working with other artists for the past three days (just bc they happened to have three days in a row of events, in first's case) but they only started joking about this bc fans have been senselessly talking about them having a fight that never existed and they leaned on that. quite genuinely, in the last couple of years that i've been in this fandom, this is the first time these things took so much force. it's imperative that we, as fans recognize when they are joking for funsies and given their nature and public image, they would never ever make it obvious if they were actually having a fight or a disagreement (the fact that people have been dead set on the idea that first has a girlfriend just bc of those pictures he posted on valentine's day and taro cards just adds to the histeria me thinks).

as actors, we all must agree that both first and khaotung have been severely underutilized by gmm (by choice or bc projects weren't presented to them, both are viable options). and i completely agree with you in the sense that first especially has not received as much direct praise as khaotung has. you mentioned the possibility of first somehow feeling like he's holding khaotung back which reminded me of someone (i can't remember who, i'm sorry) saying that when they got paired up, first solo fans were pissed bc first was definitely the most known of the two and that khaotung would be the one holding first back. i think it's really naive of us to think that, with the relationship they have, we assume that instead of talking about their insecurities with each other (like we know they've done in the past when they chose to let us know) and have a mature conversation between them, they'd talk about it in front of cameras. they know they have an image and a reputation, do we really think they'd bring that up if it wasn't just for jest?

(and this is what first himself talked about in his press talk after today's event, too)

you know what bothers me a little about this "khaotung can move on to do other things talk"? so far we're only aware that he might or might not have a collaboration with other artists for lol, but besides that he has no other projects (and he didn't have any solo events this year, too, besides the qingdao fm), but first is confirmed and will start filming for my magic prophecy really soon, so honestly, in theory, shouldn't people be saying the opposite? like first is moving on to act with other people for real, it's actually happening, but there are some people who are pressed by the possibility of it happening for khaotung. and might i add too, idk if this happens with every couple, but idk where this idea of working with other people became "this is the end of their career as a cp, they are getting other partners" (not you anon, but i've seen this quite a bit around), and i don't know what kind of mental gymnastics some of you are doing to justify that. WORKING WITH OTHER PEOPLE IS GOOD. THEY ARE ACTORS. THEY NEED THE EXPOSURE AND IT'S A GOOD THING THAT THEY HAVE MORE CONTACT WITH OTHER PEOPLE! dr. karn won't have a romantic interest i don't think, but god's forbid if either first or khaotung ever get paired up with a woman (like most bl men already were like earth, tay, new, gun, off, sea, jimmy, joong, dunk, and basically everyone else), because i've never seen a fandom that likes to fragilize a relationship that has proved to be anything but fragile like some soms do.

from what they've allowed us to see, first seems like one of the most genuine and caring people ever. we can't never put our hands on fire for celebrities bc they only let us see what they want us to see, but when you have two people who are highly praised not only professionally but also personally by pretty much every one of their colleagues and bosses, you can at least get an idea of to base yourself on. i'm not saying that first might not have felt insecure about it, but i think it's disrespectful to think that we know better than them of how to navigate this situation. what benefit would it bring to them, if they were actually beefing to bring this up with media and fans?

i'm not disregarding first's feelings, i must also add. we know he wants recognition and wants to be known, that's why he's in the industry, and i hope he gets nominations as kant this year bc he deserves it so much (still baffled that he didn't get anything with akk. it is one of his most impressive performances in my opinion), but i'll say it again, they only started joking about this matter bc fans made a fuss about this first. they are just leaning on the joke and the media keeps asking about it and he keeps reassuring it is a joke but he still jokes, because people love talking about it. he wouldn't be doing that if fans didn't bring it up and p'leo commented about it on the lol press tour and they were forced to address that. joong and dunk, being gremlins and chaos bringers as they are encouraged them to lean on that pretended-jealousy thing bc that's what they do themselves. they play with the circunstancies fans create (joongdunk have the advantage here bc differently from fk who usually don't address when fans are being ridiculous, joong calls them out tho).

i find it funny that, if you're a fk fan, you must know one of the things that brought them fans in the first place besides their acting ability and chemistry is the fact that they have a extremely close and meaningful relationship (besides the intensive ghost shipping project they were on before becoming an actual pair with the ig lives and brand collaborations and despite khaotung being paired up with podd at the time, first always lurking in the corner). but people are so easy to flip and turn their actions and words into something else. for a couple you're always praising for having a close bond (we call them soulmates, don't we?), some people really think their relationship is extremely fragile to not be able to endure.

[livingthedragonlife]

if you feel comfortable, could you talk about your experience with wanting romantic relationships but not experiencing romantic attraction? what does it feel like to not experience romantic attraction? no worries at all if you just want to delete this question !!!

well see, that's an interesting question. how do i describe a lack of something? how do i explain what it feels like to not feel something? i don't know how romantic attraction feels, so i'm not sure if i can explain it to you in a way that makes sense. i'll try though?

i don't fall in love. the things i experienced that i assumed were "crushes" didn't have anything to do with dates, or marriage, or imagining a future together. it's not to say that i didn't care about them, but it was all very... vaguely defined. i would think "wow this person is so pretty we should kiss" with absolutely no thought to what a "relationship" with that person would actually entail. i just didn't even consider it. i think it's partly why long-distance relationships have worked so well for me lmao

despite that, i still enjoy being close to people. i care about my partners a lot and i want them to be happy. when they can visit me, i enjoy going out and doing activities together, but in the same way i would enjoy going out with a friend or a group of friends. i'm equally happy in both situations, i love when my partners can meet my friends, and we all do things together.

i've struggled for years to try and separate my platonic feelings from my romantic feelings, and what i discovered is that there is no separation. i feel absolutely no distinction between them, which i've been told is not how it works for other people. my gf tells me there are some things she absolutely would never do with her friends, because she's not romantically attracted to them, which doesn't make any sense to me at all. like, why not? what's the difference? i never understood that, because there is no line.

one thing that i just recently figured out, and was the reason for a lot of what i thought were "crushes", is that when i feel very close to someone, i want to open up about sex and sexuality and my sex life. it's where my brain goes from "confirmed friends with a person" as the "next step" of intimacy. i don't even necessarily want to have sex with them (although sex with friends is awesome), but i imagine it's what being alloromantic is like? when you talk to your friends about dating and love life and stuff? i want to talk about sex because it's the next level of intimacy for me, the thing i want to use to invite people deeper into my life. society assumes that sex = romance, that if you want one you must want the other, and i confused myself A LOT.

and i've always loved romance novels. i've written and read plenty of romantic stories, original and fanwork. i find romantic relationships compelling because of the inherent messiness of entwining your life with another person or people. intimacy is vulnerable and cathartic and allows you to be yourself with someone else who has the same freedom. i don't believe that i need to be able to feel romance to reach that level of intimacy with someone, so i enjoy being in relationships that allow me to reach a deeper understanding of myself and others. being polyamorous and a relationship anarchist also helps me craft relationships the way they work for ME, not whatever society says they should be

wow this got long. i hope it makes sense?

[thepenultimateword]

Too Tall Part Six

I missed my awkward space babies

||Part One||Part Two||Part Three||Part Four||Part Five||

Antolin held a hair tie in his teeth as he gathered his hair into a half-knot. His face was still pale, and his leg throbbed like hell, but he finally had the energy for an outing. Though, conscious to preserve that energy, he currently sat on the end of his bed, the wall mirror taken down and propped haphazardly in an open dresser drawer.

He turned his reflection from side to side as he ran his fingers through the top layer of tangles, scrutinizing the deep blue cross-wrap shirt from all angles. It had been a rather long time since he'd been on shore leave, so It had taken forever to find an outfit that wasn't a uniform or lounge clothes. The shirt's neck plunged a little low for comfort. It looked strange. Was that out of unfamiliarity or because it actually looked bad? He hadn't minded the look before, but now after several years of tight, high collars, he felt almost indecently exposed.

“You can’t be serious.”

Antolin briefly met Zae’s glaring eyes in the mirror. “What?" He took the hair tie in his hand and pulled the tail through two and a half times. "It’s just a walk.”

“You aren’t actually interested in that bloodmonger, are you?”

He picked up a hairpin with dangling blue glass beads and paused. Interested? Unai had been interesting since the moment she arrived on-station. But Zae was talking romantically, wasn't she? That was a much harder question. Antolin had always planned on having a relationship with another human--if his job ever gave him the time that was. Unai was about the furthest thing from a typical future that he could imagine. The culture, the planet...the height. Not bad...but complicated. Different. However, he had grown used to her presence. And the idea of going out to do something un-work related did make his heart speed a little fast. Not that any of that was enough to make sense of.

“I don’t know," he said. "Admittedly, it is a little strange. But I do like her. To what extent I’m still not sure. In any case, we're friends."

Zae frowned deeper, folding her long, slender arms. "She’s arrogant."

Antolin offered a half-shrug as he slid the pin into his bun. “She’s arrogant because she has a right to be. She does her job with a proficiency and vigor I’ve rarely seen.”

“Only because she’s trying to impress you. I swear, the rumors I've heard around the station since she's arrived. Does she have no shame?"

Rumors? He'd have to probe around about that once he was up and able again.

“I highly doubt she would have reached the rank of captain without a good work ethic.”

“Alright, but that doesn’t change that she's Ke'turian--an incredibly violent species. They take whatever they want by force. And you're human."

Antolin frowned at the implication. Did everyone see him as weak? He'd proven himself multiple times on the Zenith, enough times to get this position. Yet, sometimes, he had the impression that everyone was simply humoring him. His stripes held the threat of federal discipline, so they did as they were told. But they didn't actually respect him. Obviously whoever was letting in their enemies found him an easy target. And now Zae felt the need to fret over him as if he were a child. He even doubted his own abilities after that terrible fight with the Lasters.

But then there was Unai. She had said she'd battle alongside him. Surely a Ke'turian would know best about battle. It hadn't felt like a lie, even with her abrupt retreat after saying it.

He drew himself up in his seat. "I'm quite capable of defending myself against any threat. Ke'turians included." The cold tone clearly struck Zae because she immediately dropped her gaze. Satisfied, he allowed a little warmth back into his words as turned away from the mirror to face her head-on. "But I can hardly picture Captain Unai attacking me."

Zae remet his eyes, clearly unconvinced. "Be careful."

He rolled his eyes. "I will. Promise. Now," he grasped his crutch, shoving himself to his feet and limping a couple feet out from the bed. "How do I look?"

Zae sighed. "Like you think you're going on a date."

***

Unai's long stride had brought her to Hayes's door too quickly. She was at least 15 clicks too early. Knocking on the door now would be an embarrassment, another overeager display of her one-sided affections. That was...if they were one-sided. Because this was a date. Right? She'd at least intended it to be when she originally asked--or tried to ask. She wasn't certain what it was now that Hayes had taken ownership of the excursion.

Unai leaned back against the metal wall. She shouldn't ask. If Hayes hadn't intended anything by proposing a walk--which he probably hadn't--it would be uncomfortable to bring it up. Not to mention the recent gossip on the topic. She'd never been subtle, but it was a little ridiculous that her connection to Hayes was being so blown out of proportion now. She really hoped Hayes hadn't caught wind of any of it. She'd specifically left mention of it out of their conversations in case the bother affected his health or his opinion of her.

She checked her communicator's clock function. Still 13 clicks early. Maybe it was alright to be at least 5 clicks early. Punctuality was a virtue. So that only left 8 to go. Manageable.

She smoothed the front of her plain black tunic for probably the fifth time since putting it on. The collar settled comfortably just below her throat, only a little lower than that of her uniform, but the sleeveless nature of the garment had her a little uneasy. On Ke'tukar, bared arms to a potential mate were as obvious a signal for courtship as shouting it aloud; she doubted Hayes knew that, but it hadn't stopped her from wanting to do so anyway, just as her own personal declaration.

Another glance at her communicator. 5 more clicks. Well, maybe 10 clicks early would actually be fine.

Unai raised her hands to the door and hesitated. She'd been letting herself in these past weeks anyway. And Hayes didn't always hear the knock. Maybe she should simply enter as usual. That might even let Hayes know the stooping level of her expectations.

She pressed the door button, moving forward as the door slid open. And nearly ran into Lt. Zae in the process.

Unai backed up quickly as the Lieutenant's initial surprise faded, and she stepped into the hall, punching the door button back to closed as she did so.

"Captain." Her address was chilled as usual, and her silver eyes roamed up and down Unai's frame with an almost sick regard.

"Lieutenant," Unai returned through gritted teeth.

"Subtle are we?"

"Forgive me, Lieutenant, but I don't understand what you're implying."

Lt. Zae nodded at one of Unai's arms. "Ke'turian females woo the males by exposing their arms. A show of the strength you have to offer. I hope you are not expecting Commander Hayes to fall prey to such a spectacle."

Unai fought down the flutter of her collar and set her jaw.

"My clothing has no intention outside of its flattering fit, and even if it did, I don't see how it's any of your business."

Lt. Zae rose up to her full stringy height--a little higher than midchest--the already pinkish hue of her skin darkening with contempt. "Commander Hayes is my longtime colleague, commander, and friend. You expect me to be delighted at his dalliances with a Ke'turian military officer?"

Unai wished she could roar in the face of this disrespect. Bare her fangs, raise her collar, and challenge Lt. Zae to a combat of honor. But that would only upset Hayes and satisfy the Lieutenant's bad opinion of her. Instead, she let her fangs only show slightly. "Xersians and Ke'turians may have differing ideals, but I never knew a Xersian to be openly prejudiced toward an entire species."

"It's not the Ke'turian species trying to initiate courtship with Antolin. It is only one."

Unai knew it shouldn't matter, but that casual first name drop made her insides twinge. Lt. Zae really was on closer terms with Hayes. But that still did not excuse whatever she was being accused of. "Am I missing something, Lieutenant?"

"You Ke'turian’s are as aggressive when courting as you are when fighting. You expect me to trust a species that takes their mates by force?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play innocent; I've read up on Ke'turian customs. Fighting other females to the death. Taking the males to husband--sometimes by physical force--without allowing any sort of choice. It's disgusting."

“What?” Unai cried, her collar flapping up irritatedly. “Maybe a few centuries ago! Where did you read that, a history book?"

"It was a modern study on various species' courting rituals."

"Written by who? A Xersian?"

"The libraries on Xersa have an extensive collection of research. All of which is heavily peer-reviewed and fact checked."

"Sounds like your libraries are trash, if that counts as heavily fact-checked. Ke'turian courtships are consensual. If I am denied, I will give up my pursuit entirely." It hurt to say aloud, like a rock sinking to the bottom of her stomach. But it was true. Her advances only went as far as Hayes accepted them. Maybe that was another reason she wasn't being totally forward. Once she received the official no, it was done. She'd rather bide her time in hopes of a one-day yes.

Lt. Zae blinked a few times. Taking in the offense and the claim all at once. Her face contorted from enraged, to considering, to flat. "I...will check a few more sources. However, my current trust remains nonexistent. If I hear of anything unsavory occurring on this 'walk', I will use my current commanding power to dismiss you from the station. Clear?"

"Perfectly," Unai growled. She maneuvered around the Xersian, pressing the door button with a large, intentional gesture. As it slid back, she stepped into Hayes' quarters without a second glance at the eyes piercing her back.

Hayes hastily pushed himself up on his crutch as she entered. "Captain Unai!"

"Commander!" she returned, nearly on choking the greeting. He wore a blue tunic-style shirt that cross-wrapped over his chest, but not before dipping just below his clavicle.

No. No. She was not going to be accused of ogling again.

Unai forced her gaze away from his elegant neck and the peeking portion of--despite his months in bed--a toned chest. She didn't know why she had expected him to be in uniform today. Maybe because besides the sleep clothing he wore in his quarters, she'd never seen him in anything else. He seemed like the type who would sleep in his uniform if it weren't for the discomfort and possible damage to the material.

It turned out averting her eyes from the outfit did nothing to save her. Haye's long, dark hair, fell in full curls over his shoulder, and the little tendrils that were too small to be pulled into his half bun framed his face in a messy, tousled sort of way. His eyes, as dark and deep as ever, studied her intensely.

She looked down at the floor before he could see the full extent of her admiration.

You mean attraction, she corrected internally. Who do you think you're kidding?

Well, if this wasn't a date, hopefully Hayes.

After a few moments, when no reproach or teasing remarks came, Unai forced her gaze back up. Hayes was still staring at her. Not the piercing, soul-exposing way he usually looked at her, but like...like he was caught up in a thought.

"Hayes?"

Hayes jolted and cleared his throat. "You, uh, look nice."

Unai mustered every bit of her strength to keep her collar pinned taughtly against her neck. "Thank you. So do you." She awkwardly extended her arm. "Shall we?"

Hayes limped forward and took gentle hold of the crook of her arm with his free hand. He smiled briefly up at her with what seemed like...nerves? No, it was probably just uneasiness about going out for the first time. His leg was probably pretty sore.

"So, Captain, what did you have planned?"

[spookythesillyfella]

This is going to be a weird inbox to get considering it's 3 in the morning (On my end) as I do sent it but I've been wondering if you ever associated any song with digitaltime? This is a relatively new question for me to ask anyone since I don't usually go digging for ships out of the idea MAYBE people may feel embarrassed/uncomfortable talking about it? (Even if it did give them comfort!) If not song(s) at least maybe you can talk about them a bit, I used to love digitaltime back when I first joined dhmis in 2016 so I'm always really amazed the ship LIVES ON somewhere! (FEEL FREE TO TALK ABOUT SONGS AND HEADCANONS/IDEAS if you wanna do both I'd LOVE to hear!) I've been meaning to inbox you for days actually! Just couldn't seem to get myself to do so relating to mental health crisis haha. I'm hoping I'll be able to reach out WAY MROE OFTEN just to remind you I am here!! Really always excited/interested in what you have to say even if I've not expressed it forwardly back at least this way uuhh uh. You can ignore this </3 I know it's been hard lately!

Stay strong !!

HII !!!! HI HELLOO HIII !!!! :DDDD

ouhhh goodness i adore thiz question – i love listening to muzic and thinking about theze lozerz X33 I JUST NEVER GET THE CHANCE TO CUZ NO ONE AROUND CAREZ ABOUT THEMMM >X[

i actually have quite a lot but i cant just go on a 3 hour analysis of all the onez . so might az well give you the short n sweet of it – i really wouldn't want to waste your precious time ahaha ¥_^

★ "505" – Arctic Monkeys ; probably my favorite on the list but itz also one of the most SELF INDULGENT

the lyricz are just really fitting with my vizion of them – the lyricz "I'm going back to 505 // If it's a seven hour flight or a forty-five minute drive // In my imagination, you're waitin' lyin' on your side // With your hands between your thighs" fit with the fact they really love one another tremendously – their devotion

also the lyricz "Not shy of a spark // The knife twists at the thought that I should fall short of the mark // Frightened by the bite, though it's no harsher than the bark // The middle of adventure, such a perfect place to start" and "But I crumble completely when you cry // It seems like once again you've had to greet me with goodbye // I'm always just about to go and spoil the surprise // Take my hands off of your eyes too soon" LIKE I DUNNO HOW TO EXPLAIN THEZE BUT THEY REALLY REALLY DOMAKE ME THINK OF THEM ........

★ "I Wanna Be Yours" – Arctic Monkeys [dont ask why i associate them with Arctic Monkeys so much . okay ???]

y'know how Colin tendz to talk a lot about how clever and cool and useful he iz ? i think thiz song iz very fitting to how he'd want to be like . useful for Tone – the peak of intimacy iz to be uzed . something something etcetera

★ "As The World Caves In" – Matt Maltese

fitting from Tonyz perspective . in my opinion – how he'd want to spend hiz remaining time alongside Colin . even if . in the grand scheme of everything . itz such a small speck ; how Colin makez Tony feel fulfilled . and how even when all run out of time . hez happy to have spent it together – none wasted

★ a couple of honorable mentionz that i won't go in depth on :

– "Cigarettes out the Window" – TV Girl [mostly cuz i wanna do an in-depth au related analysis on it sometime in the mear future]

– "Show Me How" – Men I Trust [would like to analyze thiz one too but can't really see myself doing it ; the lyricz "Tell me why // Your hands are cold" are rlly hv digitaltime though i swear]

– "Daisy Bell" – Harry Dacre [iz thiz in part cuz Colin iz a computer ? if i answer that question truthfully . you'll chase me with pitchforkz]

– "My Love Mine All Mine" – Mitski [i can't go in depth about thiz without bursting into tearz ; i really love it]

– "Lovers Rock" – TV Girl [im scared of talking about love ; love iz very scary to me]

– "P.U.N.K Girl" – Heavenly

– "Who Knew" – The Correspondents [a relatively new song ive started listening to and i hadn't had the chance to properly dissect the lyricz and analyze them – but . since it remindz me of me n my lover . therez a 90-ish% chance it remindz me of them too]

TYSM FOR THE ASK AGAIN !!!!!!!!! I LITERALLY LOVE TALKING ABOUT DIGITALTIME – THEZE FREAKZ ALWAYZ LINGER IN MY MIND !!!!!!!!!!! IVE BEEN SO STUMPED WHEN IT COMEZ TO IDEAZ TO WRITE AND / OR DRAW THEM SO JUST GETTING TO GET SOMETHING OUTTA MY BRAIN IZ REALLY GOOD

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF CUZ ILYSM !!!!!! YOU HAVE NO CLUE HOW HAPPY THIZ ASK ACTUALLY MADE ME . SO THANK YOU <33

[forjustice]

Hiatus/Update 04/27/2025

Hey all! Just wanted to pop in here and say I'm alive, I've been hit with a majorly depressive slump that's basically plagued me since COVID which I only recently got out of. I haven't been able to even remotely do many of the things I was so optimistic about doing on my semester off from school (cries in having no time or headspace to write fanfiction) and I am immensely frustrated with that, but I am happy to say one thing: I finally have a therapist again! He's helping me work on emotional regulation and executive function. My mom is also surprisingly compliant in working with me to help me achieve independence. Sometimes it's still like pulling teeth, but holy shit she actually listens to the therapist when he tells her she's being harmful to me and it's actually made things better! I am still kind of annoyed that once afuckinggain I had Plans™ for cool shit I wanted to do with my life once my misfortunes were over and once afuckinggain a new misfortune left me in the same sorry state that I had been trying to recover from. But at least I actually have tangible fucking good things going on in my real life to report instead of just one depressing update after another!

I apologize for the fact I don't see myself returning here to RP within a short timeframe, but my Pokémon muses are not forgotten and I don't think I'll be away forever. You can find me on my Discord, anarchocosmology, or on my Ne Zha verse RP blog @redbluedestiny!

Two things I will say though, for both my current blog and when I return to this one--

One, I am drastically shortening the length of my character bios. The original longer versions will still exist, but in the future I will try to keep longer bios to 1-3 pages. I was advised by a friend that my character bios were long to the point of being inaccessible, and honestly...They've gotten inaccessible to me too. I have a whole ass X-Men blog centered around Magneto and his family that I started setting up and literally never got around to because the bios took so long to write that I lost most of my muse for those characters before I even launched the blog. Hell, most of my current bios even have places where I had to stop rambling and just sum the rest up with a TL;DR, or that are still labeled as "WIP" and I've never gotten around to finishing them. Which means my long ass character bios have far passed the point of diminishing returns, and if they exhaust me to write, I can't imagine how others feel having to read them!

To tell you all the truth, I always felt a need to cram every little bit of information about a muse into a bio, thinking people would want to have every single piece of information that I considered important, but I finally internalized that people are okay with broader brushstrokes of a character and in fact prefer it. Character info is much shorter and neater on @redbluedestiny than it is in some of the bios here and I'm going to keep it that way. When I finally get back here I will be changing my character bios to make them shorter and sweeter as well.

Two, I will be changing some aspects of my Pokémon lore to be more accurate to IRL. I was advised to incorporate more aspects of Ainu and Ryukyuan culture, history and mythology into my Hoenn and Sinnoh timelines, which I will be doing as soon as I have the headspace to work on Pokémon things again. The Yumean lore will also remain, but it will be getting an overhaul so that I can make much of the population of Hoenn and Sinnoh more tied in with actual Indigenous Japanese groups. Discord RP with my Pokémon muses will continue, but I will not do RPs that touch on any aspect of my lore that I want to rework until I get around to do the reworking. This means I will try to keep most of my Discord RPs more lighthearted in nature, and not dive super deep into my characters' backstories and trauma since the exact nature of it is subject to change.

Thank you all for reading!

月

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

How Do i even post about it ...

Ok so i mentioned in my previous post how two hummingbirds were circling me today when i got to the summit of the mountain, and i knew it was my father. But in that moment i was thinking, who is the 2nd one? And my thoughts were, Oh it must be another angel who's following him around

Well. I just opened up youtube and saw my favorite psychic posted a new reading, the title something like "Your father's spirit called upon an angel for your healing" .. I got shivers .. for context, i don't watch very many psychics as i don't find many of them to be trustworthy, but this girl is like on a totally different level her readings are always extremely specific & her energy is soooo beautiful like truly ethereal she is a true channeler , she also barely ever posts , you can tell it's not like a 'hustle' to her like she hadn't posted anything in like a month before this, idk she's just very sincere

the basic gist of the reading was, she said she sees "your father standing there, and to the side of him, a much larger figure, an angel" .. And he has called upon the angel to assist him, in assisting me, in healing this wound, as well as communication, because he does not have the power to heal it himself. (At one point she mentioned how he was not a spiritual person in life, he does not have psychic gifts, which is why he had to call upon this angel, which made me laugh cus it's true as fuck my dad hated all things woo-woo)

But i was like oh my god.... that was the 2nd hummingbird i saw earlier... i heard it in my mind.. There's another angel with him, but i didn't know who, and i even wondered why i didn't know who, because usually i know, when i see something and it has a message for me i know who it's from...

It's so crazy, she specified that "you lost your father very young" but also "you moved around a lot, part of the wound is that you've never been able to root in your life, you desire to root and establish something for yourself but the wound has kept you from this and that's what he's called upon this angel to heal for you" she also said the word "nomad" and i was like fully sobbing at this point cus. that's been my WHOLE life like from early childhood up until this exact moment, before and after he died, i move and move and move i never stay still ..

i've never had roots and when i'm feeling sorry for myself that's where my mind goes, "You never got to have roots". I see & know so many people who just have that they just have a home and a family they have a hometown they take it quite for granted to be known and familiar. it's like yeah i'll never see any of my childhood homes again even from the outside. i have like 5 childhood homes split in different countries. i dream of them and that's all there is.

But ok, she said like, omg dude. She said the angel is bringing you "freedom". And i fucking gasped even though that sounds vague as fuck, i have been repeatedly praying lately for My Perfect Freedom. Every night. A few weeks ago i finally took action into seeking legal help for my immigration situation and since then i've been receiving nothing but good news about it, better than i ever imagined. Especially in the past week. I'm not rly trying to talk about it online but i feel like it's important to note for the timing of this message that i literally AM getting my freedom and it's FELT angelic.

Like i've been feeling this new sense of vitality and hope and optimism in my heart that i can stay. I can just stay here. I never have to move again. I literally can root. i've been walking with denji every night, and i just look around at the neighborhood and the sky and the trees, i listen to the cicadas, i'm like holy shit, this is it, this is what it means to have joy, this is what it means to be present, nothing feels mundane, i'm just so happy to be here, i'm giving thanks every moment, i'm seeing my future unfold, the way i can get a job again, actually start saving up for a life that's real, tangible, the uncertainty i've lived with for my entire adult life is fading away, literally so recently like so so recently

and today at the mountaintop felt like a climax of this feeling, the gratitude, the panorama of opportunities, angels communicating, presentness, just not wanting or needing to be anywhere else, not needing to run away anymore

She said about how "you were best friends with your father" which i was, and she said "you share your gifts but he acknowledges you do it better than him" which cracked me up cus like. My father looooved drawing and photography which are obviously big things for me too, part of our friendship was that he pushed me to do art and make a real career of it like he wanted to.

i think i've spoken of this on here before but taking photos is something i do with him, not even like "im honoring him" but we literally do it together, it's a form of channeling. i think sometimes i channel him when i draw too but mostly my grandpa. My grandpa had very similar drawing style to me but my dad's was a little different. However when i see my dad's photography it's like yeah, we have the same eyes, physically and spiritually, same vision

Lol ok last thing she said that freaked me out was that i have a son waiting to be born who will be either my grandfather or great-grandfather reincarnate. And no joke i HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT THIS !!!! Like its really the biggest reason i feel strongly compelled to have a child. I always thought it will be my great grandfather who died a few months before i was born. i really feel i have a son and a daughter waiting to come through and i can't deny them. i can't say it's true confirmation since it hasn't happened yet but it was just weird to hear her say that when it's something i've never even spoken of just a total hunch.

And having my children will be a huge milestone in healing this wound of almost 18 years since my dad's been gone. plus the lifelong wound of yearning to "root".

Like if what she says is really true that a new force has been summoned recently to assist me with this, it explains so much of what i've felt lately. i feel it's only come in in the past few weeks, definitely after pochita's surgery, maybe that's where my dad drew the line and said THAT'S IT WE'RE CALLING IN REINFORCEMENTS

She said whoever this father is he has a very sarcastic dry sense of humor about him. Just another lil confirmation idk hehe. The hummingbirds rly told me everything i needed to know though. in that moment i knew it was one of the craziest things that's ever happened to me even before seeing the reading but wow i rly didnt expect this. She said so much in the reading that felt like it was literally specific just for me. There's probably more i'm forgetting

Wow this is became a looooong post :) Don;t mind me. i've just.... i've been doing a lot of secret practice lately, a lot of things i don't talk about on tumblr, or tell anyone at all, because the silence gives it power. But this one i just felt called to document here for some reason. i don't question it. Goodnight fr this time....

PMD(9)

[reilly310]

Outlander: Blood of My Blood

art credit: @SimonWrightSays

I'm dusting off my blog for the first time in a looong time with some thoughts about the new prequel series.

I've been on the fence about the new series, but after learning that Claire's parents' story will be included, I found myself more intrigued. Then seeing this (amazing) sketch of young Jamie and Claire got my imagination flowing.

I'm mostly interested to see how the writers will integrate the two storylines, as I would think they'll have to do. Given at least one (and perhaps both) of Claire's parents can time travel:

Will one of them be from the past (her father, I presume) and, in a kind of reverse Outlander, meet/fall in love with the other in the future?

And/or will both of them travel back to Jamie's parent's time (purposely or by accident) and will they meet/be friends (or foes) of each other's for a time?

Will they give birth to Claire in the past or the present? Will Jamie and Claire know each other (or at least meet briefly) as very young children but be too young to remember that encounter/relationship? (See picture above..and yes, I know there's a 5 year age difference in OL but just indulge me here because that picture is so cute. Maybe, more realistically, when Claire is 5, they are present for Jamie's birth instead. Isn't one of the rules of time travel in OL that you have to have a connection to where you're traveling to? Since Claire went through the stones the first time by accident, could she have landed where/when she did because of that connection to Jamie / his family from her past even if she didn't consciously remember it?)

Do Claire's parents actually die in a car crash or was she just told this by Uncle Lamb as a way to explain their absence? Did they get stuck in the past instead and spend the rest of their lives trying to return to her? Do Jamie's parents find out their secret and try to help them in this endeavor to return to the future?

Or maybe they perish in the past and Uncle Lamb, a time traveler himself, brings Claire to the present to keep her safe.

Because (I don't think) there's any book reference to Claire's parents other than her mentioning how they died and that she doesn't really remember them, the possibilities related to their storyline are endless.

Having put these thoughts out into the universe, though, I'm likely setting myself up for disappointment if/when the series airs and does none of these things. However, a connection of some sort between the two couples will have to be established in order for the series to have a flow that makes sense and is not disjointed.

PS: I read the first 3 books and part of the 4th before setting them aside years ago, so I don't consider myself a book reader. Perhaps there's information in the later books that would make the potential connections I've imagined for this new series impossible. If so, please let me know.

PPS: . Do we know if this prequel is intended to be a limited series (like the Yellowstone prequel "1883") or a series with multiple seasons? If it's a limited series of 10 episodes, they might be able to get away with two separate storylines that merge in some way only at the end. I just don't think I would find it as intriguing as one that's interconnected.

[amethystina]

Pops out from the box I was sorting through. Oh, hello! Anonymous raccoon popping back in to check in. I see that tag …. very funny lol. I’m also very honored! Never thought I’d build myself a whole ask series with raccoon but I’m not complaining. They’re adorable funky fellas anyways too.

Now on to my response. I do really want to say first of all, please please do not feel pressured to respond or reveal personal information that may make you feel uncomfortable! Of course if this is a chance for you to vent/work through things etc, then disregard my words haha, and please continue! I just wanted to make that clear. Because I’m a firm believer that nobody owes anyone an explanation for anything especially for why you’re not updating! I’m not here to nudge and prod in a ‘why aren’t you updating way.’ I’m here to check in, offer support in any I can, and just be a raccoon offering empathy or holding spaces for thoughts. Any thoughts lol.

(Intermission - Is there a character ask limit? I might break it if so, so if necessary this will turn into a multi-post. Sorry! Haha.)

I’m really sorry to hear that so many aspects have been just a shitshow one after another. I’m really glad to hear your wife is doing better — and also hopefully your aunt? even if it’s no news type deal — because god health issues are genuinely horrible. So I’m really glad there’s improvement on that front even if things aren’t perfect, but I’m sending you optimism as well. It seems that both of you are doing for sure what is best for you and downsizing truly can do wonders sometimes for making sure energy remains with you and not on taking care of a big house when you already got no energy. I can only imagine that it might work in y’all’s favor too with having that chance to have more energy to dedicate to spending time together! I’m sorry though because I know that leaving a place you love is always rough. Fingers crossed for comfy apartments in the future!

Alas, the therapist situation resolved itself as you expected. I saw the comment previously on your post about most therapists being CBT adjacent and my god, yeah. I know that it’s actually common that CBT is just not the right method for folks. Therapy methods are so individual specific. It’s good to hear that your therapist at least wasn’t awful but sigh yeah, unfortunate. I’ll still hold out hope that maybe further down the line you find someone who can actually offer more help. But for now — im glad he was at least able to offer you a chance to briefly at least just rant. Screaming into the void is very healthy-

I WILL continue to hold out hope that you can take things easy — but since I can see that you unfortunately most likely won’t be able to — I’m instead going to hold out hope that things improve and that this barreling train of things piling up one after another has a stop soon so you can breathe at least even briefly.

(Intermission 2.0- there’s no limit?? I survived making this one answer??)

Take care of yourself as always and treat yourself if you have to chance to <3

Cherish is, Anonymous Raccoon 😉

Don't worry, I don't talk about my problems until I'm actually ready to do so, at least not publically. Which is why it took me over six months to mention the fact that my wife has been sick and that we'll be selling our house. That was something I needed to keep to myself and only discuss with my closest circle until I had processed and dealt with it as best as possible. I've had lots of practice in figuring out when I can talk to people and in what forums. And there are definitely things I would never mention here in such a public place, mainly because I've learned the hard way to keep my more vulnerable rants in more private spaces. But, when I feel ready, I'll share what I think might be relevant.

And while I know I don't owe people an explanation, it's still beneficial to at least say something. When people ask me why I'm not updating, it's a lot easier to link people to a Tumblr post that details the situation instead of vaguely trying to explain that I'm just not able to post right now. I have a tendency to become more curt and evasive when I feel like I can't explain why I behave the way I do, and so I probably come across as a lot more rude than I intend to. And, again, while I don't owe people anything, I don't like the thought of being rude to them, either.

So yeah. Don't worry about that! It's pretty difficult to make me do something I don't want to do 😆 And thank you for wanting to check in 💜

My aunt is doing better, yes! She'll be celebrating her 60th birthday real soon! So, under the circumstances, I'd say things worked out well 😊

Yeah, I'm going to miss the house, but it's definitely the right choice for us. I do prefer living in a house over an apartment, but this house is just too big. And it's not like I won't have a house later anyway, since I'm set to inherit the old family home on my dad's side. It's located on the island where my family has lived since the late 1800's and I love it so, so much. The house itself is from 1870.

That's taken from the church tower (yes, we have a church in our backyard — just roll with it) at 11 PM. Because the midnight sun doesn't fuck around where I live 😆

(Fun fact for my Who Holds the Devil readers: Whenever I write about Ga On's feelings on being in Yo Han's house — the calm, comfort, and longing — it's this house I'm describing. I'm drawing from my own experiences of what it feels like to have found the one place on earth that will always feel like home)

Anyhow! For now, I'll settle for buying an apartment — one that's closer to my office. Since I've noticed that one of the things that drains my energy is the commute. There's actually an apartment I'd love to buy but I can't yet because the bank won't give me the required loan until we've sold the house. So right now I'm just hoping that no one else will want it and that it'll remain on the market until I can place a bid on it. We'll see!

I'd also like to find a therapist that works for me, but it's somewhat complicated by the fact that not even I know what kind of therapist I need 😂 But yeah. This one did help during the few appointments we had, so that's something? And I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now? I'm still exhausted, sure, but it's easier to stay afloat when I know that better things are ahead, you know? And I'm looking forward to getting there, even if it won't be a painless journey.

So yeah. I don't think the barreling train is stopping quite yet, but I think it will sometime in the future? And that's what I'm clinging to right now. That and The Sentinel fanfics 😆

Congratulations on not breaking the character limit! 😉

And thank you again for checking in. I'm very humbled by the knowledge that people care this much about me.

You take care too 💜

[liskantope]

Three weeks ago I attended the NYC rationalist Secular Solstice and, as I said back at the time, I've been intending to record something about my experience there like I did the last two times. I'm not sure I have as much to say this time around (or not as much interesting to say), and also some of my memories already aren't as fresh since three weekends ago, but here are some comments about the evening.

First of all, my strong feeling about the whole thing is that, while the solstice event itself is great and well done and worthwhile, just showing up for the solstice event is just not the way to do things: it's only one part of a much larger rationalist "megameetup" which -- I now get the feeling more strongly than ever -- would be really fun and interesting. I was convinced enough of this the previous time to make some effort (limited by the sheer hecticness of my November this past year) to figure out a way to be in NYC for the whole weekend, preferably without paying tons of money for lodging. But I just couldn't figure out any feasible way to do this, in particular because of the timing right around my students' final exams. I wish I had managed somehow, though: the people who attend the solstice event are just so visibly interesting and engaging and overall seem fun to spend a whole weekend with; and I imagine I could learn a ton on rationality- and EA-related topics if I did the Megameetup.

Anyway, I managed to arrive late again to the start of the event (for at least the second year in a row), just because I had too many things to take care of at my home before setting off for NYC, and Hofstadter's Law always applies to my journey to any particular part of NYC. What's funnier is that I also missed the beginning of the "second act" as I got caught up in conversation with several people during the intermission who weren't actually doing the solstice and didn't realize I was, and I didn't realize for a while that Part 2 had begun. I followed the semi-tradition (at least from two years ago) of arriving at and doing the event on no dinner, but some free snacks provided by one of the organizers outside the room helped a lot here.

I found the songs as meaningful as always and recognized many of them -- the main one that's stayed with me since is "Bitter Wind Blown", but there were some others that I remembered distinctly. There was a song I didn't recall from previous programs where part of the chorus was about not being able to "find my tribe, find my tribe, find my tribe", and I found that one spoke to me quite a lot. Altogether I'm ready to forcefully repeat what I've said after previous rationalist solstice events: the content of this music and the vibe of the whole event touches me more deeply than any type of religious service I've been to.

At the same time, I feel that my mind was elsewhere this time perhaps even more than the last time. I was tired (partly just from having rushed for hours to get there mostly on my own steam) and had generally been stressed out for weeks, and somehow the continuity of doing this for the third consecutive year brought up feelings that weren't entirely positive: I feel like my life is in a holding pattern over the past three years, with being at the same non-permanent job and not knowing what the next step is (along with, of course, being perpetually single and having no idea still in my late 30's where to expect my personal life to go). At no moment is this brought to my attention more forcefully than the part where members of the audience are asked to stand up in stages based on their involvement in EA, and there's still not much I can say for myself on that front -- I can't bring myself to do much until I know better what my financial and professional future looks like, and I hope this will change in the near future. Moreover, I began thinking of how this was the first rationalist event I'd been to where I could say that a solid decade ago I already knew and was very enthusiastic about the rationalist movement and had (a decade earlier) dreamed of becoming heavily involved, and ten years later almost none of that has happened -- it's not something I long for in most of my day-to-day life, but there's something inspiring about seeing some of the people at the forefront of the main Northeastern US branch of it in their element organizing stuff. Regardless of all this, for me there's something wonderfully moderately relaxing about singing along with a bunch of mostly-strangers that I still managed to enjoy quite a lot.

A major, major plus to the arrangements this year was that the solstice event was at the same convention center as the entire Megameetup, and in particular this meant that the after party was directly within and outside of the room the solstice ceremonies had taken place in. It's hard to overstate how much easier this made the evening as a whole (especially when compared to my experience two years earlier when I had made the mistake of attending by car!). My time at the after party was still limited, as I had to think about making the journey home without being up most of the night, but I was there long enough to have a bunch of conversations and appreciate how delightfully visibly autistic and rationalist-y and distinctly young-to-early-middle-age the whole crowd was. Again, the after party made me wish I could have spent the whole weekend and actually gotten to know more of the people there.

In terms of meeting familiar faces/handles, I saw a lot of @drethelin, whom I'd gotten to know in person at the previous NYC Secular Solstice (after being acquainted with him from Tumblr and SSC comments sections for most of the past decade). My impression of him as an unfailingly pleasant and affable person has been further cemented. He had to listen to way too much of me grousing over the academic job market and having no idea how things will be for me geographically in a year's time (primarily this was in the context of being able to attend further NYC rationalist events). In addition, I saw a bit of @taymonbeal but didn't speak to him beyond literally just saying hello and almost certainly not giving him enough time to have any idea of who I was. I'm pretty sure that during the event I was sitting directly behind Zvi and his family, but I remembered less about Zvi than I used to back when I was seeing his blog posts regularly (I don't know why I don't anymore) and remember only that I used to follow his Wordpress(?) blog and that I think he gave a speech at the solstice event two years ago. Again, I was at the cusp of cementing a number of new acquaintances, but time didn't allow me to pursue this much. Conversation was always fun and interesting. An unexpected theme was dating prospects for a single guy seeking women in different part of the country (in which several people emphasized the usual wisdom that NYC is the best place for this), which I don't recall actually bringing up myself, which at one point led to advice about how to increase my own dating prospects: I was told to... I think the phrase was "make myself bigger", which was clearly a euphemism for building up the muscles in my upper body (a goal I've already had for a while but am currently barely any closer to figuring out how to do). The gender ratio was not great, and there was definitely (as one may guess from the subject matter just mentioned) a "young-ish nerdy male" vibe in the after party, but most everyone appeared to be enjoying themselves and not to be hiding in their shells, whether a guy or not.

I had quite a journey just to get to the secret free/available parking spot where I had left my car (in a different part of the city altogether), and just around midnight I was buying a gyro for a very late supper from an outdoor seller and thinking over how one day not long from now I may lead a more responsible and tied-down life and feel nostalgia for the time when I could be alone on a public street at midnight in freezing cold getting food. Then I had a very spooky but not-unpleasant-to-look-back-on experience wandering the completely vacant streets of a park near one in the morning looking for my car before I had to make the long drive home (during which, strangely, I managed to stay wide awake much more easily than on the drive there).

I'm tempted to resolve never to attend the NYC Secular Solstice again without attending at least part of the Megameetup or without living closer to NYC, but we'll see. (There actually is a small but not insignificant chance, which I didn't have evidence of three weeks ago, that I may get a job closer to the city than I am now.)

(I kept my name tag somewhere in my home -- it shows my handle on one side and my IRL name on the other, so I guess if I die an IRL people look through my stuff one day they'll figure out I'm Liskantope, although probably there was some way or other to figure out such a thing anyway by looking at what came from my IP addresses or whatever.)

[lavenderhorns]

there's a lot of rage swirling around inside me right now I think, just at how things have ended up where I've done all the "right" things that everyone says you should do, gone to college and followed every bit of resume and cover letter advice, and have gotten literally nothing from literal hundreds of job applications. this feeling of being stuck and unable to move forward in life is certainly not a new one to me but it's been amplified so, so much by the fact that I can't find anything for work and am stuck at my dad's place slowly getting more fed up with him each day. there's a lot of anger in watching all my friends struggling with these same issues, about 3 of my 25-ish friends in town have jobs, previously 5 but two of them just got laid off, one when the entire building of 250+ people was unceremoniously canned. there's a lot of simmering fury in how everyone over 30, from friends to family to strangers to people literally working for the career service attached to the government, that just ignore the labour issues going on not just in general but also specific to my province, yknow how unemployment for people my age without that "2+ years work experience required" is approaching 20%, a number that would cause stammered outrage in any of these people if it actually applied to them, but is just quietly ignored when it only applies to the younger generation I guess. like, what is even the emotion that comes from "jobs are so heavily ingrained in society in capitalism that not having one will kill you in many ways BUT you're not allowed to have one no matter how hard you try" aside from just. I'm so goddamn angry, even though I don't like being angry. and there's really nowhere to direct this anger aside from vaguely in the direction of society and established norms and the government, and there's really nothing I can personally do to drag myself out of this situation. I can apply to thousands of jobs and make the most perfect resume ever, but at the end of the day it's not me who decides if I get the job. it's up to whatever shitty ai garbage program is throwing 99% of applications in the shredder to somehow notice mine which then passes it onto an uncaring hiring manager who just picks the person with the most experience and ignores the other 99 resumes the machine spat out because just about every single job here gets hundreds and hundreds of applications because, get this, no one my age is fucking able to find any work! and throughout all of this I'm just doing my best to deal with the creeping dread of slowly feeling that depression (that I don't like thinking about how close got to killing me back in high school) start to rear its head again because it's getting less and less easy to see any sort of future for myself like this. and this is all on top of the canadian housing market meaning I'm never gonna actually own a home, and every bit of daily necessities has been ruthlessly price gouged to 400% of what it was a few years ago and blamed on "inflation" while rent has skyrocketed because landlords imagined a bigger number, and while just about everyone in the country is angry at the PM because of all this it's terrifying to know that the general population political lean is worryingly conservative, as if that isn't the fucking cause of all this. all while I desperately want to transition more and figure out my personal style and dress the way I really want as if that wouldn't kill any and all chances of possibly making it through a job interview assuming I ever even get one.

and like, things aren't all bad for me right now. I'm not actively going broke yet, I have a wonderful long distance partner, I've been getting better at cooking and digital art and meeting even more local friends (many of whom are trans), and in terms of coming into my own as a person I feel like I've finally been settling into who I am.

but like, it kinda pales in comparison to the job market trying to kill me, yknow?

[savagewildnerness]

Part 2 of VII Ancient Magic, Ancient Mysteries - from chapter 9…

Random TVL thoughts time again....

QUESTIONS:

P441 Q So are vampires’ emotions amplified actually due to the demon in their blood, who so desired to FEEL?  Are there further implications to this?

P465 What do you think Lestat thinks about Vampires as pagan Gods, meeting out justice and drinking evildoers’ blood?  I can’t decide if he’d find something morally fitting in it or find it repellant, and he doesn’t say….

I cringe at how Anne describes Eastern philosophy in this section, but I wonder if the TV show might use the differences between Eastern and Western world views in a more nuanced way?

P468 “"I am immortal," he said, "truly immortal. To be perfectly honest, I do not know what can kill me now, if anything. But that isn't the point. I want to go on. I do not even think of it. I am a continual awareness unto myself, the intelligence I longed for years and years ago when I was alive, and I'm in love as I've always been with the great progress of mankind. I want to see what will happen now that the world has come round again to questioning its gods. Why, I couldn't be persuaded now to close my eyes for any reason.”” - Has Marius ever felt TRULY hopeless?  Well, he will in the future… we know…

P469 Marius tells Lestat he needs to live out a mortal lifetime in order to endure… but on TV he is made 14 years later.  34 is not young.  Mozart died at 35.  Marius says Gabrielle is fine (p471) and can endure as she has lived a life, despite her life being a dismal prison in 99% of ways… so Lestat has lived a life on TV… and so he will not *need* to live out a lifetime in New Orleans as Marius tells him he needs to here.  This seems as though it alters a lot, especially considering Lestat’s Father is also not a motivation for him to go to New Orleans.  Will it merely be as he must get far away from Akasha and Enkil that Lestat will need to go to New Orleans on the show?  Lestat might not even have wandered as a roaming outsider as Marius says if he Nicki lives less time and Lestat goes into The Earth?  So the change is even more striking…

P477 What exactly ought Lestat to learn from watching mortals die?  The cruelty and senselessness of The Savage Garden?

P492 “She and I were walking down a hallway together -- not here but in a place I knew. I think it was a palace in Germany where Haydn wrote his music -- and she spoke casually as she had a thousand times to me. But tell me about all this, what do the people believe, what turns the wheels inside of them, what are these marvelous inventions ... She wore a fashionable black hat with a great white plume on its broad brim and a white veil tied round the top of it and under her chin, and her face was merely beginning, merely young.” - what are the implications of this?  Akasha has planted herself in Lestat’s own memories… It’s very invasive… also Akasha has seen and felt all Lestat has known, loved and experienced, this implies to me…?

Notes:

Bonkers to imagine Alexandria as being only 300 years old!

Immediately when Marius arrives in Alexandria, a “curious feeling” comes over him.  In this section, elders appear to him and Akasha puts thoughts in his mind.  He knows how capable Akasha is to do this with Lestat…

If Marius is turned by Teskhamen, made by Akasha in the first brood - why is he more burned than the elder vampire Marius encounters here, who says he is only 1000 years old (p444) so WAY younger… yet way less burned….?????

Even the old ones question existentially if more vampires ought be made.

P433 Marius talks of feeling the elder’s thoughts, but not being able to hear them - all ties in with TV lore and Madeleine’s words in S2E6.

I didn’t write a huge amount of notes on the first part, but I wrote “Lestattian” over and over again.  Sometimes I worry Marius is *too* like Lestat in how he thinks/. Will this be retained on TV?  Or does Marius need to be more different?

P446 Vampires can hear each other and find each other due to the web/vine of the spirit-blood that connects them… how could this be used on the show?

So many visually striking images of Akasha with Marius and then Lestat!

Why the elder out TWMBK in the sun: “" 'To free myself! To say, "I will keep you no longer. Move. Speak." To see if it was true, the old story, and if it was true, then let us all die in flames.’” P455 & p468 - compare 

“I saw the two possibilities as seductive suddenly -- rousing them or destroying them. Both tempted the mind. I wanted to pierce them and commune with them, and yet I understood the irresistible madness of trying to destroy them. Of going out in a blaze of light with them that would take all our doomed species with it.

Both attitudes had to do with power. And some triumph over the passage of time. "Aren't you ever tempted to do it?" I asked, and my voice had pain in it. I wondered if down in their chapel they heard.”

Interesting that Marius describes that as a mortal he did not know how to kill any living thing… unlike our wolfkiller, Lestat..!

Marius telling the elder he is free reminds me of Lestat telling Armand similar…

They could make Akasha and Enkil so creepy and HORROR vibes, particularly with their existentially terrifying slow movements with time itself passing differently to them; like they are out of time.

Some of Marius’ story feels way more ‘action’ than the ‘existentialism’ of much of TVL.

Pandora knowing what Marius is (p464), is very like Lestat’s dream, (p338) “I’d imagine friendship, conversation, intimacy that we could never have. In some magical and imaginary moment I would say: "But you see what I am," and this human being, in supreme spiritual understanding, would say: "Yes, I see. I understand.””

Love this quote: “"All the stories I have told you are finally as useless as all ancient knowledge is to man and to us. Its images and its poetry can be beautiful; it can make us shiver with the recognition of things we have always suspected or felt. It can draw us back to times when the earth was new to man, and wondrous. But always we come back to the way the earth is now.

"And in this world the vampire is only a Dark God. He is a Child of Darkness. He can't be anything else. And if he wields any lovely power upon the minds of men, it is only because the human imagination is a secret place of primitive memories and unconfessed desires. The mind of each man is a Savage Garden, to use your phrase, in which all manner of creatures rise and fall, and anthems are sung and things imagined that must finally be condemned and disavowed.

"Yet men love us when they come to know us. They love us even now. The Paris crowds love what they see on the stage of the Theater of the Vampires. And those who have seen your like walking through the ballrooms of the world, the pale and deadly lord in the velvet cloak, have worshiped in their own way at your feet.

"They thrill at the possibility of immortality, at the possibility that a grand and beautiful being could be utterly evil, that he could feel and know all things yet choose willfully to feed his dark appetite. Maybe they wish they could be that lusciously evil creature. How simple it all seems. And it is the simplicity of it that they want.

"But give them the Dark Gift and only one in a multitude will not be as miserable as you are.

"What can I say finally that will not confirm your worst fears? I have lived over eighteen hundred years, and I tell you life does not need us. I have never had a true purpose. We have no place.””

Lestat is the very first vampire to go to America, and Louis, the first American vampire!  (Although, Bruce exists on TV, so….)      

I imagined Sam and Rufus Sewell doing these scenes and they were sexy: “"Then come now, with me!" Ah, painful echo of Armand. And of the vain plea from Gabrielle ten years after.

"It's a more tempting invitation than you know," he answered, "but I'd do you a great disservice if I came with you. I'd stand between you and the world. I couldn't help it."

I shook my head and looked away, full of bitterness.

"Do you want to continue?" he asked. "Or do you want Gabrielle's predictions to come true?"

"I want to continue," I said.

"Then you must go," he said. "A century from now, maybe less, we'll meet again. I won't be on this island. I will have taken Those Who Must Be Kept to another place. But wherever I am and wherever you are, I'll find you. And then I'll be the one who will not want you to leave me. I'll be the one who begs you remain. I'll fall in love with your company, your conversation, the mere sight of you, your stamina and your recklessness, and your lack of belief in anything -- all the things about you I already love rather too strongly."

I could scarcely listen to this without breaking down. I wanted to beg him to let me remain.”

#EverydayRomanSexism, Marius on Marius’ views on women *eyeballs to eternity* (p471/2… I shan’t quote it, thanks!)

Quite a few quotes on this section relating to “vampire loneliness”

Interesting that Lestat instantly knows he wants to drink Akasha’s blood to make himself even more immortal… and has just arrived at Marius’ following feeling suicidal (and he shall feel this way again!)

P476 makes me imagine Lestat must be proud on some level when Louis writes the first public account of the vampires, as he has always wanted!

P478 This is why Marius didn’t tell Armand of TWMBK and all of his story “Besides, if these fledglings are children of the Christian god, if they are poisoned as Nicolas was with the Christian notion of Original Sin and guilt, they will only be maddened and disappointed by these old tales. It will all be a horror to them that they cannot accept. Accidents, pagan gods they don't believe in, customs they cannot understand. One has to be ready for this knowledge, meager as it may be. Rather listen hard to their questions and tell them what you must to make them contented. And if you find you cannot lie to them, don't tell them anything at all. Try to make them strong as godless men today are strong. But mark my words, the old legends never. Those are mine and mine alone to tell.””

P480 “We are evil things finally. We are killers. Better that those who unite on this earth be mortal and that they unite for the good.” The show could use this… both comparing to Akahsa and to where they end if they go to the end of all of the books…?

I enjoy how in taking the violin to Akasha, Lestat kind of brings Nicolas to Akasha.  I hate that the violin is broken and crushed and part of me can never forgive Lestat for it… but I also wonder whether in the violin’s destruction…. Does it enable Lestat to let Nicolas go?  (Also, OBVIOUSLY this whole section is Akasha drawing Lestat to her - not Lestat’s action, no matter how guilty he feels.) [Sidenote… if Lestat can play violin so effortlessly… why can’t S2 Louis be The Best Photographer Ever? I mean…. It’s so silly that Lestat could play instantly!]

“And I lifted the violin to my shoulder, braced it under my chin, and lifted the bow. I closed my eyes and I remembered music, Nicki's music, the way that his body had moved with it and his fingers came down with the pressure of hammers and he let the message travel to his fingers from his soul.” Beautifully poetic, if also daft!

Akasha’s mouth is a perfect O which reminds me of Lestat’s first existential crisis in the inn with Nicki “Oh, Oh, Oh!” P56/7

P487 - “I felt the unmistakable sensation of her fangs going into my neck.

Out of every zinging vessel my blood was suddenly drawn into her, even as hers was being drawn into me.

I saw it, the shimmering circuit, and more divinely I felt it because nothing else existed but our mouths locked to each other's throats and the relentless pounding path of the blood. There were no dreams, there were no visions, there was just this, this -- gorgeous and deafening and heated -- and nothing mattered, absolutely nothing, except that this never stop. The world of all things that had weight and filled space and interrupted the flow of light was gone.”

Why don’t vampires make this circuit of mutual blood-drinking more often?  It’s so sexy and feels transcendental… wouldn’t you do it all the time???!?!?

This whole section is such a lovely mix of beauty and horror and will be SO good on TV!!!

P489 “Her presence was all over me like a fragrance, only she had had no fragrance, except that of the incense and the flowers that must have somehow managed to permeate her hard white skin. How strangely fragile she had seemed in spite of that hardness.” - Like Akasha has crawled inside Lestat’s soul…

Lestat apologises over and over, but Akasha made Lestat do this… and Marius knew that this was possible from his own past… and may be part of why he brought Lestat here, no?

The scene where Lestat looks in the mirror I can really imagine on telly…

“I knew that I had come to the most forsaken outpost of the Savage Garden, and that this was my country and I would remain in New Orleans, if New Orleans could only manage to remain. Whatever I suffered should be lessened in this lawless place, whatever I craved should give me more pleasure once I had it in my grasp.

And there were moments on that first night in this fetid little paradise when I prayed that in spite of all my secret power, I was somehow kin to every mortal man. Maybe I was not the exotic outcast that I imagined, but merely the dim magnification of every human soul.

Odd truths and ancient magic, revolution and invention, all conspire to distract us from the passion that in one way or another defeats us all.

And weary finally of this complexity, we dream of that long ago time when we sat upon our mother's knee and each kiss was the perfect consummation of desire. What can we do but reach for the embrace that must now contain both heaven and hell: our doom again and again and again.”

I love this ending and the New Orleans part is also very “I am she, she is me” (or whatever way round that is!)

Also, I think Lestat *is* the (LUMINOUS!) magnification of all our human souls, right…?

[h0r53f7y]

This fandom means so much to me. It came to me during a very bleak point in my life. As much as the Hazbin character I relate to the most would have to be Lucifer, the Helluva character I relate to the most is Blitz because there have been times when I've cast others away in the case the last partner and a mutual friend of ours. It was mainly because I received advice that I did not realize came from a very toxic source as at the time I did not recognize just how possessive and abusive my father actually was. Following that bad break up it, I entered a state of self imposed near-isolation, and soon after quarantine happened. It was extremely painful. Hazbin and Helluva came about a year after the initial isolation started and, it gave me something to cling to, something to look forward to, that gave me a creative drive.

It was not until my father passed from old age and poor health that I was finally able to get away from him, but even then it was only In 2023 that I wasn't able to be borderline isolated anymore due to extenuating circumstances (unable to drive) I could still keep in contact with others I just did not have anyone living with me. It was from last year onwards that I’ve been taking steps to help remedy just how much of a failure to launch situation I've been due to my father's influence. It's been a slow process, but at least now it's starting to bear fruit. I'll actually be moving into a place with roommates hopefully the week after Thanksgiving. The Prevoc program I’m in will be able to help me find some work after I finish some paperwork, so I'll be able to be productive instead of just basically being that SpongeBob situation of “what do you do when I'm gone? wait for you to get back”

During this year the fandom gave me a lot more socially than just what the prevoc training did. As one can imagine from being borderline isolated for so long I wound up developing extreme social anxiety and any progress I had made before the break up had regressed significantly. But earlier this year I began to reach out more on social media. it started simply with Tumblr. I began posting some of my Hellaverse ideas on there, and people responded positively to a lot of it, which was surprising to me. I eventually moved onto Twitter initially thinking that I would just be going there for the art given the admittedly deserved reputation of it being a septic cesspool, thinking I'd basically just be shifting through shit to find the occasional treasures in the form of art. As cliché as it is though, I'm surprised at the absolute gems of people I managed to find on there many of which have gravitated towards Bluesky either completely or partially, which I do not blame them for in the slightest. Made one on there myself to keep up. It's in this fandom that I found so much more for my social anxiety than prevoc training. I'm still very shy and admittedly quite clingy another Blitz and Lucifer esque trait I'm sure. It still boggles me how so many actually want to keep in contact with me, let alone so many talented individuals. I never would've thought the fandom revolving around two shows mostly situated in hell would be basically my own Heaven, or at least Eden. Will never be able to thank you guys enough for that it's crazy to think how my life is turning around so much both in and out of this fandom, and I hope even when this hyperfixation fades, there's still enough to keep us connected together and that I can at least be someone worthwhile for you to keep around as I value all of you. I hope that I can be a bit less clingy in the future too. I would like to reach out more and deepen some of the bond of me but I'm also a bit worried about overstepping or otherwise coming on too strong. If there's ever a point where I'm too much, please tell me.

It's not even much of a stretch to say that with some of you I find a kinship, and I hope that's not coming too strong. Even within the two series themselves there's been much that helped my personal growth. Like the fact that in the earliest of days when I was figuring myself out, Angel became a bit of a comfort character. I was often visualizing him validating my identity, not in a romantic way, just a supportive one. Thankfully the fandom also provided plenty of validation. That meant a lot especially since I can't even get that from some of my family, including my own watered-down Sera esque mother who despite being in the medical profession thinks “You're not actually bisexual and bigender, you're just confused because you're autistic”. The bottom line is to those I know or even just watch in the Hellaverse fandom, I can never thank you enough for what you've been able to grant me and I hope I can grant you at least some of the same joy in turn, and to Viv and the majority of the cast and crew that helped bring these two magnificent series to life, I can never thank you enough either. Here's to the future. Thank you Hellaverse

@metalatias5 @actuallynickels @animatedmau @anneboleyns-wife @heart-of-the-morningstar @sonicwind-01 @puzzledjasper @thetaterdragon

[donnerpartyofone]

This morning I went over to the church to see my favorite guy, who is so often surprising and challenging. He seemed a little out of sorts today, stammering and losing his place; I sometimes worry about this old guy, and I was paying attention. Then at the end of the mass he said that they're having air quality problems in the rectory and the EPA is involved. I hope he's not getting brain damage!

It was sort of funny, though, because the homily was about having trouble focusing--not being able to concentrate, and having anxiety about the future. That was pretty relevant to me, medically and otherwise. I'm writing this on the morning of the new moon, just to be extra flaky, about how much trouble I have forming goals.

Pursuing goals is also hard, but step one should be having a vision, and that's the really impossible part. When I was a little kid I had two ambitions: to be a writer, and to be dead. The latter thing represents one of the main motivating forces in my life, which is pain avoidance. I think this is the chief motivator of many people without them even realizing it; comfort-seeking itself can be a form of pain avoidance. Pain avoidance is not a legitimate goal, it's more of a reflex, and it can become a preoccupying distraction from any kind of actual ambition (especially as fulfilling ambitions often involves some amount of discomfort). Focusing on what you do not want is not equivalent to focusing on what you do want.

I never had a very good idea of what I want. I found this out when I went into therapy as an adult; I couldn't formulate any notion of what I wanted out of life. I couldn't even come up with any masturbatory, pie in the sky fantasies. I might vaguely be able to say something like "a bigger, nicer apartment", but I can't come up with any compelling ideas about what that would even look like. I try, but I know I'm faking it. Certainly part of my interest in religion and occultism is the idea that I could train myself to really clearly conceptualize any kind of goals or desires. In the case of occultism specifically (and, let's be honest, many forms of self-help), visualization is always a key element. In recent years I learned that I am abnormally incapable of forming mental images, and I have come to believe that this is intimately connected to my inability to figure out what I want or how to get it.

Nearly all of my thinking is verbal. I found out what aphantasia was while talking to my dad, who is extremely visual with an excellent grasp of spacial relations (something I have almost no concept of). He was shocked when I said I can't really picture anything, asking me "Then how do you do anything?" He said when he decides to make a sandwich, for instance, he automatically sees himself performing the actions of sandwich-making, and sees the aspirational sandwich in his mind's eye. Visualizing is essential to his entire executive process. It so happens that I am aphantasic and I have a lot of executive dysfunction. I no longer think this is coincidental.

(I'm also very faceblind, and I think this is connected; something to do with the ability to reconstitute a visual memory and relate it to something that is presently in front of me. But anyway...)

Perhaps oddly, I am an artist, or at least I have been. But I've never been able to draw from my imagination, like at all. The best work I've ever done is all swipes; I am a great believer in swipes, it can reveal a lot about your personal style and obsessions and when you re-draw someone else's art. But I can't just sit and think up something fun to draw, even when I try to just doodle I'm usually responding more to the lines I see emerging on the paper than anything I'm thinking or feeling. I think this is related to the fact that I'm an obsessive scopophile; I take in a lot of detail from my environment, and I watch movies with the same attitude and frequency with which most people listen to music. Recently I started to joke that I have an image deficiency and that's why I have to consume huge amounts of visual media, I need the external infusion. But like, it's not that much of a joke, maybe.

In my 30s I randomly developed this condition where scar tissue grows over your corneas, and I had to have a series of freaky eye surgeries. My doctors always asked if I grew up somewhere warm and sunny and windy, if I do a lot of outdoor sports (sometimes this condition is called "surfer's eye"); I thought this was pretty funny since I couldn't be more of an indoor kid, although maybe cycling is somewhat at fault. Still, my preferred diagnosis is that I watch so much trashy and violent crap that it literally scars my eyes. It's as good an explanation as any! And it does have this weird synergy with my other visual problems.

Anyway, it's not as if I've done absolutely nothing with my life. Quite a few personal achievements piled up in just the last couple of years; certainly I've benefited a lot from luck and the good will of others, but nothing would have happened without my own creativity and commitment. I just wish I had more, you know. Vision. I spend too much of my life "taking one day at a time" and waiting for things to happen to me, assuming I don't have much control over my experiences. I'd rather be able to imagine something that I want to happen and act on it; regardless of whether the thing is going to happen, I'd like to be able to formulate a goal other than paying the rent, or like, not waking up and going to sleep in a state of stark terror. I'm not sure how to get myself to that place, but maybe saying that that's what I want can count for something.

Anyway here are some photos of the thoughtfully planted shrubbery from the church. I missed the full bloom of the weeping cherries, but as soon as they die off the shrubs below turn bright red, pink, yellow, and white. It's pretty inviting I must say.

[pumpkin-peasy2010]

Recently, I’ve had to ask myself if I’m jokingly flirting with my best friend since childhood, or if I’m actually flirting and I want to marry her. It’s been kinda hurting my head for the past month now, and because idk what to do with that thought, I’m putting it here on Tumblr.

I’m not exactly amazing at trying to figure out the line between platonic and romantic feelings, and every so often I have to clear it up for myself in my head. That usually works out fine, but this time, it definitely isn’t working. And it’s a problem.

I’ve been friends with this girl since we were 2 YEARS OLD. Our moms decided to meet up over a mutual friend or something because they’re both Japanese (it’s hard to explain but in my area and surrounding towns, all the Japanese moms are connected in some way, shape, or form like a web). And so that’s how we met for the first time. Currently, we are each other’s best friends, and we see each other every Saturday.

I have no fucking clue if she she’s queer, I remember like 2 years back when she did like a girl, but I don’t know how she feels now.

I remember this camping trip we had a couple weeks ago (ew touching grass and going outside), and this night where we were basically all over each other, and she was sitting on my lap with our arms wrapped around each other while we watched a movie. We were also acting drunk like that whole night, tbh. I remember us sitting around the fire cuddling on this bench thing, and since I am a functionally useless human being when it comes to domestic things, I told her to live with me so we could both do different tasks. So there’s just the two of us negotiating some future where we live together.

I don’t know how to deal with these feelings, because I’ve known her for so long, and I don’t want to mess with our friendship, but there’s a part of me that knows that I would jump to be her girlfriend if given the chance. Hell, I have even imagined what it would be like if we were together, and I can't really see a difference in our relationship except for a few more romantic exchanges.

I'm having, like, a crazy dilemma right now. Every time I'm with her lately, I can't help but think of more than just friendship. Sometimes, I find myself saying I love you with too much meaning, or going out of my way to have more physical contact, or jokingly call her couple-y pet names and wishing they were more than just a joke.

I'm afraid that eventually, my feelings will become way to fucking obvious, and if I shattered my oldest and closest friendship, I don't know how the hell I'd be able to go on. To be completely honest, part of me is praying that she feels the same and we can live happily ever after or some shit like that. I really can't tell if she feels the same, since again, the line between platonic and romantic is very blurry for me.

Anyways, I had all this stuck in my head, and I'm not sure how to explain these feelings out loud to anyone, so I've never said it to people I know (two of you know who I am though, you didn't see this shhh). So, I did the smart thing and let it out here on this lovely hellsite of (mostly) lovely people.

If you actually read all of this, I'm sorry for using up your precious time with my silly little rant.

[rhithefella-sillytimes]

Be Not Afraid

Enjoy a drabble of Sam's (1.6) thought pattern

Tw: Implied Religious Trauma, Apocalypse Anxiety, Apocalypse Themes, Blood, Mentions of Taking one's own life (though it doesn't happen)

As a kid, I never expected that I'd live to be this old. I never expected a future of my own. I actually didn't have any plans for a future. But looking back at it, I guess I'm grateful I did.

...

I... just couldn't envision myself getting to this point. Ever since I was little, I was counting the days, months, years before it would all be over for me. Although, this wasn't because I was planning to leave the world behind.

I was just taught that this world was rotten, and that it was almost time for it to all end in some grand spectacle. A blaze of glory, if you will.

As a child, my life was filled with movies, comic books, stories about how it'll go. How it'll all end. My family would give these tales to me, and I just kept eating them up, letting them fester and surround my mind with thoughts of dread.

Thoughts that were so vivid, you could almost see them as visions.

Visions of a future so horrifying, and yet so spectacular you can only react in awe.

Whenever I went anywhere, I could almost imagine people vanishing into thin air, leaving personal belongings behind. I could imagine being the only one left to tell the tale. I could imagine being so filthy, so evil that I would simply be abandoned. Everytime I made some mistake, it would remain in my mind.

Those thoughts mixed with these imaginations of dread just fueled the fear.

The fear that I'd be left behind, like the awful person I am.

My friends would leave me, my family would abandon me. In the blink of an eye, they'd be gone. And I will walk this earth alone to suffer the consequences of every evil that I've done.

Every evil that I am.

That was, if I wasn't taken too. It was a possibility.

Either way, it just didn't seem like a future was there for me. I keep on telling myself that I just wouldn't live long enough to do anything in this life. Anything could happen. And I would be gone either way.

The days stretch forward, and my pile of mistakes grow. I sometimes wished that it would happen early, so that I wouldn't be old enough to regret anything. And I get almost disappointed and relieved that I live to see another day.

Each day felt like a blur to me. I don't think I remember what happened at some years. Especially 2012. The supposed year of doomsday. It felt so vivid back then, but I just don't remember it. It felt... strange, to be honest.

Then came the day I graduated. It was a happy day for everyone, except for me. I just remember staring at myself in the mirror, asking myself "what now?". I didn't have any plans for adulthood, let alone plans for a job. But here I was, like a bird who's been caged for their entire life, just being released into the wildlife with no preparations on what's to come.

And like that bird, I was quickly struck down. The work I had, the payments I had to do, even applying for IDs I didn't think I would ever need. It all just piled onto me, the stress of it all. It left me feeling empty.

But deep down, I think I was happy to have grown up. There were many things I didn't expect to do that I was able to do.

I was able to do a hobby I've never thought I would get into. I was able to buy the things younger me was too afraid to even own. And I was able to learn to drive. It felt so... nice. Maybe, I still had a life ahead of me.

...

Unfortunately, it felt like all of this was for nothing.

Here I am, in the middle of heavy traffic. A huge disaster happening outside my car window, and the radios all losing their signals. I could see the floodwaters rising, and I don't think floodwaters is an accurate term. But it was close enough.

It seems like I don't have much time left, and just at the time I was experiencing my first tastes of freedom.

Sitting in the middle of an incomprehensible storm of blood and viscera, I just realize one thing.

I was right. I was right to be afraid all along.