#i dont know if this makes sense but the dash is talking about anger and

[becoach-a]

beard's anger . . . is genuinely rare. he can get frustrated, annoyed, irritated, etc . . . but to actually see him angry? it's a feat. when he snapped and yelled at ted, it's because he had been letting things pile up for who knows how long. beard never yells at ted. he lets ted do what he needs to do, whether it's benching jamie mid game or hell, even accepting this job in the first place. at that moment, beard had been fed up with ted blatantly disregarding him . . . and he was dealing with those emotions while watching jane play chess with another man. there's a possibility that if jane hadn't been in the pub that night, beard wouldn't have snapped at ted. he would've done what he always does, and just keep it down and move on from it. beard never likes being angry.

even when nate betrayed ted, beard hadn't expressed too much clear anger until season three. sure, beard had been disappointed and upset, but he wasn't so clearly angry. it really is an interesting thing to do to consider beard's anger in season three through the lens of what we learned in mom city : beard's angry at himself. and he's projecting that anger, that guilt, onto nate's situation, even though ted had forgiven him long before hand.

i think the pub scene and beard's arc in season three highlights that beard is --- honestly, a person with a good bit of anger inside him. he doesn't snap at ted, he bottles every frustration up until jane's presence helped bring it out of him. he hadn't forgiven himself, so all this anger he's carried for years manifested in being angry towards nate. he holds, holds, holds his feelings up until . . . boom.

[enginator2000]

worst popular infinite headcanon?

oh my. this one got long so im going to spare peoples dashes by putting this under a cut haha

anyways my answer is: making him out to be a little crybaby who is driven purely by revenge and sadness to make the world pay for shadow killing his squad mates, whom he loved in a normal way and saw them as family or whatever. it makes his character so goddamn flat and boring bc thats such a standard villain motivation, and it entirely strips away a lot of his personality even when theres already so little to work with LMAO

i know ive spoken about it at length in the dog&hog server but to me, infinites most notable trait is that hes selfish

in the prequel comic rise of infinite (yay, prequel comic talk. everyones favourite, i know) he deliberately ignores any protests from his gang against accepting eggmans deal of working with him, because eggy singles him out and offers him a place at his side to bring his fantasy of ruin into reality. not infinite and his crew, just infinite

(image has two comic panels. in the first one, eggman is reaching a hand out to infinite as he says "now you are an interesting guy. i like you. how about i hire you to lead my forces? together we'll take over the world!" in the second panel, one of the jackal squad members says "boss! dont be tempted by him. we'll be fine!")

and infinite says yes after briefly talking about how he personally feels bored and tired of how the world is right now

(image has two panels. in the first, infinite is mumbling to himself, first laughing and then saying "interesting. all this time ive been going through the motions. ive actually grown quite tired of the world as it is." in the second panel he stands and says "lets do it doctor! i'll help you change this world!")

again, its a decision based off an entirely personal and individualistic opinion that only takes his own feelings into account. you would think that if he valued his squad to the extent that they were "like family" to him, he would have listened when they said he shouldnt make a deal with eggman. if he actually cared about them as much as he cared about himself, he would have trusted them enough to say no. instead he only thinks about what he wants and what he can get, not about what will happen to the others

ive always been of the opinion that infinite used his squad and position of authority as their leader to prop himself up and viewed them more like underlings or subjects that he could order around and be superior to, rather than equals whose opinions and input he valued. maybe he started out having more camaraderie with the other jackals, but it certainly doesnt show by the time we get to the events of the prequel comic, and even less so when we get to episode shadow/the main game

the idea that he saw his squad more like tools to make himself look better than people also makes more sense because when in episode shadow, eggman calls infinites squad "useless" directly to him and all infinite says is "yeah, yeah" in a very uncaring fashion. even when he then spots shadow and says "you.. you destroyed my squad!" its entirely unconvincing to me that he said it out of sorrow or sadness; to me it was more like simple anger that it happened. because now without his little group of followers that looked up to him and did whatever he told them to, he had nobody to feel superior to. he couldnt go on any more power trips by being The Boss bc there was nobody left to indulge him, no one to stoke his ego, nobody to be the boss of. so thats why he felt slighted by shadow in the first place; how dare this hedgehog take away what made him feel special and important. and then of course the ensuing humiliation that came afterward was just the icing on the shit cake haha

it also explains why infinite never brings up his squad in any of his monologues (besides the prequel comics and episode shadow being obvious afterthoughts to the main game loool); he just doesnt care. if anything, their loss was his gain bc it pushed him towards acquiring the phantom ruby and getting to go on the ultimate power trip of world domination and near total subjugation of the population. i think that also ties into his mindset that friends make you weak and you cant rely on anyone but yourself; in his case, thats literally true. if he hadnt lost his squad, if he had initially listened to them, the chain of events we know well would not have come to pass and he would not have gotten to become the powerhouse he did. he would have still been leading his monotonous life and following the same old script. from his perspective they really did hold him back, and only once they were gone was he able to become stronger. he reiterates this by thanking shadow in the dlc for doing what he did in mystic jungle (killing the jackal squad and kicking infinites ass) bc otherwise he wouldnt have gotten the incentive he needed to take on the mantle of becoming a super powered weapon

and if you want some more evidence thats admittedly a lot more of a stretch, you could also interpret infinite creating a posse of past sonic foes as him filling the void of using the jackal squad that was created after shadow had taken them down. he gets to control people again (even if theyre clones that had no choice but to obey him but nyeh i told you it was a stretch), he gets to be a leader again

idk, i just think that having a sob story as a main motivation is (funny joke here) weak. i have never once thought that infinite needs to have some kind of sympathetic or tragic backstory. and maybe thats just my own personal bias coming through bc i prefer villains that are evil for reasons like their moral philosophies or have some kind of goal that makes the audience go "maybe they do have a point tbh" and villains that are just evil for the sake of it over villains that say "my mom died" as if that is any kind of justifiable explanation. imo it almost always comes off as them making an excuse, and its lame. just own it, yknow?

so yeah if i could block one thing from the minds of infinite fans it would be the hc that infinite was tightly knit with the jackals and wanted what was best for them. bc with all the evidence ive seen, its not supported at all, and hes actually the exact opposite; he does what he wants and uses who he wants for his own purposes and gain

also yes i do think shadow straight up killed the other jackals and i do think thats in character for him but thats a conversation for another day

[thetrashppl]

here's tavaris' overtly complicated relationship chart with all companions and a long ass draft explaining each that will probably be edited every week lmao

you've been warned

part 1 of the rambles under the cut

also feedback welcomed, as i have a lot to learn about all the characters still :)

WYLL: this is hard for tavaris to acknowledge, but he feels very small next to Wyll when they first meet. at first wyll's hero status awakens a lot of insecurities in him during their first weeks together, cause i doubt Wyll would approve of most of Tav's rogueish, thief-like strategies, and that makes Tav feel judged and kinda embarrassed since, at his core, he does respect and even admire heroes like Wyll. his own career as a thief wasnt so much of a choice, more like one of the very few options he was given. he's always loved stories about heroes and dashing princes, still keeps a few in his bag, and he knows Wyll is a good man. an amazing man, when he finds out how much he gave up of his life just for the sake of others. thats the first moment his misguided anger falters, sees Wyll for who he truly is, beyond the hero tales, and he doesn't really blame wyll for having to keep this a secret (he has his own) but tavaris is full of complexes he hasn't worked through, and he kinda refuses to give up on that anger even after this revelation. because he grew up as an urchin, feeling 'lesser', the more tav finds out about wyll's upbringing, despite his humble begginings and not being born into it, the worse those insecurities get this animosity is obviously one-sided, though, as wyll does disapprove of some of tav's actions, and he doesn't fully trust him at first, but in his case all of it is mostly justified, as tav is quick to anger the first days after the crash and wyll can tell tav doesn't have full control over his emotions, which concerns him a lot more than any petty thievery ever would (honestly he doesn't care that much, tavaris just thinks it's part of the reason why Wyll disagrees so often with his approaches). in lesser words, tav feels volatile to wyll. but, and this is why it's onesided, Wyll knows Tav has ultimately noble intentions for the grove, and gets to see Tav putting his neck out there in exchange of veeery little coin, so he can tell there's something greater under the nonchalant rogue impression tav might put up at first at some point Tav kinda snaps at Wyll for no reason, just all of his shit building up under pressure until he simply snaps at nothing. after some awkwardness, they both sit down and they talk. they talk a lot and tav opens up about his warped perceptions and slowly comes to realize how unfairly he's treated wyll, of all people. his apology is clumsy, as he still needs to truly understand where all that shame comes from, but it's enough to put them back on a better path. wyll on his part admits that this adventure might require more than one trick to get through it and that he's willing to look to the side sometimes so tavaris can do his thing, long as he knows what he's he's doing, their goals dont falter and no innocent person gets harmed in the process it never truly grows into an equal understanding between them, however? as tavaris thinks a lot more of wyll than wyll does of him, even coming to develop a little bit of a puppy crush, after they mend things up. and it's not reciprocated for no other reason than just, lack of closeness, ig. but tavaris tells wyll about how he'd sneak on roofs to watch dancing lessons through strangers' windows, so wyll teaches tav to dance as you would at fancy balls and masquerades. they make jokes about their matching eye trauma. tavaris finds out that the blade has a muuuch better, spicier sense of humour than he first gave him credit for, too, being one of the few companions to often join in tavaris and karlach's jokeful banters, astarion's, even. and ultimately, they're both sworn to protect each other, a promise they keep long after the nightmare is over

SHADOWHEART: at first tavaris isn't all that patient with her secrecy, mostly due to his own heightened paranoia after the accident triggered a lot of shit he had buried DEEP. shadowheart obviously doesn't appreciate his response when she settles these boundaries, so the relationship is tense at first once Shadowheart starts opening up he chills a bit, though he doesn't keep to himself that it all sounds a lil fucked up to him. doesn't give a shit about worship, doesn't know enough to care just, wow, does it have to be like that? shadowheart even if obviously defensive still appreciates the fact he's not rejecting her company after knowing the truth, just being forthright about his views on the matter, and obviously (from her pov at that point, naively) concerned about her wellbeing with tavaris being an impulsive gremlin sometimes and shadowheart being the one proper healer of the group, they spend a lot of time in the same group when exploring, and that time spent together and the trust that tav has to put on her when she has to heal him makes them grow closer faster than most other companions. shadowheart also finds tavaris hilarious once they get past the initial awkwardness (laughing both with AND at him lmao) so much so that she starts finding him a bit endearing they make it a habit to hang out at night sometimes, sharing a glass of wine together, as they both seem to be ppl that drink for escape or recreation, and tav also starts opening up to her about his own shit and regrets, cause after what she's been through and what she considers 'normal', he doubts she'd judge, or make a big deal about it, which makes it easier for him to open up. this closeness, something they're both not really used to, leads to a very awkward and clumsy makeout session one of those nights that they both instantly regret. if anything it helps them confirm there's no deeper feelings between them, neither an attraction deeper than friendly intimacy, just a very comfortable and accepting presence for each other. they still sit on each other's laps and are very cool with closeness and intimate gestures during those nights together, as even though they're both a bit stunted when it comes to emotions, it just feels safe and they both have seen a lot of each other by now to really make a big deal out of it. it's a clearly defined dynamic, to put it down shortly after that there's a bump or two along the way, especially during shadowheart's quest, before she makes the big decision, cause tav is not one to keep his opinions to himself neither filter them, and he has a lot to say while exploring the temple and about shadowheart's intensified faith in the face of the trial. in tavaris' run, she ultimately gives up shar. tavaris is there for her while she processes what happened and what is next, as best as he knows how, though he's not in a good spot himself at that point of the story (and the fact he failts to communicate this doesnt help the matter) but it's just bumps like that, what you can expect from a close, caring relationship between people that are still finding their purpose and facing so much at once. they remain very good friends after everything is over.

MINTHARA: unfortunately, cause i'd LOVE to explore her character, they're enemies and little else, though i can promise you, if we could save the grove AND keep minthara alive without bugging the fuck out of the game, tavaris would give her a second chance

LAE'ZEL: the relationship with lae'zel is something i'm still working at, cause there's a lot about her i have yet to see and read, but baSICALLY- at first it starts mostly neutral. tavaris doesn't know enough about gythyanki to feel like he can judge what still sounds to him like more blind faith, but that also means he'll often ask her to explain things about her culture, always curious to know more about the world (used to be a biiiig reader), which, even if it doesn't look like it, makes lae'zel feel less isolated. he also appreciates that she's not judgy about his rogue-ish approach to things sometimes, but he does feel a bit on edge around her (too cool with cold murder for his taste). lae'zel doesn't feel much towards tavaris beyond 'we share a problem and we can be usefulf or each other' though sure, sometimes, he can be tolerable- but she finds him too 'undisciplined', not so much judging his actions or reactions, but the lack of planning or finesse to them during a very risky, urgent situation. however those first weeks when tavaris is constantly on edge after the crash (not unlike her) he acts a little more aggresively, right, has a shorter fuse, but rather than just resorting to violence or intimidation, all those years using persuasion and deception to survive dull his edges enough so that it almost seems like he knows what he's doing lmao (though to his credit, he's better at reading people than he believes to be). that plus not being afraid to get his hands dirty in battle appeal to lae'zel enough to want a taste, just to let off some steam, and she lets him know as directly as she's known for. tavaris issss still working out some stuff about himself. he truly believes he wants this, it's not his first casual hookup. but part of him is tired of that. part of him craves something intimate, personal. he had it once, or so he thought, and the way he lost it left a huge mark in him. on him. while he obviously consents to these encounters, and has his fun with it, wants it to be enough for him, there's an emptiness he never quite manages to get rid of. after the crash, a lot of this stuff is brought to the surface. he tries to enjoy himself that night with lae'zel (though even he is caught off guard by the intensity djfsifdj) but something feels off the entire time. when lae'zel offers a second, he initially is down for it, but as soon as it starts he feels off enough that he has to cut it short. explains it to lae'zel, best he can word it. lae'zel throws some of her own personal brand of advice, which is basically 'if this doesnt work for you then find something that does and don't bring yourself to harm like an aimless fool', something like that, i have yet to grasp her voice. at this point lae'zel doesn't care enough for it to truly affect her, it's his loss. but it also means this doesn't affect their relationship for the worst, either. and it helps start an important personal growth for tavaris. as their adventure continues, and as tavaris grows along with the other companions and his personal quests, experiences he starts to realize are twisted mirrors of his own trauma, he also starts to appreciate just how much lae'zel is putting at risk to help them, not just herself. and to see exactly the brand of bullshit she's being fed. how terrified she is. their relationship isn't warm, per se, but he refuses to see lae'zel lost to the lies of her queen and lae'zel is one of the few people to grab him by the shoulders and shake him when he starts to fall as well for certain manipulators, refusing to let him give himself up regardless of what's promised. she's the one that reminds him, plain and simple, that he's not alone. to trust in his and her skills, as well as the other companions', as much as she does. and that there's always a (more efficient) way ahead

[redactedlily]

*sigh*

today has been a bit of a bumpy one. not like super bumpy, but like sorta bumpy.

i had therapy today, and i really like my therapist, she's nice and all, but i'm not the biggest fan of the way our sessions go. i'm used to coming in and just kind of talking with my last therapist, but she starts us off with this "mindfulness meditation" video (not my thing) and she has me do these little assignments and tasks? which i can see working for someone else, but it kinda feels like a chore to me. plus, i was on a spiel about some issues and concerns im having about my new job and (now i dont think she realized) but she kinda cut me off and had me write out something about gender identity. i realize that sounds unrelated but lemme kinda detail it better

i was listing some issues i was having at work (for context its a daycare and my first job at one, im not good at it yet but im trying) and i was in a bit about how all my coworkers come from very different lives than i do, and sometimes it feels like a hurdle (im 19, alt, trans, etc. and most of my coworkers are middle-aged cis women like moms and also kinda intimidating and stand-offish)

i was saying that since they all seem to come from similar backgrounds and have more in common, while my life and experiences dont quite match if that makes sense. i feel like an outsider kind of. anyways, i was talking about how im worried how they perceive me as trans-ish. i usually describe myself as trans-ish because of the fact i chose to use genderqueer to identify, but i present more-so as trans mtf, if that makes sense.

she stopped me to have me take 10 minutes to write out a thing about my identity in detail so she could kind of get a better idea i think? it also could have been for my sake, but i know whats going on already, for several years actually, so i really dont need it written down for my sake?

anyways, i did that and then she asked me to keep a journal over the next week about how i feel around others thru this kinda trans-ish lens (when i go out and about to the store, a resturant, etc.). i understand where she is coming from but i dont think i need that. its not really something im that concerned about in my day to day, its mainly just applicable to my job right now

plus after that we ended the session only a half an hour in? like we started at 2, and we ended at 2:30. i thought i was getting a full hour? huh? plus i didn't get to talk about the other stuff i wanted to cover, like my social problems im having and like 3 other things i cant remember as i type this (but i knew it then i swear)

anyways that was a whole thing. i have another session next week same time. im gonna maybe see if i cant get the sessions to run the way i want? part of me wants to just cancel and find someone else cause im afraid to say anything negative, but part of me is like "well im paying you to listen to me, so A-lets do what i want, and B-ill be taking my full hour, or at least until 50-55 minutes"

i talked to my mom a bit about it before she left (she went to hang with her friend) and she said i should bring it up to her next time. this also brings me to my next bit, which is mainly centric on my behavior in general

im generally unhappy with my personality and behavior to be honest. it would take me like 12 pages to explain in paragraphs, so imma use a bulleted list, except with dashes, cause dashes are cooler

-i wish i was more timid and introverted rather that my more boisterous and ambiverted self

-i worry im not considerate of other peoples feelings as much as i should be

-i worry i go on the defensive too much

-i worry i take/ask for more than i give/offer

-i worry im not pulling my weight enough

-i dont feel i try hard enough to succeed in almost any aspect

-i think ive become less patient and quicker to anger in recent years

-i worry im not mature/ready/in a good enough state to work in child care

-i spend way too much time pointlessly scrolling on youtube or tiktok, but its hard to stop because i get bad fomo about current meme trends (cringe)

-i dont think i really see the big picture as often as i should

-i feel i have too many negative behaviors that need correcting and i just dont realize it

thats just a start i think. lately i just feel so swamped. ive been broke for way too long, and thats causing me issues like nobodys business. i really have been craving a fresh start for so so long and it feels like everytime i think its just within my grasp it gets yanked away. some new obstacle or setback comes up and suddenly its all over.

like the other day, my brakes failed and i got into an accident (no one was hurt, virtually no damage) because there was air in the brake line. now im gonna have to pay to get the lines drained and refilled, plus get the leak fixed that caused it, plus replace a fucked up tire that i just noticed, and fix the wheel bearing thats been fucking with my ABS for like 8 months. so i either need to save up money for that or let my grandparents pay for it (and then try and pay them back if they'll even let me)

really, honestly, i want to take my truck, pack it up with some essentials, and just, start driving. pick a direction and keep going. but i cant even do that cause my truck is out of commission until god knows when, and like a million other obstacles on top of that.

it really just feels like, once everything starts looking up, i get kicked in the balls

[poppy-metal]

so uh,,,,this ended up being alot softer then i was expecting LMAO.

Bully!eren x reader

Cw: not alot, some smut at the end. Tame for me but i was in my FEELINGS okay.

Word count: 2.3k

The familiar sleek black of erens benz pulls up to the side of your house as you walk home from a late night trip to the grocery store, pints of ben & jerrys ice cream in the bags, as well as several other snack items one might munch on to cram for an exam, which is what you planned on doing. 

You side step more onto the sidewalk when he pulls up beside you, still driving just slow enough to match your pace. He rolls down the window, jerking his head, “Just the girl i wanted to see,” he drawls hooking his arm out his window to lean out a little, he grins, “its fate” 

You scrunch your nose up and scoff “Stalking is another word for it, jaeger”. You look him over suspiciously, “you wanted to see me?” 

He rolls his eyes. He’s wearing aviator sunglasses, pushed up his forehead. Loitering in front of your house like this, you’re aware of how different the worlds you live in are. Everything about eren is expensive, from his car to his sunglasses to his clothes, even the way he smells, the cologne he wears, all tells how important he is. Meanwhile here you are in your oversized hoodie and leggings, hands full of stuff you’d bought from the convenience store, prepared to spend your night busting your ass to even stay in the college you had to claw your way to get into, wherein he had gotten in without even trying. You’re not self conscious, at least not usually. You’d never yearned to be apart of erens world too terribly, and it was eren who always sought you out, not the other way around, when there was plenty of rich girls right up his alley and status that would be glad to be with him and yet here he was at 11pm at night. You try to push down the way your heart flutters at that fact.

“Uh huh. Get in the car, bambi, m’taking you somewhere” his teeth are a flash of white against the night, promising trouble, as always. Your grip on your bags tightens, as does your heart in your chest. You glance away, “i have to study” 

“Study?”

Your brows pinch together and you hold up your bags “Not that you’d care, jaeger, but some of us have to actually study to achieve our goals. I can't entertain you tonight, im busy” 

Eren doesn’t look put out in the slightest, glancing down at your bags with casual disinterest“You dont need to study”. And then he looks up at you and meets your eyes, your breath catching, they look closer to the shade of seaglass today. “You’re smarter than anyone i know, ___, and i know alot of people. Whatever you want to pass? You’re already there. Just come with me, please”  

Your eyes widen and your heart spasms in your chest, caught off guard by the raw honesty in his voice. He has moments like this, where he usually teases you and gets under your skin but sometimes he says something that makes everything in you jolt. Its not fair. Its confusing and it messes with your head, makes it fuzzy, weakens you and makes you do things you’d never do with a clear mind.  

You wish you could fight it, wish you could roll your eyes and tell him no and do what you need to do. But you don’t. Huffing you say, “Ugh, fine. Just let me put this stuff up, my ice creams probably already a puddle by now” you turn and rush up to your house, ears burning when you hear him call out, “Thatta girl!” 

You try not to put everything away to hastily, thinking he ought to squirm just a little, but even you can’t deny the eager buzzing under your skin. When you clamber into the passenger seat of his car eren turns to grin at you as he flicks his sunglasses back over his eyes. “Knew you’d see reason, bambi”. You roll your eyes at the nickname, crossing your arms over your chest as you side eye him warily, “where are you taking me jaeger, is this a kidnapping?” 

“Not a kidnapping when you want it, sweetheart”, eren says, putting his arm around the back of your seat as he backs up his car to make a uturn. You dont know if the flustered leap in your chest is from the petname or the way his forearm looks flexing, the cords in his neck prominent as he looks behind him for any oncoming cars. “Just trust me, yeah? You’ll like it” 

You sink in the seat, trying to get away from the warm heat of his arm so close to you, but hes taking it away soon enough, only to draw your attention again to the way his hands look steering the wheel. His hands….You turn to look out the window, opting for silence, because you feel like you’re about to lose your mind. This car is just so..him and its overwhelming your senses. It smells good, it smells like him, his cologne wafting all around you. The sleek interior of his car is crisp, clean, sharp, and just so richboy it feels surreal. You haven’t been in his car before. 

Eren seems okay with the silence though, tapping his finger idly against the wheel as soft music plays from the radio. Its strangely peaceful, actually. Before you know it, the whirring of houses and neighborhoods and highway turns into palm trees and sand. You sit up straighter, coming out of your daze when you realize eren is pulling his car into the sandy bank by a large body of water. The beach. You haven’t had a chance to go here. 

The water looks like black at this time of night, there are no waves, just sparkling dark abyss that stretches out for ages and ages, glittering under the moonlight. There are no other cars parked close to you so its just you, eren, and the sea. 

You spend quite awhile gawking at the ocean before you come to your senses and turn to face eren. He has his elbow propped on the wheel, chewing idly on his thumb as he peers at you from over his sunglasses. A small smile is playing at his lips as he watches you. 

You gape, “What…” 

“You’re cute when you’re excited, you know” his voice is low, dropped in that way that makes your toes curl in your shoes. You ignore the way your heart skips at his words, probing him, “Why did you bring me here, ren?” 

He turns to face forward, flipping the radio off so theres no background noise between the two of you. Taking his sunglasses off the folds them and puts them on the dash, sighing as he watches the ocean from out the windshield, gnawing on his lips. Tap, tap, tap, his fingers on the wheel go as you wait for him to speak. “Last week,” he starts, glancing at you, “When we had to do those presentations in class about places we feel at home..you talked about the library” 

He laughs under his breath like its some kind of endearing joke, shaking his head a little. You dont speak. “The library is where i first saw you, you know? I mean, before all this, before i..talked to you, i noticed you before you ever noticed me.” A small secret smile plays on his lips, “You were reading ‘percy jackson and the lightning thief’, and you haid your hair in pigtails. Your glasses were way to big your face. My first thought was ‘wow she looks like an owl’, but then i saw you laugh at something on the page and my second thought was ‘i want to know her’. We were in middle school.” 

Green eyes connect with yours, “You still go there, i know. But anyway..this is. My place, i guess”. He purses his lips “i figure since i'm always intruding on your little sanctuary , i’d let you see mine” 

You take everything he just said in. He’d known about you, noticed you, since middle school? You hadn’t acknowledged him until sophomore year of highschool, hadn’t spoken to him since senior year, when this tug and pull had first begun between you two. You remembered that day, your mother wouldn't buy you the series so you’d relied on constantly re-reading the books at the library. It was around that time you began to see that place as something special, too. Tucked away from the world, you could lose yourself in another's story. It was like magic. And to realize eren had been there the whole time, had glimpsed that, realized that the library was your special place, that he’d even payed attention to your presentation in class at all in the first place...that he was here, showing you something of himself in return, even though you’d never asked. You’d wondered of course. 

Eren was an enigma, he was on most days, the bane of your existence. He had made your life a living hell on many occasions, but with that, he also made you feel more alive than ever before. He’d dragged you out of your bubble and challenged you to see the world beyond school and books and fiction, he raised your emotions and forced you to experience everything head on. Anger, confusion, happiness, anxiety, thrill, lust and…

You look at him. The way the moonlight curls into the car like a kind of mist, making his eyes look absolutely beautiful. The soft wave to his brown hair, his eyelashes, everything about him made you ache with desire. All the time, even when you swore you hated him, you wanted him. 

“Kiss me”. Its whispered out so low, for a moment you worry he might not hear it. Its the first time you’ve asked for him, reached for him first without his taunting to guide a confession from you. With this request, filling the air between you, you’re making it known that you want him, want this. It doesn’t change anything and yet it somehow changes everything. You can’t look in the mirror and tell yourself he doesn’t occupy your mind and your heart anymore. Not after this. 

Eren seems to realize this too, his intake of breath letting you know he heard you loud and clear. “__..” he says, inching closer. His eyes, dark now, are so very hungry as he closes in. In a moment his lips, soft, so soft, are on yours. You sigh into his kiss, opening for him easily when his tongue glides into your mouth. His hand comes up to cup your jaw, tenderly, thumb stroking it. God, you want to eat him, you want him to eat you. The wet smack of your lips fills the car as you hungrily nip, and suck, and kiss at each others lips. 

When eren pulls back, he’s panting, hair disheveled. You don’t remember when your hands first sunk into his hair, but they must have, messed up as it is now. He looks at you like he wants to devour you, he licks his lips. “I’m gonna put your seat back,” he tells you slowly, each word dripping with finality, “im going to kiss every inch of your body and then you’re opening those legs for me and letting me inside, baby” 

You don’t have it in you to act scandalised, you know what you want. You’d basically asked for it. You just nod, never taking your eyes off his face when he reaches down and pulls the lever. And then you feel yourself being tilted backwards as the seat goes back, laying you flat. Your chest heaves with barely contained need as eren then settles above you, every clothed inch of him hovering just barely above you. 

Holding your eyes, eren lowers himself. You spread your legs easily to accommodate him, gasping when you feel his clothed cock settle right against your clit through your leggings. He rocks once, gently, against you, his hair hanging over his forehead as he looks down at you with utter want in his eyes, “Want you to feel me”, he murmurs, and rocks again, “Wanna fill you up so good, you can’t ever pretend that im not apart of you. Because, this, baby?” Another rock, a shuddered moan leaving your lips, “This is it. No ones gonna fuck you like i do, no ones gonna get inside that little head and play the games we play so well together.” 

One of his hands trails up your thigh, dipping his hand under the fabric of your leggings and pulling them slightly down, he pecks your lips, once, twice, three times. “Tell me”, he groans into your mouth, peeling your clothes off you slowly, “Tell me you understand, Tell me this is everything” 

And you tell him. Tell him through your whimpers when he parts the folds of your slick cunt with his fingers buried inside you. Tell him through your moans into his mouth when he shoves his jeans down and splits you open on his cock. Tell him through sighs of his name, when he rocks into you, licking into your mouth as he spears you open. Tell him through the way you claw your fingers down his back when starts to fuck you hard, rocking the car with the force of his thrusts. Tell him through the way you spread your legs, even wider, toes curling as he wrings orgasm after orgasm out of your tight little pussy milking him. 

“Its everything, you’re everything…” You cry out again and again, clutching onto him as he pumps you full of his cum, groaning brokenly into your neck. 

“Fuck”. He pulls back to look down at you, brushing your damp hair back from your face, still inside you. “You’re gonna fucking kill me, you little nerd” 

[sodrippy]

wait why is yanli getting zidian bad?

hi okay just right off the bat i want to say that i dont really think people are being purposely stupid or ignorant or whatever, BUT there is a rampant problem among (usually white) fans of this show of simply not engaging critically/thoughtfully with it and the OBVIOUS and OVERHWELMING asianness of it. like. it is a chinese show. set in chinese society. about chinese characters. now i myself am not east asian so there are even things i dont clock or understand, of course, but there’s already been so many things ive seen float across my dash or on fandom blogs that scream White to me (the implicit viewing of the societal setup as some kind of chinese translation of white aristocratic society, for one, which is insane to me bc its so obviously not the same but whatever ill give it a pass, or the apparent inability to understand the DEEPLY ENTRENCHED familial ties and loyalty, which is also incredibly obvious to me but idk. maybe white people cant understand the inherent complexity of family fhdcnx. im kidding...mostly.)

one of these things is this view of jiang yanli. theres some different things about this whole ‘yanli Deserves zidian’ take that suck, right. on the basic level, the hashtag girlboss angle is ugly. this is the simplest thing to understand i think, as it happens to numerous female characters across popular western media all the time. the weaponized femininity bullshit from 2012 era mcu stans. the ‘this woman is kind and soft and gentle, but thats not ENOUGH for me to see her a real character deserving of respect and agency, she HAS to be VIOLENT and BADASS for me to care’ rhetoric is, i think, familiar enough that we can all recognize why its shitty and devaluing. its insulting to yanli to basically say ‘youd be better and cooler if you got real angry and hurtful’

(additionally on this hashtag girlboss thing- something i didnt fully understand until it was explained to me is why that scene of yanli talking back to jin zixun in wwx’s defence was Not a ‘wow shes standing up for him, incredible!’ moment and much more of a ‘oh holy shit this is a huge socially precarious move’ which is expanded upon in ellian weiwuxianisms post here)

okay now. about zidian. to me, it is GLARINGLY obvious and i assumed it would be to anyone whos seen the series in general, that zidian is a vehicle for trauma. its an object that not only metaphorically represents the abuse suffered by the yunmeng siblings, and the horrific cycle of anger and unhealthy emotions that jiang cheng is stuck in, but LITERALLY represents that, as we see it being used exactly for that purpose. zidian is an heirloom of violence and the fact that jiang cheng wields it now holds incredible meaning, again about the cycle of abuse that he was unable to be freed from, the weight of filial duty twisting painfully with what should have been love, and so on. 

its hard for me to articulate what i mean here, but its like. jiang cheng having zidian is so much more than just being badass and cool, theres SO MUCH tied up in that which speaks to his childhood, the abuse he and his siblings suffered, the way anger now has a vicegrip on him as well, how he’s turned into his mother’s reflection, how his first taste of love as a child was embittered by anger. i know this isnt about him, but i hope explaining these things makes it easier to understand that there is a great deal going on around and about zidian, and that to simply be like ‘well i think yanli should have zidian because its baller’ is so insultingly reductive, and divorces both zidian and yanli of their contexts and stories, and is just like. why would you want her to have it? why would yanli ever take zidian in the first place?

again, i really hope this makes sense and goes some ways towards explaining where i’m coming from, and why i think its just. extremely not cool and very reductive to thoughtlessly throw that together. i get if you read this and youre like ‘ok but its not that deep’ but respectfully. it REALLY is lol. it is that deep and i take it really personally when people are so flippant and repeatedly uncaring about the SPECIFIC context and meaning that this show has AS a piece of asian media. if you have time to think extensively about and write essays for your fave boring white media, you should direct the same energy into understanding non-white media you consume as well.

[lunarmessenger]

Can u do prompt 52 with either Saeyoung or (GE) Saeran saying it to MC/the reader? I have adhd so i tend to ramble and im always nervous that im annoying and talk too much, especially since i tend to repeat myself in order to rephrase what i've said in a more understandable way... if that makes sense. That last bit's probably irrelevant haha... ^^"

Ah- see what i mean? Lol... anyways it hits close to home and i would appreciate either of the choi twins -- or both! But i dont wanna burden you with too much haha, so just whoever works out better for you :)

Love your writing <3 <3

Of course!! My fiancée has ADHD as well, and I can’t imagine how it feels sometimes. Her little quirks that she has though because of her ADHD are adorable though, and I’m sure yours are just the same, honey. I’ll do both just for you! - luna xx

707

You sat behind Saeyoung as he worked at his computer, small bags beginning to form underneath his eyes from lack of sleep. He was handed a rather difficult job by Jumin that required some complex fire walls on a new program, his brows furrowing every now and then as he mumbled underneath his breath.

Being with him meant that there would be weeks, almost a month or two of distance due to his projects, and you knew this going into it. Yet, there were times that you couldn’t help but have your little impulsive moments and unfortunately, this was one of them.

A small giggle left your lips as you found a meme on your phone, looking up towards Saeyoung who was still busy typing away.

“Saeyoung...is it alright for you to take a quick look...?” You softly mumbled, the tone of your voice making him do a soft smile as he peeled his eyes away from the screen.

“Sure, MC. What is it?” You excitedly showed him, the two of you laughing as he pat your head.

“That was a good one! Let me know if you see anymore.” He meant well by saying that, really he did. But he didn’t think that you were going to pull him away every five minutes to show him a meme; some of them he didn’t really find as funny as you but laughed anyway. With each meme you showed him came a mini tangent of a memory, or event that it reminded you of, the sound of your voice bouncing around his brain.

It got to the point where you were so excited that you didn’t even wait for his confirmation, pulling on his jacket sleeve as you shoved your phone towards him. The action caused him to mistype, causing him to lose about half an hour’s worth of work. He couldn’t help it; his brain had been battling between listening to what you were saying while doing his work that he just...broke.

“Ah! MC! Why did you do that?!” He snapped, brows furrowed as he looked down at you on the floor. You twitched from the sudden tone of voice, eyes wide with worry as you looked between the monitor and his face.

“What...I...what happened?”

“I pressed the wrong key and now...! I’ve just lost so much work; I have to do it all over again!” He groaned, slamming his hands down on his desk before hanging his head and gripping his hair. You immediately stood up, phone tucked away in your back pocket as you used your hands to grip your arms.

The guilt made a couple of tears pool in your eyes, purposely avoiding his irritated gaze as you looked down.

“I’m sorry I...I let my excitement get the best of me. I didn’t mean to be annoying and mess you up honestly I...I’m sorry!” His irritated look quickly melted at your hurt tone, his hands reaching for you right as you dashed down the hall to get to your shared bedroom.

“MC!” You slammed the door behind you, running to the bed and burying yourself under the covers. You couldn’t be mad at him; if anything you were more mad at yourself for not keeping your actions in check. After a few minutes you heard the door open, biting your lip as you kept your eyes shut.

Slowly the covers were pulled away, and you felt his warm arms snake around your waist and pull you close. He burrowed his face in your neck, his lips pressing a soft kiss to the warm area as he sighed.

“I don’t think you’re annoying…I know…I don’t…I really like listening to and hearing what you have to say even if its a lot sometimes..” His voice drifted off as he continued. “I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that. I promise after this project I’ll take a break so we can have some time together, okay?” He mused, and that alone was enough to make you turn over in his arms and look at him.

“Are you sure?” He smiled, his eyes full of warmth as he nodded and pressed a kiss to your lips.

“I’m sure. I promise, MC.”

Saeran

The both of you had joined Zen and Yoosung for a day in the park; Saeran was still a little wary with everyone so you wanted to soften up the awkwardness with small get togethers. It was a picnic type deal; Zen and Yoosung were passing a soccer ball back and forth a few feet away while Saeran helped you set up all the food. 

“Guys! Food is ready! Come eat!” The two immediately ran to the blanket, Saeran handing out the small plates you’d packed with some silverware.

“Thanks! I’m so excited, I bet you make the best food MC!” Yoosung exclaimed, hurriedly filling his plate with some food while Zen chuckled and offered you a small smile.

“Yeah; I’m really happy we get to try some of your cooking.”

“Aw, thanks guys.” The praise made you blush while Saeran took your hand in his, sending you a soft smile as he nodded.

“I can confirm; they are truly an amazing cook.” All of you chatted endlessly; you were so engrossed in the conversation that you hadn’t realized that Saeran was slowly drifting from the conversation. It wasn’t that he was suddenly disinterested; it’s just that he was still struggling with his mental health, and sometimes too many voices all at once became too much.

“MC...?” He piped up softly, but he went unheard as Yoosung cracked a joke, all of you laughing together while Saeran shut his eyes to try and focus. He was overstimulated, and his thoughts became jumbled as he struggled to get the right words out without hurting anybody’s feelings.

“MC.” This time he was more firm, but still you weren’t hearing him. He grew frustrated, biting his lip as he tried to take deep breaths. Zen had barely noticed Saeran was trying to speak, about to tell you and Yoosung to calm down. But it was too late, Saeran’s voice coming out as a yell as he finally caught your attention.

“MC! Can you please stop talking for five seconds?” Everyone froze as you stopped, looking at Saeran as he looked away. The light mood was suddenly filled with tension, his leg bouncing from anxiety while you cleared your throat.

“Sorry, Saeran...” You trailed off, Zen and Yoosung awkwardly putting their empty plates down and grabbing the soccer ball.

“We um..we’re going to kick this around for a bit. Come join us if you want to.” Zen spoke up, making eye contact with you. You furrowed your brows as he gestured his head towards Saeran who was fiddling with his fingers now. You gave a slight nod back to him, turning towards Saeran and gently taking his hands in yours.

“I’m sorry, Saeran. I should have realized, I...I didn’t realize I was being annoying.” Your choice of words made his head shoot up in anger, brows furrowed as he furiously shook his head.

“No, MC! I don’t think you’re annoying…I know…I don’t…I really like listening to and hearing what you have to say even if its a lot sometimes..” He let out a sigh, leaning his head against your shoulder as he continued speaking. “I just get overwhelmed. I appreciate you setting up these little gatherings so I can get to know everybody better, but sometimes it can be a bit too much if they’re not spaced out.”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t express myself properly. I promise that I won’t snap at you like that again. Maybe we can come up with like...a code word? I don’t know...” He trailed off as he blushed, a small giggle leaving your lips as you cupped his face in your hand.

“Of course. How about we pack up and go home? We can talk about it more then.” You suggested, and that was enough to ease his anxiety as he pressed a small kiss to your cheek.

“Thank you, MC.”

[lcnelyinthesky]

may i request a pt 2 of adored by him 🥺 like it's time skip and tsumu and reader fell off but she still keeps in touch with samu... and him and the girl broke up and he finds out from samu that reader is getting married to someone 🥺 it's fine if it's too much to ask, take ur time bb🤍

thank you so much for the request, sugar. honestly it means more than you know.

i dont know if you wanted angst here, but mayyyybe i went crazy and this one might hurt more than the original.

warnings: there’s more swearing here than i typically put in stuff. i think three total?

word count: 805

enjoy!

sequel to adored by him - atsumu x reader, but this sort of makes sense without the reading the first one

It had been years since you last saw volleyball star Atsumu Miya, but every once in a while you’d shoot his brother a quick message asking for free food before you entered his little Onigiri shop. You and Osamu were always on good terms, but not exactly the closest. That one fateful Tuesday, however, Osamu brought you what you ordered and sat down across from you, ready to spark friendly conversation.

“What’s the ring for?” Osamu interjected in the chat you were deep in about if people were allowed to dislike frogs.

“Oh I’m getting married soon!” You only saw Osamu once or twice a year, but just based on your dynamic, talking about your lives was never really on the table. You’d mention something you saw on the way there and the two of you would run with it, talking for hours about something stupid before you checked the time and had to leave. You’d jump from the past back to the present, enjoying the release from real life the meeting gave both of you.

“Lucky guy then.” As Osamu finished speaking, you realized the time and told him you had to leave, bidding him farewell and giving him a small hug before dashing out of the building like nothing ever happened. 

Your wedding was a week later. You were in the area for flowers actually; the florist you hired had a shop down the street from Osamu. You looked over the bouquets of pink and green and white flowers, watching as the colors seemed to melt together and smelling the soft air. The same bouquets entered your hands the following Saturday as you looked intently into the eyes of the person you were about to spend the rest of your life with. 

Rings and vows were exchanged, and everyone was happy. Everything was perfect--going just as well as you spent hours upon hours planning. Well, almost everything.

You walked down the aisle once again, fingers interlaced with the person you really loved, and you made eye contact with someone you truly didn’t want to see.

His bleached blonde hair tousled in the light breeze and his hands were firmly in the pockets of his maroon dress pants. He looked happy to see you, but with all the time you spent at his side you could see the jealousy that sat deep in his caramel-colored eyes. 

He came up to you later in the day, after four drinks and the setting of the sun.

“Y/N! Hey, I’m talking to you!” You had walked out to sit closer to the pond your ceremony was held near. He shouted behind you as you threw rocks into the glassy water, giving yourself time to breathe from everything that happened today.

“Go away, ‘Tsumu. I don’t want you here.” Your eyes stayed locked on the water in front of you, not wavering for a second. He continued walking closer to you.

“No, Y/N I won't go away. Not without you.” he was right next to you now. You could feel his hot breath as he spoke on your face.

“What the fuck do you want?” You started becoming heated, the memories from the past flooding back faster and faster. All of his rendezvous with other girls and all of his leading you on and all of the pain he caused you came to the surface. You felt the anger bubble inside. 

“I want you.” Atsumu turned his head to look down. His knees were in the air as his feet hit the ground. His posture was horrendous. He looked broken.

“If you wanted me, you wouldn’t have hurt me so bad.” You continued staring at the water, watching the ripples get bigger as the time passed since you threw your last rock.

“What?” 

“Feigning innocence, I see.”

“I don’t get it.”

“God, ‘Tsumu. Don't be so dense. I loved you.” His eyes seemed to widen at your claim, maybe he really didn't know? “I loved you more than I’d ever loved anything. I spent every second of my time at your right hand, giving you everything I possibly could.”

“I-”

“I loved you, Atsumu. You dumb fucking bastard I loved you and you didn’t give a shit. You let me lose who I was because all I knew was how to dote on you.”

“I didn’t-”

“Of course you didn’t. Please leave me alone.” A single, hot tear fell down your cheek as you threw another rock into the water. The pastel pink of the reception dress you wore had grass stains and little bits of gravel embedded into the silk. Atsumu stood up and walked away, figuring he couldn’t reason with you.

“Y/N,” he seemed to want the final word. He spoke cleanly through the heat in his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

[shijiujun]

this is very random but i’m feeling kind of frustrated/confused now and i truly regard you as fandom jiejie so i would like to rant a bit and seek your advice(?) recently, i found out that i got blocked by another tumblr that’s quite popular in the cql fandom for creating gifs etc. i don’t know who the person is and have never interacted with the blog; i only found out because i couldn’t reblog the person’s post (which i saw on my feed because someone i followed reblogged it). i was curious why but i realized that the person is probably against mxtx/danmei books etc, which i sometimes post about, for i guess homophobic/fetishizing reasons? but i’ve never followed or interacted so i’m really not sure why i got “noticed” like that. anyway, like i respect the person’s choices and rights to block people, but i haven’t been in the fandom for long and basically never encountered something like this before, so i’m slightly bothered by it. i’m guessing it’s quite common and i know i should probably just ignore/avoid the person (since they blocked me anyway) but i’m too easily affected. how do you usually deal with people like that? thank you.

oh oh hi! hahaha damn am i fandom jiejie?!?!?! sarah is my fandom jiejie ;-; 

anyway oomph sorry you found out about the block from that specific person and are feeling terrible about it! not easy to realize you’re blocked by someone

ehhh actually there can be a few reasons why ppl block i mean in general:

1. it could be an accident, tumblr fucks up q regularly

2. users have beef against each other (unavoidable, i mean we’re placing a lot of opinionated ppl squeezed into a room)

3. you just dont wanna see their stuff or opinions on your blog - i mean this is very understandable, whether out of like genuine like damn this is really not content i wanna see or i really hate the subject matter - both ways go and unfortunately-

unfortunately, it’s all part and parcel of being on social media and on an online space! i know this is hard to hear but everyone escapes to their blogs or accounts right and especially on tumblr where everything is slightly more curated, people create their blogs and create content for mostly themselves first - and we all do things to make sure our dashes stay the way we want them to look 

i for one use the block button very liberally - sometimes just because i disagree with someone and feel that there is just no way i can see their further posts on the matter, or you know, when i get triggered with pet peeves hahahaa sadly i am that kind of person XD i come onto my blog to be happy, and if anything makes me the slightest bit annoyed/uncomfortable, i don’t feel guilty at all about using the button 

i’ve also blocked for my own sanity for e.g. if a blog i see keeps reblogging the same post in the span of 48 hours (talking about like more than five times, and i’m personally totally okay if it’s a timezone reblog for fics or psas or infos!) for notes i mean, their blog, they can do whatever they want and i am in no place to judge, but it made me really competitive and i felt like it was really toxic to keep staring at notes so i blocked for my own sake because i have zero impulse control

and sometimes it’s personal, sometimes it’s not! in your case i think it may help? idk, because these things are stressful and i don’t deal well with like anger HAHAHAHA:

1. don’t take it personally and don’t think too much about it or about why or what you posted that could have made them block you - this blog is for you. and the ppl who follow you in a sense, so if anyone is unhappy that’s on them to block etc. - and don’t think about you getting ‘noticed’, posts turn up in searches all the time as well and it could just have been a particular post 

2. blocking in my opinion is so much better than the user coming to fight with you via anon or rallying other ppl to bully you for your posts online - trust me, this gets ugly, and if it ever happens you’ll wish they used the block button instead - we should be happy there’s a block button! in fact i’d like a mute button like on twitter - i like this blog but this blog’s posts for now idw to see but i still like their overall stuff just not during this period when this bij is gg mad over shan he ling (i’m talking about others when thinking about me btw HAHAHAHA) - blocking is like “i reject you but politely tyvm” rather than “here’s why i rejected you and you must hear all the reasons and i will add more once you fight back”

yep, not pleasant at all

*also gonna take the opportunity to remind peeps to pls block me if your other alternative is to sneak into my ask box for a fight or write a vague personal post hating on me tyvm, 慢走不送*

3. we can’t please everybody!!! idk either ppl ignore me, or at least half of them may have blocked me - i dont blame em hahahaa i do get into ask fights when anons especially come into my ask box looking for one HAHAHA - i mean, i use the block, can’t expect others not to, but just have to get used to ppl just blocking i think!

4. of course if a blog i follow and like blocked me i’d definitely be sad but... what can you or i do? 

5. all content is fine as long as it’s made with thought i feel - all opinions are good as long as they are made with thought and also you and i for that matter are able to stand behind it when someone comes knocking so like obviously if something hurtful is said, then the following angry responses may be expected, but also if you’ve put thought into your posts (i don’t mean like thought THOUGHT but more like when u post anything that can be controversial for e.g. or could potentially be hurtful it’s always good to kind of adjust a little before posting anything) then you should just stand behind your own posts and be who you are online

6. it’s too much to speculate on why ppl do anything, just blog and be happy :DDD

[kelseyfitzherbert]

so like any self respecting new dream fan, i wondered how eugene would react to rapunzel nearly being poisoned and murdered by cassandra in the last episode when she finally told him what happened. so here’s my little take on it, because i needed this after all that. 

under a read more because its long & i dont wanna clog up dashes

It was dark by the time she got back to the castle that night. Exhaustion was nearly overcoming her, and it was moments like this she missed the healing aspect of her hair. There were many times she nearly laid down for a moments rest, but she powered through, anxious to be back to the relative safety of her castle.

But with the anger she saw in Cassandra, was she going to ever really safe anywhere anymore?

Instead of her own room, she found her feet taking her in a different direction, deeper into the darker hallways of the guest rooms where she knew he'd be. She could go back upstairs, take a bath and get beneath her own sheets for the sleep she so desperately desired, but right now, she needed her Eugene more.

She knocked on his door gently, hoping he was in there because she really didn't have the energy to keep wandering the castle to find him.

The door opened and there he was, pajamas on and ready for bed. She nearly fell into his arms as soon as he had the door open enough.

"Blondie!" He held her close, surprised by her sudden fall, holding her tight. "I wondered where you were. We missed you at dinner."

He held her at arm's length, worry filling his features as he looked her over. "You look like hell."

"It's been a long day," she looked up at him with sad, tired eyes. "I need you."

She wasn't normally like this. Usually he was there by her side, ready for whatever she asked for or needed. But normally she was strong. She rarely asked for help or told him she needed him in more serious ways. But there was something about her voice now that tugged at his heart.

"Of course," he didn't ask anymore questions. He pulled her in and shut the door behind her, locking it for good measure. They didn't need any interruptions.

Eugene pulled out a nightgown of hers he kept hidden under his mattress for emergency purposes (they didn't need anyone finding that) and helped her into something clean. He asked if she wanted a bath, but she shook her head sleepily. Chewing at his bottom lip, he could see she was covered in dust and dirt from fates knew what so he at least wanted to get that layer off. Not that it bothered his sheets, he just knew she'd be more comfortable.

He took a damp rag to her arms and legs, rubbing softly, trying not to fret too much because she needed him to be strong for some reason and he was going to do it. But he worried. What had happened?!

"There," he said, finishing her hand and kissing her palm before putting the damp rag away. "Feel a little better?"

She nodded softly and he helped her beneath his sheets. He blew out his lantern and crawled in next to her, pulling her close.

"I don't know what's going on," he said quietly a few moments later, running a soothing hand up and down her back. "But I'm right here. I got you."

Something about that hit a chord with her and she clutched at him, floodgates opening and body shaking with sobs.

Now he was seriously worried. What had-

"I saw Cassandra today."

It was hard to make out what she said between sobs but he heard it, and it made his blood run cold. Still, he kept his voice soft. "What did she do?"

She pulled back a bit, wiping her eyes and nose with the back of her hand, trying to compose herself enough to talk. And she told him the story, from Seth telling her about Gothel's supposed ghost to Cassandra leaving her to die.

He tried to keep his calm. He really did. He knew how much she was hurting and that his anger wouldn't make it any better but he couldn't help it. How lucky they were that she was here?! She could've been in a cave somewhere dead and that thought was too much to bear.

He held her tight, trying to stop his arms from shaking with anger but it was hard. She sensed this, too. "Eugene, it's okay-"

"It's not!" His voice quivered. "Rapunzel, she nearly killed you!"

Just saying the sentence made him nauseous.

She didn’t answer him because she knew he was right. And it hadn’t just been this time. No, this wasn’t the first time Cassandra had tried to kill her. She kept trying. Every single time. No matter how much she hung on; no matter how much progress she thought she made. She could never get through to her.

She promised she’d never give up on her, but Cassandra was making it harder and harder to do that.

He could sense a storm in her mind by her lack of speaking, and he tried to change the subject because he knew she wasn’t going to change her mind. He took a deep breath, pressing a lingering kiss against her forehead, soaking in her warmth and remembering she was alive.

“Remind me to thank the frog, okay?” He said quietly. “Pascal’s got more brave in him then most men I know. He’s pretty special.”

She sniffed, smiling up at Eugene, grateful for something lighter. “He is. He’s my best friend. I hope you understand that.”

“I’ll tolerate it, I guess,” he teased, giving her a soft smile. She started to giggle, but it turned into a deep cough. It took her awhile to catch her breath and he watched with a worried look. “You ok?”

She nodded, taking a deep breath once it seemed to have passed for now. He didn’t even want to know what she had inhaled, but it was obviously affecting her.

“We should call the doctor,” he suggested quietly. She shook her head and cuddled into him.

“In the morning,” her voice was a mumbled. “I just need you right now. I’m ok. I promise.”

He didn’t like it, but he wasn’t going to push. He could keep an eye on her tonight and if it seemed to get worse, he would make the call.

But for now he held her tight, reminding her that even though the world seemed to feel like it was against her, he was still on her side. And he would be. No matter what happened.

Rapunzel may be able to forgive Cassandra no matter what, but he couldn’t. Not anymore. She’d crossed a line this time. 

She fell asleep in his arms, but he stayed up, holding her tighter, protecting her against all the threats outside his little room, promising he would protect her no matter what. 

No matter what.  

[raionmimi]

How does Medb and Cu's relationship in Fate interact with the lore of Cu's death being largely at the hands of Medb?

This is gonna be a long post, so rip to everyone that didn’t ask for this on their dash! Sorry! I’ll try to do a tl;dr at the bottom

I keep forgetting to finish Proto Cú’s (or any of the Cú’s) interlude, but it IS set during the time around the war with Medb iirc. His voicelines also mentions that he’s on good terms with his uncle Conchobar, Medb’s abusive ex-husband who sexually assaulted her and basically fucked up for the rest of her life. As far as I remember, there’s not a lot of info saying whether Cú didn’t actually know how his Uncle treated Medb; ignored it/denied it; or if he just considered it normal for a man to do shit like that given that it was the first century or so (and some stories revolving him would be the latter tbh). We do know that Proto Cú was summoned by Misaya becuase of Medb since she specifically wanted a servant that was killed by a woman “That way he would know how scary a woman can be.” Although Medb was not the one to strike him down, but the Grail sees it as her win because of the conditions set

In Caster Cú’s voicelines, his dislikes are Morrigan and Medb because he doesn’t have good memories of either one, and obviously in a war, there wouldnt really be any real winners if you count the losses that will happen on both sides. Coincidentally, Medb Rider is effective against him, so it’s kinda funny to me

In Lancer Cú’s voicelines, he mentions her, along with the other women in his life, and says he wasn’t able to keep their promises to all of them and wanting to be more dependable to them. We actually have no idea what he promised Medb at all, but obviously they’d have to have interacted with each other to have made one in the first place. I always talk about them being childhood friends as a self indulgent fun thing, but…??? They really may have known each other at some point beforehand, and just imagine how furious Medb would be seeing him fight for Conchobar of all people. That would’ve been an ultimate betrayal if we go by my ideas, and I love tragic shit like that. Also note that that Cú fought and killed people that he cared about that were fighting on Medb’s side in the war, but he never fought Medb even when they came across each other on multiple occasions. It always made me wonder why besides his excuse of “I dont like killing women” despite literally killing her handmaiden who was standing near her once. Like was it really sexism and/or was it because of a prior relationship with her?? It honestly could be either but a bitch (me) is curious!!!!

Alter gets annoyed when Medb has her facade, but he’s fine with her when she’s honest and acting like her normal self in America. I’ve mentioned before that he has a strange amount of free will and even makes opinions different than her, but she doesn’t mind. I sometimes feel like he really could’ve just up and walked away if he really wanted to becuase Medb wasn’t really that concerned about his backtalk whatsoever

I talk about this a lot but Summer Medb acting more formal with the presumably Lancer Cú shows that she’s calmer and actually does respect him when she’s face to face with him because she usually acts silly when she’s just talking about him to the player or other characters. Of course, we don’t know his response but given that she just asks “Do you have something to say to me?” it’s probably going to be him being indifferent or chatting casually with her.

Cú doesn’t really hate Medb because it’s not really like either one specifically said “I’m gonna start/partake in a war, just to ruin this person’s day.” He just hates that a lot of people he loved and cared about ended up dying in the war, but honestly, that could’ve happened at ANY point in time because wars happened more often back in those times for political power and glory. It’s just by chance that they were on opposite sides of a war, and really, the war was pretty useless since A: Medb was supposed to get the ox in the first place, and B: Medb DID succeed in getting the ox in the end, but it literally picked a fight with her husband’s ox (which was initially hers but it insisted on being owned by a man instead of a woman, or something strange like that) and died. But Celtic mythology has a lot “And then suddenly weird, somewhat darkly comical death/outcome!!!!” Also not to mention that becuase dudes were fighting in battles and wars all the time, they were often just “today’s enemies are tomorrow’s allies.”

Medb being a ruler, rather than a soldier, would take more offense at him taking down her army because that affects her kingdom and future political decisions she has to make directly. Also, the fact that Conchobar was the one who had control over a weapon of mass destruction is probably the biggest threat Medb could ever feel in her life. So, she smartly chose to lure him into a one-on-one agreement that he’d just fight one of her soldiers a day, and it went on for several months, but sometimes she was just “Yeah let’s just cheat???? This is a war?????” and sent multiple people. This is how she’s technically killed him, but was not the actual one who did it. It makes a lot of sense why she’d target him more than anyone. Not only is he a huge liability to everyone in his warp spasm, but say the words, and Conchobar could’ve probably had him do pretty much whatever. That’s frightening because Cú doesn’t see anything personal about what he does! He will kill anyone if he has to, even though it seems like he purposely avoided contact with Medb.

Overall it’s a little complex because if you put Cú on the Connacht side of the war, now neither of them are put in circumstances where they’re at odds. He doesn’t hate her, but he doesn’t seem to care for her new fakey fake persona because he KNOWS her. He just doesn’t seem to call her out on it though, he just plays along with it. Medb already has her own various factors that affect how she feels about herself, love as a concept, and him specifically. Her hate comes more from a ruler standpoint, but also imagine a hero who could supposedly save everyone, but he wasn’t there to save you when you needed it? Medb, imo, seems to have repressed anger and fear from her trauma because a lot of her choices stem from proving herself as being worthy as a woman and human being, or pushing people she actually likes away because she has insecurities that she doesn’t want to show. She has some trust that she starts putting in the player, but she has a very roundabout way of showing it. She’s always reminded me of how rabbits (or a stoat!!) hide in thickets and briar patches. It’s a good self-defense mechanism, but she can still hurt herself if she’s not careful.

tl;dr: No one is innocent in a war, and Medb and Cú are both morally gray characters in both lore and Nasuverse, even if Cú is generally portrayed as a bro who does nothing wrong. Fate does give bits and pieces on their intertwined history, but you can’t really say one side was wrong or right imo. Being summoned at Chaldea does give them the opportunity to move past any issues they may have with each other though, and character growth is my fucking jam so that’s why I really like the intricacies of their relationship.

[jazzman-19-blog]

Crazy Little Thing Called Life

*Got gif from Google, if this is yours, tell me and I’ll credit you!*

A/N: Ok so this one was alotttttttt. But it was also fun to write? i dont even know but yeah. I was suppose to upload this yesterday but I’m lazy so I didn’t. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter! BYEEEE :]

~with lots of love, Jazzman~

Summary: A road trip/ vacation between two old friends that turns into something more(basic plot but whateva)

Song(s): Boyfriend by Ariana Grande, Let You Down by NF, and You’re My Best Friend by Queen ;)

Pairing: Ben x reader

Word Count: 4385

Warnings: AnGsT, masturbation in the shower lmao, and some friendship fluff

If you would like to be added to the taglist, just ask!

*Reblogs/asks/opinions are always appreciated!*

Ch. 4: The Desk Girl

------------

     God, you were dreading the long drive from Yuma to San Diego. It was going to be a long three hours. You and Ben hadn’t talked about last night, even though there wasn’t much to talk about. But when you had woken up this morning, Ben wasn’t there. He wasn’t even in the hotel room for that matter. You just had decided to continue your morning routine and get packed and ready to leave. Ben came back but hadn’t talked to you, not even a simple hello. It was the first time in never that he never even said good morning or hello to you. He walked passed you like you were some stranger, a complete rando. It was a little scary and odd but you let him be because you had to worry about yourself and get your stuff situated. 

     When noon hit, you were already to go. Your stuff was loaded into the back of the SUV and so was Ben’s. You were all ready to hit the road and hurry and get to the house that your uncle had so kindly given you to use while he was away on a business trip. You’ve been to his house before and it was magnificent. You went inside the lobby to give back the keys to the room when you saw Ben talking to the lady at the front desk. The same girl who had given you your keys when you checked in. You could obviously tell she was smitten by Ben and was trying to flirt with him. And you could tell he was flirting back. It infuriated you because he could make time to talk to her, but didn’t have the time to even say hello to you? His best friend? Fine, two can play at this game. 

     You walked up to the front desk and placed your keys in between them. Ben turned to look at you and then turned back to the girl. Oh boy was he testing you today. If he didn’t have the keys to the car, you would have left him there. You pushed Ben aside and before the girl could say anything, you place your hand on the keys and pushed them forward.

     “We’re checking out.” You turned to look at Ben who was looking down and fumbling with the keys to the car. You could tell he was embarrassed. You looked back up at the girl and said goodbye as you grabbed Ben’s arm and dragged him to the car. 

     The girl just watched as Ben waved goodbye and headed with you towards the car. You let go of his arm and climbed into the passengers seat and slammed the door. You weren’t even mad at the girl, you were mad at Ben for ignoring you all day but decided to talk to some random girl from Yuma who neither of you would even see again. Even though the real reason was because you were jealous and you knew it. One of your many downfalls, you were jealous that Ben wasn’t flirting with you but with some girl. A girl that was beautiful unlike you. She was just as beautiful as a model, absolutely stunning. You huffed in frustration, why couldn’t you be like the other girls and be pretty for once and have guys fall for you every second? You weren’t able to finish that thought because Ben jumped in the car and slammed the door harder than you had. You stared straight ahead but you could feel his green eyes burn into the side of your face. 

     “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, Y/N?” Ben was mad and for what, he had nothing to be mad about. All you wanted to do was get out of there. 

     “What was what?” You turned your head to look at him. Realizing he was actually mad, you turned away not wanting to look him in the eyes. 

     “I was in the middle of a conversation, and you just rudely interrupted it to turn in some stupid keys!” He sat back against the seat and waited for you to speak still tense though.

     “Sorry if you were too busy flirting but I’m ready to go and I don’t have time for this flirting bullshit that you pull every time we go somewhere, whether it be a restaurant or a god damn hotel lobby, you always find some girl that is absolutely smitten over you and then you get pulled in and it goes no where and I’m stuck looking like a dumbass. I don’t even know why you flirt with these girls when you KNOW it’s not gonna go anywhere. The only time you actually got something from it, is when you got your cock sucked once and that was about it. I’m done, really, all I wanted was to go to San Diego without any distractions.” You sat back against your seat and huff while looking out the window. “And I’m not even mad about the flirting...”

     “Then what are you mad about? Because I didn’t see a problem” Ben turned to look at you but you continued to look in the other direction. “Why won’t you look at me?!” 

     You finally had turned to face him, staring into his eyes that were filled with anger. 

     “I’M MAD BECAUSE YOU HAD TIME TO TALK TO THIS RANDOM GIRL IN THE LOBBY BUT YOU DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO EVEN SAY GOOD MORNING OR HELLO TO ME! Your best friend…” Now tears were falling down your face and you tried so hard to keep them in but it didn’t work and you turned your head to face the window again. “I thought I was important but apparently not.” 

     Complete and utter silence filled the car. 

     “But you are important to me, love. I just wasn’t in the mood to talk this morning.”

     “But you were in the mood to talk to the desk girl, yes, because that makes total sense Ben.” You wiped your tears away with the sleeve of Ben’s jersey sweater, that you didn’t want anymore. So you decide to take it off and throw it in the back seats. Ben turned to look at the sweater in the back and then looked towards you. 

     “W-why’d you take the sweater off?” His voice was cracking at the end. You didn’t want to look him in the face and tell him because right now, I fucking hate you. You couldn’t tell him that. Because you didn’t mean it. 

     “Because I’m not cold anymore.” You turned to look at him, you hadn’t realize that one tear had manged to slip down his cheek. Usually you would wipe it away for him and make him feel better but not this time. You looked forward out of the windshield. “I’m ready to go, I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

     “So that’s it? You don’t even want to try and talk about it? Try and fix it? Don’t you want to talk about last night?” He turned the keys to start the car and was getting ready for the long haul. 

     “What’s there to even talk about at this point?” You didn’t even want to look at him because he would be able to see more tears falling down your cheeks. Your voice cracked at the end but Ben didn’t noticed. Instead of listening to him bitch, you plugged in your headphones and listened to music. You had rested your elbow on the window while your chin was in your palm. This was going to be a long drive. For you and Ben. 

                    Ben’s POV

     He had woke up before you and he thanked the god’s for that. He didn’t want to explain to you why he was rocking his hips into yours. He had a fucking wet dream about you and it was embarrassing to say the least. Luckily, your a heavy sleeper and didn’t wake up to him doing that. He felt gross for doing that to you, his best friend. He couldn’t help but to see how beautiful you were when you slept. But he knew he couldn’t stare at you forever. He slipped his hands from around your waist and shimmied off the bed. He opened his suit case and pulled out some clothes to put on after he took his shower. 

     Once he grabbed his clothes, he dashed to the bathroom and jumped right into the warm, hot shower. He was still hard since he didn’t get off while he was in his wet dream. He grabbed some of the shampoo and lathered it onto his member. He couldn’t help but imagine it as your hand that was rubbing his cock and making him feel good. He let out a small moan but not loud enough to wake you up. He knew he was getting close when his thrusting became sloppier. He was fucking his hand at this point but he needed some kind of release. He needed you. He could just imagine how good you would feel to have your mouth around his cock. He couldn’t finish that thought though because he had cummed right after, letting everything go. He was sweaty and hot and the steam from the shower didn’t help. 

     He cleaned himself up and finished taking a shower. He threw on his clothes and looked in the mirror for a while. He felt gross for doing that, just like the wet dream. He knew it was wrong but oh god he still did it. He looked away and dried his wet hair with the towel and walked out of the bathroom. You were still asleep on the bed of course. You hated waking up in the morning and Ben knew that. It always worked in his favor when he woke up earlier than you. He had looked at the time on his phone, it was 8:32. He still had enough time before your 9 o’clock alarm went off, but he didn’t want to be here when you did wake up. He didn’t want to talk about him cuddling up next to you and he hoped you didn’t notice him having a wet dream right against you. He didn’t even want to talk to you. 

     Instead, he decided to go get some coffee down the street. He got the car keys and left, he went down the hall towards the elevator and got in. Once he reached the lobby, he headed towards the front door but wasn’t paying attention and bumped into a lady in some kind of uniform. It was the hotel uniform. 

     “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to bump into you.” He quickly said before making eye contact with the girl. She was pretty, but not as pretty as you. 

     “It’s alright. I should have been paying attention to my surroundings and not my phone.” She looked up at Ben and made eye contact for a few seconds before Ben broke away. All he could do was nod, he wanted to get out of there as fast as possible. He’s seen the look in her eyes like all of the other girls he’s been with. She was helplessly falling for him and he knew it. He broke the silence before she could. 

    “Well, I should get going.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand while not making eye contact. 

     “O-okay, maybe I’ll talk to you later?” She asked with hope in her voice. 

     “Maybe…” and with that, Ben took off for the car. 

                30 minutes later

     He didn’t just go for coffee, Ben decided to go walk around for a bit in the park from last night and enjoy the morning breeze. He pulled out his phone to check the time, it was already 9:10. He needed to get back to pack up and put everything in the car to leave. He still didn’t want to talk to you, maybe if he could avoid contact until the car ride, maybe it would be fine. He threw away the empty coffee cup and headed to the car to go back to the hotel. 

     Once he arrived, the girl he ran into from earlier was sitting at the front desk looking at her phone. Maybe he could sneak by without her noticing. He succeed and headed for the elevator. He didn’t like the girl but she was nice. He didn’t want her though. He wanted you, you were the one playing through his head during the night. He couldn’t get you out. Once he reached the right floor, he headed for the room, hoping you were in the shower. When he opened the door, he saw that you weren’t in the room but instead in the bathroom, doing your morning routine. He walked by without saying anything, not even a simple hello. He felt bad but he couldn’t bring himself to talking to you. He walked over to his side of the room and started packing his clothes into his suitcase. 

     He finished packing and loading his stuff into the car around 11:34 and was waiting for you to finish. When you had came out of the bathroom earlier, you looked at him but didn’t say a thing. She knew he would be the first to say good morning or hello, it was like routine but he didn’t, not today. Now, he was waiting in the lobby with the car keys and messing around on social media. He got bored of that and wanted someone to talk to and he knew who. 

     He walked over to the front desk where the girl from earlier sat. She looked up as he walked over, her eyes beaming. 

     “Hey,” Ben said as he leaned up against the counter. “Just thought you would like some company instead of your phone.” 

     “I would love that,” She said as she put her phone down. “What’s your name? I never caught it when we bumped into each other earlier.”

     “That’s because I never threw it.” Ben saw that the girl had chuckled at his joke. But god, her laugh didn’t even compare to yours. “It’s Ben though. You?”

     “Rachel.”

     “What a beautiful name, love. I could say it all day and never get tired of it.” He knew how flirting worked, he was a pro at it. He also practiced with Y/n because she said he wasn’t a “lady’s man” yet and needed practice. 

     “Thank you! What brings you here to Yuma? Not many people like to come here.” 

     “Well, me and my friend actually are just stopping by to see family before heading out again.” Ben could see you coming though the front doors from the corner of his eye. 

     “Just friends?” Rachel was a bit curious about that. 

     “Yep.” Popping the p before Y/n slid the keys between the two of you. He looked over at her then back to Rachel. Ben knew what he was doing, he was trying to make Y/n jealous. Before he knew it, Y/n pushed him to the side and left him there to turn in the keys herself. He started to fumbled with the car keys and was a little embarrassed as of how easily she could control him. Y/n yanked his arm and dragged him to the car. Ben turned around and simply waved goodbye to Rachel. 

     Once they reached the car, Y/n let go of his arm and jumped into the passenger side and slammed the door. Ben wasn’t even supposed to be mad but her attitude was changing that. He climbed into the drivers side and slammed the door harder. He turned to look at her but she wouldn’t look at him and he didn’t know why. 

     “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT, Y/N?” 

     “What was what?” She finally faced him and quickly turned back away. 

     “I was in the middle of a conversation, and you just rudely interrupted it to turn in some stupid keys!” Ben was right though, originally it was just a conversation but then he turned it into something to use against Y/n but she didn’t need to know that. He leaned back against his seat. 

     “Sorry if you were too busy flirting but I’m ready to go and I don’t have time for this flirting bullshit that you pull every time we go somewhere, whether it be a restaurant or a god damn hotel lobby, you always find some girl that is absolutely smitten over you and then you get pulled in and it goes no where and I’m stuck looking like a dumbass. I don’t even know why you flirt with these girls when you KNOW it’s not gonna go anywhere. The only time you actually got something from it, is when you got your cock sucked once and that was about it. I’m done, really, all I wanted was to go to San Diego without any distractions.” You said with full anger and some sadness mixed in. Ben was a little taken back, he didn’t expect that. Not at all. 

     “And I’m not even mad about the flirting...” You finally said after relaxing against the passenger's seat. 

     “Then what are you mad about? Because I didn’t see a problem” He decided to face you so you could make eye contact but you didn’t. He was getting frustrated. “Why won’t you look at me?!” 

     “I’M MAD BECAUSE YOU HAD TIME TO TALK TO THIS RANDOM GIRL IN THE LOBBY BUT YOU DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO EVEN SAY GOOD MORNING OR HELLO TO ME! Your best friend…” Now it was getting deep. Too deep. She started to cry. Fuck. He hated it when you cried. Y/n faced back to the window to try and hide her tears but he had already seen them fall. “I thought I was important but apparently not.” 

     Ben didn’t know what to say to make any of this better. He was breaking little by little. 

     “But you are important to me, love. I just wasn’t in the mood to talk this morning.” He finally says. He knew that didn’t sound right but it was the only thing that could come out of his mouth at this point. 

     “But you were in the mood to talk to the desk girl, yes, because that makes total sense Ben.” After you said that, you took off Ben’s sweater and threw it in the back. 

     “W-why’d you take the sweater off?” Ben’s voice was breaking and he was so close to crumbling. A single tear had managed to escape and run down his cheek. 

     “Because I’m not cold anymore.” When you said that you turned to face him but then towards the windshield. If you weren’t there right now, Ben would break down and start crying. “I’m ready to go, I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

     “So that’s it? You don’t even want to try and talk about it? Try and fix it? Don’t you want to talk about last night?” Ben said before starting the car and heading out of the parking lot of the hotel. 

     “What’s there to even talk about at this point?” You finally say before turning away from him and getting lost in your own world. Ben didn’t know what to do. But all he knew he could do was to drive to San Diego. He was going to fucking hate the next three hours. 

                       Y/N POV

     A hour already passed and you and Ben haven’t talked the whole time. It was really stressing you out. This is the longest time you both haven’t spoken to each other. You didn’t like it one bit so you decided to take matters into your own hands. You took your headphones out and flip your body so you were facing Ben. He didn’t look so good, his eyes were red and his cheeks were stained with dried tears. How did you not notice your best friend crying his eyes out next to you for the last hour? You really were a bad friend. Ben didn’t need you, you didn’t deserve him really. You were the one making him cry. You put your hand on his thigh and started to rub it with your thumb. He looked over to you but quickly back to the road. In that small glance you could see regret and sorrow in his sage eyes. 

     “Ben…” You started to dig your nails into your palm with the hand that wasn’t on Ben’s thigh. You did this when you got anxious, stressed, or scared but right now, you were all three. “Can we talk?”

     “You said there was nothing to talk about…” He softly whispered. His voice cracking, he was breaking, you were breaking him. 

     “But there is, Ben, we need to talk or we’re just gonna end up never talking again and wasting this time in anger when we could be jamming out and laughing like we always do.” 

     “Then where do we even start?”

     “Why not about how you didn’t want to talk to me this morning?” That’s where you wanted to start at least because it was the source of the problem. 

     “Because I just wasn’t in the mood, love, really.” Ben’s voice was slowly getting louder and more steady.

     “But why the desk girl and not me?” You didn’t understand and you decided to remove your hand from his thigh. 

     “Her name isn’t desk girl,” Ben chuckled which made you smile. “Her name was Rachel and I was just talking to her while I was waiting for you.” 

     “Well did you get her number? Did my flirting lessons teach you how to be a lady’s man?” You rested your head against your seat and stared ahead at the never ending road. 

     “No, I didn’t really want it,” Ben pulled your hand back to his lap. “But why were you so upset about me talking to her? I mean I understand from earlier when you sa-”

     “Benny, I really didn’t mean any of those things. I was just mad and wanted to get out of there and I was being a bitchhhhh.” Ben nodded and kept silent. “Ben?”

     “Yeah?”

     “Where were you this morning?”

     “I woke up early, got coffee, and went back to the park from last night. Why?”

     “Oh…” You were scared that Ben had woke up and got up because he didn’t want to be next to you and that he regret sleeping next to you or that it was wrong. “I just thought you were mad at me or that you regretted sleeping next to me last night.”

     “NO- I mean, no I don’t regret laying next to you, I kept you warm didn’t I?” Ben looked at you and wiggled his eyebrows. Which, in return, made you laugh.

     “You did. And I’m glad you did or I would have froze to death.” After you said that, you turned around and grabbed something from the back. It was Ben’s soccer sweater. The sweater all the players get from the school at the end of the season with his number on the back. His number was 18, which you called his “lucky number”. You quickly put it on and snuggled in it. You looked over at Ben, who was already looking at you up and down. You knew he loved seeing you in his sweaters. 

     “So NOW your cold?” Ben asked.

     “Yes, I am. Got a problem Jones?” You asked as you put the hoodie on and pulled on the strings to make the opening smaller.

     “No, but it does look better on you than it does me.” and that you could agree with him. You stole a lot of Ben’s clothes like his shorts and shirts and sometimes even his shoes, even though they don’t fit since they’re two sizes larger than your feet. 

     “Good because I’m keeping it.” God, just ten minutes ago, you and Ben were both tear stained messes but now you both were giggling and laughing. Maybe the drive wouldn’t be so bad after all. 

     “How about we put on some music?” Ben handed you the aux cord from the little compartment between the two seats. You plug the aux cord into the radio and your phone and picked a song. You loved this song and Ben did too. 

         You’re the best friend that I ever had

        I’ve been with you such a long time  

 You’re my sunshine and I want you to know

       That my feelings are true

         I really love you

     You and Ben sang along until the very end and you decided to just put on your spotify playlist. You saw that Ben’s face was still stained from his tears so you grabbed the sleeve of the sweater and wiped Ben’s cheek with it. At first Ben resisted but then gave in to your touch against his skin. You ruffled his hair and gave him a quick smile before using the scrunchie from your wrist and throwing your hair in a messy bun. You guys still had one hour and thirty minutes to go before arriving to the house so might as well get comfortable. You and Ben hadn’t really planned anything for the next two months in San Diego. It was more of just going with the flow. Or at least that what Ben said. 

     Ben wasn’t really organized and he didn’t plan ahead like you. You liked to plan weeks ahead and liked to stay organized with your many binders and folders. You both were total opposites but worked so well together. Even though Ben was the true gentlemen and didn’t like to get too dirty, he was the one who loved sports. You liked to get dirty, occasionally, you would play with him but most of the time you didn’t play any sports. Weird. 

     “Buddy, I know your thinking about something over there. Spill it.” Ben said as he kept looking towards the road.

     “I’m just thinking about how we don’t have anything planned for the next two months.”

     “Just go with the flow. It’ll be fine, we’ll be fine. I promise.” He grabbed your hand and rubbed your knuckles with his thumb reassuringly. 

     “Okay.” 

    It’ll be fine he said, We’ll be fine he said, he promised. But lied.

--------

@luvborhap

[some-cookie-crumbz]

Ok so i know i shouldnt be doing this cause i dont want to die but im a masochist apparently so here it goes: so when aria was born everybody was happy at first but doctors made some kind of mistake and pidge died(oops). And now keith has to raise the kids alone and tell everybody and y'know let your mind develop the possibilities and suffering. Also how the holts will accept that(sorry not sorry)

WELP THIS IS SHORT BECAUSE IT HURT BUT I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY!!!

TW: Character Death, TW: Pregnancy Complications

It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.

Keith winced as he watched Colleen collapse to her knees,wailing in horror. Sam stared for a long moment, eyes wide in disbelief, beforetears of his own started up. He dropped down to wrap his arms around his wife,pulling her in close and beginning to speak in soft, choked words. Matt,meanwhile, instead channeled his grief into anger and seized him up by hiscollar. “I told you this was a badidea! I told both of you!” He growledquietly, eyes starting to water and his hands trembling. Keith didn’t say anything,as he didn’t know what to say. What do you say, he thought, in this situation? “Thatchild shouldn’t have been born!”

“That’s enough,” He said, a small bit of his usual firekindling. He felt so tired, so emotionally drained, but he still had some senseof himself. In only a few short hours, one of the most important people in hisworld was gone. Pidge was gone, lost after the complications from the labor.Their second daughter had survived and was doing well, but that said nothingabout what would happen with the older three.

Even still, he knew Pidge loved Aria, and never would havetolerated Matt saying such a thing.

Matt stared at him for a moment before closing his eyestightly, tears starting to leak out. “It just isn’t fair,” He choked out.

He carefully pried Matt’s hands off of him. A part of himstill wanted to comfort him, but he had other priorities. “I need to go. I needto sit with the kids,” He said quietly. He turned and headed around the cornerto where everyone else was waiting.

Amber and Kaden were clamoring all over Kolivan, Amberpoised over his shoulders like a boa or scarf, while Kaden was latched onto oneof his legs. Both children were squealing and giggling, while Kolivan himselfwas chuckling as he continued to walk around the waiting room with the twochildren draped over him. Krolia was settled in a seat with Oliver, watchingthe spectacle with an amused grin, gently bouncing the baby boy. Oliver wasdozing a bit, eyes slowly drooping shut but then fluttering back open at anyloud, excited squeal from the older two. The rest of their friends would bestarting to trickle by later, though Shiro sat beside Krolia, watching thedisplay before them with amusement of his own. Keith hadn’t been ready to telleveryone right away. He had to tell the Holt’s first, though.

His mother perked up, still smiling, but the look falteredat his haunted expression. She carefully stood up and walked over, gentlyreadjusting her grip on Oliver so that he could doze off against her shoulder. “Keith?”She asked softly.

He looked at her then looked away. “I… I need to talk toAmber and Kaden,” He mumbled.

She looked at him, taking in the red-rimmed eyes and teartracks still left on his cheeks. She then glanced down and saw his knuckleswere scrapped and red, implying he’d been hitting something. Her stomach lurkedand her heart twisted at the realization of what was happening. “Are Pidge andthe baby…?” She trailed.

“Aria’s okay but Pidge,” He said, choking off as he spokeher name. He clenched his hands into fists, wanting nothing more than to gopunch another wall. He’d been rather surprised that the hospital staff had beenfine with him losing his cool like he had, none of them commenting on thesizeable dent he’d left in the wall beside the room where he lost her.

“Keith, I’m so sorry,” Krolia whispered, tears misting upher own eyes, reaching out to set one hand on his shoulder. He nodded a bit,wanting to say more, but he could see movement out of the corner of his eye.

“Daddy!” Amber squealed as she darted over, Kaden just a fewsteps behind her. She paused, however, as she took in his expression. Did sheremember almost two years ago, when Oliver had been born? Kaden picked up onthe unease in his sister and dad, looking between them worriedly.

“Where are Mommy and baby sister?” He asked, wringing his fingersin front of himself.

“Baby sister is resting right now, but Mommy,” He said,taking a shuddering breath as he carefully knelt down. He gently ushered thetwo towards him. Kaden fell in to him without a fight, but Amber took an unsurestep back, eyes widening in a panic and fear. “Amber, sweetie.” He breathed outsoftly.

She shook her head. “W-Why aren’t we going up to see her?”She asked, voice growing a bit louder as spoke. This alerted Kolivan and Shiro,the two men standing up and looking over. Thankfully enough, Krolia swept overto the two of them, speaking in soft, hitched whispers.

“Amber,” He repeated, reaching out and barely managing toloop his arm around her. She tried to twist away and make a mad dash for theelevators he’d come from.

“Let me go! I’mgonna go see Mommy!” She protested as he pulled her in closer. Kaden wastrembling, pressing himself closer into Keith and letting out small hiccupping breathes.He loved his kids so much, but sometimes he lamented that they had inherited Pidge’skeen intellect. In a moment like this, he wished they weren’t clever enough intheir young age to surmise what was happening.

“I’m so sorry, baby girl,” He choked out as he curled herinto him.

She stared up at him for a moment, defiance blazing in herlike a fire, before her lower lip trembled and it all washed away. She threwherself into him, wailing out a cry for her other parent. Kaden followed afterher a second later, and he curled them both into him as tight and close as hecould get, dipping his head and letting himself cry more.

He cried for the loss of the love of his life, the onlyperson he’d ever truly connected with in such a natural way.

He cried for Amber and Kaden, who would forevermore bear thepains of missing her every day going forward, of feeling a pain he himself wasfar too familiar with.

And even still, he cried for Oliver and Aria, who were stillso incredibly young and would have to rely on nothing but the shared stories ofothers to know who their mother was.

[lowkeysebastianstan]

hey there. I totally get your frustration with endgame and the ending. I wasn't happy and I'm not happy how half the fandom tells me/us how we have to look at it. how we have to accept it. how the actors are happy with it and so should we. how the writers/producers - okay, I'm gonna leave them out of this seeing neither of them have any idea what they have done in the first place. after all they disagree on everything in every interview since the release. and isn't that funny? (1/?)

how even they are not on one side with the movie? what I despise most right now when it comes to this movie and this fandom is how we are treated. how we should tag our “hate” - which I think is funny since I didn’t hate the movie entirely. I hated pieces of it, like I did with past movies. I never liked doctor strange and even back then people were allowed to mention how casting cumberbatch for the part wasn’t the smartest idea they had. (2/?)

people want us to be happy with an ending that doesn’t make sense to us and they appreciate and are “allowed” to shove down our throats with their happy posts about a perfect ending. how is taking tony’s life after he finally married pepper and got a daughter is perfect? how is sending steve back to peggy after they did everything in their power to convince us he moved on from his past life…how is that perfect? (3/?)

you can probably tell I’m bitter. I really am. there’s not a day that goes by I’m not frustrated with what we got after ten years and 22 movies. however, I thought to myself what would it give me to cling on to this on my blog. would it change anything? I do know I’m not alone. I see so many people agreeing with this anger and it gives me some sort of peace. at the end of the day, though, it’s also important to see what it gives to you. (4/?)

talking to one of my closest friends about it and voicing my frustration with the end helps me more than keep posting about it. because in the end it won’t change a thing. the longer I surround myself with the frustration and anger and everything that comes with this not being what I had hoped for the more it pushes me from the fandom. of course everyone do as they please and I get people who want to get it out of their system. (5/?)

but maybe sitting down and look at what the constant repeating will give you in the end, realizing where it might end, could help finding some kind of peace for you. I’d hope for you to enjoy the parts of the fandom that still apply to you. I really like your blog and you as a person and I’d hate to see one of my fave people on this site to leave (I lost count, but this is the last)

whew! hi right back, that was quite something. 

i feel ive answered this ask before, was that also you?

i mean, yeah. i know im not alone, i do. i see some of it on my dash, but not a lot, since ive had to block every marvel related tag just to keep from indulging in some light murder (just gentle ones, not to worry), and i really cannot fathom why ppl on the other side of the isle can’t do the same? or if you’re getting tired of the negativity? blacklist. or unfollow, block even. 

as ive said a few times lately, ive been here 6 years. and this is the first time ive aired my frustration in any noticeable way. sure there’s been a few occasions where i got the salt shaker out, but that was in relation to much more limited subjects, and it was a post or two at the most. 

ive been frustrated with previous movies too, but ive kept my trap shut, ive just gone on, kept my queue stocked, giffed the rare set and hid behind pretty solid content, no drama, not personality, no engagement. 

and it’s not too bad, to just be anonymous, to look at the pretty, spread the pretty, do the occasional tag rant, and let that be it. 

but.

when i came back after a long hiatus last autumn i started writing again. i posted a psa where i apologised for the fact that i would reblog my writing on this blog, i informed what tags i was gonna use, and for the first time i actually checked my follower count before and after. i lost 20 followers the first day. for posting writing. my writing. that was tagged to a ridiculous degree. and i saw a fair few more disappear before the exodus, and idk. i made me realise a thing or two.

one, people like my blog and the content i post

two, they’re only here for that content

three, to have a strictly themed blog will limit you horribly

four, my followers in general don’t give a shit about me, only about the content i post, which fair enough

five, i care about that, even if i don’t care about the follower count as such, i do care that the ones i have actually like me

six, which is completely absurd bc none of them knows me at all, i never show myself

but that was then. this is now. and the last weeks has made me realise the most important thing of all, i dont care any more. why the fuck should i? when my showing any kind of negativity about something that i did care a whole lot about but i no longer have?

endgame might have killed all my enthusiasm for the mcu, and it fucking hurts. it’s been a staple in my life for years, ive invested my time, my creativity, my love and my goddamn money, and ive got jack shit to show for it. i have a blog that i used to love, but is becoming alien to me, and that hurts too. ive invested a lot in this blog too, after i deleted a few of my other blogs a couple of years back, this is by far my biggest one. and im torn tbh. 

do i want to leave it? no, i don’t. can i go back? honestly? i doubt it. if my love for the mcu is gone, well so is bucky. and lets be real, a sebastian stan blog with no bucky? i cannot really see it, can you?

but hey. ill make you a deal, all of you. ill ease up on the memes, i won’t stop bc i have a few scheduled, you guys blacklist or unfollow if you dont want to see them, and ill see about sprinkling in some sebastian content if i can find any i deem worth it. 

also i don’t have any close irl friends to air my frustrations with, everyone here loved this crap, and that’s not really the discourse im looking for. but im happy for you, it sounds nice :)

hope you’re having a great day! 

eta: i won’t leave btw. not unless the porn hub thing comes into fruition. just so you know, and if anyone cares. just sayin. 

eta2: also? the fact that i, or we, are complaining and being pissed at the movie, but the opposition are attacking us for doing that? instead of, again, fucking blacklist and leave us the fuck alone? yeah, doesn’t help with the bitter. if y’all are so threatened by our arguments, maybe you should reevaluate your own, seems you’re trying a bit too hard there. i don’t want to take enjoyment from anyone, i envy you too much for that, but ffs, just leave me the fuck alone to deal with it. (that’s not @ you, that’s to them)

eta3: and thank you for saying im someone you like. but see? ive been trolling you all, im terrible. and i expect you don’t like me as much now anyways. but thank you, it was nice to hear nevertheless.

[oswald-privileges]

Loudmouth

(I wrote some statement fic. It’s been a heck of a while since I wrote anything for fandom.)

Statement of Ulla Ness, regarding, um... a peculiar transformation. Original statement given March 14th, 1999. Audio recording by Christopher Peake, in an… unprofessional capacity. Statement begins.

I still don’t see why I had to come to you. I know you have an email address, so wouldn’t it have been easier to just scan the form and send it to me? Hell, I would have taken a physical copy sent to me in the post. It would have been slower, but it would have meant I could have stayed at home. But no. I asked, and you just gave me a lot of waffle about how you have ‘strict acquisition policies’, alongside directions that had been copied from google maps. Which I know, because I checked.

It’s not that I’m lazy, you understand, far from it. I used to have what I regarded as quite the active social life. But recently that’s become impossible for me to maintain, for a number of reasons. Which are also the reasons that I’ve come to talk to you.

I used to be quite a religious person. Still am, I suppose. I’m not entirely sure. I was a member of the congregation of Saint Mary’s, a small anglican church in a small, anglican village up in Lincolnshire. Not everybody there was particularly devout, but it wasn’t one of those places where it especially mattered. It was more about the sense of community we had. Catching up with each other after communion on Thursdays, singing in the choir, arranging cake sales or coffee mornings as fundraisers for whatever bit of the building had fallen off now. I’ve been attending since I was little, and more or less grew up with the congregation.

I miss it quite badly, if I’m being honest. I’ve always been the sort to need other people, but I didn’t realise quite how much losing them would affect me. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone and all that, I suppose.

It started with another fundraiser, a jumble sale this time. I had volunteered to help manage the event, so I was in charge of sorting through the items that people had brought in for us to sell. Like I said, not everyone there was strictly devout, and didn’t always take care with what they decided to donate. Some people seemed to use it as more of an excuse to toss legitimate junk in our direction and call it a good deed.

This was definitely the case with Mister Ashley. He attended purely because his mother was too old to walk by herself, and I rather think that she insisted that he stay with her throughout the service. It was definitely at her behest that he took part in any communal activities. She would always announce that he would be happy to run stalls or make tea or some other menial duty, while he sat by her side, stony-faced, and saying nothing at all.

The only time I remember him giving any sort of reaction was when when his mother announced that her Jamie would be happy to donate some of his shop’s excess stock for the jumble sale. I remember, he turned to her with the strangest look on his face. At the time, I thought it was one of badly suppressed outrage. I assumed that she had simply gone a bit too far in volunteering his services; Mister Ashley was a second hand book seller, and owned the Jabberwock Bookshop just off from Memorial Square. It can’t have been all that easy to turn a profit. Thinking back on it now, though, and I wonder if his expression was something sharper than just anger. If it could have been alarmed, almost panicked. But I believe that is likely be nothing more than hindsight colouring my memories. If he had had some way of knowing, had been frightened of something like that which came to pass, then… well. I cannot honestly say I ever truly liked James Ashley, but neither can I believe that he would be as cruel or as cowardly as to not have said or done anything.

As it was, he brought the books to the side room the next day, where I was going through the donations and sorting the sellable items from those things too broken, torn, stained, or just plain unusable. I had just set aside yet another jigsaw- this one with almost two thirds of the pieces obviously missing- when he knocked on the outer door. In spite of the heavy rain, he wasn’t wearing a coat, hat, or boots. He didn’t say a word to me when I opened it, just shouldered his way in, dropped a heavy cardboard box on the floor by the unsorted donations, and walked out again. He did this three more times, leaving the door swinging behind him, letting in strong gusts of wind and rain, and reinscribing a damp trail of rainwater on the carpeted floor. Then he was gone as abruptly as he had arrived.

Ashley had taken better care to protect the books from the rain than himself. The cardboard was soaked through, but the books inside had been wrapped in several layers of plastic sheeting. They were stacked upright, and had been fitted in without any attempt to force too many into a single space. They were all, without exception, worn, faded, and almost completely without interest. Paperback romances long since out of print, old text books, children’s encyclopedias. It was rather a relief, if I’m honest. I could just reach into the boxes, grab a book, give it a flick through, and place it on the “for sale” pile.

I was about halfway through the last box when my fingers brushed something that did not feel at all like paper. It was dense and yielding, and ever so slightly damp. I recoiled, shock and disgust crawling their prickling way up my arm. My fingers looked clean, but the ghost feeling of something sticky still clung to them.

My first thought that it was some nasty practical joke. That Ashley, stung by his mother’s willingness to give away his stock, had put something disgusting in there by way of relieving his feelings. But that would have been ridiculous- he was a grown man, for goodness sakes, not a slighted child. It was more likely that the plastic keeping the books wrapped up had slipped, and allowed the rain to seep in through the sides. That was the more likely explanation.

It seemed as though I was right when I looked into the box properly, and saw nothing there but more books. But when I reached in again, all I felt was rough, dry paper. Confused, I went through the contents more slowly, looking where I placed my hand and at the books I chose.

I didn’t feel it again until the fifth book I picked up, that same almost-damp feeling. It was broad and set in landscape, almost like a sketchbook. It was dense with pages all jammed together- dense and heavy. It flopped bonelessly in my hand, and I needed to support it from underneath before I could read the title.

Hymnal, it read. The gold letters gleamed wetly on the slick cover.

It appeared to be full of sheet music. No titles or lyrics, just scratched staves and notes that meandered up and down the lines as though drunk. The smell that rose from the pages as I turned them was odd and unpleasant. I wondered if the leather binding them hadn’t been properly cured. Those areas of page that weren’t covered in music were full of sketches, but so dense and overlapping that I couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be. And, I realised with an unpleasant start, the cover beneath my hands was warm, as though I was touching a live thing.

Suddenly, I’d had enough. I was sitting here, working myself up over an old, graffitied book for no good reason. I shut the thing hurriedly, and it snapped closed with a heavy slithering of pages. I caught the soft part of my forefinger on one of them, and a tiny bead of scarlet began to well from the wound. The stinging was welcome- it gave me something to focus on, mundane annoyance drowning out the confusion that had been threatening to become fear.

I dropped the book onto the discard pile. I couldn’t sell something like that, that much was obvious. Then I picked it up again, and dashed through the rain to the rubbish bins outside. I tossed it in, and followed it up with as much of the discard pile as I could bag up in one go, burying the thing underneath threadbare scarves, broken plastic dolls, and half used art supplies.

I felt a little better when it was done, but not much. Whatever those hymns were praising, I don’t think it was Our Lord.

The cut on my finger didn’t heal like it should. It stopped bleeding without any trouble, but the edges became raised, reddened and sensitive to the touch. I dabbed at it with antiseptic and did my best to put it out of my mind. I succeeded at first. I had plenty to keep me busy, both at church and at my workplace, and for a day or two, I completely forgot about it.

At least until it opened up again.

I don’t remember what caused it, or if anything caused it at all. Just that I was reaching for something, and there was the feeling of… unpeeling, almost, the cold feeling of fresh air on wet skin. I checked to see if the cut was bleeding again.

Instead of a cut, I found myself looking at a tiny, fully formed mouth.

The raised, reddened edges I had thought were a sign of infection had become minute lips. They were slightly parted, and behind them I could see the tiniest slivers of white. And behind that, a dark space where something wet shifted.

I didn’t look at it for long. Already I was reaching for the first aid kit, hastily covering the cut- the mouth- with a plaster. I was already convincing myself that what I’d just seen was some kind of infection I was too squeamish to look at, and that since I couldn’t feel any pain, I should probably go to the doctors, in case it was nerve damage or something. The impression of having seen a mouth rather than a cut was an unpleasant trick my mind had played on me, and one I didn’t feel like closely examining. I told myself I had imagined it.

I hadn’t, though. I could taste the soft fabric patch on the plaster.

I really did mean to go to the doctors. Mouth or no mouth, whatever was happening to the cut on my finger worried me. I even got as far as making an appointment. But the next day I went into work, and there was an accident involving a slippery patch of floor and a very, very sharp knife that I was carrying at the time. I ended up with a nasty slice parallel with the underside of my ribcage.

This time, it was obvious how quickly it stopped bleeding, how it was practically dry before I even changed the gauze once. How the scabs began to flake before I even touched them, leaving nothing but those raised, reddening edges around the cut itself.

I didn’t go to that doctor’s appointment. I don’t think it would have helped me if I had.

It took longer for the second cut to open, but when it did, I could stand in front of the mirror to properly see the flat, white, human teeth, and the tongue that moved behind them.

It didn’t feel alien. That’s what surprised me most. I was scared, of course I was scared, I was growing new bits, opening up in places that I shouldn’t- but that was just it. It was my body doing this, not some… weird infection or surgery. Whatever was happening, it felt like an extension of myself.

I could move them, I found. Not as consciously as I could my original mouth, the one in its proper position on my face, but sort of like moving a limb after it’s fallen asleep. It took concentration, like I was working through partial numbness. Like I needed to focus to wake them up.

I didn’t spend very long doing that, though. I would realise with a start that what I was doing wasn’t normal, it wasn’t sane. I would pull my shirt back down or re-plaster my finger with a feeling almost like shame. I wasn’t as scared as I should have been, and that in itself was somehow a lot more frightening.

I’m not clumsy. I can’t be, considering the sharp tools I have to handle at work. But I started to accumulate injuries. Innocuous things at first. Paper cuts from the prayer books during mass, scrapes from the edges of the metal benches at work. And then other things. Pushing down a door-handle would lay my palm open as though I’d been struck with a metal ruler. The pressure of my jacket across my shoulders would tear the skin. I woke in bed one morning to discover that the folded sheets around me had left cuts going from my hip to my collar bone.

Every single one of them bled, reddened, and opened.

The mouths started to become restless as their number grew. They tried to chew on the clothes I wore to cover them, and if I didn’t focus, they would let out soft, but audible moans or sighs. I tried to quiet them. I even tried feeding them, though I only did that once. It seemed to help, but the mangled sensation of swallowing with a throat that seemed to be lodged under my right kidney was so disorienting I couldn’t bring myself to do it again.

I hadn’t stopped going out altogether. I left the house less, certainly, but as uncertain and uncomfortable as my changing existence was, I didn’t want to give up the company of other people altogether. I get lonely easily.

So, one Friday, when when there was so little skin left under my clothes and gloves that no new mouths could easily form, I patched my face and neck with gauze, and went to take my place in the choir again.

Nobody really seemed to notice anything different about me. I had all the right stories lined up for when I was asked about what had happened to my face, but almost nobody did. A few condolences, a few jokes, and that was it. People apparently preferred to gossip about the death of Mrs Ashley, and how her James had stopped coming to church now, and how they had known his heart wasn’t in it all along.

It felt awful. There I was, standing in the middle of them, skin to skin almost, with the most fragile disguise imaginable hiding a secret that would ruin their perception of the world for good- and they were too wrapped up in their own smug assurance of their own piety to notice. I offered up a brief prayer for patience, but like all my prayers lately, I don’t think I was offering it to the God whose praises we’d all gathered to sing.

And when we raised our voices together for All Things Bright And Beautiful, and I opened my mouth to join in, and then opened my mouth again, and opened my mouth again, and opened my mouth again- I wasn’t singing praises to that God either.

I didn’t realise that the others had stopped at first. It wasn’t until I glanced to one side, and saw Julie Wright staring at me with her powerless mouth open and unmoving, that I realised I was singing in harmony with myself.

I broke off, suddenly embarrassed and frightened by the way that they were all looking at me. There was something like awe in their expressions, but there was something else there too. Something that shuddered and recoiled. I desperately tried to remember the words I’d been singing, if I had gotten them right. I had the horrible sense that I might have subverted something holy.

Adam Bromley was the one to break the silence.

“Well now. You never told us you were getting private training!”

And just like that, the spell was broken. The unexpressed disgust sank back beneath their faces, and the others took up the idea almost with relief. A beautiful voice, they told me, what trick did they teach me to make it resonate like that? I forced a smile and said something non-committal and when we took up the tune again, I was careful to sing only the words that were on the page in front of me.

My own relief was short-lived. When I got home, I found the skin I had left was being pulled apart by the restless movements of the mouths. Blood stained the underside of my shirt, and I couldn’t stop the moans and hissings any more than I could have controlled a spasm or a muscular tic.

I didn’t sleep that night, and called in sick to work the next day. I lay on the bed, and stared up at the ceiling, trying very hard not to move.

It wasn’t any use. My skin had become so fragile that even getting up and walking to the kitchen caused it to split, the blood barely having time to dry before the wound began to twitch and whisper. All my fascination was gone now, as were all my attempts to ignore what was happening. All I did was lie on the bed, and let myself slowly drown in my own body. I lived like that for a week.

When next Friday evening came, my entire body burst into song.

I writhed and moaned and hummed without will, without choice, throwing out snatches of hymn before discarding them as not what I wanted, not right. And for the first time, the indistinct murmurs and whispers grew louder, began to form words. Prayers that had been chewed out of shape, pleas for more, more mouths, more brothers and sisters, to come out of hiding and join the great curdling of flesh.

This went on for the entire night.

That was when I decided that I needed to do something. I’d let… whatever this was go on for too long, long beyond the point of saving myself. But I wanted to tell someone first. So I dragged myself to my computer, and searched as best I could. It’s difficult to type with only a confusion of tongues.

And that’s where you came in. You aren’t special. You were just the closest place that didn’t either ignore my emails, or reply with not so gentle suggestions that I see a psychologist.

I don’t think I’ll be leaving my home again, once I get back. I doubt I’ll even bother uncovering, although there’s no-one there to see me. For all that I wanted to let someone know, I don’t want to be seen.

The cupboard below the stairs locks from the inside. I can push the key out from underneath the crack in the door.

Whatever is happening to me, I won’t allow it come to fruition.

Post-statement follow-up: There wasn’t anyone under the stairs when I went to check. The lock on cupboard door was broken, and so was the one on the back door. Either Ms Ness was, um… successful in her attempts to… halt her transformation, and a housebreaker with some seriously questionable motives took what was- what was left of her. Or she wasn’t. And her resolve either waned or the situation was, um. Taken out of her hands. Or. Whatever she had instead of hands.

I wasn’t… going to record this. It’s not my job, strictly speaking, but I was reading some of the old statements, and this one just… sort of caught my eye. And I’ve seen the Archivist and some of the others do recordings, and it just looked so… I wanted to try it out. I’ll be taking the tape with me, though. None of the others need to know about this.

[thebrochtuarachs]

When Love Dies

AU. One-shot. Major Character Death. In which Claire and Bree doesn't deserve Jamie for the way they (over) reacted in 4x10 and 4x11.

Nobody ain’t going to be happy about this but here goes. ✌🏻 (AO3)

Brianna was woken up once again by a shuffling noise around her room. When she woke up, she saw Roger’s hulking figure looming over her once again. She hesitated to move, fearing it might be another nightmare but she felt a natural pull in seeing his face and it gave her a little courage to come close.

“Roger” she called up as she rose from the bed but didn’t attempt to run to him.

“Bree” he called back. He must’ve sensed her hesitation, so he took the first step towards her. He took a seat at the feet of her bed and the dip of his weight made Brianna tear up.

“Are you real? Roger, are you here?”

Slowly, he reached out for her hand until he held it in his. “Aye, I am”

They came together in a crushing hug and Brianna let all her tears fall. After a while, they pulled away and Roger’s hand moved instinctly to her huge stomach. Her voice hitched and she started to ramble “I...I’m sorry. I don’t know how much my mother told you. I…I’m keeping this and I don’t know if you…”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Roger interrupted. “I dinna care, Brianna. I dinna care. I am yours and ye are mine and this little one – no matter what – is ours. I make ye a vow, this is a child of my blood and I will do everything I can to make sure yer safe and ye’ll both be fine.”

Brianna came close again for a hug and continued to sob happy tears.

Here.

Safe.

Fine.

Just as her Da promised.

“He gave you back to me” Bree whispered to Roger. “He made good on his word”

Even without context, Roger knew what she was talking about. “Aye, he did”

Bree pulled away from his hug, smiling. Roger looked at her and saw the light in her eyes that he knew he’d take away so soon. “Where is he? Where are they?” She was starting to get up, pull over a scarf and made a dash for the door when Roger quickly pulled her back.

“Bree” Roger called out and she already knew something was wrong. “Something happened when they pulled me out from the Cherokee. Please, sit down.” She did as told and held on to her belly.

“A lot transpired in between but in the end, Ian offered himself for my release, the Cherokee accepted the exchange and everything was settled. However, a small group wasna pleased….” He shrugged and hesitated, unable, really, to tell her how. “We didna see it coming”

“What are you saying?” Bree was so confused

“Jamie. He isn’t here. He’s…gone”

No.

Pain was, suddenly, all that Bree felt and she didn’t hear Roger say that how her mother tended to him all she could and did not hear his protests for her not to go out the yard in a chilly night in her condition.

Tears swelled from her eyes and this time, not from joy. She quickly got up and headed downstairs to her mother.

Oh god, her mother.

If she felt pain like this from a man she just knew, how was her mother faring losing the man she craved for got twenty years.

She came out the door to find to an empty yard save only the cart, her mother and the lifeless form of her father. Claire was lying on her side, looking and caressing Jamie’s face, the only part of his body that isn’t covered by a blanket. Bree saw her mother’s eyes retreat to something she’d seen thousands of times before back in their own time – it was blank, tearless, completely dazed and completely lost.

Bree ran towards them but her mother didn’t even shoot her a look as she came. She had to put her hands on her mouth to keep her from screaming as the reality of her father’s death consumed her.

She couldn’t climb the cart but the plank was low and she can see and reach for him.

“Da!” Bree called as she tried to look for his hand to touch. “Da!!” she said, breaking, as she finally found his hand under the blanket and its coldness made her more heartbroken. He really was gone and she let her tears freely fall.

“It’s not your fault” her mother finally said. Bree didn’t know if it was for her, for Jamie or herself – or maybe it was all of them.

“He wanted you to know that it isn’t your fault, that you shouldn’t blame yourself for all this. He made me promise to tell you that he doesn’t regret trying to bring Roger back to you because he knew he kept his word and he knew ye’d be happy and he’s happy that you’re happy. He wanted you to know that he loves you very much, his words are not enough to describe it. He thanks you for giving him a chance to be a father and wants you to know that being with you, being able to see you and spend time with you in the last weeks has meant so much to him. All he hopes is that you find it in your heart to forgive him for the pain he’s caused you to absolve his soul.” Claire revealed, stating Jamie’s last words for Bree while still looking and caressing Jamie’s face. It wasn’t lost on Bree that her mother was unable to look at her.

“Mama, I’m – “ Bree paused, sure how any of her words will help but she needed her mother to know. "I'm sorry."

Claire was unmoved but continued to speak. “I tried to keep him alive and he tried to live until we got back here just so he can see you and say these things himself but there was just too much” Claire paused, stunned. “There was nothing else I could do in this time to save him.”

Silence followed between them, unable to say or do anything really, but grieve on their own for a while as they processed what just happened. After a while, her mother spoke again.  

“Bree, can you please go back to Roger inside please?” Bree understood that her mother was holding it back until she was alone finally let her pain and sorrow show. Although Bree was heartbroken for causing this much pain, what killed her more is knowing that she let true love be separated again and this time it is for good.

She went back to her room and found Roger seated in one of the big, plushy chairs. She immediately climbed to Roger’s lap and clung to him as they heard Claire try to muffle her loud cries by burying herself in Jamie’s body.

Fin.

A/N: Okay, this fic came about because I really didn't like how the writers wrote the Fraser Family confrontation in 4x10 and how Jamie and Claire acted towards each other in 4x11. For 4x10, they skipped the fire cuddle scene with Jamie and Bree and immediately went to the confusion reveal. What I didn't like in the episode is when Brianna hit Jamie and retreated to calling him by his first name and her deliberately excluding him from her life at the Ridge. And in all these CLAIRE was just STANDING ASIDE and ALLOWED it to happen and the gap to flourish. She didn't to anything to defend her husband to her daughter, nor, for some reason, tried to understand her husband or make her husband understand by calmly pointing out where he was wrong.

Brianna's anger is valid but it kills me that the writers didn't allow for much room for a little understanding since there were lies and deception from ALL characters in this scenario. Claire's distance was so uncharacteristic. All I am saying is IT COULD'VE BEEN HANDLED BETTER.

In 4x11, Claire just stood there even though she knew Jamie was hurting. Claire very much knew that Jamie is mad at himself more for this ‘Roger thing’ rather than the ‘Stephen Bonnet lie’. The Frasers have been in situations like this before in their marriage and never did they ever choose silence before over confrontation. Hence, so much disconnect happening to these characters. 

Bottomline, I'm just sad, angry and heartbroken with these episodes and this fic stemmed out. I thought Claire and Bree doesn't deserve Jamie and Jamie doesn't deserve this isolation from his lasses too. So I made their anger pay with their grief.

Thank you for reading. I'm shocked that you still do or did. This is my first time attempting to write a death fic and as always, would love your feedback to improve my writing.