#i get some of this must be... trauma. fear of losing the few rights we have.

[pastlight]

the local trans support group chat i'm part of has been skewing dangerously close to transmedicalism and gender essentialism. complaining about how our country's more liberal trans laws allow cis people take advantage and make us look bad, so trans people should be screened more thoroughly, cause this is why the trans laws in Hungary and Madrid were thrown away. it's the fault of people who aren't really trans. making fun of older queer people who may not identify as trans and instead still cling to terms like transvestite. telling one trans girl that of course she can't get a girlfriend if she hasn't "fully transitioned", lesbians can just tell and they all want that female je ne sais quoi. she must be delusional if she thinks she can pass (she never sent a pic of herself), testosterone makes you more confident that's why trans women who haven't done HRT think they look good when they clearly don't. and of course lesbians (/all women) aren't as horny as men, even those aloof bi girls that don't care about serious commitment, that's why she can't get a one night stand. at this point the fact one guy said he "doesn't believe" in nonbinary people and that we "bring consequences" to the community is the least of my problems. let's not even get into the lowkey racist jokes.

and the 2/3 people who defend those talking points seem to be always online and willing to fight over it to the point they'll dogpile and talk down to anyone who disagrees. one even joked she "enjoys the drama".

and man. im pretty good at letting things slide for the sake of community work, we don't have to agree on everything to get things done, but it feels like they just want to aggravate everyone who disagrees. today even the activist who created the group sounded uncomfortable with the tone the conversation was taking.

which really fucking sucks cause there aren't many groups like this in the city but idk if i can feel safe in it anymore.

[kyokutsu-sama]

Good old days

Sanemi x f!reader

Plot: Upon learning that an old friend of his had returned to work as a demon slayer and had been injured on a mission, he could not sit idly by and demanded answers about her return.

A/n: how to have a man like him😮‍💨 I have so many ideias for him and I hope I got time to write them all.

Tw: Nsfw

For him, there were only a few people for whom he had respect and admiration. His tough and rough personality, his unusual strength and his serious gaze made him difficult to get close to. However, he was not completely monster as many thought, he still had a calm nature. The traumas of his past shaped him to be this way, but inside his heart there were still feelings.

The losses in his life also took away his joy and made him avoid creating bonds, often for fear of losing them. But there was a especially bond that still remained in his heart and he still wondered where that person was now. A friendship with benefits from the past that ended up going a little further than it should have been.

He thought about you a lot, thought and thought and thought again, it was taking over him. Even though he had tried to convince himself that he was just superficial and had no deep feelings, he only ended up making everything more difficult. Your job and his was like dancing with death every night. But while you had hope that everything would work out, he couldn't think in the same optimistic way as you.

Deep down, he was sorry, he was sorry that night hadn't gone the way you both wanted. He knew you must have been hurt by him for just wanting to leave things like that. You fell first but he fell harder, but not out of pride but out of fear, he left. Not that he hadn't suffered for two years.

But a few days ago, after he was confronted by the master who was also aware of the situation, he understood that he was wrong in some of the things he said to you and you to him.

"Sanemi, you need to be calmer. Dealing with feelings in a hot head is not good. In the heat of the moment we think and say unpleasant things, but after we calm down, we realize that we weren't doing the right thing after all." The master spoke in his soft voice and the wind hashira listened attentively. "You and Y/n argued that night, right? Some unpleasant things were said at the time, you were younger and more immature, but now that two years have passed, what do you really feel? Do you still think the same way?" The master asked

"Even after two years, I'm still very confused about the situation... I don't know if I should go and talk to her. She must still be mad at me." Sanemi sighed, scratching the back of his neck, and the master smiled

"Be positive, my child. She's changed, she's more mature than before, just like you. You've changed too, your attitude has become more respectful, we've both been able to have more personal conversations regarding our first meeting in that morning."The master remembered and Sanemi lowered his gaze, embarrassed by the words he had spoken against the master. There were still regrets from that day and the master noticed. "You don't need to look like that, I've forgiven you. Now, allow me to tell you something."

"What?" Sanemi looked at him

"Your friend, Y/n, she's back on missions. She was here a few weeks ago and came to talk to me. She not only look more mature but stronger than before."

"What?!" His eyes widened. "What do you mean, oyakata-sama? She's back? What mission did she go on?" Hashira's voice began to grow worried and nervous

"She was here a week ago, and left the mansion the same night. She should return home tonight and come back tomorrow morning to make the report." He explained."I think you should go see her, you two should talk and reconcile. I believe that everything will work out."

"How can you be so sure of your words?"

"Because I believe in you, my child. I believe that you can change this." The master smiled but Sanemi's expression was still one of uncertainty

"Go to her, she will listen to you."Ubuyashiki ordered and Sanemi knelt and bowed before the man

"I will do so, Oyakata-sama. Excuse me."The hashira stood up and left

Sanemi was walking down the hallway of the master's mansion with a thoughtful look. The master was too positive about the situation, while he was having doubts and fears, but just like on the battlefield, he never ran away. And after the master's orders were given, they had to be carried out.

~~~

You returned home after that long mission and let yourself fall against the wall, slowly sliding your back down and finally sitting on the floor. You dropped your head forward, a sigh of tiredness and relief left your lips. Your body was limp, tired from all that long battle against the demons.

You unbuttoned your uniform to look at the wound on your abdomen, it was open and leaking blood, it looked like a cut, maybe caused by a demon claw or something. Maybe it had been made at some point during the fight.

It didn't look deep but it could become infected if left untreated. A knock on the door sounded and you looked in its direction, one hand holding the sword for not knowing who was it behind the door.

Slowly and with some effort because of the wounds, you got up, buttoned your uniform back up and headed for the door.

You opened the door enough so that your eyes could see through the crack who it was. Your heart sank at that moment when you saw him standing there. You really missed him more than you should.

"What was he doing there? How long has it been..." You thought

As much as you wanted to close the door and send him away, a part of you decided to let him in to talk. After all, things hadn't been cleared up between you two.

You put the sword aside and opened the door for him and Sanemi did nothing more than just look you up and down, seeing how much you had changed. You looked even more beautiful since the last time he saw you, more serious and, as the master had said, stronger. He could feel it just by being there by your side.

You also looked from his head to toe, seeing how he seemed stronger and his muscles bigger since the last time you saw him. He had a more serious face too and more scars on his chest than before. It was impossible not to feel some butterflies with the tall and broad figure right there at your door.

"Are you going to let me in or are you going to fuck me all night with your eyes?" He asked abruptly, making you wake up from your thoughts

His voice was deeper than before, but as you had imagined, the attitude was still there.

You just moved aside and gestured for him to come in, and he did so. You closed the door and looked at him as he looked around the house, remembering the good old days with you there.

If only those walls could talk...

"What are you doing here, wind pillar?" You asked, looking away when he turned to you

"Wind pillar?" He repeated the formal title, looking at you and shaking his head. That's not how you used to called him. "How have you been? I heard you came back from a mission."

"Yes, that's true. I've returned to the demon slayer corps." You nodded shyly because of his eyes on you

You knew that this had also been discussed that night. He had told you to leave the corps and that's where everything went wrong. Maybe you didn't realize it before but he was afraid of losing you and wanted to do everything he could to protect you, just like he did with his brother.

He knew that you had potential, strength and skills, but he also knew that you, like him, could die at any moment.

You, on the other hand, didn't want to leave because you didn't want to let him fight alone, and even if you had to die on the battlefield, you would die happy for having fought until the end and for having met him, the man you loved. But neither of you shared your reasons at that night, and that's why for two years, the situation was never resolved.

"Why?"

"'Why' what?"

"Why did you come back?"

"Because I realized where I belong." You answered in a low voice. "After that night, I decided to move away from the slayer corps because I thought I wouldn't be able to continue, knowing that I would cross paths with you almost every day, in training, in meetings or during breaks by chance. I didn't feel well, I needed time and space."You explained, avoiding maintaining eye contact with him. "After months, I came to the conclusion that deep down it was what you wanted, I was doing exactly what you wanted. You wanted me to leave, you wanted me to live a good life, right? So let me tell you that I will not do your will. The world out there is boring and the adrenaline I needed was here. It always was."

"What a shame...I thought you had found someone in that boring world. You said that maybe there was someone out there who would understand you, someone who would care for you and to be your side."Sanemi spoke with a certain bitterness leaving his lips, at the thought that some other man had touched you

He would never be able to handle this burden...even if he was too proud to admit it.

"I believe so, I believe there could even be someone more understanding than you out there to realize how I was feeling that night, but no, I haven't had anyone since then." The relief inside him came, but was temporarily since you decided to tease him a little."But while I was away, I got a job and met some people, among them a very special friend. He was very nice to me and always willing to help me and comfort me if I wasn't well."You looked away when you felt the slight anger in Hashira's eyes.

You still remember how to push his buttons.

"Oh yeah?" Sanemi took small steps towards you and stopped, looking at you to try to meet your averted gaze. "So the next time you go on a mission, ask him to protect you, call his name so he can come and save you like I saved you all those times." His voice sent slight shivers down your body. You didn't want to feel that but you couldn't help.

That feeling was still there.

"He has nothing to do with my missions and besides, this is a secret organization, have you forgotten?"

"But since you love him so much, invite him. I want to see how long this bastard can last here without pissing himself in fear of those motherfuckers."

"Your attitude is still there, isn't it? Your voice is deeper to match that tough personality of yours that is only getting worse with age."You crossed your arms, looking at him

"And you're still the same idiot you've been since two years ago. Your voice is also more annoying to match that silly personality."

"Sanemi, please, I just got back from a mission and I don't want to spend the rest of the night arguing with you, okay? If you came here to make the things worst, you can leave." You pointed to the door, starting to get a little fed up with that conversation

"Oh, now you know my name? Where's the 'wind pillar' now?" He laughed, mocking. "What's with that face? Don't tell me you're already getting mad with my visit?"

"Deep down you even like it, don't you? You like seeing me in a bad mood, you like seeing me with my claws out?"

"It's better than that depressed face I saw when I walked in. I guess spending too much time with that friend of yours wasn't good for you." Sanemi said, revealing a bit of his jealousy

"Oh, so that's it, huh?! Are you jealous now?" You smiled and he narrowed his eyes

"Jealous? No fucking way!" He bite back and you could only laugh at the situation

"So why are you so worried about the other guys? Come on, tell me--" You felt a pain on the side of your abdomen and grunted, bringing your hands there, applying pressure. "Shit!"

"What's wrong?" Sanemi quickly changed his expression, seeing you in pain

"Nothing." You pulled yourself together even with the pain

"Nothing, my ass! What's that blood staining your uniform?"He pointed, seeing the blood even through the dark uniform. "Are you hurt?"He tried to reach his hands for the fabric, but you slapped his hand

"Get away!" You stepped back, pushing him away

"Don't be stubborn, brat. Let me see." He insisted

"Damn it, Sanemi! Let me go." You shouted and he rolled his eyes, pulling away and snorting

"You're so unbearable, so stubborn! You're annoying me being like this."

"You are just describing yourself, Sanemi. Why do you care so much, huh? Why?"You replied, angry at him. "You literally made a fuss to get me out of this life, not caring how I would feel and now you come here to worry about me."

"BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO FUCKING LOSE YOU!" He yelled, making you freeze at his action. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHY I WANT YOU OUT OF THE SLAYER CORPS NOW?"

You looked at him, not with an offensive demeanor like before, but more vulnerable after he admitted that.

"I never wanted this, I never wanted you to come into this life because you could die, you could be just another loss in the hands of demons. Damn! I don't want to lose anyone else and... I don't want to lose you too, idiot! I don't want you to die, that's why I always wanted to keep you away, I didn't want to get attached to you because I was afraid of losing you."He paused for a moment and you felt a certain moisture cover your eyes seeing him be so honest."I knew I was playing a dangerous game when I came to this house, when I came to see you after a mission and you smiled at me, when you treated my wounds, when you touched me, when we fu..." He closed his eyes, pressing his lips together and feeling such great anxiety take over him

You looked at him, listening to every single one of those words and finally understanding his reasons. Why he had done all that, why he had gone so far.

A little tear ran down your face, you felt sorry for him, all that sincerity of his didn't even make it seem like it was Sanemi who was there.

He rarely opened up, but at that moment he didn't hide anything from you. All those words caused something in you that you no longer knew if you still had a grudge against him or if you loved him even more.

"Sanemi..." You whispered his name softly

"And yet you came back to this life," He cut off your sentence that was going to follow."you came back to bleed. I could protect you if you had listened to me that night, I could keep you safe if you let me."His voice seemed calmer now and his gaze softer

"But you're not immortal, Sanemi. You can't do all this alone." You raised your eyes to meet his. "That's why I came back, to be by your side. Because I couldn't run away from my feelings."

You looked at each other for a moment that seemed endless. He wanted to respond to what you had just said but preferred to remain silent.

After that tense moment, you took a deep breath and slowly, your hands unbuttoned the top of your uniform and let it fall to the floor. Both your eyes and his were fixed on each other's faces. But for a moment, he looked at the open wound you had, the same one that stained your uniform.

You then took off your belt and pulled down your pants, throwing them to where the top of your uniform was.

You didn't know why you were doing it, why you were exposing yourself like that in front of him. Not that you haven't done this before, but for some reason it felt like the first time.

He looked your half-naked body up and down, seeing how you had evolved and some scars on your skin, the result of training and the missions you had done before. There were also some recent scratches and wounds, which was normal since you had just come from a mission.

However, that was still the body he had already marked, the body that his hands had already touched, the body that no one else could have but him.

"Aren't you going to finish the show?"He asked, a slight teasing tone in his low, deep voice

"No, you don't deserve to see the rest after chose to stay quiet and leave me instead of solving things." You decided to act tough like he used to do, giving him a taste of his own medicine

"Hiding something that I've already seen a lot of times?"His words were getting more and more suggestive and you just sighed

"I need to go take a shower and treat these wounds. If you want to wait for a moment, feel free. I won't be long."

"Maybe if you had calmed down that pretty ass of yours, none of this would have happened."

You felt your cheeks turn red at the comment, but you didn't let it get to you. He was making you feel embarrassed and it was annoying you.

You walked past him, but a stronger arm grabbed you by the waist and kissed you voraciously. You were speechless when he did that so suddenly, and worse than that, you didn't know why you were kissing him back. Maybe it was how much you missed him, maybe it was the love you still felt, maybe it was the fact that he was even more intense than before. You didn't knew.

You stepped away for a moment, looking at him, trying process what just happened.

"What are you doing?" You asked

"What do you think? Taking back what's mine." He said, pushing you against the wall and kissing your lips

You wrapped your arms around his neck while his strong hands held your waist. You opened your mouth, allowing his tongue to enter to dance with yours. You already missed that warm, that strong arms around you, the rough and messy lips against yours.

It didn't take long for him to remove your last two pieces of clothing, his agile and calloused hands running over your skin. As soon as his right hand went down between your legs, you grabbed his wrist and that's when his lips left your neck and looked at you.

"You still have a lot of clothes, don't you think?" You bit your lip in a teasing way."It's a bit unfair."

He quickly removed his uniform, your hands coming to help his and allowing you to see his naked body.

He was already strong before becoming a hashira and had defined muscles but now they were even more developed.

"I see you've trained a lot these years." You looked him up and down, your hands passing all over the chest and abdomen."Your muscles look harder."

"And it's not just the muscles."He raised an eyebrow suggestively

"It seems so."You looked down, noticing his erection and you just smiled, licking your lips

You then held his shoulders, jumping on his arms with your legs wrapped around his waist. His hands digging into the flesh of your thighs as his lips found yours once more.

"Come on, make me yours then." Your lips brushed against his, both of your panting breaths meeting

"You're already mine, don't you understand?" He growled. "No one else can have you. Only me."

~~~

So much longing for each other, so much lost time was being made up for between the two of you at that moment. So many kisses, so many hugs, caresses, words, so many things he wanted to do during all that time were now being put into practice. He wasn't satisfied, the rounds on the bathroom weren't enough, now in the bedroom he was still there, all over you, his lips kissing your neck as he moved inside you. One hand ran from your thigh and moved towards your neck. Your moans and whimpers, his name coming out of your mouth like a plea, was driving him crazy. He already missed hearing you moaning his name.

"I bet your friend would give anything to be in my place now...Filling you like this..."He whispered, breathlessly, close to your ear."But you can't give him that pleasure, because you're mine. All mine." He quickened the pace and you moaned

"Nemi..."

"I'm going to make everyone know who you are... Everyone will know that you'll be my beautiful wife."He grunted, his hands grabbing your jaw."Would you accept it?"

"I-I'm...Nemi..."You felt the joy and pleasure tears running your cheeks as you felt yourself so close

"Say it."He picked up the pace even more, his hand tightening its grip on your jaw, making the things harder for you.

"Yes...I accept to be your wife..."A loudly moan left your lips, your mind too foggy and fucked to think straight at that moment."I'm cumming..."

"That's it, come for me, baby."He panted, moving faster."Show how much you miss me."

Your head tilted back on the pillow, his lips met your open ones, kissing you while he was still fucking you through your orgasm, your moans muffled by the kiss. The overstimulation caused your nails to dig deep into the skin on his back, probably leaving red lines everywhere, he didn't feel pain, only pleasure from it. It also hadn't take much for him to come and spill all his seed inside of you, until you're full and dripping out on the sheets.

"Fuck."He grunted with a last thrust

He rested his forehead against yours, catching his breath, his eyes closed, the drops of sweat on his body mixing with yours, his fingers relaxing their grip on your hip and a long sigh leaving his lips.

Your eyes were almost closed but you could still see his face above yours, a face with scars but so precious at that moment. The face of the man you dreamed all that time.

"Babe?" You called softly

"Hm?" His eyes still remained closed

"Are you okay?"

He just nodded, opening his eyes slightly to meet yours.

"I missed this." You said, running your hands over his face. "I missed you."

"Me too." He took your hand and kissed it, then leaned in to kiss your lips

It was a soft kiss, more romantic than the ones he had given you before.

"So... What are we now?"

"I told you before, you're my fiancée now."He replied, looking into your eyes. "And I'm going to put a ring on that finger of yours one of these days."

"Wow, that's sounds romantic!"You giggled."I like that side of you. You could be like that more often instead of being rough."

"I didn't see you complain."

"Shut up."You patted his shoulder and he gave you a peck on the lips

The Hashira withdraw from you and knelt between your legs, seeing the mess he had made of you. Your body was sweaty, your face flushed, your chest was heaving and your legs were spread and shaking.

"When was the last time you ended up like this?"

"Like what?"

"Exactly like you are now."

"Let me see...Oh, the night you stormed out of my room, remember?"

"Great, that means no one else had to touch what's mine since that day. Good girl."He smirk

"Asshole." You smiled, stretching out your leg to lightly kick his chest, but he pulled you onto his lap by it

You rested your forehead against his and you smiled, planting a kiss on his nose and then on his lips.

"Tomorrow I have to go talk to the master in the morning. I'll make my mission report." You said. "I didn't actually return to my role as a full-time member of the corps but as an "extra help" on the missions. I was thinking about talking to the master, to see if he'll let me supervise the trainees too." You said, looking into his eyes and seeing them soften. You couldn't tell for sure if it was because of your fingers playing with his hair or if it was because of your decision.

"As long as you stay off the battlefield or just carry out missions solely by my side, it's fine with me."

"But I'm strong, you know? I can handle those demons by myself too."

"I know, I can see the passion for the battlefield in your eyes when you fight."His arms embraced you and he kissed the valley of your breasts. "I just don't want you fighting alone either, but now that you mentioned supervising trainees, it wouldn't be a bad idea to see you acting all tough, leading those weaklings."He smiled

"Don't say that, I feel sorry for them, they are so young but some are so determined. I feel even more bad when they have to train with you." You laughed

"Oh, it seems your heart has softened. I still remember when you used to torture demons." He look at you, his head tilting to the side."Now you feel sorry for those idiots?"

"I would never give them the same treatment."

"Why not? I bet they would become stronger."

"The only difference is that I don't kill them, like I do with demons after torturing them."You winked at him, kissing his forehead and hugging his body closer to yours

~~~

After remaining hugged for a few moments, he pulled away and could see a stain of your blood on his arm that was from the wound. Maybe due to the previous effort you ended up bleeding.

"Your wound opened," He laid you down on the mattress and you looked at him."I'm going to get something to clean it and then treat it." You nodded

You couldn't help but look at the way he held the wet cloth all over your body, cleaning not only the blood from the wound but also the traces of the previous act.

"Nice job you did down there." You said and he looked at you

"Thanks!" A smirk appeared on his lips. "I was just marking my territory."

"Why are you always so---ahh." You grunted in pain as he passed the wet cloth over the wound."Possessive?"

"Did it hurt?"

"What do you think?!"

He then bandaged the wound for you, rolling his eyes every time you winced or complained that it hurt.

~~~

"Can I ask you a question?" You looked at him as he lay down next to you

"What?"

"When was the last time you had a night like that?" You decided to ask him the same thing

"As far as I remember, it was the same night you got mad at me and sent me away." He said

"Oh, so it seems no one has touched what's mine since then either. Good boy." You smiled teasingly. "Good night, Nemi."You said, turning off the lamp and he just frowned as you lay down with your back to him

"I guess I'm not the only possessive one here, am I?" He whispered next to your ear, one hand around your waist pulling your back against his chest

"I'm just marking my territory." You turn your head to look at him, teasingly

Sanemi couldn't help but find your playful face hilarious, you being possessive like him also turned him on a little.

"I liked that side of yours, you know? It suits you well."He kissed your forehead and pulled you closer."Good night."

[tiny-feisty-gay]

I see your a fellow Chaggie shipper. As am I. ANd I've asked other Chaggie shippers on tumblr and I must ask you: What are your FULL thoughts on Charlie learning of Vaggie's secret? From finding out in Heaven to her whole anger/hurt/confusion at Vaggie.

i wasn't ignoring this but i needed a few days to gather my thoughts because i have lots of them

between heaven and the two of them meeting back up with an army/weapons in tow, there's roughly a month's worth of time as far as i've been told/can tell, so i'm going based on that rough timeline

charlie's first reaction, imo, was shock; the way she collapsed and let vaggie shepherd her and guard her isn't the reaction of someone who's immediately jumped to anger/mistrust, it's the reaction of someone whose entire life view has just been altered.

i don't think they ever actually fought about it. gut feeling maybe, but considering what we saw (charlie curled in bed crying, vaggie saying "in our room... alone") and my personal hc that she takes after her dad in times of emotional turmoil by self-isolating and sinking into the depression... i have a feeling they didn't even talk about it for a while.

vaggie might have tried to; we got a glimpse of it right around alastor's deal with charlie. i firmly believe that after it was in the open, she probably did try to explain herself, and charlie was still half-shocked and feeling a bit betrayed and didn't have the brain space to deal with it between the upcoming extermination and knowledge that her loved ones were going to be targeted first. she probably did a ton of soul-searching on her own; remember, charlie is +/- a good few centuries, if not older, so while she's very upbeat and happy, it's not unreasonable to think she's had a good while to practice some emotional maturity. she isn't perfect, obviously, but based on how much she adores vaggie, i think she'd want to know firmly where she stands before they talk things out.

i also think vaggie was terrified the entire time that she'd just fucked up the only genuine, good relationship (romantic or otherwise) that she's ever had. we don't get much backstory on what things were like for her in heaven, but she doesn't seem to have been particularly close to anyone there, and "whatever it takes" sort of reinforces that with her "and it felt so good to be understood / but there's so much i wish that i could say." i think she wanted to tell charlie but she kept putting it off, and the longer she put it off the worst she thought it'd be, until she hit a point where she felt like she couldn't tell charlie because what would charlie think of her after lying to her for three years?

charlie did likely wonder how much of it had been a lie and whether vaggie had ulterior motives, because who wouldn't, but i think she dismissed that pretty fast. especially because there's no way angel and the rest of the crew didn't notice vaggie moping around like a kicked puppy; i'm sure they were equally unhappy with vaggie's lying, but the group sentiment didn't seem anything more than mildly annoyed by it.

she was the most hurt by the fact that vaggie didn't trust her enough to tell her; supported by her conversation with rosie. and that seems pretty fair, imo: vaggie knows how much charlie can forgive, can see the potential for redemption in people, and she's had an up-close view of that in vaggie for the last three years. and charlie trusts (trusted) vaggie wholeheartedly, so the idea of that not being reciprocal hurt her deeply.

i think they tried to talk things out ~a couple weeks in, and vaggie shut down in the middle of the conversation from a mix of trauma and fear that she'd lose charlie; i love vaggie dearly, but she's placed a ton of her self-worth on how useful she is to charlie. she very much believes she's nothing without charlie, because charlie saved her and is a large part of who she's become. there's a little bit of a power imbalance/codependency on vaggie's side, and while i don't think that's insurmountable for them nor do i think the relationship as a whole is unhealthy, that piece of it must have made it absolute torture to be pushed away.

i think she and angel may have had a few late-night conversations actually; they seem like they're on better/friendlier terms just before alastor and charlie make their deal; the whole "you ever think she's sensitive about her lack of wings? ... just like her lack of tits :D" bit struck me a lot more like friendly ribbing/trying to lighten the mood rather than actual malice. angel definitely doesn't have much experience with healthy relationships, but he does have experience with damage control, and i imagine he gave vaggie advice that basically boiled down to don't push, let her come to you, she's really hurt and needs to process. he cares a ton about charlie even if he doesn't show it, but i think he has sort of a begrudging respect/love-hate thing with vaggie lol. especially after the battle-bonding.

their first actual conversation about it was probably after the cannibal town army/weapons stockup before the battle. talking to rosie clearly really helped charlie process things, and i do think it's interesting that as far as we know, she hasn't talked to her father about it; not particularly surprising since their relationship is a bit tenuous, but still interesting, since he would likely have been a good perspective for her to have as a fellow fallen angel (ex-angel? idk if vaggie really counts as fallen). but regardless, rosie helped her a lot and most of her initial betrayal and hurt seems to have fizzled out with just the "why didn't she trust me?" piece left.

that was probably the main thing they talked about. vaggie tells her about what really happened to get her stuck here, and charlie is furious, and that alone probably helps her understand; i'd have trust issues, too, if someone i'd known presumably my whole life ripped off my limbs and cut my eye out. vaggie and charlie had an instant connection, clearly, but she didn't trust charlie enough to tell her initially and then things spiraled out of control. by the time she realized charlie might be okay with her past, she'd already been hiding it so long that it felt like too big a secret to share. and i think some part of her still believed this would be something charlie couldn't forgive.

and my favorite hc: charlie can't forgive it. we don't know how many souls vaggie has fully eradicated, but it has to be in the thousands, at least. lute's kill count from one purge was 275, and adam references vaggie being "one of his top girls." there's also a detail i saw pointed out elsewhere; most of the exorcists have plain black halos, except for lute, whose halo has a white glow as well... and vaggie, whose halo shares the same glow. there's a good chance she was high up in the ranks, possibly third in command -- and possibly quickly closing in on having a higher kill count than lute, which would explain her vitriol and eagerness to get rid of vaggie at the first sign of weakness. but obviously, that's just a headcanon. as is much of the above xD

but back to charlie, i don't think she'd be able to forgive that. the good news is, she doesn't have to. charlie is upbeat and optimistic, but she was raised in hell. she's not naive; she knows the people she wants to save have committed heinous atrocities. the difference is that she believes in change. the vaggie she knows, the one standing in front of her, isn't an exorcist. she's her partner, who while yes, eager to anger and easy to jump to violence, only does so when she or charlie are provoked/threatened. charlie is capable of still being disappointed/devastated by vaggie's past and acknowledging that it's not her present - or future.

one of the things i also think is so important is the battle scene. that was a huge test of charlie's acceptance; seeing her girlfriend step back into that role, that violence, was a big thing, one that nobody would've blamed her for recoiling from. she doesn't. she fights alongside vaggie (albeit... creatively, we'll say) and yes, the exorcists are enemies and she has a long history of reasons to hate them, but even during the battle she doesn't. she's still apologetic and doesn't really want to hurt anyone, just deter them. it takes vaggie telling her to be harsher for her to do it, and she follows vaggie's instruction. this is vaggie's area of expertise, and while she may have learned those skills by butchering Charlie's people, she's repurposed those skills. She's armor, not a weapon; she's violent only to defend, not out of bloodlust.

i think it's really easy to misunderstand charlie's acceptance of vaggie's past as naive or their reconciliation as too soon/too easy, but there's three years of history behind them and charlie actively chooses not to let this new information shatter the foundation they've built together. they're a prime example of the idea that relationships work because you continue to choose that person, to choose to work at it, and while that only works if both sides are willing, for vaggie and charlie, they are.

i do really hope we see vaggie find some self-worth outside of charlie in s2, though. she has so much potential to explore the complexity of her character and i really want to see that. i don't think they're bad for each other, but to some extent... vaggie went from serving one entity (adam) to serving another (charlie) and that level of devotion can be dangerous. charlie is infinitely better than adam, don't get me wrong, but vaggie definitely needs to find purpose beyond being charlie's right hand.

i'm personally hoping for sort of an... exorcist/angel ambassador role for her? something that ties into the hotel but is independent of charlie and something she wants to do. or maybe teaching self-defense/offense to the rest of the group (which she likely did for the battle/army, since she knows better than anyone how the exorcists fight).

honestly i probably have more thoughts than this but i hope you enjoyed my stream of consciousness ramble about Them <3

[veephoenix]

Chapter tags & trigger warnings: angst/hurt, intoxication, patient in recovery, panic attacks, mentions of substance abuse. | Word count: 1.5k | Series masterpost. ✧.*

General trigger warnings: This work addresses and depicts issues related to addiction and violence, contains explicit sexual content, and explores themes of childhood trauma. Reader discretion is advised.

The world we live in is one that teaches you to fear death since you’re a child, but as we grow up, some of us realize that we’re not really scared of dying; we’re scared of losing the ones we love the most.

Twenty-four hours after I held Lia in my arms, I called grandma. It was 5pm in Japan. 

“Grandma, it’s Lia. She’s… she’s in the hospital. I don’t know what to do.”

I didn’t know what else to say, either, and there was nothing she could say to change the situation. 

Lia lay in an uncomfortable bed, and IV line connected to her right arm. Her black tights and the oversized shirt she had been using as a dress were gone, replaced by a whitish gown. Underneath, ECG leads were attached to her chest to keep track of her heart. Her feet were naked under the cold sheets. The hardest part to look at was her face. She was pale, her lips chapped, her hair greasy, and there was an NC connected to her nose to provide her with oxygen. 

Her eyes were closed. I couldn’t see her light. 

I couldn’t bear to see her like that. 

I was sitting in the single uncomfortable armchair that was in the room, looking at her with my chin rested on my intertwined hands. My elbows pressed on my knees. My body was bent forward, toward her. There was nothing I could do but stare at her benumbed body.  

I had touched her hand before, but the cold startled me, and I had to leave the room for a while before I succumbed to another wave of panic.  

The first panic attack came when we arrived at the hospital, right after the paramedics carried Lia’s numb body in a stretcher towards the ER. The air was thick with urgency as they talked to a group of people covered in white clothes: nurses and doctors. One of them turned her gaze toward me, and a few seconds after, the woman was standing in front of me. She asked me who I was to Lia. I didn’t know what to say. Her best friend, her only family, her lover? Luckily for me, Jolly was standing by my side, and he gave an honest and valid reply, sparing me from the struggle. With a nod of acknowledgment, the doctor asked for an insight into Lia’s history, her problems. They wanted to know what had happened, why it had happened…

Then I started panicking. I didn’t know where to look, where to go. 

Jolly must have managed the situation. The doctor nodded, jotting down a few things on a sheet of paper, and went back to where Lia had been taken; a secluded corner where she was out of my sight the moment they moved a curtain to separate her body from the rest of the patients and people in the emergency room.  

There were too many people. Too many accidents. Too much pain and death. 

I shouldn’t be there. Merely four hours ago I was standing on a stage, controlling a crowd of over six thousand people. Now, I couldn’t get a hold of myself. 

My breaths grew ragged, the noise around me transforming into an unbearable symphony. Tightness gripped my chest. I was suffocating. I pressed a trembling hand against my chest as I moved somewhere in search of support. I heard a few voices behind me, some calling my name. Then there were a few nurses approaching us, one of them said something about not being allowed in those premises, that we had to wait outside. I couldn’t wait, didn’t they understand? I needed to know that Lia was going to be okay. They wouldn’t shut up. Someone called out my name, louder than before, the voice breaking through. Following that, I felt a hand gripping my shoulder. 

Nicholas.

I looked up to find him, and I collapsed in his arms as I let out a cry and the tears started flowing. 

He held the weight of my body as I emptied myself of everything I’d been carrying for the last few months: the guilt for not realizing sooner that Lia was being abused by the one who was supposed to adore her, the guilt for not gathering the courage to tell her what I felt, the anger for every time Lia refused to talk to me, the anger at every time she decided the pills were better than my shoulder, then, every other mistake until this very right moment, when I didn’t know if I would ever get the chance to hold her in my arms and see her smiling up at me, her eyes shining with anticipation as I bent down to kiss her. 

A nurse approached us and suggested that I lay down in one of the beds. The promise of care and a calming remedy seemed tempting, but all that I could mutter was a harsh “fuck off”. I didn’t want to hear about any fucking pill that would calm me down. Nicholas raised a hand and gestured towards the nurse to give me some space. 

It took me a grueling thirty minutes to calm down, and even after that, I still couldn’t stand straight without my legs shaking and my chest hurting. My eyes would burn until Lia opened hers. 

I didn’t sleep that night, and neither did I the next one. 

I remained awake, by Lia’s side. At times I drifted between reality and dreams. There were moments when I drifted into a hazy realm, only to be abruptly pulled back into the real world. In those instances, I would jolt awake gripped by the haunting illusion that Lia had woken up, that she was awake and was calling my name, asking for my hand to pull her out of the water. 

She was still unconscious. 

As the hours ticked away, the room started getting filled with flowers and bouquets that our friends brought as they came to see her, check on her. Jolly stayed with me for hours and insisted that I go to the hotel and take a shower, get changed into clean clothes and eat something while he looked after her, but I denied over and over again, relenting only when he managed to coax me into sipping on a cheap disgusting coffee fetched from the hospital’s cafeteria. 

I saw him crying for the first time in my life when he entered the room shortly after they had settled Lia into the bed. 

Folio didn’t even dare to come in. He was terrified, and I learnt days later that he had endured a series of nightmares the night following the incident. 

As I looked around and took in the colors filling the room, I wondered if the number of flowers was intended for Lia or perhaps meant as a collective gesture to instill hope in me, a silent illusion that would make me believe that Lia would recover.  

I had lost track of time. 

I had seen the sun rise twice since I settled in that sterile room, which meant I had been there for two days and that Lia had been asleep for forty-eight hours, at least. I had only eaten two bites of a cheese sandwich that someone brought. I couldn’t recall if it was Matt or Bryan. Maybe, Jolly. Who cared. 

I saw them all coming in and out of the room constantly the first day. The second one, it was just me and the closest to me and Lia. The rest of the team flew back home because life didn’t stop, even if it had for her. Even if it had for me. 

My mind was filled with a void, but every once in a while a question would pop up, or an image. They were so random, varying from one happy scenario to a very tragic one. I saw Lia as a kid, when grandma used to do her hair and braid it at her back, then I saw her falling of my bike, but she looked older. I saw myself drowning in the same lake where we had swum all those summers ago. I saw Lia kissing a boy who wasn’t me in the lake’s deck. Then I saw her wearing the same dress she had worn the day she graduated from high school. The image transitioned to one in which she was wearing a white dress. I was waiting for her at the end of the desire path, ready to marry her. In the next one, I saw her playing with a huge dog somewhere in the mountains, her body covered by layers of clothing and a thick scarf. She smiled at someone, and I realized it was at me. She called me to go to her, and I did, but as I reached to grab her hand, she faded away. 

I opened my eyes in a halt, again. I sat upright in the armchair and grabbed the front of the hoodie I was wearing. I was breathing hard, and I could feel a drop of sweat sliding down my back. 

It was a dream. 

Then, I heard what I had been waiting for two eternal days, and there was no telling it wasn’t real. 

“Noah?”

Lia’s voice calling my name. 

Author's note: This is the end of Koi No Yokan. From this chapter we move onto Zutto (or a Promise of Forever) where I promise there will be less angst and more fluff and love between Lia and Noah 🥹

Thank you to every one that's been reading and commenting on this story :') It means a lot.

READ ZUTTO CHAPTER ONE HERE

[daebraeksan]

Scared to talk to Bachira about him hurting your feelings (but then you do it and he apologizes and you forgive him)

Genre: comfort, established relationship, pro player Bachira

Contents: anxiety, insecurity, implied trauma, trust issues, fear of confrontation

Wc: 1289

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

You’re in a little bit of a catastrophic spiral. You feel really tender and sensitive and like anything could send you over the edge. You feel like you’ve done everything wrong (what specifically? Everything. What more explanation could you possibly want?) and you feel like everything is going to be taken away from you.

You get like this sometimes. You try not to. But it’s hard to outrun a childhood. And you aren’t really trying to outrun it. You just want to be happy despite it.

Having Bachira in your life is one thing you have tried to remove from the list of things you have periodic freak outs about. You want to work on your trust issues, and you have, and you know Bachira is trustworthy. He has never done anything to prove otherwise. Logic doesn’t really help your anxieties or insecurities but you still feel the need to point out the facts.

You’ve been off kilter for a few days in a row, situations not going your way, some major, some minor, and you hate it. You hate that you can’t just coping-strategy all of this away—all of these feelings away. You pace around your house. You sit down at the dining table and rock yourself. You curl up on the couch in an incredibly uncomfortable position and don’t move. 

Normally, you are pretty good at feeling secure in your relationships with people. You’ve worked hard to get to this point. You don’t have to second guess their motives, when you’ve known them for a long time, and they’ve demonstrated nothing but respect and kindness towards you. But this week has been crazy for Bachira, too, or something—regardless of the reason, you felt ignored one too many times, felt like you were snapped at, and felt like you were expendable. You don’t blame him at all since it’s your interpretation but at the same time you know from experience that invalidating your emotions isn’t going to make any of this go away.

And then you’ve gone and wrapped yourself up in your old habits of being afraid to talk about something. Your classic fear rears its head: you’re too much trouble, way more trouble than you’re worth, and everyone is going to leave you.

Bachira comes home, drops his stuff off haphazardly in the front doorway, and makes a beeline straight towards you. He ruffles your hair and presses a kiss to the top of your head. 

“I’m home,” he sings.

You smile at him, but you feel crazy. He must notice something is off—how could he not?—because he cups your cheek. It has the intended effect—you indeed feel soothed. You nuzzle your cheek into his palm. You want to be completely engulfed in his touch. You hate everything you’re feeling right now. It’s too hard. 

“What do you want to do tonight?”

You know sometimes he asks this as a formality. He always likes having something to do—but he is content to “compromise” with you and create an “event” for something very normal and calm and low-key that you also want to do (at home. Definitely at home.) (You hate that word because it still feels like both people lose something but whatever the word is for both people are happy with the outcome lol.) 

“I don’t know,” you half-lie—at the very least, you know you have to talk to him. The words coagulate like mucus in your throat. You’re so stupid. This shouldn't be that hard.  Bachira loves you and he’s going to listen to you and nothing is going to be wrong.

You can tell yourself these things. And it won’t help. But to be fair, being mean to yourself won’t help either, but. Yknow. You aren’t going to win every battle. Definitely not this one today.

Not that you want this conversation with  Bachira to seem like a battle. You don’t. 

He studies you for a bit. “We could…just relax together until we think of something?”

You like having a specifically-designated task, something delineated, and can make you feel like you aren’t a failure and aren’t causing a fuss or scene or trouble. You aren’t ruining everyone’s night, this still “counts” as “successful”—you give in to all your old habits, all your rigid, self-scaring habits. Why not? When it rains it pours, or whatever. Let the dam break. Etc. 

You hear him heating up food in the kitchen and he spreads everything out on the coffee table in the living room. You look at him adoringly. He knows you don't eat when you’re like this. That bastard. Loving you and taking care of you. 

How dare he?

You both start on your food, him digging in, and you nibbling. 

“Can we talk?” you ask. 

“Always,” he says, and a few pieces of rice fly out of his mouth onto the table. He picks them up and tries to feed them to you.

“No!” you bark jokingly as you twist your head away, scrunching up your face, trying not to laugh because then he will put the rice in your mouth.

“Don’t waste food!” he admonishes seriously.

“Stop!” you finally let out a giggle. He eats the rice himself and settles back down. 

You stare at him and he stares at you.

“Sorry,” he says. “It’s your turn again.”

“Thank you,” you say. You figure you might as well ease yourself into it. You don’t have to accuse yourself of manipulation or lying or whatever—you just need to let yourself be. You’re trying your best. You start off with talking about some random topics that were bothering you this week to set the scene. You explain the headspace you’ve been in and how you’ve been feeling.

He puts down his food. “I’m sorry that happened,” he says. “Can I hug you?”

You nod. You put down your food just as he throws his arms around you and squeezes you tight. He kisses your cheek. “I don’t mean for those actions to make you feel those ways.  Is there anything I can do to show you that  I didn’t mean any of that, and that I love you so much?”

You are very embarrassed. You hate to ask for anything—even normal boring stuff, and now, this feels like you are being asked to ask for something extra special. Asking someone to make amends to you feels so wrong. It feels like you’re not supposed to cause other people trouble. But anything you say, Bachira probably has already done before, and is okay with it, and some, he’s even done on his own volition before, and you  might not have even known it was what you liked or wanted before him.

You make your requests of how you want to spend some time with him doing your favorite activities and he happily acquiesces.  

“I’ve been wanting that, too,” he says. He peppers kisses all over your face. “I’m sorry you had a bad week,” he says. “That’s so stupid.”

“It was really stupid,” you say sadly. 

He shakes you. “Do you want me to beat them up?” he asks in the most chipper tone.

You sigh and shake your head. “No. Let’s just watch tv.”

He grabs blankets, and you finish the rest of your food while watching your comfort show, snuggled up next to Bachira, who waits patiently until you’re done eating so he can hold your hand. 

Nothing can make the bad events of this week less bad—but you also don’t have to carry your insecure energy into next week. You know you can do what you need to do and you know it’s okay to feel this way sometimes. And if there’s anyone who believes in you the most, it’s Bachira.

[ncsdlr]

Pick and Choose - Blossoming Love

Riverdale

Warnings: cheating (I do not encourage this), CHONI, hints of depression, talks of past trauma.

Pairings: Cheryl Blossom x fem!reader

Word Count: 1566

AN: Well, I finished this way faster than I thought I would, so here we are. I hope this isn't as shit as I think it is. 😃

_____________

A month. A whole ass month's worth of all this chatting, dating, and being clingy. You were so tired. You wanted a break, at least for a few minutes. In complete honesty, it wasn't all bad. You appreciated the gifts, the words of affirmation, and the romantic dates. All you wished for was a little distance. Everything was getting so serious so fast, and the fact that Cheryl made you feel so good about yourself didn't sit right with you.

Vulnerability wasn't your strong suit. It made you feel small. It made you feel like you were weak. So, to have someone act so close to you, made you feel things you didn't want to feel. "My love, what is on your mind?"

You tore your eyes away from the invisible speck on the ground and focused on your lover. You shook your head, "Nothing."

"I fear I don't believe that. Something else on your mind must have stolen your attention away from my gorgeous frame."

You internally cringed, not knowing whether to make an excuse or tell her exactly what was on your mind. "I'm just thinking of... things."

"Anything I can assist you with?"

You wrapped your arm around yourself and rubbed it on the bicep it landed on. Cheryl eyed your hand and squinted at it. "Not really. They're pretty mundane things."

Cheryl let you slide and opened her phone as it pinged. She grinned but rolled her eyes at the message she received. It read, "Fine, you win." Cheryl intended to ignore the message entirely, but then she got curious about how things would turn out. So, Cheryl being Cheryl, she let herself fall into the moment. "Meet me on our spot at Pop's."

"Dear, Y/N, I apologize, but I must leave. Something very important has come up. But do expect that once I get back to you, I will have very exciting news." Cheryl gave you a smile before she stood up and left, seemingly in a hurry. You didn't even get a word in, not that you minded.

Finally, peace and quiet. 

On second thought, your book gently fell back against the table as your mind wandered off somewhere no one would ever find. What could it have been? Cheryl would stay with you the whole day, and when she would tell you that she had to leave earlier, she'd let you give out a response before changing her mind and staying instead. You were so curious, it was, honestly, killing you. 

It took every fiber in you to take your book seriously. It was a good book. You didn't want to miss out. 

----

Toni sat there in all her glory waiting for Cheryl's striking entry, wearing her serpent jacket. She had made sure to dress up the way Cheryl wanted her to, knowing that if she did, their chances of getting back together would be higher. When the bell attached to the diner's door jingled, she turned her head to it, visibly lighting up as she spotted her favorite redhead strutting up to her. 

"I knew you couldn't live without me, I am, simply, the best thing anyone could ever ask for. So, dear Tee-Tee, I hope you've prepared a speech to move me enough to take you back." Cheryl sat on the stool to Toni's right and faced her ex. 

"Cheryl, I know we both can't live without each other. I can feel it. it's like we're bound together by some invisible string that makes us tied to each other. Cher, we complete each other, and this past month without you has been painful as hell." The way Toni spoke was gentle and soft. Cheryl loved this about her Toni. Her Tee-Tee could match the sensitivity of a situation with her words, and that made Cheryl feel safe. Toni handled her with so much care and patience, and she fell in love with that. She fell for Toni so hard and so fast. 

Toni meant everything to Cheryl, and losing her might as well be the world's end. With Toni, it was all or nothing for Cheryl. It was either commit or don't commit. She wanted to commit. They both did, but for Cheryl, something came up. Sure, she still wanted Toni, but not as much as before. Now, she only wanted Toni at a certain level.

They love each other dearly. They cared for each other. But there was this large strain in their bond that made it seem like fixing things or talking it out would not suffice as a fix. They felt compelled to hear the three words they dedicated to each other again, but Cheryl had restraints now.

Then in the heat of the moment, Cheryl found herself leaning back against the counter while Toni pressed her body against her's for a big kiss. It was slow and passionate, something they'd been yearning to experience from each other again. Now that Cheryl had Toni again, everything else just didn't matter, or in Cheryl's mind, fuck it.

They found themselves in Cheryl's bedroom at the Thistle house, making out against her door like they would die if they stopped. It just felt so good. Their hips gyrated against each other, the moment proving to grow hotter by the second. As Cheryl's back hit the soft mattress of her bed all the while keeping her lips locked onto Toni's, it sealed their fate for the night.

When they awoke the next morning, they did their morning routine. They shower together while making no effort to keep their hands to themselves, cooking breakfast, and holding onto each other on their way to school. They were both still reeling off from their midnight escapades the previous night, so the world was pretty much blurred around them. Their focus remained on each other, not even bothering to hide their very couple-ly PDA.

You noticed, of course. I mean, they were everywhere and they were the talk of the school. Most students murmured about Choni being back together, while the smaller half muttered sick comments saying how Cheryl used you to get Toni back.

You weren't going to lie and say you weren't hurt. You were, but not as much as you should be. Were you hurt? It wasn't like you cared about Cheryl at all. It's not like you weren't just starting to get comfortable enough to open up to her. Funny enough, you were, actually, planning on telling Cheryl everything tonight. Oh, well. It didn't matter anymore. She finally had what she wanted.

You proceeded with your day like normal. I mean, nothing really changed, it wasn't a big loss. That's what you told yourself at least. As the day dragged on, you forced yourself together, squeezing your eyes shut for a few seconds before opening them again to relieve some of the drowsiness you felt. When all of your classes for the day finished, you headed to the library and sat down on the floor between two aisles of bookshelves, resting your head in the palm of your hands as you curled your knees up to your chest.

Life, for you now, is uneventful, other than the whole Cheryl thing. Your life before coming to the North side of Riverdale was hell, but it was perfect nonetheless. Your parents were there, your family, your grandmother, your home, your serpent family. It was all you knew, so when you had to move due to Hiram's work, it really crushed your soul. Then came the day of your family slowly being ripped away from you. It was like your heart was being gripped very tightly, thus causing you to feel as if it had stopped beating entirely. But it still was. It just took you a while to realize it. 

After those traumatically tragic events, you opted to just go with the flow, sitting alone and keeping to yourself. You still hung out with the Serpents, of course, they are your only family left after all. But even if that is the case, you still felt like you were the only one who was left in the moment of grief. It looked, to you, like you were stuck in a ditch with no chance of getting out any time soon. It took something that shined as bright as the sun to find a way out, but even then, time was at a standstill for you.  

Along with that came the emptiness you felt. It was like you had something to do, but you didn't know exactly what that thing was. You were in a very complicated ditch, and there wasn't anything to grab onto around you. But there was one, only it was all the way on the other side, and you didn't have enough energy to get up and get to it. You wanted help, yet you were too tired to seek it. For you, it was exhausting to even think about, getting up to help yourself and all that. 

In this ditch, it was dark and cold. It felt like there was this big storm coming and it was nighttime, and there was no safe place around for you to nestle yourself in for, at least, the shortest amount of time. It was like, wandering around the desert, stressed, tired, and cold. It was pressuring. The world was pressuring. It motivated you yet diminished your confidence in conquering its trials. It tested your patience greatly.

And you aren't the most patient person to ever exist.

[buckybarnesss]

I was thinking the other day, Stiles has really gone through so much with his mom. There's being with her when she died (and the rush of relief/guilt that must have brought), dealing with her forgetting him and attacking him, and then having to fend off a magical clone of her in season 6.

It's interesting to me because no one else really has this level of parental trauma, and it's reoccurring in Stiles' narrative even though he never really talks about it. It's like it really is too personal for him to talk about with anyone, maybe not even Scott.

stiles as a character only makes sense when viewed from the lens of the trauma left by his mother's condition and death. claudia died when stiles was 8 years old and by that point she had gone through severe deterioration both mentally and physically.

we don't know when claudia started exhibiting over symptoms of dementia but i would hazard a guess of maybe 2-3 years seeing as she had a child within the last eight years of her life and stiles has memory of claudia before she was ill. still. it's way too young for him to fully understand what is happening.

like he internalized claudia's delusions that he was trying to kill her to the point of believing it on some level and believed that he was going to kill his father too. like jesus fucking christ.

his anxiety and obsessiveness surrounding his father's health and safety stems directly back to losing claudia. it's why he's so terrified of losing his friends.

hot take here i think his infatuation with lydia is wrapped up in feelings about claudia. he says he's been in love with her since the 3rd grade which would've been around the same time claudia passed. he latched onto lydia martin as a concept and didn't start seeing her as a real person until season 3.

his speech to her in master plan wasn't stiles talking to lydia it was talking to the lydia that was the stand in for his mother.

"you see, death doesn't happen to you, lydia. it happens to everyone around you, to all the people left standing at your funeral, trying to figure out how they're going to now live the rest of their lives without you in it."

it's why their relationship cannot progress romantically until the ghost of his mother is exorcised, but i haven't fully watched 6a yet and i still don't really view a romantic relationship between them as necessarily healthy.

but speaking of 6a, jesus christ the level of trauma of stiles has due to having to endure people forgetting about him. especially his father. his mother already forgot him once and died now his dad too? plus his closest friends. stiles's greatest fear come to life.

like with derek the trauma stiles endures isn't really talked about. stiles witnessed the mechanic get crushed by his jeep in abomination while being rendered helpless to do anything but watch and that's just glossed the fuck over.

this doesn't get into the relationship stiles has with his dad because that's all kinds of tangled. noah stilinski isn't a perfect father. there's definitely a level of stiles being both treated as a child and as an adult by his dad.

and you're right stiles resolutely doesn't discuss it with anyone. it's like he's taken it as his burden to bear and that's it. stiles keeps people emotionally at arms length as some measure of protection for himself. he's not really willing to crack himself open and share. emotionally vulnerability scares him.

one of the few times we see him really open and raw in front of others is when he's trying to talk scott down in motel california and holy shit stiles was fully prepared to just die with scott. you could say he was bluffing but was he? was he really?

the kids ain't alright in teen wolf. allison was never more right when she broke down saying "we're just a bunch of teenagers. we can't handle this."

they all need therapy.

[imogenkol]

I’m curious about your thoughts on Bix in that leaked teaser because I’m VERY worried about her storyline 😞

!!!!! thank you for asking!!! I am hella stressed about it too and I've got some long winded scrambled thots under the cut here:

As we know, she obviously isn't in/never mentioned in Rogue One and sometimes that implies a prequel character is doomed by the narrative so my main fear is that her story is going to end in her death. There's also a few lines from Cass in RO that could reinforce that theory (ie: him telling Jyn she isn't the only one who lost everything). Apart from me being totally biased, I do think it'd be a waste of her character, especially since she was criminally underutilized in s1 imo

anywho, from the poor quality clips/screencaps I've seen (I will admit that it can be kinda tough to tell who is who and some scenes flash by so quickly) it looks like Bix might be struggling a lot with feeling like her life is out of her control, even after at least a year time jump from s1. I do think it looks like she is the one who goes after Gorst either as revenge or to regain the control she lost or both. Then that shot of her in bed with the blaster could be the aftermath of that encounter, whether she succeeded or failed. If that's true then it doesn't look like it made her feel any better. But I imagine she'll be a very broken version of herself from when she first appeared in ep 1 because she basically did lose everything and was tortured to near insanity

All of this must have radicalized her, but it's hard to say what kind of rebel she'll be. I hope her storyline is centered mostly on herself, her healing, and the kind of person she wants to be in the war against the Empire. Based on the trailer and some set pictures I've seen, it looks like she’ll thankfully be taking on a more active role and I'd really enjoy seeing her kick some ass. At least for herself considering she had to get rescued a couple of times in s1.

It also very much looks like they're putting her back with Cass and, my own personal ship biases aside, I don't really like that at all. I really love the history and dynamic they share and I thought they made it pretty explicit that any romantic ties between them were cut. I've seen people theorize that she isn't in the right state of mind and might be grasping for any physical connection that makes her feel safe - which can make sense given the trauma she went through - but idk I wish we could explore more of a nuanced friend/familial relationship between her and Cass. I know it’s his show, but I really don’t want to see her be reduced to a romantic prop for him or god forbid she’s that and he loses her to further fuel his storyline. Either way, Bix is in a very vulnerable emotional state and I'm not sure any love interest would be necessary for her (yes I know how ironic that is coming from me and my many oc x canon google docs lmao) at least not until she's had the proper time to heal.

All this to say that it looks like they're setting her up for another pretty tragic arc next season and I hope the payoff doesn't end in complete emotional devastation, but this is one of, if not THE darkest star wars stories out there 🙃

These thoughts of course are just based off a grainy one minute teaser trailer that could very well be purposefully deceptive considering the show hasn't even finished filming yet. But I'd love to hear other people's thoughts too!

[april-december]

Comments in the main reblog today, because I have a lot to say and I want to say it right.

If you don’t want to listen to trauma regarding grief and death, feel free not to read. I think I just need to get this down for my own catharsis.

Because you see, grief is a terrible thing. It’s the aching absence of the thing you love. What you love is gone; but the love remains and you no longer have that person or thing to give it to.

And then there’s anticipatory grief. This is when you know you’re going to lose that thing, and you are already grieving that loss, before it happens. But the thing is, that person you love is still with you! You want to enjoy the time you have! But you can’t, because everything, every joy and every sadness is tainted by the fact that you know: this isn’t going to last. They will be gone.

I am speaking from experience here. My Mum died in February this year. Her name was Brenda and she was 63. She died of Multiple Sclerosis, a disease so insidious that I can only think of one worse fate, and that is motor neurone disease. Sometimes MS isn’t fatal; you get episodes of it, and then it retreats into the background. Sometimes it is fatal; it progresses, relentlessly over years, stripping away every working function of the body as nerves and pathways are destroyed.

My mum was diagnosed when I was five. I was 37 when she died.

That is 32 years of knowing my mum was sick.

At five years old I was too old to understand much, just that she was ill, and the fact that some day, being mortal, my mum would die.

It wasn’t always apparent that it was going to kill her; at 17, she reassured me that she had the type that didn’t kill. A few years later it became obvious that she *did* have the type that killed.

My sisters left for uni. My dad got scared and ran away, vastly unhappy with his life. I became my mum’s Carer. We lived together from my birth until her death.

All this to say, I understand, intimately, how much it can fuck you up to know that the person you love most is going to die. And not to know when it’s going to happen, just that it will, just that they will die too soon, no matter what you do to try to help.

Because you can’t fight death. You just can’t.

And Agatha knew Nicky was going to die. She must have noticed him getting sicker. And that is terrifying, knowing that the thing you fear most is hurtling towards you, coming right at you, and you can’t stop it. It fucks you up. It fucked Agatha up for the next 270 years. And I bet you that in that montage up there where she’s teaching Nicky about magic, and singing and playing with him - it’s beautiful, but I bet that at every moment, there was some small part of her twisting in sadness because she knew it wouldn’t last.

And not knowing *when* it’s going to happen. Oh, that is the worst thing of all. Will it be today? Tomorrow? A year from now? Do I have a decade to enjoy? (Of course, it’s impossible to tell, and so it’s impossible to fully enjoy it without that fear that it’s going to be taken away).

Rio thought she was giving Agatha a gift: time with her son.

And we see it in the scene where Nicky is born. Agatha desperately asks ‘How much time?’. Because isn’t that the most natural question? You find out someone will die, the first thing you want to know is how much precious time you have with them. As if knowing will help to prepare you.

But Rio is gone already, giving no answer, leaving Agatha with this terrifying black hole of a question she /cannot/ divine the answer to. Agatha loves to /know/. Her crime against her coven was stealing knowledge she wasn’t supposed to have! She’s in her 70s in these scenes and she’s still shown with books, learning, and passing that knowledge on to Nicky. And there is this one burning, terrifying question she doesn’t know the answer to. That she has no way of divining. I think she might hold that against Rio almost as much as Nicky’s death itself; she never told her /when/, and then she took him in his sleep, when Agatha’s guard was down, when she couldn’t do anything to stop her.

And it eats at her, before Nicky is even gone. She does her best, or what she thinks is best. It’s fucked up, obviously, to keep a sickly child alone in the woods and make him help you kill. That’s why Agatha can’t face him in the afterlife. She can commune with the dead and she has never tried to contact her son because she’s too scared! But she is trying here, while he’s alive. She’s a survivor of parental abuse herself, and she is trying to show Nicky how much she loves him, even if her own trauma keeps her from seeking a community that could help them.

As they say, the love is there. It doesn’t change anything; Nicky died and Agatha made mistakes, huge ones. But the love was there.

I have to admit, I am so grateful that this show came out when it did; it’s helped me through my own grief immensely. Fiction is a safe lens through which we can examine our own pain. But even then, it has to be at the right time.

So I am weirdly grateful to Jac Shaeffer, to Kathryn Hahn, and everyone who worked on this show, for helping me safely examine my own grief, exactly when I needed it. I’m also grateful for these deep dives, because they’re helping me examine it further, in a format I find very comforting, like a good discussion about the class-taught books in High School English Literature class that I loved so much. So a huge thank you to rootspiral, who has dedicated so many hours to them.

So yeah. I’m not saying my experience is special. I’m not saying I understand this show on some special level that no one else comprehends; I know everyone is touched by grief in some way, shape or form. And that’s why it’s important, isn’t it? That’s why Jac Shaeffer has told this story twice now, and why it’s worked and been so good both times. Grief is universal. We are all mortal. It’s important to think about it, and talk about it. And it’s so important to have what Agatha didn’t: some kind of community or support system to help you through it when the time comes.

If she’d had that system, the grief wouldn’t have been any less. But someone might have been there to hold her through it, to help her. Maybe she would have felt safe enough to examine and deal with her grief, rather than burying it and desecrating it with 270 years of killing sprees and an absolute refusal to confront what was eating away at her.

And that’s what she finally got a little taste of with her Witches’ Road coven, wasn’t it? And that’s a tragedy all of its own as well, because she lost them, too.

God, this show is so good.

Agatha All Along deep dive: episode 9 part 3

(Wandavision entries: [1][2][3])

(AAA entries: ep1 [1][2][3][4] ep2 [1][2][3][4] ep3 [1][2][3] ep4 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][+1] ep5 [1][2][3][4][5] ep6 [1][2][3] ep7 [1][2][3][4][5][6] ep8 [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] ep9 [1][2][3])

the river flowing. mushrooms and lichens growing from a fallen tree. nicky's other mom is always with them.

agatha clearly loves teaching nicky all she knows about magic, because she is a teacher at heart! and he's literally the first person she gets to pass her knowledge on to, she's relishing every minute of it.

meanwhile poor nicky is just hungry. because the fucker makes him live in the woods.

and I guess she finds it easier to be honest when it's about explaining how magic works.

oh no the way they're whispering is so cute??? and she'll keep calling it her purple long after nicky's death.

and this has been pointed out many times, but when nicky smiles you're sure reminded of how they went out of their way to find a kid who looked like aubrey plaza too

another thing that has been pointed out ad nauseam and it will be repeated again, because it's so good: I cannot heal you, like jen would. I cannot protect you, like alice would. and I cannot divine, like lilia would.

could a real coven have healed nicky, protected him, saved him from his fate? did she kill him sooner than necessary by keeping him cold and starving in the woods? agatha will never know, because despite all her love, she put her own fear over his safety. maybe nicky would have died anyway, but it's still cruel and unfair that he had to spend the little time he had on earth in such a lonely way.

agatha, despite all the mind tricks she plays on herself and on others, is simply too smart to not see that what she's doing is selfish, harmful to nicky, and ultimately futile. this is why she'd rather blame rio, and it's why she can't go to nicky in the afterlife: she can't face her own guilt.

(also, she's afraid she'll find a version of him that can now understand what she did and will hate her for it.) (and I imagine that a grown up nicholas would have had a hard time coming to terms with his childhood too.)

and still. and still. this whole mess of a person doing a terrible job at raising her son? she's also the daughter of an abusive mother who is trying to be better, she is trying to give him what she never had - love, support, knowledge. her selfish choices don't negate all the love and joy she gave him too.

and on top of everything else, nicky is about to freaking die! in modern times we'd say he has a terminal illness, she doesn't know how much time she has left with him. that is an impossible lot to navigate, especially for a person alone and carrying with her so much baggage and trauma and unhealthy coping mechanisms. keeping nicky so isolated is the only way she feels like she has an illusion of control over the inevitable.

agatha is not only denying nicky a coven, she's denying herself a community that would have helped her carry this burden, that would have taught and encouraged her to do better, that would have ultimately shared her pain in mourning. isn't that another tragedy within the tragedy? knowing what could have been?

agatha teaches him magic, even though he doesn't have any. maybe he was still too young, maybe he really was just a regular kid. still, she teaches him.

NOT THE DANDELION. i'm about to bite my screen in anguish

sure, sure, the time has come to go. I'm fine, I'm totally fine.

aaaaaand some more scamming!!!

agatha the ham is one of my favorite agathas. but wait, I'll make you sad again now! they're doing this shit because they don't have any money to eat. and nicky is clearly sick, and agatha is still making him do it. because they don't have any money to eat.

meanwhile witches everywhere are getting curious about the Ballad. (doesn't she look a bit like sadie sink?)

for the THIRD TIME a witch notices nicky coughing / how sick he is and offers her coven's help.

nicky looks agatha straight in the eyes and refuses to lure witches to their deaths. he stands up for himself. he disobeys.

and yes, the obvious double meaning: my other mother needs me home.

agatha forgets all her scheming and runs after him in a panic. she is losing control over him. she is losing him.

go to episode 9 part 4

[tinycatslay]

#7 Boys I’ve clearly traumatised: recounting the good, the bad, and the worse

In 10th grade, I was reciting "An Almost Made Up Poem" by Charles Bukowski for an English class assignment because I thought it would make my high school crush whom I had been anonymously talking to every night on Twitter realise that he was in love with me all along. Me and my grown-up poems, and my need to be mysterious enough that he would ask me for more details about made-up stories I thought would make me look interesting.

Boys taught me to lie. Men, boys, the whole want-to-be-right-side-of-the-brain-thinkers side of the species. My first lies (that were not meant to get me out of trouble with my parents) were aimed at levering my stance with the opposite sex, in hopes I would feel as important - or even better, get to date them. From little white lies to full-blown exaggerations of things I had or hadn't done.

As much as I wanted something real with any of the people I previously dated, I was never able to just be myself without the shiny lies adorning my being - because if falling for that got them falling for me, how could I get rid of those lies?

(There's only one particular ex that is not in any shape or form a part of anything I will mention here. We love exes that become good friends again.)

As much as the men in my life have shaped my growing pains, the female rage side of my personality cackles at the ways I must have traumatised them right back - it can't be a coincidence that three of them have ended up with girlfriends that have my name and became the most hilarious attempt at branding themselves "entrepreneurs" (not to mention one of them started a podcast).

These boys might have mocked me, made me not trust my instincts, have me give up concert tickets to my favourite bands, getting Brazilian waxes out of fear I would be dumped, and even doubt my friends. But everyone knows there isn't a bigger consequence of ending a relationship on bad terms than a woman willing to talk about everything you did wrong.

The Good

Giving into romance (in my head), learning how to kiss, learning how not to kiss, learning how to play mind games.

The Bad

In my first year of university, I tried dating my best friend of roughly 6 years in the making. After a month we called it quits, but because we were always on and off of a situationship we decided to lose our virginities to each other. Not only did this end up not happening because of "technical difficulties", but he blamed it not happening on the account of me being too stressed and focused on my traumas. Could it get worse? Yes. This guy, still being my best friend, was hoarding my nudes having said in various instances that he hadn't kept them. A week later after this chain of events I returned home because of the pandemic. The straws that broke the camel's back were the fact that he didn´t understand why I was mad, and that he lied about having COVID.

Moral of the story: if he has the "potential" to become just a random rich white guy with a podcast, don't do it.

The Worse

During the summer of 2020, I momentarily cured a depression by swiping on Tinder with my mum's help - and ended up in a three-month relationship that seemed like it lasted three years.

This was one of those relationships that you'd tell your grandkids about one day - a gut-wrenching raw crazy type of summer love that finally measures up to the movies you've watched growing up.

He couldn't dance like Patrick Swayze but he had a car and enough parental freedom to take me places.

I felt on top of the world with this guy - which is why it really fucking hurt when one day when, after some morning snogging at one of his friend's country house we were spending a few days at, he said we needed to have a talk (code for "we just had sex but now I'm going to break up with you"). I still had to stay there with him and his friends for another 2 days, grieving a relationship that apparently never happened while he vlogged this getaway to upload it to Youtube on the following weeks.

Seasoned takeaways: Men with small penises will blame you for not being what they need. Men with big penises will think they've got it made and then demand your approval because deep down they know they can't possibly be making you feel good.

All men will treat you like they're entitled to a piece of you. Your brother will want your servitude, your dad will want your obedience, your predator will want your silence, and your boyfriend will want you to shave every hair on your body. The women in your life know it, but somehow don't talk about it.

Until you decide to not give a shit anymore. And then one day you will find someone that not just loves you but also likes you with all of these things you won't do or be anymore.

[oonajaeadira]

@littleredpandanaps @cas-readsandwrites @for-a-longlongtime @boliv-jenta @rifflovesjoey

@sixhours @toomanytookas @schnarfer @littlemissskuld @maggiemayhemnj

@cheekychaos28 @missredherring @insomniamamma @nothoughtsjustmeds

@something-tofightfor @jessthebaker

Thank you all for your very very very kind words. You have no idea how helpful they were.

Here's what was going on.

On the final day of my annual event--the event I work all year to plan and make and manage--I woke to a woman screaming. And I will never ever unhear that sound.

Gordy is our Aussie Shepherd rescue. He's 7 years old, very submissive to people, very loving and fluffy and smart and well trained. Except when it comes to other dogs. He is heavily dog reactive. It's a reaction born out of intense fear and trauma, and it's a lot. We only discovered the severity of it after we adopted him last December and have since done some light training with him and talked to other reactive dog owners about their experiences. Mostly we wanted to do our best by him and give him a good home.

We discovered too late that we have a faulty latch on one of our gates and Gordy got out and attacked another dog that was being walked by our house.

I didn't witness it myself--the SO went out to break it up and handle it all. I just heard her screaming. I still hear it.

The morning was a whirlwind of worry and information sharing and washing the blood out of Gordy's fur. The owner didn't want to talk to us directly so a kind neighbor helped to give her all our contact info and Gordy's vaccination records.

I spent a lot of the day in tears and that evening trying to enjoy the closing celebrations of my event that I had to M.C. By the end of the night, all I knew was that the dog was rushed to emergency and suffered a perforated bowel and bleeding in the lungs and was going into surgery.

We were looking down the barrel of that little dog dying, that poor woman losing her pet, tens of thousands of dollars in vet bills, and Gordy possibly being taken away by animal control and being euthanized.

It was a horrible feeling. Like I failed everyone--my SO for bringing home a dangerous dog, Gordy for not getting him proper professional training, and that poor poor woman....I can only imagine how fkn terrified and traumatized she must be.

That woman and her dog were my first point of concern above all else. And thankfully we heard back from the owner's partner that the dog came out of surgery and was on the mend.

The expense was the least of my worries. If I had to take out a payment plan, I would of course cover all the costs to help them. It's just money. It's not as important to me as making sure they were okay.

Goddammit, I'm just trying to get through this life without hurting anyone and I know it's not my fault, but I am still responsible for this tremendous hurt and fuck am I carrying it.

But then there's Gordy. He's in 10 days of house-bound quarantine, standard, as a precaution to watch for rabies. He's vaccinated, and so is the other dog. No worries there.

But I won't lie. Gordy's 55 pounds of very fast dog. And his fear is very deeply seeded. I've no doubt he was absolutely horrifying. I was sure he was going to get the death sentence, or at best, be deemed a "dangerous animal" which would require us to post signs and get a special collar and a higher insurance liability.... and if that was the case, I didn't know if we'd be the right owners for him. I spent a few days with a pit in my stomach, getting ready to say goodbye to him.

But today we got a couple more lucky breaks. First we found out that our insurance will fully cover the vet bills. All the way.

Secondly, Gordy was ruled "potentially dangerous" which is the lowest possible rating, and I'll admit that I had hoped for this but didn't believe it would happen. It means he has to be walked on a short leash with a muzzle. And we had to pay a small fine. That's it.

I thought I'd wringed out all my tears when the attack happened, but there must have been twice as many--and all at once--when we got this news.

Their dog will live. My dog will live. Insurance will do what we pay them for. I don't know what I've done to deserve such luck, but I promise not to squander it. I will be seeking out a behaviorist and Gordy will get the best training I can afford. I owe it to him and my SO and all the dogs in our neighborhood.

Through this week the SO and I had to remind ourselves that we're good people. And Gordy's a good dog--he's just broken and needs us to care for his dog-reactive anxieties better. This was nobody's fault, it's just a bad thing that happened.

But I never ever want anyone to hurt like that again on my watch. I just want this fluffy boy to have a good life with us and for that lady to have a good life with her little dog.

Please hug your pets for me. I love them so much. And you too. Thank you for your kind thoughts and words. Like I said, you have no idea how healing they were.

^^adoption day^^

It's been a rough few days in my world. I'm not gonna go into detail and sue me for vagueposting, but Sunday was one of the hardest days of my life and I'm in a holding pattern to see if the powers that be decide to make matters worse or not.

This is all to say thank you to everyone here. Thank you for posting beautiful pictures of our boy and for letting me share in the joy of Deadpool and Wolverine with you and just posting stuff that makes me laugh or lets me know what you're thinking. It's like stopping in at a big party and just sitting on the couch while my favorite people wax poetic about cats and occasionally get really deep about politics and then really funny about politics and then stop everyone in their tracks by whipping out new Pedro footage and everyone going into instant bite mode.

Thanks for being my effortless haven y'all. I fkn love this fandom so much.

[justcallmenikki7]

BTS Reaction To: Past Relationship Trauma

Hyung!Line

Summary: your past relationship with your ex messed you up and you still deal with the trauma, but your boyfriend now reassures you and proves to you that you are safe and loved.

Warnings: past trauma, mentions of anxiety and depression, self-harm, past emotional abuse and mental abuse mentioned, insecurities, angst, fluff, hyung!line being the sweetest boyfriends, self-doubt. MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING: SELFHARM

W.C.: 2.4k

Notes: heeeey, I’m back! This is an emotional rollercoaster because this is some of the shit, I went through with the boy I told you guys about. At the time I did not realize what was going on, but now that I do, I needed to write about it but with fluff and daydreams about the boys. I have a lot of things to work on because of him, but this gave me some healing and hope that my future S/O can understand where I am coming from on how I feel and that I’m going to be healing. I am healing, but the thought of being vulnerable again is scary, because you know, trusting someone with your heart is scary. But I want to let everyone know that it is okay to heal, it is okay to trip in the process in healing. So, I hope you enjoy this, and it might be hard to read, but take time. I am working on the Maknaes!line, and it should be up soon!

Kim Seokjin:

He started noticing that you have become off a few weeks ago. He did not know what was going on because from his knowledge everything was fine, and you guys were happy. Doing everything that he can, such as having the house clean before you got home from a long day at work, making sure your hoodie, or his because you have claimed it as yours, that you wear at night for bed was warm because he always puts it in the dryer before you go to bed.

It is scaring him because he loves you and does not want to lose you at all because you are his ray of sunshine. Trying to figure it out himself, he realized that you are putting a wall up that he thought he knocked down. He knows that you were mistreated in your last relationship, and it makes you scared that it would happen again. But after a year of proving to you that will not happen, he thought he conquered your demons and got rid of them, but maybe he missed those.

Finally, he approached you about it as he lays in bed with you, getting ready to get to bed.

“Baby? What’s going on?” He asked, grabbing your hands, holding tightly onto them.

Not realizing that those four words made you break down into tears. Freaking out, he pulled you into arms and held onto you tightly, caressing your hair and whispering encouraging words to you, trying to calm you down.

“I’m so scared that somethings going to go bad with us. We’re so happy and healthy that I can’t believe that this is what happens in healthy relationships. Something is not right. This isn’t right. When are you going to get irritated with me and dump me? This must be wrong because this isn’t right.” You choked out, holding tightly onto him.

That is what it was. You fear happiness, and you are not used to it. Seokjin felt like his heart broke because it hurts him to see someone who gives their all to someone and then it gets destroyed over and over. So having someone and something who doesn’t do that is so odd because you are used to that pattern and when it changes, it’s terrifying.

“I know baby. I know. You’ve been hurt so many times that being used to that kind of treatment is familiar and when you get out of that and find healthy… it’s a foreign feeling that you start preparing yourself for downfall. It’s okay to be scared, but please don’t push me away. I want to be here for you and help you. I know it’s hard, and I’ll go at your pace, but please don’t shut me out. I love you so fucking much. How about this. How about we every day sit down for however long and talk about things that are our minds. I know in that pretty head of yours can be your own worst enemy and you get stuck in it. Let me help you get unstuck, okay?”

Looking up at him with teary eyes, you nod your head in agreement. Leaning down, Seokjin presses a kiss on your lips that always makes his heart flutter. He felt you relax in his arms and smile into it.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Yes, you do. Mr. WorldWide needs his Mrs. WorldWide, and he just so happens to have found her when they both needed each other.”

Min Yoongi:

Sometimes Min Yoongi wishes that he could read your mind like Edward Cullen in Twilight because that way he could get your overthinking to stop. He knows what hell you went through with your ex-boyfriend, and he wishes he could beat his ass for what he did to you.

But he does his best to be patient with you because he knows it’s trauma that you carry with you, and something you are working on and that is your constant overthinking.

Now, he doesn’t blame you and can understand and see clearly why you overthink because your ex-boyfriend was a manipulative, narcissistic dick. He fucked with your mind so badly that it took you almost a year to trust your mind and your own thoughts.

Right now, though, he could tell that you wanted to tell him something but kept back tracking, and this is something that he can’t help but to get irritated with. To be clear, it’s not him irritated with you, but irritated at the fact some boy fucked with your head so badly that you’re scared to even explain how you feel on a situation.

“Y-Yoongi, can I talk to you?” You stuttered, confidence nowhere in sight.

“Of course, what’s wrong?” He asked gently, giving you a gentle, loving smile, knowing that approaching him on how you feel so hard because of your past.

Taking a deep breath, you began to fidget with your fingers, and he could tell your anxiety is creeping you onto you. “I know you’ve been busy lately and that it’s been stressful, but I’m just worried that I did something wrong because you have been kind of short with me and not as t

talkative. And I’m sorry if I did something, and I seem clingy, but like I just needed to ask— “

You were cut off by his finger on your lips, shutting you up in a gentle manner.

“No baby, you didn’t do anything wrong, I promise. I should’ve approached you earlier on this, and I was about to before you came in. I didn’t mean to sound irritated and distant when we messaged each other. I was very caught up in my writing and yesterday the Maknae line was getting on my nerves, so I kind of took my irritation out on you when that was not my intention.”

“So, I didn’t do anything wrong?” Needing to hear the confirmation just one more time from him.

“No, my love, you did nothing wrong, I promise you. I’ll make sure next time to watch out on how I approach you if I’m irritated, I promise.”

Smiling at him with a small smile, he knew that you were still unsure and nervous, which he understood. But you’ve both made more progress in the last six months with you believing him because he made a promise that he will fix you and prove to you that he is not like your ex.

Leaning towards you, he grabbed your face with his hands lovingly and brought your lips to his and kissed you with all the love that he has for you in it. He smiled into the kiss once he felt your smile against his lips.

It takes time, and he knows that there’s still more battles for you both to get through, but he knows you both will get through it together.

Jung Hoseok:

The past couple of weeks, your anxiety has been skyrocketing through the roof to where you have anxiety attacks every single day and Hoseok does not understand why. Hoseok is very familiar with anxiety – having experienced with anxiety with himself – but he does not know on how to approach you on this. You are very secretive with your mental health, besides when it comes to anxiety because it is a part of you, and he knows that you hate that it is. He also does know that your past relationship with your ex, he heard from your best friend that he made you feel bad about your mental health and always made degrading comments about it, especially with the medicine that you take.

Coming home from dance practice, Hoseok was confused on why the house was so quiet. Your car was parked in the driveway and your shoes were in the shoe cubby that was by the front door, so obviously you were home, but the house was deathly quiet. Kicking his shoes off, not thinking about putting them in the shoe cubby, he sat his duffle bag down and began his mission on finding you. Checking the kitchen and living room and not finding you there, he made his way down the hall towards your guy’s bedroom. Entering it, he saw the light that was coming from the bathroom, and he heard some movement coming from in there. Walking straight into the bathroom unannounced, he found you with a razor in your hand and fresh cuts along with your wrist.

“What in the fuck are you doing?” Hoseok asked, panic in his tone.

Looking up at him in shock, you threw the razor away from you, tears coming to surface in your eyes as you broke down completely.

“I-I’m so sorry, I blacked out and-and I could not resist it,” you sobbed out, panicking to grab toilet paper to stop the bleeding. “I-I’m so sorry, please do not be mad at me,” you begged, trying to take care of the wounds on your wrist.

Not saying anything, Hoseok grabbed the washcloth that was laying on the sink and wetting it. Making his way towards you, he gently grabbed your wrist and began to dab at it with the washcloth, his focus was making sure to clean up the mess and getting the bleeding to stop.

After a few quiet minutes – minus your sobs and shaky breaths – he finally spoke, “what happened?” He asked you, voice filled with worry.

“I-I could not control it; my mind became too loud and my thoughts getting the best of me. I tried, Hope, I tried so hard to ignore it, but it took over.”

“What thoughts, baby?” He asked, needing to know what you were thinking.

“That I was becoming too much and not enough. Everything was going so right, too right, and I guess I just could not handle it. I just thought I would be the one to sabotage it and hurt myself before you hurt me so it would be easier to cope with.” You began to sob harder, not being able to take the thought of losing Hoseok. “I fucked up, I’m so sorry.”

“Baby, no you did not. You tripped and tripping happens with healing, I’m not going anywhere I promise. We will get you through this, okay? We are in this together, okay? I got you; I promise baby.”

“Okay.” You stuttered out, breathing heavy and mind foggy. But you trust him, because he did not make you feel bad about what happened, and he is still here with you.

Kim Namjoon:

It is hard seeing someone who you love so much hate their self so much to where they are so fragile emotionally and mentally. Some days, they can be doing so good and the next day they are back in their rabbit hole, not being able to take a small thing of criticism and thinking that they cannot achieve anything because of constantly, in their mind, messing up.

This is Namjoon’s thoughts on you. He loves you so much, but seeing you so destroyed from a past relationship and trying to heal yourself still breaks his heart. Just because of this, Namjoon is not going to leave you, he is wanting to fix you. Some people think that this can be exhausting and would give up, but Namjoon is not giving up on you. You both have gotten farther in your healing process, but some things can tip you off. And that thing was losing your father because of your beliefs being different than his, and it crushed you because you began to think that your thinking was not right. Getting out of mentally abusive relationship to where you felt wrong for having your own thought process and having to second guess yourself is a toll. Because, when you had your own opinion on something, your ex would criticize you for thinking the way you did and made you feel bad about it became unbearable. You lost yourself and felt so lost in your own mind that you did not know who you were anymore.

So, coming home to you tonight crying on the couch, Namjoon knew what to do. Setting his belongings down in the entrance, he made his way over to you, taking the blanket off the back of the couch and laid it over you. Sensing his presence, you sat up and wrapped the blanket around yourself before lunging yourself into his arms.

“My love, what happened?” He asked gently, running his fingers through your hair, massaging your scalp – an act that you love and found comfort in.

“I’m so sorry, I know that this is becoming old, and tiring, but at work, a coworker criticized my work, and I defended it! I defended myself, Joonie, but-but they got to me, making me think what I thought and said was stupid and they did that smirk. They did that smirk and it got to me, when it shouldn’t have. We’ve been working on this, but I could not help it. But it hurt. It made me feel pathetic and stupid. I’m so stupid.”

“Baby, I am so proud of you for standing up for yourself, and that is such huge progress that you have made. I am so, so proud of you, baby. And I know that they got to you, but you have to realize that - wait was it Michael who said that?” He asked, needing to make sure that he knew who it was from your work.

“Yes,” you replied.

Laughing at this confirmation – not at you, but at the fact that this dick who is below you in success at your company is criticizing you since he has not had a promotion in two years while you have in the past year. “Of course, it was him. My love, please do not work yourself up on someone who is less than you. And I know this is hard, but we can get this. Like you said, you defended yourself! Do you know how long you and I have been working on this? For a year and you finally did it! You did it baby, and now our next mission is to work on not caring about what Michael thinks, and not letting this dick make you feel bad about how you feel and think. We got this. Do we have a deal?”

Smiling up at him, you nodded, “but it is going to be hard. He got to me, and this is going to be difficult.”

“And it was difficult for you three months ago to defend yourself, but you finally did it. And I know for a fact that we will get to where you will be able to not care about what people think of you, and how you think and feel. We got this baby.”

Smiling, feeling much better, “we got this.”

[paradisetemporarilymisplaced]

So I was being a basic bitch the other day and listening to my true crime podcasts when it occurred to me just how suspicious Nile’s “death” would look to everyone not in the Guard, leading me to a train of thought that, 2200 words later, absolutely got away from me but I can’t let go so I’m inflicting it on all of you!

To set the stage, we know the movie takes place over approximately a week. Here’s what happens to Nile from the military’s point of view:

She dies is very seriously injured

She heals without a scratch

Just before she’s supposed to be shipped out to Germany, she vanishes, leaving two men concussed (and presumably reporting being knocked out by a woman with short hair wearing civilian clothes)

She goes AWOL for several days

They get word from the CIA that she is to be reported killed in action (details unclear)

So, at the beginning of this very weird week, the USMC has to tell Nile’s family of her death critical injury. What her family was told depends on how long she was dead – a Google search tells me that family will be notified in person within 8 hours of a soldier’s death, but we don’t know how long her first death lasted. For an injury, however, they’d get a phone call to notify them and the unit would arrange for them to visit as soon as the soldier is transferred out of a combat zone. Like I remember when I was in high school, a guy from my church who was a Marine was really seriously injured in a helicopter crash in Iraq and from what I could tell, his parents were told immediately and were flown out to Germany to see him, so it stands to reason that Nile’s family would have been informed relatively quickly after her throat was slashed, one way or another.

And then, she goes AWOL. Her family would be notified while the USMC tried to figure out where she went, not least because the military would want to know if she’s contacted them. (And it’s possible that her family may have been on the way to Germany to see her since we know that’s where she was supposed to go!) So for several days:

Nile’s mom and brother have no idea where she is

They know she was seriously injured and most certainly should not have been moving around on her own

They can’t get a hold of her

The military can’t tell them anything

And the next thing they know for sure is that she was “killed in action.” After being injured and vanishing into thin air. And they presumably cannot produce her body or any concrete evidence of her death. In any case, something sketchy is going on, so they’re like. SMELLS LIKE A MILITARY COVERUP.

In a surprise to probably no one, there is a well-documented legacy of mysterious US military deaths, particularly of women of color (TW for sexual assault in these links). The cases of LaVena Johnson and Vanessa Guillenin particular have made national news because of their families’ persistence in seeking justice. Likewise, Nile is a Black woman, and her mom and brother are most certainly hypercognizant of (a) state violence against Black people and (b) these high-profile cases of suspicious military deaths. So her family are seriously side-eyeing the situation, knowing that (a) the military has a serious incentive (and a documented history) of covering up things that make them look bad and (b) nothing about Nile’s disappearance and supposed death are adding up.

And Andy’s right. Nile does come from warriors. And you know who else does? Her brother.

Don’t get me wrong. Nile’s mom would absolutely not back down. She’d know something was up and want to get to the bottom of it. But based on what I know about Gen X parents (mine), they’re not the most technologically savvy. Like they can use the internet, but they didn’t grow up with it the way we young millennials and Gen Z did. So Nile’s brother takes the lead. And what do zillennials do best?

Social media.

Nile’s brother starts going hard on any site he can, trying to get the word out to see if anyone knows what happened to his sister. He starts a Reddit thread. He starts a Facebook group. He reaches out to the media and true crime bloggers and podcasters à la Sarah Turney, getting loud and being a general nuisance in hopes of getting some answers. He gets his friends and Nile’s friends involved. Maybe eventually Dizzy, Jay, and others from Nile’s unit hear about it and reach out, telling him what they saw and how weird it all was. He’s drumming up interest, and soon “Nile Freeman” becomes a household name (at least among the true crime fans).

Copley is, of course, trying his best, but at this point there is just so much that it’s impossible for him to scrub everything. Sure, he can erase new footage of Nile and the Guard, but what can he do about Reddit threads and podcast episodes that are speculating something weird has happened? Maybe he could hack the sites and shut those things down, but honestly, that’s the last thing he’d want to do, because that only adds weight to the theory that Nile’s disappearance is a military coverup. So eventually he has to tell Andy what’s going on.

Andy, obviously, does not take the news well. However, she is also completely computer illiterate, because that’s Booker’s job and he’s the only one who ever bothered to learn what the internet is in any meaningful way. (She probably calls Booker for advice, and for the record, I think Booker would have no qualms about shutting down conspiracy threads, tinhats be damned, but Copley is too concerned about the consequences. He’s ex-CIA for crying out loud, he knows how it’ll look if they scrub every mention of Nile’s name from the internet.) Maybe she confers with Joe and Nicky but, let’s be honest, they’d be equally unhelpful. So at this point, she knows they have to bring in Nile.

But the thing about Nile is that she, too, knows how to use the internet (duh). Aside from her being a young millennial/digital native, we know from the cave scene where she’s giving Booker suggestions on how to track Copley that she clearly is even more computer savvy than the average person. And for that reason she almost definitely took over the day-to-day tech stuff after Booker’s exile. So I think it would be foolish to expect her to be unaware of what’s happening. She’s not contacting her family or posting on the message boards or anything, but she knows what’s up. So Copley and the team probably sit her down to “break the news,” but we know the girl does not have a poker face (see: literally shooting herself in the foot and not being able to play it cool whatsoever) and cracks immediately, telling them she’s seen everything about her case – she’s not interacting with any of it, she certainly didn’t instigate anything, but she knows. (And she is so goddamn proud of her brother.)

At this point, I’d like to pause and consider Nile’s role in the overall narrative of this movie. She’s set up as a foil to Andy, obviously, but she’s also a foil to Booker. Booker, who, like Andy, is a serious pessimist, but who, unlike Andy, still has very fresh memories and trauma associated with being the new kid, which have destroyed him. In his mind (and Andy’s), if Nile communicates with her family, she’ll become just like him in a century or two – bitter, alone, and stuck with her grief and memories of watching her family die and knowing they died resenting her. It’s a small sample size, but this is the only experience they have to go off of.

But it doesn’t have to be like that.

There’s been a lot of discussion of TOG being a fundamentally queer movie – a group of people brought together because of something inherent about themselves that is different, that must be hidden, that causes others to hate, fear, and reject them. Booker’s backstory is the archetypal traumatic “coming out” story – his family learns who he is, hate him for it, and attempt to cast him out of their lives. He’s stuck with his trauma, his pain, his loss, and it consumes him.

But what if Nile’s family would be the opposite? What if her “coming out” to them as immortal is met with acceptance, love, celebration? What if her family is just overjoyed to have her back, and they don’t care what the circumstances are? I'm reminded of this incredible post from @shitty-old-guard-deaths a while back, where Nile’s mother hits Booker with a frying pan because “my baby let me believe she was dead for FIVE YEARS based on your bad advice???” (which may or may not have inspired this whole tangent). Nile takes the advice of someone who did the same thing she wants to do because she doesn’t want to risk her family’s rejection. She wants the good memories with her family and is afraid that showing them her true self will bring her unbearable pain, forever replacing those memories. But, with high risk comes high reward.

Anyway. Nile and the team are trying to come up with a plan for how to handle this whole thing, but she’s not really participating because she’s too afraid to hope. Until finally, quickly, so she doesn’t lose her nerve, she suggests she reach out to them, knowing that, realistically, that’s the only solution before things snowball even further out of control. The team is shocked, but realize that she has a point. They decide that Copley should actually be the first point of contact, posing as a US government official to talk with them and test the waters.

So Copley goes to Nile’s family’s house to talk with her mom and brother. They’re probably distrustful and apprehensive, but nonetheless secretly ecstatic that their work has paid off. They talk and review all of the information that they’ve collected, including testimonials from the people on Nile’s base and recent sightings (along with photos) of Nile (with the same three people) over the last few years that people have sent them but they haven’t posted publicly. At this point, Copley’s like, yeah this is about to blow up, we gotta put our cards on the table. He convinces them to come with him to some safe house/black site/whatever he can get that is technologically impenetrable (I’m picturing them in like, an interrogation room at a police station kind of deal), takes their phones, locks the doors, and brings in Nile.

What follows is the most delightful reunion scene of all time, bringing Joe, Nicky, and even Andy to tears as they watch and listen from outside the room. With Copley’s help, Nile tells her mom and brother about her immortality and what’s been going on since she died (within reason, of course), and they are thrilled. They don’t understand why (because no one does) but they don’t question it and they see it as a gift from God – she’s been resurrected, she will live, and she has a purpose. Her mother and brother are so happy to see her again and are willing to agree with pretty much anything to stay in her life as long as they can.

So. They set up some complicated agreement (they bring in the other three for support/intimidation as needed) setting the terms of their relationship. They swear Nile’s family to secrecy, maybe bringing up the lab to show how high the stakes are, and they readily agree. They come up with some cover story for Nile’s brother to share on the message boards (maybe that the government has opened an investigation but because it’s an open case he has to shut it all down? Tells people to direct their tips somewhere else? Something to that effect). There’s still speculation, of course, but without Nile’s brother at the helm providing the energy, the hype dies down as news stories are wont to do without any movement. And Nile’s family goes to work for the team. The experience has taught them that Copley can’t possibly do everything himself, especially when it comes to social media, so Nile’s brother takes the lead on the day-to-day tracking/social media while Copley and her mom focus on finding jobs and scrubbing their traces afterward.

So there you have it: Nile gets to integrate her biological family into her found family and spend the rest of their lives with them as it should be, Copley gets some badly needed help managing the reality of social media, the team finally has a positive narrative surrounding outsiders Knowing About Them AND about interacting with people from their previous life, and the audience gets the happy ending to this very lovely and very queer story to counteract the pain associated with Booker’s family.

Plus, you know, I’m a sucker for both a good government conspiracy theory and for Nile getting every good thing she deserves.

[greensaplinggrace]

do you have any darklina fic recs?

I certainly have a few! But first I want to clarify that I don’t really read fic when I’m writing it, and since I have so many fics in the works right now, I haven’t really been reading a lot of fanfiction. So this list probably won’t be as extensive as it could be.

Here are some other great fic recommendation posts, however:

DARKLINA FIC RECS by @vicioux

DARKLINA FIC RECS // part ii by @vicioux

Darklina Ruling the World Together Fic Recs by @clubofthestarlesssaint

Tumblr Ficlets

Aleksander’s First Memory by @kestrafagnor

Fivan Talk About Darklina by @jomiddlemarch

a little light in the great, big dark by @valkyrhys

Alina tells Mal she’s with Aleksander by @lorsanbitch

Darklina week day 5: intimacy & touch by @starlesscne

AO3 Fanfiction

if it ain’t me by larry_hystereks (Incomplete - 10/13 Chapters)

alina’s in her second year at Yale when she meets aleksander at one of his frat parties.

a hookup with the potential for more, only if alina wasn’t still struggling to piece herself together from last year’s breakup.

or: alina, zoya, their trust issues, and the men that fall for them

---

I’m only at about chapter 6 of this fic currently, but so far it’s one of my all time favorite Modern AUs. The characterization for Alina and Aleksander is incredibly well done, and the entire fic itself is so feminist and queer in such a refreshing way. Aleksander and Alina are bisexual as fuck, both with their own separate complex lives, and much of Alina’s own traumas and relationships are explored outside of Aleksander.

There’s some Zoyalina, with Nikolina friendship and endgame Zoyalai. There’s some mystery and some tension, but nothing too extreme, and a lot of the fic is merely an exploration in growth and overcoming one’s history and learning how to move on in healthy ways. I love it.

She Wears a Collar (With My Name) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

She is immortal, and whatever lingering hints of humanity she may have once had have long been bleached from her heart.

I will grant you one wish, boy, if it is in my power to do so. What does a Shadow Smith most want?

"You," he answers.

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 2: Role Reversal

---

This piece is just exquisite. This author’s writing style is one that I particularly enjoy. Their stuff is always so uniquely composed and crafted, and this one especially is a work of art. The way Darklina as a relationship is portrayed in particular is fascinating to me because it’s a role reversal but it’s still so complex. Aleksander’s character is nailed.

the bright sun was extinguish’d by athousandwinds (Complete)

Somewhere, deep in the dark forests of Ravka, a boy grows up on stories of Sankta Alina of the Wastes, the Sun-Scorched Saint.

---

This fic is just straight up magnificent. It’s so engaging and I love love love the way a role reversed Aleksander who joins the army is portrayed. He reminds me so much of Demon in the Woods Aleksander, as if he’s exactly what a grown version of that young boy would be. When I say I adore his characterization in this I’m not lying.

If I wanted any completed fic I’ve read to have a second chapter, it would be this one.

Winter in the Little Palace by redisxwing (Complete)

Written for Yuletide 2020.

Baghra and Alina's wildly different perspectives on the Darkling, and how things could have gone if nobody listened to Baghra.

Warning: Baghra is written as a harsh and arguably abusive parent, and this is darkfic about that relationship, with a side of shipping. Everything is terrible (except the parts that are pretty much okay).

Canon divergence pretty much as soon as Alina gets lessons in summoning.

This fic is likely not compatible with King of Scars (or any subsequent work).

---

As is said in the summary, this one makes Baghra a bit more extreme. If you’re a fan of Baghra, this fic probably isn’t for you. But since I’m not a fan of Baghra, I had no problems with it.

My biggest praise for this fic is in regards to the character interactions and the POVs. There’s a brilliant grasp of unique perspective and how to convey it, and that talent is carried over into the way character interactions are brought to life in the text. Also, there’s a scene where Alina gets kind of protective of the Darkling, which is one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Darklina.

Good Ideas by FelixRivers (Complete)

Alina Starkov had a very good idea. Aleksander Morozova would definitely agree. (or: Alina wants to go camping and Aleksander won't complain)

---

This fic is just straight up adorable and hilarious. They’re such a cute couple and Alina’s POV is great. It’s just pure fluff and humor 💕

I’m not a bad girl, but I do bad things with you by SanktaJenya - @sankta-arya (Complete)

Winter had been hard on Old Baghra and Ana Kuya was worried about her, so she decided that Alina should make the trip to her cottage on the other side of the woods to bring her some food and kvas. On her way there, Alina meets a stranger...

Darklina Red Riding Hood/Company of Wolves AU

Darklina Week, Day 4, Fairytales

---

This fic has a splendid grasp of tension and atmosphere. It’s very enchanting and dark and intriguing, and it nails those aspects with absolute precision. I love the style and the way the fairytale is incorporated into the narrative. It’s truly a masterpiece.

The Wretched by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“We are strangers, but I want to help.” He growls at her, mocking and mistrustful. “I understand,” she said. “You think I am one of them. I certainly look like one of them. But I want to help you. Will you let me?” Prompt: fairytale. Alina saves a dragon.

---

Okay so I’ve mentioned this one before as one of my Top 5 fics of all time and I still stand by that. I can’t even describe why I love this fic so much except that the pacing is amazing and the prose is stunning and the story is beautiful. Aleksander is a dragon and Alina is a witch, and their relationship is just so...interesting and fascinating and lovely. I would literally kill for this fic. There’s such a softness to it as well. Such a tenderness. Idk, I just really love it.

Show Me Who You Are (I Want To Know) by Ceris_Malfoy (Incomplete - 12/?)

Alina takes her future in her own hands and makes her own decisions.

---

This is a great “what if Alina had stuck around after the reveal” rewrite. It doesn’t have Mal bashing and in fact still writes them as close friends, which is something I’m fond of in Darklina fics. Aleksander is allowed to be soft and Alina is allowed to be powerful, and I really enjoyed the take on their dynamics as a power couple wherein Alina is given a lot of control.

There’s something to be said for the way Aleksander is written in the scenes where he must be honest and earnest with Alina. I really enjoy the way they both come to equal ground, and I’m even more fond of the way Alina is allowed to grow darker without losing her light. She also engages a lot with quite a few other characters, developing tons of friendships and alliances on her own that help strengthen her as an individual character.

on this bridge between starshine and clay by @rhea-imagined (Complete)

"His breath narrows for a moment, his fist clenched tight before he forces himself to loosen it. She is his only opportunity for salvation, but vulnerability is not a cape he wears easily. “In those days, there was less prejudice against Shadow Summoners. But everyone fears the dark, in one way or another.” He does not look at her as he waits for the penny to drop, half-hoping it stays suspended in the air."

In which Alexander comes clean to Alina and tells her about his true identity in hopes that this will help convince her to take down the Fold.

A rewrite of the fountain scene in episode four, with a good!Darkling that is trying to make amends.

---

This is my all-time favorite good!Aleksander AU. He’s kept in character despite the major changes made to his motivations, and Alina is given a lot more agency in her own story. It’s the first fic in what might become a series, but it can stand alone beautifully.

I love how Aleksander and Alina’s relationship is allowed to grow tense without breaking, and how it’s a clear sign of change but not abandonment. I love how both characters are able to think for themselves and become self-aware and are given the chance to think critically. I love the character interaction so much because it’s honest and fresh and engaging. Everything from the smallest action to the most off-hand thought is in character and meaningful and incorporated with an amazing style of writing. It’s a very refreshing piece, and the writing only makes it that much better.

Bunnies of a Feather Stitch Together by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Just as Alina called to the light, gathering and twisting it into a ball in her hands, the door swung open.

Kirigan blacked out the door frame. His appearance enough would have surprised Alina, but there was something clutched in his arm, something dark and floppy. It almost looked like the stuffed toys that had been passed around to the younger Orphans." - Alina and The Darkling bond over a love of soft things

---

Soft stuffed animal shenanigans. Bits of trans!Aleksander, which I’m very fond of, as well as just a lot of fluff with a bit of something bittersweet and sad in a good way.

Half Lie by Ill_Ratte (Complete)

"Baghra always talked of the demon that had stolen her daughter." Or, Alina learns the hard way that the Darkling isn't the only one who deals in half-truths

---

This one is trans!Aleksander, and it handles it in a very interesting way. It’s quite sad, and deals a lot with Baghra & Aleksander’s relationship through Alina’s POV. I want to give a warning for transphobia, because it does center around that a lot as the premise, but it really is worth the read if that isn’t a trigger for you. This is one of my favorite trans!Aleksander fics, and the way it handles emotion and grief and pain is quite extraordinary.

The CEO and Helioseismologist by mrthology (Complete)

Aleksander Morozova doesn't get sick. He's the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, one that he had built from the ground up with blood, sweat, and tears. He exercised daily (usually), maintained a healthy diet, and kept himself fit.

He wasn’t sick.

Too bad no one believed him. And too bad Genya decided to call Ivan to take him home before also calling Alina to take care of him.

Maybe, just maybe, being sick wasn't so bad. Especially not when he has such a wonderful girlfriend.

---

Both of the fics in this series are great, but I love this one in particular because I’m an absolute sucker for hurt/comfort. Anyone who’s been on my blog for a while knows that it’s my all time favorite trope to read, and this fic fits the hurt/comfort trope to a T in the best of ways. It’s very tender and in character, and Aleksander and Alina are so soft with each other. It’s adorable and really makes you feel for Aleksander, and the caretaking is done perfectly.

All the different layers of dark (thousand little suns) by Anuna (Complete)

One month after the Winter Fete, Aleksander returns to the Little Palace, and Alina has been missing him.

Or

Episode five canon divergence in which Alina had never left Os Alta.

---

This one is soft emotional hurt/comfort smut. They’re both so open and vulnerable with each other, and it’s so beautiful to read. I love the writing style and the emotion in this one. It makes my heart ache in the best way.

An Honourable Man by liviy695 (Complete)

A reimagining of the scene after the winter fete. Alina catches a glimpse of a caring Darkling after he returns from integrating the Conductor. Plus, no Baghra interference.

---

This one is what it says on the tin, in that Baghra doesn’t interfere and they’re allowed to talk after the Darkling interrogates the Conductor. But more than that, it’s a great imagining of how a scene where Aleksander reveals Marie’s death would have gone. There’s a sort of quiet to it that I appreciate, with grief and solemnity weighed against care and vulnerability.

I see the real you (even if you don’t, I do) by Anonymous (Incomplete - 8/?)

A series of questionable decisions lead Alina to meet the Black General a bit earlier. Butterfly effect ensues.

---

I’ve only read half so far (I hadn’t realized it had updated!! 👀👀) but I’m already in love with this fic. Alina’s dialogue and perspective is perfect, her relationship with Mal and the other cartographers is great, and I really enjoy how much personality she has. Aleksander is so smitten, but more than that, his characterization is soft but not weak. It feels almost as if he’s swept up by Alina, instead of the other way around, and I quite like that.

Of parenting by Anuna (Complete)

Alina finds out how her husband handled yet another parenting situation.

---

This is pure adorable Darklina parenting fluff and I live for it. Yet it doesn’t lack depth and in fact explored Alina and Aleksander’s relationship with parenting quite well.

i have a longing by LRCee - @ladylyannastark (Complete)

“So, Alina Starkov, risk-taker, how did you end up being editing’s newest wunderkind?”

Alina Starkov is rising in the publishing world. Singlehandedly responsible for editing (see: rewriting) the hottest book of the year, she lands a coveted spot at Morovoz Publishers. It's the position she's always wanted, at the biggest publishing house in the country. Life is perfect. That crush on her boss though, that's gotta go.

---

OKAY! I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH!! Let me tell you, as someone who is not too fond of Boss/Employee dynamics, I was very wary going into this fic. But boy did it deliver in a way that was perfect for me.

The relationship that develops between Aleksander and Alina is complex but healthy, and it never feels as if there’s too much of a power imbalance or anything that would make Alina feel forced or unhappy. The tension lies purely in how she fears others will perceive her, and not in how unhealthy her relationship with Aleksander is. For somebody who’s often attracted to unhealthy ships, I have to say that my favorite fics are usually ones that don’t have that type of dynamic between the characters. This fic delivers on that.

Also, Aleksander’s POV surrounding his struggle with his Russian heritage and his feelings for Alina is amazing, and has some of the best writing and characterization I’ve seen.

You receive: an evil demon; I receive: human souls by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

The next morning while she tried to tell herself it was a dream, that of course there wasn’t a fucking demon in her house, she found a note taped to her fridge.

“You might eat this shit,” it had written, “but I would like some fucking souls please.”

Darkling Week Prompt 7: free choice. Alina has a demon in her house.

This is absolute crack, and I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with me.

---

May I just say that this is the most fun I’ve ever had when reading a fic. It’s interesting with a bit of mystery, and Aleksander as a little shit of a demon is hilarious. Alina in this fic is great too. It’s such a unique take on her POV, especially when you reread it after knowing the ending. 10000/10, this fic is brilliant in every way and I love it.

I had been lost to you, Sunlight by BrytteMystere (Complete)

A Girl became a Woman, became a Sankta, became a Goddess.

Or: An Immortal Alina calls upon merzost to reunite with the Prince of Shadows she lost long ago. She may have lost herself in the process.

But then again, maybe time and endless wars did that instead.

---

You really just have to read this one to get it. It is utterly haunting and fascinating in the best of ways. The writing style is strange and novel and fits so well with the story being told. The composition of the fic as a whole is genius.

I Look Inside Myself (And See My Heart Is Black) by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"When is a monster not a monster? Why, when you love it, of course."

Written for Darklina Week 2021 - Day 6: Favorite Quote • King & Queen • Monster

---

Once more, this author comes through with an absolutely breathtaking writing style and story. The imagery is elegant yet brutal, simultaneously horrifying and glorious. There’s a certain way these stories are written, like fairytales, where the beautiful becomes the macabre and becomes ever more stunning because of it. It’s very dark but in a good way - an almost bewitching way.

Afterlife by @aceofnowhere (Complete)

“You are asking me to leave?”

“Not asking, shadow,” she said. “Telling. Time to get unlost, loser.”

Day 3 Darklina Week prompt: Modern AU (I mean, barely)

Alina expels ghosts from purgatory.

---

@aceofnowhere once again bringing the best of the paranormal to the Grishaverse. Literally everything you write is amazing idk why I’m even pointing out individual fics when I could just rec your whole page. But anyways!! This is fun and interesting and Alina is a badass. Aleksander is, of course, compelling and dark and kind of a little shit, and it’s all incorporated seamlessly into an existential paranormal narrative.

Once Upon a Shooting Star by Ceris_Malfoy (Complete)

"But most of all, she was drawn to a vast darkness that reached out above all of them, a void so hungry for companionship that she knew she could fulfill."

---

Let. Alina. Be. Feral!! Anyways, I clearly have a type when it comes to storytelling, and it’s whatever the fuck this person has got going on. Feral!Star!Alina is literally the light of my life. Her interactions with not only other people but the world in general are so well done, but my favorite parts about this fic are the numerous ways her relationship with Aleksander is described and depicted.

I love the dark and light imagery, especially with how it’s portrayed as them filling in the gaps of each other’s lives and supporting each other instead of trying to block each other out. There’s such clear passion and joy and love and devotion between them. The central focus of this fic is on her and Aleksander’s relationship, the interplay between them and their powers and the way her light fills his loneliness, the passing of adoration and trust and reliance between them. It’s very beautiful and I love it.

A Blaze of Light by Keira_63 (Complete)

They discover the Sun Summoner in the burnt-out remains of the Shu laboratory in which she has spent the last seven years of her life.

Or, the Darkling finds himself with a Sun Summoner whose greatest wish is to burn Shu Han to the ground. He is happy to oblige her.

---

👀👀 Badass Alina and Badass Aleksander. The ultimate power couple, and Alina burning a path through Shu Han before they both burn a path through the world together. The darkness and rage in this one are handled very well, and the way that rage turns to coldness and then resolve is done so well. This fic is very cathartic and also very furious, and reading it is certainly a trip down emotion lane.

One more for the Road by Rist (Complete)

He returns to the war room shaken, and finds an Alina that cannot leave without at least having tried.

---

This one hurts so much but its soooo gooood!!! Very smutty but also very tender and very bittersweet. Sad and soft all at once. I just... love the way Alina and Aleksander are written so much, and Alina’s complicated feelings for him are explored in such detail and depth. This one is truly worth the read.

[melis-writes]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=392x-baFg4s

Hi! I wanted to bring up this video about why Michael changed since it was recommended to me by YouTube and I watched it out of curiosity (even though I already know the answer), and I was disappointed by the credit it gives Apollonia’s death. I don’t care for how the YouTuber claims that the Sicily sequence shows us how much Michael “loves” Apollonia- all it shows is him playing the role that he must in that society in order to marry her (and therefore be allowed to relieve himself in a socially acceptable way due to desperation, as we know 🤢). None of it seemed like a natural display of chemistry or frankly even behavior (I’m aware of what he says in Part III about loving her, but the thing about storytelling is that you’re supposed to show, not tell). The two of them kinda just seemed to be going through the motions throughout the whole thing tbh. We know what he wants (which should’ve been made clearer in the film), and we can figure out what she wants based on how she only smiles at Michael once she touches the golden necklace he gives her. I’m aware we get that one scene of them bonding (which only proves what she also wanted was freedom) but besides that, it honestly proves nothing- if anything, I bet if they met under normal circumstances, Michael would’ve been like a big brother figure to Apollonia and taught her some American things, and at most they would’ve been friends (since I’d even argue that romantically, she is not his type, and honestly how do we know Apollonia even likes men at all and wasn’t giving into comphet? Lmao). To call what they had “love” and then credit her death for his change is stupid and cringe imo.

Anyway, moving on to the YouTuber’s next point, I’d say Michael seems different when he returns to Kay due to all the trauma that keeps occurring in his life and how he keeps bottling it up inside, not because he’s mourning a teen he only knew for a few weeks. Trauma has been proven to wear on people over time who feel like they’re losing their support system and aren’t expressing their emotions in a healthy way. He also is closed off to Kay because he’s ashamed of what he’s done- it reminds me of that scene from The Lion King in which Simba is hesitant to tell Nala what he’s been through out of fear that she’ll turn away from him. Again, all this could’ve been explained better through dialogue and framing.

Finally, I disagree with the YouTuber’s speculation that Michael would’ve stayed in Sicily with Apollonia for a few years if Sonny didn’t die. We know Michael was bored out of his mind there so I don’t think he’d stay there just for her. Besides, I don’t think that their relationship would even last that long lmao. I don’t get why people give this random teen he wanted to sleep with so much credit for his development 💀💀💀. At first I sort of believed in the ship due how the shippers are so good at gaslighting, but then I finally started using my brain lol. Again, I also blame the movie itself for how it inaccurately adapted this whole arc from the book.

Speaking of the book, I’ve only read excerpts of it, but I recall Michael saying to Vito that he sought revenge not only for Sonny and Apollonia, but also because it’s the right thing to do. I think it just boils back to Michael taking things personally and having that sense of justice that never seemed to fully leave him. For all we know, he was angry due to being betrayed (like you’ve pointed out in one of your posts) and felt bad that an innocent life that he knew was taken due his own carelessness. Anyway, I know that this is long but I wanted to share my thoughts on this video since I enjoy discussing this franchise! Hope you have a great day!

“I don’t get why people give this random teen he wanted to sleep with so much credit for his development.”

THIS. This right here. 👆🏻 At this point, it’s almost annoying as to how obsessed people are with the whole Michael and Apollonia thing. It literally mentions in the book that Michael couldn’t even go near Apollonia if he wanted to, that marriage was the custom to do anything with a woman and Michael even wondered why people continued to believe/do these things when he compared it to the culture in the USA. It was extreme for Michael but as you said, he was bored. It literally mentions he. Was. Bored.

Michael was wandering the countryside every day with his bodyguards trying to see the country and entertain himself, but he was utterly bored. Everyday he waited for word from his father to come back lmao he didn’t want to be in Sicily. In all that time, he was also thinking about what he did and he thought of Kay everyday, assuming she also must have put two and two together and ended up hating him, but that didn’t stop Michael from continuing to wonder about her. In the book it also mentions Michael felt bad for leaving Kay behind with a word. He wondered what she was doing a lot.

There’s a lot of scenes in the book where Michael and Kay have sex. A lot. 😂 So it made sense to see in the book that Michael was not just bored, but horny. He only wanted to “possess” Apollonia, keep her to himself and Michael didn’t care for her personality or her shyness. He was solely fixated on her looks and wanted to please her and her family (mind you, Apollonia’s father was so happy his daughter’s beauty got them a rich, powerful groom) and so all Michael mentions is Apollonia’s physical aspect. During breakfast, Michael gets jealous enough to want to hurt Apollonia’s brother because he made her laugh. That’s not love, that’s an intense lust and toxic desire. 🥴

And when Michael married Apollonia, all he continued to talk about was her looks, despite Apollonia being nervous about the wedding night and wanting her mother to stay the night too. And then it goes on to mention that for a week or two straight, Michael kept Apollonia with him in the house and the word “sex slave” was mentioned in the sense that Michael basically did nothing but have sex with her all the time.

There is literally no love between these two and everyone knows it. There’s ships, and then there’s this weird, obsessive gaslighting, major misogynistic Kay slander thing going on where everyone wants Michael and this 17 year old to be soulmates so bad that apparently Apollonia turned him into such a cruel, cold man. Okay, please… 😂😂😂 I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one that finds this actually fucking ridiculous. It’s delusional.

The book mentions Michael loved two things: His father and Kay. That’s it. Watching the Sicily sequence on film is so annoying because you can see Francis deliberately tried to make it a love story gone wrong (coupled with gaslighting shippers now on the internet) even though that wasn’t Mario Puzo’s intention.

Michael’s entire relationship with Apollonia is predatory and because of him, she died. He ruined Apollonia’s life and Apollonia and her family are shitty in their own sense because they wanted Michael for his power and money. That’s literally all there is to it.

A lot of people also forget Michael didn’t go see Kay until a year after he returned to the US. He was working in the family business with Vito and it’s very obvious at that point that Michael will succeed his father as Don.

Michael and Apollonia were never in love with each other. I for once would like to hear someone point out how Apollonia loves Michael. (Spoiler alert: she doesn’t.) Everyone looooooves talking about how Michael loves Apollonia, but never if Apollonia loves Michael. How does that work? Lmao. And if Kay constantly has to be mentioned and slandered, then I think it’s already obvious… 🥴

Thank you for sharing this analysis with me!! 😂❤️ I loved it! You’re absolutely right and I agree with you. Of course, everyone can interpret Michael’s changes differently but I mean… Once I read the book and saw that no, Apollonia had no effect on Michael’s change, I’m like… 👁️👄👁️ it was Sonny’s death that changed Michael and I will die on this hill.

[aphrostarot]

Healing Inner Child Pick a Pile

What wounds does your inner child have and how can you help heal them?

Please remember that this is a general reading and some things may not apply to you. Don't force it to fit. I offer paid readings on my page if you would like a personal reading. Prices are listed there. Please message me if you are interested!

Pile One (Fuchsite):

How do you see yourself?

Seven of Wands:

You view yourself as someone who has fought tooth and nail to get to where you are. You also believe you have a strong sense of justice and will never let others stand in their way. However, due to the difficulties you've encountered in your life, you have lost the ability to see others as allies, which has hindered your ability to make new friends, keep friends, and ask for help when you need it.

The Widow:

Throughout her life, the Widow has suffered a lot of death, literally and figuratively. She, however, has survived each of these losses with a great amount of strength. While you have had a lot of difficulties in your life, you have handled them with great dignity and grace. These are the things you believe make you strong and give you the ability to survive all that life throws your way.

How does your inner child see you?

Ten of Cups:

This is the card of fairy tales and having it come out here is showing me that your inner child thinks of you as their fairy tale ending. You are everything your inner child ever dreamed of becoming. They view you as obtaining their happily ever after, after having gone through a period of struggles in life. You are very successful and charming in their eyes.

The Coquette:

In their eyes, you are extremely charming, confident, and flirtatious. You have everyone’s eyes on you when you walk into a room. Everyone either wants to be you or do you. You are able to charm the socks off just about anyone you encounter, making them give you just about anything you want. You are very dreamy in your inner child’s eyes.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Two of Swords:

They feel out of balance and they do not know how to find balance again. They are scared because they view you as this amazing person, as the one who they always dreamed of becoming and you do not think of yourself like that, which scares them. Because how can they see you for what you truly are and you not see that? How can you be the same person yet be so so, different?

What did you lack as a child?

Ten of Pentacles:

This is the card of abundance, of happy families. It seems to me that your family lacked financial abundance in your childhood and this really affected your happiness as a whole family but also as an individual.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

Three of Pentacles:

At some point in your life, you were the victim of envy, and this scarred your inner child. The people around you were jealous of you, so instead of trying to help you, they tried to destroy you instead. As a result of them hurting you, your inner child struggles to trust others.

How does that thing affect your life now?

Ten of Wands:

This has affected your ability to work hard, and your progress in life. When these people were trying to ruin your life you were at a point where your progress and hard work were just starting to pay off. And now you have a fear of making progress in your life because you fear the people around you will not support your life last time.

The Empress:

The Empress is all about growth and having it come out here is telling me that your fear of success is hindering your growth within yourself. Your inner child’s trauma is what is causing you to fear your own success and your mistrust of others.

What is something you can do to heal your inner child?

Nine of Swords:

As a result of the trauma that your inner child has endured, they have become very anxious and depressed. Your lack of trust in others is your inner child coming forward.

Seven of Cups:

By rediscovering your dreams of success, you will be able to heal your inner child. As a result of your past, you have lost those dreams and this has caused a lot of pain to your inner child. You will be more willing to achieve success once you realize that people in your life don't determine how you spend your life, thus healing your inner child.

Princess:

You are your own knight in shining armor, according to this card. There is no need for anyone else to fight for you. To help your inner child heal, your guides are telling you that you must fight for yourself. You do not need the people in your life to approve of your life decisions.

How can you support your inner child?

The Devil:

As we have established, your inner child views you as the person they have always dreamed of becoming, and this card is showing that one way to support your inner child is by viewing yourself as they do. You can regain balance in your life by aligning your views of yourself with theirs.

Tower:

This card tells you to unplug and relax. You need some self-care at this moment. Your guides are saying that a way for you to support your inner child is by taking care of yourself. Love yourself, view yourself the way your inner child does.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

Six of Cups:

When you were a kid you were very passionate about life and your dreams of success. Those dreams were shattered by setbacks and jealous people who made you lose heart. You are being urged by your inner child to rediscover those dreams. Channel your inner child so you can feel that passion yet again.

Pile Two (Amethyst):

How do you see yourself?

The Empress:

Charm, charisma, and beauty are just a few of the things you think make you special. Your view is that you are a very creative and intelligent person who can succeed in anything they do. In your eyes, you exude a strong motherly nature that compels others to love being in your presence making you a great friend and lover.

The Gamine:

The Gamine rejects all things that society deems feminine, often rocking a pixie cut or a short chop with boxy clothes. They are free-spirited and a delight to be around. This is how you see yourself, as possessing a charming youthful spirit.

How does your inner child see you?

Six of Wands:

Your inner child sees you as someone who loves the spotlight but is very passionate, determined, and unafraid to take risks. In their eyes, you are positive, optimistic, and a natural-born leader. It feels to me that you are not at all someone they ever imagined becoming but they love who you have become.

The Siren:

The siren is a symbol of the challenge of resistance. Irresistible, she can entice just about anyone into her traps. She has every enchanted by her beauty and her voice. That is how your inner child perceives you, as someone who is irresistible and extremely strong.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Queen of Cups:

Your inner child feels very loyal to you. They love you very much and cannot believe how far you have come in your life. They are putting you on a pedestal due to the fact that you have surmounted everything they could have ever imagined becoming. They idolize you.

The High Priestess:

As this is the card of secrets, it seems like they are also reluctant to discuss how they are feeling at the moment. Maybe it is hard for them to trust others so they aren’t willing to share with me how they’re feeling currently. From the energy, I sense that they feel alone and that they cannot trust anyone else but themselves.

What did you lack as a child?

The Hierophant:

You had a very hectic childhood. Your family never had any traditions. Not only were there no traditions, but there was a lack of balance as well. Constantly walking on eggshells around the people in your life, you never knew what to expect. Not wanting to rock the boat for fear of uproar.

Three of Swords:

As a result of your hectic childhood, you received heartbreak after heartbreak. This makes sense with the energy I am receiving from your inner child. Your inner child is very untrustworthy because you lacked the stability in your childhood to feel like you could truly trust others.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

Ten of Wands:

As a kid, the people in your life relied on you a lot to provide for them and to keep them in check. You were blamed for many things, and you had to enforce balance in a place where it did not exist. You were the parent to your siblings and you were the parent to yourself. Which has left your inner child scarred and scared to trust others.

Justice:

As a child, you experienced a lack of justice. You were blamed for so many of the bad things that happened because you were expected to be the emotional punching bag for so long and when you didn't live up to your role you were punished.

How does that thing affect your life now?

Three of Pentacles:

This scarring affected your education. Your family may have pressured you to stay home and take care of them, so you did not pursue higher education. Alternatively, you may not believe you are intellectually capable of pursuing higher education. Whatever the case may be, your education has been greatly affected by the scarring your inner child experienced.

What is something you can do to heal your inner child?

Three of Wands:

The way for you to heal your inner child is by teaming up with someone. Asking for help. You have been conditioned all your life to be a strong individual, who never asks for help even when they need it. Now is the time to change that. Your guides want you to reach out to someone and ask for help when you need it. You do not need to tough it out alone.

Voyage:

Voyage tells you that you have all the answers within yourself, and you know it. You have been trying to avoid rocking the boat for some time now even though you knew that asking for help was the right option. You know, and maybe always have known, that you need help to get through this. Your inner child urges you to listen to yourself over trying to be what everyone else is telling you to be.

How can you support your inner child?

Two of Pentacles:

Your whole childhood lacked balance which left your inner child wounded. Here, your guides are telling you that the way for you to support your inner child is by finding balance in your life.

Escapist:

For a long time now, you have avoided what needs to be done in your life, avoiding this lack of balance. The way to support your inner child is to come home to yourself. Stop running away from yourself and what you need to do. Find that balance so you can begin to heal.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

Seven of Pentacles:

The Seven of Pentacles is all about plans paying off and having it come out here shows me that your inner child is telling you to maintain hope because soon your plans will pay off. If you do not have plans for the future, this is your inner child's way of telling you that you may need to plan more for your future because your hard work will pay off.

Additional Messages:

A channeled message I received from your inner child is, "You possess limitless abundance, you just need to believe it."

Pile Three (Amazonite):

How do you see yourself?

Nine of Wands:

You have faced an extreme amount of seemingly insurmountable challenges in your life and have come out on top almost every time. This has caused you to believe that you have unlimited potential to achieve all of your dreams. You see yourself as someone who will preserve until they reach their end goal.

The Demon Mother:

The Demon Mother is a vessel of mysterious power. She has a strong ability to manifest whatever it is she desires. She, however, commands attention, and others can’t help but be in awe of her. This is how you see yourself.

How does your inner child see you?

Ace of Wands:

Your inner child sees you as someone who is constantly pushing forward towards the things they want. They think that you are very successful when it comes to getting the things you want. Overall it seems to me that you and your inner child view you in the same way, as a very hardworking fiery individual. You could even be a fire sign, Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius.

The Psychic:

It is the psychic's strong intuition that allows them to see the future. They are able to predict what will happen in the future. Your inner child sees you as someone who has great abilities when it comes to your intuition. Whether you have practiced it or not doesn’t matter in their eyes, because to them you are very very magical.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Two of Pentacles:

They feel as though they are out of balance. This is interesting to me because they view you ultimately the same way as you view yourself. However, based on the energy I am getting from both you and them I think that you may be unaware of how strong your intuition really is. This is where they feel that imbalance, in you being unaware of how much power you hold. They know you can do so much with your powers if you were just aware of them.

What did you lack as a child?

Knight of Swords:

It seems to me that you had a masculine energy in your childhood who was very aggressive and caused you a great deal of drama and conflict growing up. This person loved to fight and that’s all they did when you were a kid, whether it was with you or other people. You were a witness to a lot of aggression.

Two of Swords:

Because of that person and their aggression, your childhood lacked a lot of balance. It was always a crossroads when it came to them, whether you should avoid them or face them. You were constantly juggling the drama and conflict that they put you through that your childhood lacked peace and balance.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

Judgment:

You lacked the ability to make decisions for yourself as a child and this really left your inner child scarred. This aggressive person had strong control over almost everything in your life at a young age and you were never really given the chance to be in charge of your own life.

Strength:

When you were a kid you feared standing up for yourself against this person who had so much control over you. This fear made you believe that you were not strong enough to stand up for yourself, which left your inner child scarred as well.

How does that thing affect your life now?

The Hermit:

You now live your life in a constant hermit mode. Avoiding others at all costs because you fear ending up in a relationship like the one you had with that person. You are lonely as a result. You may have a few friends but you keep them at arm’s length, not allowing them to truly get to know you. You believe that you are the only one who will ever truly know you and love you.

What is something you can do to heal your inner child?

Four of Pentacles:

The card of possessiveness indicates holding on to what you have with all your might. According to your guides, the only way you can heal your inner child is by keeping your things to yourself. Because you didn't have much control over your life and what you had when you were growing up, you aren't so possessive now. Since you never had anything to yourself as a kid, you allow others to take it from you at will. You may also just give your things to others because you aren't used to having them yourself. Your guides want you to stop that behavior and start holding onto the things you have.

Garden:

This card tells you that now is the time to focus on yourself, even if you feel that it is selfish. Put yourself first because you can now. Even though you were conditioned to believe that you are not in control of yourself, you are. Now is the time to truly listen to yourself and what you want, then go after it. If you do that, something good will arise, and that good thing will be the healing of your inner child.

How can you support your inner child?

Queen of Pentacles:

Treat yourself. Give yourself everything you have ever wanted, within reason. According to your guides, this is the way you can help your inner child. Bring luxury into your life, spend money on yourself, give yourself a spa day or two. Give yourself what you lacked as a child. Control over your needs and desires being fulfilled.

Lighthouse:

This is the card of not doubting your worth. Your childhood made you think that you were not capable of really anything, and that has really affected your inner child a great deal. The way for you to support your inner child is by believing in yourself, knowing that you truly are worthy of just about anything that you put your mind to.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

The Lovers:

Out of all of the piles here, the love that comes from your inner child is indescribable. Your inner child loves you so very much. It is hard for me to even find the words to describe the amount of love that is coming from them. They are extremely proud of you and everything that you have become. That is really all they want you to know, just how much they love you.

Additional Message:

Before closing out this pile this is what I heard from your inner child, “Thank you for everything. I love you, it’s always been you that was there no matter what.”

Pile Four (Rose Quartz):

How do you see yourself?

Page of Wands:

As a thrill-seeker, you consider yourself someone who enjoys adventures. In your eyes, you are passionate and free-thinking. You enjoy traveling, especially to exotic locations, and you enjoy socializing with other people. Aside from that, you have a very young heart, which makes you extremely optimistic and joyful. According to you, you are a very forgiving person who is willing to overlook red flags, which makes you an excellent friend.

The She-Wolf:

You see yourself as a person who is not only fierce but also has a great inner strength. In your eyes, you are a survivor, having been through so much and surviving it all. Additionally, you are very protective of the people in your life, willing to do whatever it takes to protect them.

How does your inner child see you?

The Magician:

Your inner child sees you as a very quick person. In their eyes, you have great mental agility. You are considered very magical, you have a strong intuition and are an amazing manifestor. You are seen by your inner child as someone who is very eloquent and highly intelligent.

The Magical Girl:

This is interesting to me because the Magician in Tarot is a very magical card, representing having an innate ability to manifest whatever it is you want. The Magician is very magical and in this Oracle deck, the Magical Girl is essentially the Magician. Your inner child defines you as someone with great abilities and someone who has grown so much over the course of their life.

How does your inner child feel currently?

Knight of Swords:

Right now, your inner child is very aggressive. Almost angry, they are restless and destructive. They are irritated and ready to fight. You have been ignoring your inner child for quite some time now, which has really pissed them off. There is strong firey energy here. In astrology, it seems to be more water or air energy rather than fire signs. You might be a Gemini, Libra, Aquarius, Scorpio, Cancer, or Pisces. It feels like strong Scorpio energy.

What did you lack as a child?

Ten of Wands:

There were a lot of burdens placed on you as a child. It feels to me that you lacked a childhood as a kid. You were expected to be strong and mature and not act your age. You were the one who mainly held your family up which is a lot of pressure to put on a child resulting in a lack of innocence and play.

What is something that has left your inner child scarred?

King of Wands:

The King of Wands is a masculine energy consumed with their desires. Pure passion drives them to focus on their career and hobbies. Growing up, you had someone like this in your life. Instead of focusing on you, they focused on their career, making it so you were the one in charge because they were never around.

How does that thing affect your life now?

Death:

Death is the card of transformation, of shedding the old and embracing the new, becoming a new person. You have not been able to let go of your past, holding on to the old which is holding you back from your transformation. You can’t truly grow if you are not willing to let go of some things along the way. Your guides are saying that yes, you had a rough childhood but you have grown up. Now is the time to treat yourself the way you deserved as a kid, instead of maintaining that negative treatment.

What is something that you can do to heal your inner child?

Five of Swords:

You've been struggling for some time now, trying to regain control of your life. Yet, as we have established, the way in which you were battling for control is detrimental to you. According to you, now is the time to act your age and be mature because that is what is best for you. But you are treating yourself the same way that person treated you when you were a kid. By letting go of the idea that you are doing what is right for you, you will be able to heal your inner child. Instead of ignoring your inner child, embrace them.

Thorns:

A good support system is just as important as self-care. The idea that you only need yourself may have led you to go at life alone. Your guides are saying that you can heal your inner child by giving yourself a childhood. Hang out with your friends. Act like a child and have fun since that is what is needed here.

How can you support your inner child?

Ace of Pentacles:

The Ace of Pentacles is all about building a foundation. So, the way for you to support your inner child is by building a solid foundation for you to freely be able to act like a child in your life. You may not feel comfortable doing this in your life right now, but the key to this is building a solid foundation for you to do this. Surround yourself with people that allow you to do this, make your home a safe place, fill it with things that make you comfortable. The key to success here is your own comfort levels.

Confidence:

You also may be lacking the confidence to truly give yourself a break from the hustle and bustle of life and show your inner child. Your guides are saying that you need to build your confidence so you can support your inner child. The key to feeling confident is feeling comfortable. Make sure you are comfortable with the people you surround yourself with and with the things you surround yourself with.

What does your inner child have to say to you?

The Devil:

The Devil is all things passionate and all things taboo. Your inner child tells me that you avoid all these things because they scare you because your childhood lacked fun. You need to embrace some of the things that scare you. Take baby steps towards having fun. Do things you were never allowed to do as a child.

Additional Messages:

While channeling for this pile, I heard "Have fun...let loose...try new things...be brave, little one." I heard the phrase, "Chicken little," but I have no idea what it means. I'm hoping someone can understand what it means.

Though tips are not required, they are very much appreciated. Thank you!

Venmo: @ aphrostarot Paypal: paypal/aphrostarot