#i know as a girl i should be identifying with the white dress here

[freebooter4ever]

listen to TATE nonstop - - - - > whoops i bought a ticket I shouldn't be wasting money on to their LA concert in august

[teakookssi]

Before I Leave You [Eren/Levi x Reader FF]

[ full story can be found here or here ] [Overview & prologue]

➺ pairing: levi ackerman/eren jeager x fem!reader  ➺content: mafia au, crime, arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, angst, lol so much angst ➺warnings: violence, blood, strong language, guns/weapons, and illegal activities are all mentioned but hey, that’s aot for you, so if you can handle that, you can handle this (: 

chapter 16: consequence

The smell of fresh blood hangs heavy in the air as you wake up in your room, alone and vastly disoriented. Still, instinct takes over and you hastily sit up in search of that source of smell.

Squinting against the darkness, you check the time on your clock at your bedside table. It reads three in the morning. And yet…you can’t recall ever making it to your room last night.

Actually, you can’t recall much of anything before this very moment.

You try to turn on the lamp next to your bedside table, but the light bulb must have caught a fuse because it refuses to turn on. Nevertheless, you’ve found yourself in far worse situations than this to allow panic to settle in just yet. A quick look around the dark room tells you nothing is out of place. Everything is as it should be.

Except…

That wet, hot metal scent still lingers strong and near, keeping you alert. The sight of blood is something you’ve come to associate with your enemies, after all. Your enemies…and Death.

As you swing your legs over the side of the bed to stand, you look yourself over. But your hands and clothes are clean of any signs of blood or injury so you know it’s not coming from you.

Still, there is no mistaking it’s dangerously close.

The hair on the back of your neck suddenly stands on end and you feel the familiar, eerily presence of the girl in the white dress behind you. Her ominous presence has you on edge and when you catch her shift at an awkward angle behind you from your peripheral vision, you twist to face her—refusing to keep your back to her.

The girl’s eyes are lifeless as always, but this iron-like smell she carries with her only grows stronger as she approaches. And when your gaze drops down to her hands, you understand why. Even against the darkness of the room you can clearly make out the fresh set of blood dripping from her fingertips, leaving a thick crimson trail behind her on the floor.

The moment she starts moving towards you, you hastily back away. But you end up tripping over something lying on the floor and you land on your back gracelessly with a heavy thud, which is very unlike you. Before you can figure out what it is you’ve tripped over, you cast your attention back in the direction of where the girl in the dress had been.

Only to find she’s no longer there.

You pause. Confused.

But as you look around in search of her, you realize your surroundings have also changed. Gone are the four walls encompassing your bedroom and your home. You now find yourself lying on the cold, hard ground in a clearing somewhere under a dark, moonless sky.

There's a drastic temperature drop as well as the open night air nips at your fingertips, turning them a light shade of red and causing you to shiver. You can see your breath come out in small puffs of smoke in front of you, but you’ve got no other attire with you for you to bundle up with except the dark trousers and loose white button up shirt you went to sleep with.

Needing to gather your bearings, you move to stand. Only for you to pause halfway as you identify what you stumbled over earlier.

A corpse is rotting under your feet. Its features unrecognizable by the maggots eating away at its flesh.

Stifling back a scream, you crawl away in disgust as you look around with a mix of horror and confusion.

What the hell is this place?

Stumbling to your feet, you venture off in the opposite direction of where you’ve left behind the unidentified corpse. But it seems that no matter where you turn, dead bodies follow.

With no end to this in sight, panic creeps in. And in your desperate search for an exit, you lose your footing and fall to the floor, face forward.

Right next to a dark-haired corpse. It’s mildly decomposed head stares back at you.

You freeze. Blank stormy grey eyes look back at you.

Mikasa’s eyes.

You jump back, your eyes glassy and stricken with fear because you’re unable to comprehend why her body is lying there before you.

But she is.

And She’s. Not. Moving.

Beside her is another body. And another body.

You look around you. You’re surrounded by the dead. There’s no end to them in sight. Worst of all? They’re all faces you recognize. Jean. Armin. Sasha. Historia. Connie. Furlan. Isabel. They’re all here.

You shake your head, refusing to accept this as you walk forward aimlessly.

"No. Please, no…”

When you come across your mother’s unmoving figure next, you swear your heart stops beating. She still lies in the same position you remember seeing her last as a kid. Crawling towards you on the ground with an array of bullet holes on her back and her hand reaching out towards you.

You numbly move towards her. Not caring that she’s more bone than flesh and reeks of nothing but decay. But as you draw nearer, your heart plummets. An indescribable noise escapes you.

A nightmare, you think. This is a nightmare.

Because lying right next to her is your father. Dead. His heart carved out of his chest.

You know where you are now.

You’re in a graveyard. A graveyard of your own making. Everyone you’ve ever loved and cared for lies dead here. Because of you. Everyone, except—

The sound of footsteps dragging against the ground is heard nearby, sending your body on alert. You take in your surroundings closely until a figure emerges from the mist behind you.

“Anya?”

Your heart catches in your throat. It’s a familiar voice. Weak and hoarse, yes, but it’s a voice you’ll recognize anywhere.

“Levi?”

You move on instinct and rush to him in relief as he comes into view, but he collapses where he stands before he can reach you. You shake your head in between sobs, terror gripping at your chest as you rush forward and fall to your knees before him.

“No!” you scream, cradling him in your arms. “No no no no! Please, no!”

He’s heavily bleeding and severely bruised and broken, but alive. Still alive.

“Levi, I’m here,” you reassure him amidst your crying, holding his face with a trembling hand. “Stay with me. Please. Please!”

But Levi’s voice is hitched, he’s struggling to even breath and his eyes are glazed and unfocused. When he opens his mouth he coughs out blood and you already know what’s coming next even though you refuse to accept it.

“No, wait!” you implore, your voice breaking. “Don’t close your eyes. Don’t. Please!”

Levi doesn’t listen. Slowly, his eyes close shut and you feel the moment his soul leaves his body as he turns terrifyingly still and limp in your arms.

“NO!” you shriek, shaking him. “Wake up! Levi, wake up! Please!”

But his skin is turning deathly pale the longer he remains unresponsive and his body grows terribly cold and heavy against you.

You’re sobbing onto his chest—clutching onto the fabric of his tattered shirt so tightly your knuckles turn ghostly white, as if holding him close will keep him with you just a little bit longer— when you sense the girl in the bloody dress appear again somewhere to your right.

Your red, swollen eyes slowly veer towards her. She is crouching down over a body lying still on the ground. A body with fading green eyes watching you helplessly from afar.

Eren.

“No!” you cry out in protest, surprised to still have a voice after all your crying. “Leave him!”

Your legs feel heavy and numb amidst your grief, your body slow to react and unwilling to cooperate. Refusing to leave Levi’s side. Nonetheless, you force yourself to move, to rise.

“Please—”

You extend a hand out in front of you, urging her to stop. Except when you do, you find your hand covered in blood, making you pause in horror. You look down at your other hand. They’re both stained with blood.

You glimpse over at the girl’s hands, which are also dripping a crimson substance, and it’s like looking in the mirror. You match her reflection perfectly.

Behind you, a sea of blood approaches, taking with it all the corpses lying on the ground at your feet.

The red water rises higher and higher the more it draws near…

Until finally, it arrives.

And swallows you whole.

When you wake, you jerk up so quickly you double over. Heaving in deep, harsh, gasping breaths. So overcome, so relieved to be able to get oxygen into your lungs, you’re unable to register anything around you until you feel Levi’s familiar hand on your back and his deep, rough voice.

“Anya? What’s wrong?”

You turn to him in surprise amidst the darkness of your room. He’s half awake, his voice is groggy and his hair is ruffled, but it doesn’t matter. You can’t hold back the tears as you violently fling your arms around his neck, overjoyed with relief to find him alive and unharmed.

“Levi!”

Your whole body is shaking against him, your skin going from hot to cold too quickly as your body struggles to catch up with the fact you weren’t really just drowning in a sea of blood.

Levi tenses in your arms for the briefest of seconds, startled by the state you’re in. But he quickly pulls you in and holds you tight. Letting you lean on him for strength, comfort, support—whatever it is you need. You know he’ll provide it for you without fail.

“You’re okay,” Levi says gently, rubbing your back in a soothing manner. “It was just a bad dream. Everything’s alright.”

You pull back enough to search his face and run your eyes over his body for any sign of those cuts and bruises you’d seen on him in your dream. “You’re really okay?” you ask again, still refusing to trust your eyes.

You ignore the level of concern in his gaze as he nods, cupping your face in his hands and wiping away your tears with his thumbs. “I’m okay. I’m fine.”

But you still look to the door apprehensively. Unable to get the image of all those corpses lying still in that misty graveyard, staring back at you with blank, empty eyes. Dead eyes.

“Mikasa?” you croak out. “Armin? Everyone?”

“Everyone is fine,” he assures you earnestly. “It was just a bad dream. I promise.” He kisses your forehead and pulls you into his arms again.

“This is real?” you ask, resting your head against the crook of his neck and balling the fabric of his shirt in your fists. “You’re here right now?”

He rests his solid warm hand over yours. “Yes. It’s real. I’m here.”

That night you fall asleep in his arms, inhaling in his familiar earthy and faint leather scent, listening to the beat of his heart as you burrow yourself closely against his chest. The warmth that radiates from him, and his heart’s steady rhythm is enough to lull you to sleep, if only because they’re the only two things you trust to assure you he’s still very much alive.

—

Later that afternoon after a late morning start, your father’s message regarding Lord Wald comes via Mikasa and Eren. They arrive with a look that tells you Lord Wald has done just as you’ve expected, and now you’re left to determine the poor nobleman’s fate.

Levi was supposed to have been the one to meet with Ymir to discuss over the details earlier that morning, but after your dream last night, your fiancé refused to leave you alone. So he sent Isabel in his stead, and she came back with Mikasa and Eren to serve as Ymir’s envoys.

You receive them in your office, a glass of whiskey half empty in your hand. Levi stands to your right, leaning against the bookshelf behind your desk while you sit in your leather chair as Mikasa reports the situation.

You avoid looking at her as she does—her and Eren. You’re still pretty shaken up from having seen them dead in your dreams last night. Though at least you’re in better control now, and you make sure not to let your uneasiness slip in front of them.

“He’s a proud noble,” Mikasa is saying. “He’s not one to appreciate being threatened or humiliated the way he was. He’s likely trying to establish his dominance by denying your father’s demands.”

“Of course he is,” you drawl, tracing the rim of your glass with a finger in a bored manner. “But my father gave him a deadline and he failed to deliver.” Your brows scrunch down, sarcasm shifting your tone. “Bit rude, isn’t it? He’s supposed to be a man of honor and high class.” Your eyes slide over to Eren who wears a sullen expression. You smirk. “Isn’t that right, Eren?”

Eren’s jaw clenches, glaring at you. He opens his mouth to say something, but Mikasa cuts him off before he can get the chance to speak his mind.

“Your father’s made the arrangements for tonight,” she says plainly. She then flickers her gaze over to your fiancé and you catch a hint of resentment in her eyes. “Levi and his men will be monitoring from the sidelines,” she says before her eyes slide back to you. “But you’ll be leading the job. If you succeed tonight, Ymir will restore your authority over the sector and your confinement will be terminated.”

Eren suddenly tenses beside her, taken aback by Mikasa’s words. “If she succeeds?” he repeats with a scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean? What’ll happen if she fails?”

“I won’t,” you assure him arrogantly, but that only rewards you with a glare from him.

“Humor me,” he says tightly.

You chuckle dryly. “Fine, then. I fail—” You shrug casually. “—I’m as good as dead.”

Either by Lord Wald’s men, Pixis’ men, or your own hand. Didn’t matter.

Better dead than one of their bloody prisoners.

Eren’s eyes widen and he swallows, stricken. “So then don’t do this,” he blurts out, as if it were that fucking easy.

You down the last bit of whiskey from your glass in one swing. “Not an option.”

“Yes, it is!” Eren insists desperately, marching towards you until he stands over your desk. “Anya, you don’t have to do this. Let your father handle this. This is his problem, not yours.”

A muscle in your jaw twitches. “On the contrary. That lord disrespected my father, my family.” You rise to your feet. “And by extension: me. He’s not the first to do so, but his defiance works in our favor just the same.” You step away from your desk to fix yourself another drink across the room. “He’ll serve as an example for the rest of the high lords once I’m through with him.”

Eren’s face pales, shaking his head. Failing to hide how appalled he is by your words and cold-blooded behavior. He then looks to Mikasa and Levi with equally deep aversion. Unable to comprehend why they were supporting you and letting you go through with this when it was only leading you down a darker path.

Frustrated and upset with everyone in the room, Eren fixes you with a final hard glare before turning on his heels and storming out, slamming the door behind him.

You refrain from flinching at the sound even though the look of disappointment on Eren’s face as he walked off is just as bad, if not worse. It had been directed solely at you, after all, which is why it’s left such a foul taste in your mouth. But before Mikasa or Levi can notice how much of a lingering effect Eren’s exit has had on you, you turn to them with a fixed expression and let Mikasa run through the rest of the details with you.

A short time later, you’re down in the basement collecting your weapons of choice and stuffing them in a black duffle bag from out of your armory. Levi prepares his own weapons a few feet away, but you can still sense him watching you closely.

“Do you still want to do this?” he asks you softly as you finally zip up your bag, having rounded up everything you need.

“Yes,” you reply without pause, throwing Levi a sideways glance. “Why? Getting cold feet?” You smile wryly. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Levi throws you a dark look. “Don’t start.”

You roll your eyes. “Whatever.” You throw the strap of your bag over your shoulder. “I don’t need you to come along, anyways.” You move for the stairs leading out of the basement. “I can handle this on my own.”

Your father had promised you freedom after this. Nothing was going to get in the way of that. Least of all your demons. Night terrors be damned.

Levi pulls back on one of the handles from your bag before you can reach the stairs, forcing you to step back. “I know you can,” he says, taking your bag from you with his free hand and hauling it over his own shoulder. “But I’m still coming. Besides, you heard your father’s conditions. You want back in, you have to listen to me.”

He smirks in amusement when you glower at him.

“Go get changed,” he then says, nodding to the door. “I’ll meet you in the car.”

As Levi takes the bags of weapons to the car, you head up the stairs to change into more suitable attire for tonight. When you finish dressing, you hear footsteps in the hallway outside your room. You think its Levi coming to check on you, but as you step out of your room, you find Eren standing at the end of the hallway, blocking your access to the stairs.

You frown, noting the open window at the end of the hallway. Did he sneak in by climbing the fucking wall?

The moment he spots you, Eren’s back straightens in attention. “Anya.”

You sigh, knowing why he’s here.

“Fuck off,” you mutter halfheartedly, brushing past him to avoid looking at those captivatingly green eyes of his.

But you don’t miss the way his brows crease down as he takes in what you’re wearing. The black tailored suit and coat and dark gloves he’s seen you and your people wear before for evenings such as these.

Nonetheless, you start down the stairs, taking no more than a few steps before he stops you.

“Anya, please,” he implores, his hand firmly clasping your arm. “Don’t go.”

“Let go, Eren,” you warn him in a dangerously low tone, keeping your back to him. But Eren doesn’t heed your warning and hastily steps in your path, forcing you to meet his hopeful gaze.

“Stay with me,” he pleads again, almost petulantly. “You have enough blood on your hands. You don’t need to add any more.”

You roll your eyes at him and sharply break out of his hold. “Nice try, pretty boy.” You shove him aside and resume your way down the stairs.

Eren follows after you. “Please, Anya!” he calls behind you. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know it doesn’t. You can stop it. All this violence and unnecessary bloodshed, let this end with you.”

Your laugh is sharp and cynical but your pace doesn’t slow down for him.

“You can’t tell me you enjoy this!” Eren accuses reproachfully. “Hurting people.”

You stop in your tracks, hearing the rancor in his voice and knowing you need to use this to your advantage.

“And if I say I do?” you ask, your voice dropping down a few degrees.

“I don’t believe it.”

You clench your jaw, hating how the longer he stayed by your side, the more he got to witness the darkest sides of you. The parts you hated and wished he never knew existed.

But this is who you are—or at least, who he needs to believe you are.

Slowly, you turn towards him and meet his bright green eyes with dark, malicious intent. “You don’t believe it when I say I crave it? That it brings me great satisfaction to hear my enemies cry out and beg me for mercy? You don’t believe me when I tell you that seeing them bleed out, seeing the life leave their eyes, is my favorite part?”

Eren glares at you. “You’re lying.”

You smile cruelly. “Come see for yourself then, if you’re so sure I’m lying.”

You turn and resume walking down the stairs, but Eren doesn’t take the bait. For a while he doesn’t move or speak, even when you can sense him watching you from behind, his eyes burning into the back of your head.

It isn’t until you’re more than halfway down the stairs that he finally says, “This isn’t going to get you your freedom back, you know.”

You pause mid-step as he goes on, his voice shaking with suppressed emotion. “Unless you learn to let go of all that hatred and vengeance you carry in your heart, you’ll never be free.”

Your nails dig into the palm of your hands as your hands curl into fists at your side. You don’t know why but hearing him say this depresses the hell out of you.

Perhaps its because you knew he would try this—try to save you. And honestly, maybe this is why you let him live. Because you wanted him to tell you that you were worth saving despite all your crooked ways. That you could have a chance at a good life, away from all this. With him.

A part of you desired that, you won’t deny it. But there was also another part of you, a greater, vindictive part who sought vengeance. Justice. For your mother’s death. For Levi’s parents. For the once bright and beautiful life rudely taken from you. And for the darkness that took its place.

In the end, that part of you always won.

Without sparing a word or second glance in Eren’s direction, you resume the last set of stairs and cut across the foyer to the front door.

Tonight requires you to leave all forms of sentiment behind. So you carve out your deadbeat heart and leave it for Eren to hold while your demons roam free in its place.

—

It’s nearly two in the morning when you finally make it back home after completing your father’s assignment.

You’re envisioning the shower you’re going to take as you walk through your front door before crashing for the night, Levi following close behind. Only for you to find your entire inner circle standing in the foyer, anxiously waiting for your return.

Not that this bothers you.

Seeing them all back where they belong, here with you, serves as a reminder to you that tonight was worth it.

Your cadre must have heard your car pull in at the front of your house for them to be lingering by the entrance so attentively. The relief that washed over them at the sight of you at the doorway is evident, and you feel the tension that had been building up in the room subside.

Mikasa steps forward to greet you first. “You’re home,” she says in open relief.

“Yes…” you say, trailing off as your attention shifts to Eren standing beside Historia by the staircase. “Except for that one.”

Everyone turns in Eren’s direction but the guy doesn’t seem to notice. His attention is drawn to the dried blood on your hands and ruined clothes. When his eyes finally look up to meet yours, you steel yourself against the appalled look on his face.

Fuck. He really needs to stop looking at you like that.

But Eren’s confirmed what he needed to see and marches for the door without a word, jaw tight.

You scoff as he roughly bumps past you. “Something you wish to say?” you ask him coolly, even though you’re afraid of what he might say to you when he looks as upset as he does.

You’ve already provoked him though. His footsteps stop short behind you. It’s too late to take it back now.

“No,” he replies, choking out the word as if its being yanked from his throat before then adding in a spiteful tone, “I hope you sleep well tonight.”

You sense his eyes on you and you glance behind you to find him watching you over his shoulder bitterly. So you smile at him shamelessly. “Like the dead.”

He scowls at your remark before storming out the door, disgusted by the flippancy in your behavior despite the visible traces you bare on your person, telling him of how you experimented with all the different ways you knew to kill a man.

And yet, once inside the privacy of your own room, your highly composed mask falls away as you rush to the bathroom to wash away all evidence of tonight’s transgression from your skin and clothes. You try to resist it but shame and guilt course through you—emotions you hadn’t felt hours ago— as you stare down at your blood stained hands, at the water filling the sink a diluted shade of crimson.

You look up at the mirror on the wall in front of the sink, loathing the reflection staring back at you. Behind you in the darkness, your demons have been watching you closely since you arrived, having stirred from their slumber.

The minute the reflection of the girl in the white dress appears through the mirror, you want to punch the glass until it shatters. Perhaps you do, because moments later the darkness surrounding you begins to cave in around you as your demons stalk forward with calculating precision, seeking for an opportunity to attack.

They find it.

They pounce.

—

The days that follow prove to be more than detrimental for your crippling state of mind. You avoid the mirrors around the house at all costs, afraid to find the monster Eren caught a glimpse of the other night staring back at you. But even without looking at your reflection in the mirror, you know the red rimmed eyes are there and the dark circles under your eyes have turned far more prominent than before.

All the while your darkness grows heavier, infesting your heart and soul, dragging behind you like a well worn cloak.

But perhaps most damaging of all is Eren and his unwavering morality you can’t seem to grow immune to.

How can he make you feel so ashamed by your actions with a simple look? Disappointing him shouldn’t bother you or affect you in any way. And yet he’s made you hesitate, made you doubt, made you question your principles far more often than you care to admit.

So when you overhear Eren one day talking to Historia in your father’s office about wanting to take up your family mark and devoting himself wholeheartedly to House Ymir like Historia and the rest of your circle, you panic.

Knowing that the only person more against this than you is Levi, you stay up waiting for him that night, a switchblade twirling in your hands absentmindedly, until he arrives near the crack of dawn.

Not that you’re usually asleep at this hour. As of late, these nightmares of yours have offered you little peace of mind to provide you with a proper nights sleep.

The moment Levi opens the door to your room and finds you wide awake, still in your work attire with a blade in your hand and pacing across your room restlessly, he tenses.

“What’s wrong?” he demands, concern laced in his tired voice.

“Eren wants to swear his loyalty to my father,” you divulge anxiously as he approaches you. “To the Ymir clan.”

To me, you don’t say.

Levi stares at you for a second, taken aback by the abrupt mention of Eren. But after realizing you’re in no real trouble, his muscles relax and he sighs in relief. Cutting the space between you, he smirks dryly. “I thought he already had.”

He reaches out for you but you move away before he can and you resume your pacing, the switchblade in your hand still moving. “You know what I mean. He wants to seal it in ink. Officially. For the whole bloody world to know that he belongs to us.”

Levi frowns, pausing where you’ve left him in the middle of the room. “Ymir doesn’t trust him. He won’t allow that.”

“He will if Eren keeps this up,” you grumble, slowing down your pacing as Eren’s voice cuts through your thoughts.

Are you? he had once asked you. A monster?

“Keeps what up?” Levi asks, coming up behind you and sliding his arms around you while gently taking the switchblade you hold tightly in your hand.

“Getting under my skin,” you admit quietly, letting Levi take the blade from you before turning in his arms to face him. The eyes looking back at you are soft and vulnerable, though dim and full of fatigue. Wanting to smooth out his rough edges, you raise a hand to caress his face tenderly and he closes his eyes in comfort, leaning against your touch lovingly.

“I need him away from me,” you tell your fiancé earnestly. “Do what you must, but I can’t have him on my team, Levi. He’ll just end up messing everything up.”

Levi nods in agreement and rests his forehead against yours, putting you more at ease because you know how much Levi doesn’t trust Eren near you. So you know he will do whatever he can to keep him away.

And yet not even Levi’s favoritism with your father is enough to change his mind about Eren.

After meeting with your father the following day, Levi informs you that until whatever it is Ymir wants with Eren to unfold, the guy was here to stay. Much to his and your great displeasure.

Levi did manage to convince Ymir to take Eren under his squad, at least. That way Isabel and Furlan could keep an eye on him next door whenever Levi couldn’t.

Still, you did your part to limit your interactions with Eren as much as possible so he’d grasp the idea you didn’t want him near, and thus refrain from wanting to swear his loyalty to your clan. It helped that he was not permitted inside your house (you had made sure all the doors and windows he could sneak in through like he had before were barred or heavily guarded), but there were times in the office or at the pub or on your way through town where you would have to blatantly ignore him while Mikasa or Jean kept him at a distance or walk in the opposite direction when you were alone so as to completely avoid him.

It was foolish to think this would work on him for long when it had proven unsuccessful in the past. If anything, by pushing him away from you and your circle, he was forced to bond more closely with Furlan and Isabel which was something neither you or Levi had anticipated.

To some extent at least, you could understand it. Eren arrived into town feeling like an outsider and you could tell that he longed to feel included. He wanted that sense of belonging. Even if it was with crooked people like you and your family. So it really came as no surprise when, after having had enough with being tossed aside and ignored by you, Eren forced his way into your home with the help of Furlan and Isabel while you trained down in the basement with Jean and Mikasa one late evening, demanding a word with you.

The moment you hear Isabel trading off insults with Connie and Sasha upstairs, you exhale sharply and take on a more relaxed stance, preparing yourself for what’s coming.

Or rather, who.

Jean and Mikasa are the only ones in the training room with you so when they first hear the commotion upstairs, they straighten in attention. Bodies on alert. All the while you twirl the metal rod you had been wielding against Mikasa during practice around mindlessly, tense and slightly irritable.

When Furlan and Isabel appear walking down the stairs of the training room with Eren at their heels, you keep your rod still at your side.

Isabel looks down at Mikasa and Jean distastefully as they take on a protective stance in front of you, expressing their disapproval at Furlan and Isabel’s unannounced presence. Immediately you feel the tension in the room build between Jean and Mikasa and Isabel and Furlan as they line up against each other.

Isabel and Furlan are one of several members in the Ackerman clan who heavily opposed the idea of their Ackerman leader bowing down to another clan leader. They still hold onto the belief that the Ackerman clan are the most powerful clan of them all and should be feared and respected rather than pitied and regarded as nothing more than mere bodyguards to the Ymir clan, when it is because of the Ackermans that the Ymir Sector is still standing at all.

This has caused a rift between Levi’s men and yours that neither you or Levi’s union has been able to mend. And with neither clan willing to work together or trust one another, the more damage both parties inflict to House Ymir’s reputation against the growing threat of the rest of the crime gangs.

You don’t approve of Isabel’s and Furlan’s views against your family, but of one thing they are right about. You will always be indebted to the Ackermans for coming to your family’s aid when they did. You will not deny them of that honor. But what most Ackerman’s refused to accept is that whatever power and strength they once had before, House Ymir now had tenfold.

Adding Eren into the mix has, regrettably, only made things worse. For both parties.

“Get. Out.” Jean enunciates in warning, blocking them off at the entrance. “You have no business here.”

Furlan bristles at Jean’s tone but he holds his ground and lets Isabel do the talking.

“Sheesh. How rude,” she chides. “Do you talk to all women that way? No wonder you’re always in such a foul mood.” Her eyes slide over to Mikasa standing behind him and a dark grin creeps up at the corner of her lips. “Maybe Mikasa can help you out in that department.”

“Levi isn’t here, Isabel,” Mikasa cuts in calmly before Jean can retaliate. “So I suggest you and the rest of your party leave. Now. You know better than to bring him here.”

Isabel glances over at Eren over her shoulder, knowing Mikasa is referring to him, before turning to smile sweetly at her. And then at you. “No, I don’t think so.”

Isabel steps forward, leading Furlan and Eren further into the room, sidestepping Jean and Mikasa. The second they do, Jean moves to grab them, but you voice against it, refusing to be the one to incite violence between both houses.

“Leave them,” you say dismissively. “We’re finished here anyway.”

You move to put your weapons back in its place at the back of the room, but Eren steps forward.

“No,” he says firmly. “You’re not leaving until I speak with you.”

You turn to raise an eyebrow at him, taken aback by the command in his tone. “Excuse me?”

Mikasa holds Jean back before he can make a move on Eren. Though Jean’s glare is just as dangerous. “Careful how you speak to her,” he growls in warning.

Isabel laughs and goes to stand beside Eren, resting an arm over his shoulder languidly. “I know this is hard for you all, but would it really kill you lot to be less hostile and a little more civil with the poor guy?” Her words get directed towards you as she adds, “What has he ever done except save your life?”

You glower at her, fighting against every muscle in your body wanting to smack that stupid little smirk from her face.

“If Eren’s asking at all,” Furlan hisses, coming to flank Eren’s other side, “it’s out of courtesy. At the end of the day its Ymir who’s going to decide this.”

“Decide what?” you demand through gritted teeth.

When all three take too long to reply to you, Jean snaps. “Speak for fucks sake!”

Isabel and Furlan turn to Eren who locks eyes with you and says, “I want to take up your family’s mark.”

The metal rod you had been holding in your hands clatters to the floor.

“No,” you answer sharply with a scowl, your tone cold as ice, before walking right past them in favor of the door.

“I’m ready,” Eren insists, trailing after you.

You scoff over your shoulder. “Like hell you are.”

“He completed his training —” Furlan points out behind you, trying to help Eren’s case.

Except this stops you dead in your tracks.

“Training?” you repeat, your voice trembling with growing rage. You should have fucking expected this. Eren was a charming lad. If he had managed to bond with Levi’s pals so well and so quickly, of course he would have found a way to convince them to train him. You slowly twist to face Furlan and Isabel. “You defied my orders?”

Isabel loses her playfulness and steps forward with arms crossed, approaching you in that menacing way she approaches her enemies. “You’re the one who spared him and brought him into this,” she hisses at you roughly. “He should be able to fend for himself.”

“And we do not listen to you,” adds Furlan hotly beside her. “Training him were Levi’s orders.”

You let out a noise that’s something between a scoff and a laugh while you shake your head and poke the inside of your tongue with indignation.

“Why are you so against this?” Eren asks in that soft-natured tone of his, brazenly stepping closer to you. “Everyone thinks this a good idea. Why don’t you?”

“Because I have no need for you!” you shout at him with enough spite to make him flinch.

Exasperated and refusing to show remorse, you turn away from him towards the stairs leading out of the basement, but Eren hastily steps in your path.

“Please,” he urges once more, “I just want to stay by your side longer. Why is that so bad?”

You falter, completely taken aback by what he’s said that you find yourself struggling to find your voice again. Why did your heart flutter at such words?

But the moment is fleeting, and you quickly come to your senses.

“Step aside,” you order hoarsely, swallowing down the unwelcoming feeling in an attempt to drive it out of your system.

Eren scowls, gaze unyielding. “No. Not until you agree.”

Your eyes narrow, keeping your eyes leveled to his for a moment longer, waiting for him to give in. When he refuses to relent, you nod.

Very well then.

You shift to a more relaxed stance and start to turn away, as if giving in to him. Then without warning, you swipe one of your blades from out of its sheath and lunge for him. He reacts quicker than you expect and dips out of the way, causing your knife to sail over his shoulder and miss him by a few inches. Taking advantage of your loss of momentum, he grips your arm, yanking you forward and flipping you around the side of his body. You’re airborne for a heartbeat before you smack into the training mat, your back taking the impact, hard. He takes the dagger from your hand just as swiftly and throws it aside.

You lie on the mat blinking, stunned. Trying to process what just happened. He looms over you as you stare up at him with wide eyes.

“I can fight,” he assures you adamantly.

Mikasa and Jean rush forward when they realize what happened, ready to murder Eren, but you beat them to it.

Reaching for him, you pull Eren by the collar and dig your foot on his hip, determined to prove a point. Utilizing his own momentum, you lift him up, making him fly over you and land on his own back. Right in front of Mikasa and Jean who come to a quick halt.

Eren groans as the air is knocked out of him, his face red and twisted in pain, but you don’t give him time to recover. Discarding all your knives from their sheaths on the side of the mat, you stride towards him with raised fists, hating him, hating yourself, for having to take it this far.

When Eren sees you approach with dangerous intentions, he hastily stumbles to his feet and takes up a defensive stance, bracing himself against you as you hit him with a series of violent and angry punches.

“You think you can survive this place now that you’ve got some reflexes and fighting moves drilled into you?!” you taunt viciously. “You think that’s all it takes?!”

Fragmented images of your ever-present nightmares invade your mind with each successful strike of yours that lands true, their impact expressing your frustration. Images of your mother and father lying cold and dead in some forsaken gravesite. Of Levi, Mikasa, and Armin staring back at you with blank, soulless eyes. Of Eren’s fading green eyes…Of his blood on your hands, splattered on the dress of that wretched girl who refused to stay buried; that weak and stupidly naive little girl who insists on haunting you forever, never letting you forget the weight of your sins.

Eren attempts to block as many of your attacks despite you closing in, and though he evades a few, you still land far more than he can dodge. Reaching exertion, you finish your attack with a high spinning kick that knocks him to the ground. He lands on his back with a heavy groan, watching you warily as you circle around him.

“I need someone who will do whatever it takes without question,” you say to Eren roughly, your chest still rising and falling rapidly from all your pent up rage. “Who won’t hesitate to pull the trigger when I command it.”

Eren slowly attempts to roll over onto his hands and knees as you speak, showing you his face. You grit your teeth to refrain from grimacing as his face twists in pain at the motion while also blatantly ignoring the blood that spills from his mouth and now pools on the floor in front of him.

Taking advantage of where he’s facing, you come up behind him and yank him by the back of his hair, forcing him to look at Mikasa and Jean as they watch you both from the sidelines while they hold back Isabel and Furlan from interfering.

“You see them?” you hiss into his ear as he groans in protest against your hold. “There is a special kind of darkness in each of them. A darkness that can’t be taught. Know why? Because they have nothing left to fear. The worst that could possibly happen to them already has. There is only anger left in their eyes. Anger and an insatiable desire for blood.”

You release him carelessly and without warning, making him land on all fours. His eyes remain downcast as he tries to collect himself.

“But when I look at you,” you continue, crouching down in front of him and lifting his chin with a finger so he can meet your gaze, “I see none of that. You are nothing but a waste of my time. A liability. And I will not have any of them risk their lives to save someone who doesn’t belong here in the first place.”

But Eren surprises you with a soft smile, and you tense at the sight of it.

“You did,” he points out. “You risked your life for me. That night at the train station in the Karane’s district.”

Your jaw clenches, unable to deny it because he’s right. You did go out of your way to protect him. By making yourself the main target and drawing the attention away from him, Eren survived the ambush from those coppers without a scratch.

Still, you refuse to give in to him so easily. If only because you know how much that goodness in his soul will always weigh him down, will always make him hesitate when the choice needs to be made.

“You will never be ready,” you snarl at him with finality, rising to your full height. “Do not ask again.”

Turning your back on him, you walk away to pick up your blades from where you tossed them. But your hands are unsteady as you slide your knives into their holsters. You tell yourself its the adrenaline rush and not the sight of Eren’s blood on your hands and the uncanny resemblance it has to your dreams.

But it doesn’t matter.

You’re no stranger to guilt’s familiar touch. You know what follows.

Storming out of that basement, you head up to your room with trembling lips and eyes rimmed with tears. You barely make it to your room, slamming the door shut behind you, before you fall to the ground on all fours and break down into uncontrollable sobbing.

“FUCK!” you scream out into the darkness of your room. This isn’t how things were supposed to go! All you had wanted was to protect him. Protect him the way you wish the world could have protected you.

But as it turns out….it was you he needed most protecting from. You who was causing him the most pain and torment. You who was inflicting the most harm.

“You were supposed to stay away,” you mumble miserably, head cradled in the palm of your blood stained hands. “Why didn’t you listen?”

Needing to rid yourself of this overwhelming pain and guilt and self-loathing, you raise your head and look around the room in search of something to help make it all go away.

You force yourself to your feet and cut across the room to your bedside table and open its drawer. You pull out the silver flask stored in there but it comes out empty when you unclasp the lid open. Tossing it aside you move to your closet, remembering of the flask you carry around in your coat that you had refilled not too long ago. You whimper with relief when you find it and hear the liquid slosh around inside.

Without hesitating, you unscrew the lid and bring it to your lips. Taking in a gracious amount of pure, undiluted whiskey, you let it run down your throat until you have enough in your system to soothe your nerves.

Once calm and more resilient to your emotions, you move for the bathroom and turn on the hot water from the bathtub. The water is scalding to the touch but you don’t bother regulating the temperature. You let the tub fill up as you undress and turn it off after it fills. Leaving your clothes in a pile on the floor next to the tub, you swing your legs over and lower yourself until everything below your shoulders is submerged in water.

As you sit there, staring at the wall in front of you with a detached gaze, you see the girl in the white dress standing by the bathroom door from the reflection of the bathroom sink. Not wanting to deal with her dreary presence, you slide underwater so you don’t have to see her, hoping that when you come back up for air she’ll be gone.

You last twenty seconds underwater, thinking of nothing but the panic of your lungs as they start to cry out in protest the longer you deprive them of oxygen, before finally rising to the surface again. When you do, the girl is gone.

Noticing the pack of cigarettes on the floor that fell from your clothes, you reach for your lighter beside them and take out a cigarette to light it.

Once you blow out your first puff of smoke, you close your eyes and rest your head against the back of the tub, feeling a lot more relaxed. You almost manage to doze off until something wet splashes on your face. Like a water drop. Then another.

Slowly, you draw your eyes open to wipe at the wetness, but as you pull your hand back, you notice your fingers are smeared with crimson.

Again.

You frown. Strange.

When another drop falls, splashing on the water in the tub and causing it to ripple, you look up. Instantly, your body runs cold.

The ceiling is saturated in red and you know its blood. It pools in place and falls in heavy drops above you, slowly gliding down the walls.

You heart starts to race. Fright bubbles inside you.

When you glance down at the water in the tub again you scream and jump to your feet in complete horror. The water in the bath runs red with blood. Thick, dark, sticky and swirling in endless ripples. You tumble out of the tub in haste and onto the wet, cold tile floor.

You shake your head and start to crawl away but the hallucination refuses to disappear no matter how many times you close your eyes to it. This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real, you repeat to yourself like a mantra. But the more you go on saying it, the less you believe it.

In the other room, someone bangs on your bedroom door, calling your name. But the door is locked. You can tell by their shouting they’re desperately trying to get in, but you make no move to let them in.

You remain folded in on yourself, dripping wet, cold, and naked, in the corner of your bathroom.

Shaking.

Crying.

Terrified.

Muttering over and over again to yourself, “What’s happening to me?”

You don’t know how much time passes before you finally register the voice calling to you from somewhere in the distance.

His voice sounds murky, muffled. Like he’s deep underwater. But then you feel firm hands shake you to attention. You blink slowly, as if coming out of a daze.

Levi’s face comes to focus and you feel his hands cup your face in worry. “Are you hurt? What happened?” he’s saying, eyes wide in alarm. “The second I got home, I heard your scream.”

Levi’s words seem to flare your senses to life and anchor you to the present. Levi’s crouching in front of you, a bathrobe wrapped around you that hadn’t been there before. Over his shoulder you notice he’s broken the door down to your room. But its the furtive glance you give the bathroom ceiling and walls that fills you with dread.

There’s no traces of blood.

Anywhere.

You jump to your feet and sprint for the bath tub to check the water, startling Levi in your haste. But the water is crystal clear as well, no traces of blood in sight.

Levi approaches you carefully. “Anya? Are you alright?”

It takes you a second to find your voice and say, none too convincingly, “I’m fine. I… slipped… and fell.”

Levi frowns. Your voice sounds distant, off, like you’re mentally not quite there with him yet. “Are you hurt?”

A beat passes. “…No,” you answer faintly. Trying to process what happened, what you saw. If it had been real at all or if it had all been in your head because…it sure as hell felt real. And yet…

“Anya, look at me.”

When you don’t seem to hear him, Levi’s fingers turn your face to him.

“Sweetheart, look at me.”

Slowly, your gaze shifts to him. Anxious grey eyes stare back at you. “Are you sure you’re not hurt? You didn’t hit your head anywhere when you fell, did you?”

You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. You want to tell him how afraid you are. That the control you once had over your demons is slipping. That they’ve taken advantage of your growing weakness and are concocting an attack against you, threatening to overthrow you so they can run amok.

But the words refuse to form.

“I’m… tired,” you say instead, your shoulders sagging in defeat as you feel a lump forming in your throat. “I’m so tired.”

Your voice breaks at the end and you close your eyes, bringing your hands to your face to hide behind them in shame as you cry.

You don’t see the heartbreaking expression in Levi’s face as you break down in front of him, but you can hear the deep lament in his voice.

“I know,” he says to you softly, lifting you from the cold hard floor and carrying you to your bed in one gentle swoop. “I know.”

He holds you close in his arms throughout the night, not once letting you go.

Until morning comes, anyways, and you wake up alone.

He’s left early in the morning. You’d stirred awake when he had, sensing his absence immediately. But you had made no signs of letting him know.

As you felt him gently kiss your brow goodbye, you had heard him talking to Mikasa at the door as he was walking out of your room to leave, telling her to make sure you took it easy and stayed home.

But…

To do that meant giving in to your demons.

And you refuse to do so.

Throwing the sheets to the side, you swing your legs over the bed and get ready to leave.

If your demons want to toy with you, play mind tricks with you, try to get you to submit to them, then why can’t you do the same to them? They needed a not-so-gentle reminder of why you were allowing your soul to darken in the first place. That this was your choice. You were letting this happen, not the other way around.

It’s almost noon when you arrive downstairs dressed in your regular black tailored suit and coat. But you’re not as loaded in weapons as usual — there’s no need where you’re going.

Making your way over to where you hear your cadre gathered in the dining room for lunch, you feel the tension in your muscles ease at the boisterous noise coming down the hall from their presence.

They greet you when you walk into the room like normal, but Mikasa notices you’re dressed to go out and she stands with narrowed eyes. “Where are you going?”

You ignore her and direct your attention to the rest of your cadre. “I need black dahlia’s,” you casually announce to the room.

Utensils clatter against the table as you obtain your cadre’s sudden undivided attention. The dark crimson flowers you speak of give them a clear indication of what your plans are for today and an air of melancholia fills the room.

Your eyes wander across the room and rest on the blond girl sitting beside Sasha. “Historia. Care to fetch some for us?”

Historia nods and rises from her seat. Jean offers to accompany her as she moves for the door and they leave together, assuring you a speedy return. As they disappear out the door, your eyes slide over to Mikasa and wait for her opposition.

But it never comes.

Perhaps she’s comforted by the fact you’re allowing her and all of your cadre to accompany you. Or maybe that distant, somber look in her eyes has something to do with it. Sasha and Connie wear the same look, as if reminiscing on past memories, and you look away, unable to look at them for long.

“Get ready,” you say to get them moving. “We leave the moment they return.”

When Historia and Jean each return with a bouquet of flowers in hand half an hour later, you lead the way out, taking Jean, Mikasa, Historia, Sasha and Connie with you.

The morning air is cold and unwelcoming as you all step out in the street, but you need the walk and fresh air to clear your head from the monsters still lingering within. You need more than just the memories of the night your world turned upside down to give you strength. The Founding Sector’s Memorial Park is the last card up your sleeve you have left to play.

This has to work.

The memorial park itself is located uptown and about a twenty minute walk away from where you reside. But you sense him behind you long before leaving the outskirts of your neighborhood.

Sasha and Mikasa are the first to pick on his presence after you.

When Jean sees them both pause, he turns in the direction they’re looking over their shoulders and spots Eren standing in the middle of the road behind them a few feet away, trailing after your group like a wounded puppy.

Perhaps because he is.

He’s got a small bandaid on his left cheekbone and a bruise on his lower lip from where you kicked him last night. He also walks with a slight limp and you don’t miss the way he wraps an arm around his middle either, sore from all your punches.

“How much beating do you have to take before it gets into that skull of yours to back off?” Jean snarls, starting to move towards him.

“Wait,” you tell Jean calmly with a tilt of the head before he can reach Eren, your expression calculating. When the monsters in your head first broke free from their cages and made you question your morality, they had taken a physical toll on you until you collapsed. But when you came back to your senses… Eren had been there to help you keep them at bay with just his presence.

Could he… do that again now?

“Leave him,” you tell Jean, making him stop in his tracks before reaching Eren. “This will be good for him.”

The surprise on your cadre’s face at your command mirrors Eren’s, but you ignore them all and start to turn back around and resume your walk up north in the direction of the memorial park.

“Where are you going?” Eren questions warily, clearly determined to thwart whatever evil plans you have in store as he manages to catch up with you.

You chuckle dryly. He’s assumed that because you have all of your cadre with you, you’re out to cause mayhem.

“To visit some old friends,” you reply.

He frowns. “Your definition of ‘friends’ isn’t really—”

“They’re harmless,” you reassure him with a weak smile. “I promise.”

When you and your inner circle finally arrive at the Founding Sector’s Memorial Park, the sun’s warmth has reached its highest peak, which isn’t much considering it’s late into November.

Eren stops short a few paces behind as you enter, his face paling as he stands at the cemetery’s black gates, not thinking this place was where you were headed.

“What’s the matter?” you ask him over your shoulder. “Never stepped foot in a cemetery before?”

Passing the gateway, Historia hands you a handful of black dahlias and distributes the rest to your circle. You all then disperse wordlessly throughout the cemetery to give respects to all the fallen friends once under your command.

As you make your way through the cemetery and pass the gravestones of your fallen comrades, you place a black dahlia in each of their respective graves with a heavy heart.

Your memories of that night when your home was invaded haunts you always.

But so does this.

Seeing the names engraved on the headstones of those who sacrificed their lives for you over the years is a harsh reality, a painful reminder of what you owe them—of the promise you made to them as you sent them off to die for you.

It’s also exactly what you need to take back the reins from those trying to take it from you.

Not that this sense of empowerment lasts very long, unfortunately.

You’re down to your last set of black dahlias when Eren finally finds you. His steps are heedful as he draws closer. His voice, mild. “These old friends of yours…” he begins to say as you place your second to last flower on a grave. “They’re…?”

“Dead?” you offer dryly. “Yes.” After a short pause, you throw him a tight smile as he comes to stand beside you. “Because of me.”

His head turns to you with a frown. “Why do you say that?”

“Because it’s true. I gave them orders to follow, knowing it would result in their deaths, and I let them go anyway.” You glance over at your cadre standing in front of the gravestones of their fallen friends a notable distance away and add faintly, “They all hate me for it. The grief they carry is because of me.”

Eren remains quiet, following your line of sight. Jean has his back to you a few feet away as he stands in front of Marco’s grave, but he doesn’t need to face you to know the amount of pain and grief etched on his face. A few rows ahead of him, Historia is doubled over in front of the grave of that girl with brown hair and freckled face that saved her from the brothel.

“You know,” Eren says gently, breaking your focus away from them, “considering how overprotective they are over you, and willing to do just about anything for you, I find that hard to believe.”

A soft smile appears on your lips that leaves just as quickly. “I don’t doubt their loyalty to me. But I'm sure they harbor some form of hate and resentment for sending off their friends to die for me.”

You turn away to take the lead up to the higher level of the cemetery, to the grave at the top of the hill made of fine marble. Eren follows.

“That’s the thing about this life,” you continue to say to him as you arrive to stand in front of the lone grave with your mother’s name engraved in a cursive font. “We get attached to things.” You stare down at the marble stone with hard eyes. “And then, when they’re taken from us, we’re left longing for them.”

“Is that so bad?” Eren asks. “That’s what makes us human. You’re supposed to feel things.”

You kiss the last black dahlia in your hand and place the flower on your mother’s grave. “Unlike you,” you reply back, your voice lacking its usual venom, “I don’t have the luxury of living that way. In this line of work, to show weakness is to get killed.”

He nods and smiles sadly at you as you continue watching over your mother’s grave with deep longing. “So you keep saying.” He starts backing away. “I’ll give you some privacy,” he says, getting the sense you want to be alone, even though that’s far from the truth.

You don’t want to be alone. You don’t know what it is about him, but the need for violence sleeps when he’s around. With him near, your mind is silent.

And its comforting, this silence.

But with every step he takes further away from you, the more of his light he takes with him. Leaving you cold and alone in your ever-growing darkness.

Images from last night invade your mind, reminding you of the blood dripping from your bathroom ceiling, of the blood sliding down the walls, of the water in your bathtub turning red with blood, threatening to drown you whole, and you panic.

“Wait!” you call to him before you can change your mind.

One second passes.

Two seconds.

Finally, you say: “I accept your offer.”

Eren stops dead in his tracks.

Slowly, he turns to you, as if still not quite believing what you’re saying. “My offer?”

You take a step towards him. “Didn’t you want to prove to me I’m not a complete monster? That somewhere buried deep down under all my shit is a human heart? That the world isn’t complete shit? Or have you already given up on me?”

His eyes narrow suspiciously. “Why? You were so against it before. What’s changed?”

You smile dryly. Because I’m on the verge of falling apart, you don’t say.

“You owe me a bottle of scotch,” you say instead with a carefree shrug. “The one you broke saving my neck.”

He smiles in slight amusement, but he doesn’t take the bait. “If you are accepting my offer, you have to be willing to let me get close. Do I have your permission to do so?”

You slide your hands in the pocket of your trousers and stand your ground. “Yes.”

He walks closer and you don’t step away.

“You really won’t push me away anymore?” he asks.

“No.”

As if to test you, he starts to raise a hand as a means to reach out to you. But before you can feel his warm hand caress your cheek, he spots movement behind you and you watch him glance over your shoulder warily where you sense Sasha’s wraith-like steps approaching behind you, eyeing Eren closely.

Eren swallows and quickly withdraws his hand, backing away from you and throwing you an accusatory look for lying to him. You answer him with a crooked grin. “I didn’t say anything about them.”

Brushing past him, you make your way back down the cemetery, collecting your cadre as you go.

An overcast is beginning to set in that deeply unsettles you. The cemetery, the fog, your cadre. It all resembles too closely to your nightmare for you to want to stick around longer than necessary.

You collect Jean at the end, who’s eyes are bright red with grief. You rest a hand on his shoulder before passing, signaling for him that you’re getting ready to leave and that he follow when he’s ready.

Reaching the threshold of the graveyard’s black gates, you don’t have to look back to know your inner circle are all behind you as you walk out of the black gates and following after you as you lead the way downtown.

When you arrive into the heart of town a few minutes later, you’re relieved to find the fog is not as dense as it was in the graveyard so you feel more at ease being back inside the city walls.

Or you had started to, at least, before Eren excuses himself halfway into the city, muttering something about meeting Isabel and Furlan at a pub east of town.

You exchange a meaningful look with Sasha when he does and she wastes no time in subtly following after him. You may have accepted to let Eren get close, but that by no means meant you trusted him. You weren’t that stupid.

As Sasha follows after Eren east of town, you and your cadre veer down north in the direction of the Red Rose. It’s already sometime past three in the afternoon, but the light mist and dark clouds keeping the sun at bay make the day seem later than it actually is. Still, your cadre need some cheering up after such a bleak afternoon spent at the cemetery so the Red Rose is the best you can offer them.

You’re all having drinks, seated in your usual spots at the back of the pub, waiting for the food you ordered for dinner to arrive, when something crashes through the window and lands a mere five feet away from you.

In the two and a half seconds it takes you to identify the bulbous shape that’s landed in the center of the pub, Connie shouts “Grenade!” and everyone runs to take cover. From your peripherals you catch Jean lunging for you protectively, but before he can reach you, the grenade goes off and the explosion that follows throws you and everyone within close proximity of it into the air.

You land across the room and crash violently against a wooden table that knocks the wind out of you as it breaks under you from the impact. Two more explosions are heard nearby and the pub goes up in flames, catching fire and spreading fast around you and devouring everything in its wake without mercy.

Panic and chaos swirls around you while bright, scorching flames dance at your feet, inching nearer. And yet, despite all this, you continue to lie on the floor, as if caught in a daze, struggling to grapple with the reality of the situation.

Was this really happening right now? Or was it all a dream? Could this just be another hallucination conjured up by your demons to mess with you? You don’t want to believe your enemies could have outplayed you, but there’s really no denying it right now.

This is real. This is happening. Your enemies have made their move.

The Red Rose was under attack.

-End of Part 1-

[anointcd]

(   havana  rose  liu.   cisfemale.   she/her.   )   did   you   hear   ?   DEIRDRE  WU is   stuck   in   stonehaven  for   the   foreseeable   future   …   they've   lived   here   for   TEN  YEARS   and   are   known   around   town   as   THE   PURITANICAL,   though   back   in   high   school   they   were   better   known   for   being   voted   MOST  LIKELY  TO  MARRY  FIRST.   if   i'm   not   mistaken,   they’re   a   TWENTY  FOUR  year   old   senior  studying   PUBLIC  RELATIONS (   i   really   hope   that   translates   well   into   their   role   as   an   ARCHIVIST  in   the   ‘new   world'   ).   according   to   my   records   they   were   originally   on   the   trip   because  it  was  a  part  of  her  public  image  —   which   checks   out,   given   they’re   INSIGHTFUL,   ZEALOUS  and  SECRETIVE.   if   you’re   ever   trying   to   find   them,   your   best   bet   is   to   start   at   cedarfield  church  and   listen   for   someone   humming   i  say  a  little  prayer by  aretha  franklin.   oh,   and   don’t   forget   to   try   calling   out   DEE/DEIR or   picturing  worn  out  church  pews,  diaries  hidden  under  floorboards  with  words  better  left  unsaid,   hands  smoothing  over  a  cotton  white  dress,   for   extra   help. 

THREADS.  MUSINGS.  MIRROR.  EDITS.  PLAYLIST.  PINTEREST.  WANTED.

A  STUDY  IN  .  .  .  the  preachers  daughter,  prioritizing  community  over  individualism,  the  belief  that  love  is  conditional,  doomed  to  play  the  part  of  the  girl  next  door,  slowly  becoming  your  mother,  looking  for  signs  everywhere,  knowing  who  you  are  but  being  afraid  to  express  it.

♱ BASICS

full  name. deirdre  wu. 

nicknames.  dee,  deir,  didi.

age.  24. 

race.  white  &  chinese.

nationality.  american.

birthday.  october  23rd

zodiac.  libra

gender.  cisfemale

pronouns.  (  she  /  her )

sexual  orientation. closeted  bisexual.

birthplace.  lakeland,  florida 

major.  public  relations  –  a  field  her  parents  approved  of  because  it  combined  communication  with  service

 ♱ FAMILY

father : arthur  wu  ──  there  are  times  where  it's  hard  for  deirdre  to  identify  where  'father  wu'  ends  and  where  'dad'  begins.  he  offers  advice  to  her  like  he's  giving  a  sermon  and  she  asks  for  it  like  she’s  giving  a  confession.  he  could  go  on  for  hours  about  how  these  are  'godless  times'.  everyone  says  she  has  her  father's  eyes  but  she  can't  remember  the  time  she's  been  able  to  look  at  them  without  feeling  shame.  like  her  very  existence  is  something  to  repent  for.  deirdre  thinks  his  laugh  is  infectious  (  when  genuine  )  and  she  likes  it  when  he  hums  hymns  to  himself.   a  disciplinarian  with  a  musical  inclination.  he  taught  her  how  to  play  every  instrument  he  knew..  they  used  to  stay  after  sunday  service  and  make  up  songs  on  the  church’s  pipe  organ.  always  wonders  why  he  didn’t  pursue  a  career  in  music. 

mother : rebecca ‘becky  boone’  wu   ──  deirdre's  loudest  cheerleader  and  her  harshest  critic.  her  father  is  critical  of  how  she  should  act,  while  rebecca  tends  to  nitpick  how  deirdre  should  look.  has  a  habit  of  making  unsolicited  comments  about  her  outfits,  the  way  she  does  her  hair,  whatever  jewelry  she  is  wearing...  master  guilt-tripper.  makes  the  best  chicken  and  dumpling  soup.  deirdre  has  always  been  a  mama's  girl.  rebecca  homeschooled  her  and  her  brother  through  their  elementary  school  years.  her  superhero.  as  a  child  she  used  to  sit  on  her  parent's  bed,  drape  herself  over  the  footer,  and  watch  her  mom  do  her  makeup  with  utmost  precision  only  to  turn  around  and  ask  dee  what  she  thought  of  it.  the  answer  is  always  the  same—   ‘you  look  beautiful,  mom’

younger  sibling :  tobias  wu  ──  he  is  her  favorite  now  but  that  wasn't  always  the  case.  for  the  first  years  of  his  life,  he  was  the  object  of  her  resentment.  it  was  so  obvious  their  parents  always  wanted  a  boy.  she  used  to  watch  their  mother  tend  to  him  from  afar,  quick  to  shake  her  head  when  encouraged  to  step  closer.  she  would  cast  her  gaze  downwards  whenever  her  father  spoke  about  the  excitement  of  raising  a  son,  lip  jutting  out  and  small  hands  turning  to  fists  in  a  silent  tantrum.  deirdre  wished  he  would  disappear.  those  feelings  lingered  until  he  was  old  enough  to  babble  his  first  word  --  "didi".  one  word  was  all  it  took  for  her  older  sister's  instincts  to  kick  in.  whenever  she  has  extra  money  from  tutoring,  she  liked  taking  him  around  town  (  usually  behind  their  parent's  back  )

cousins  :  the  buckleys  ──  family  on  her  mother's  side,   a  reminder  that  she  was  once  a  child  too.  visits  to  their  trailer  park  in  wauchula  were  routine,  days  spent  uselessly  trailing  behind  five  rambunctious  boys.  ‘i’m  going  to  tell!’  was  her  go-to  response  to  everything.  the  kids  didn’t  get  along,  and  fought  more  often  than  played.  tristyn  moving  to  stonehaven  was  unexpected  and  deirdre’s  parents  encouraged  her  to  be  a  good  influence  on  him  even  though  he’s  older  than  her  and  doesn’t  appear  to  like  her  at  all.  the  feeling  is  mutual  but  at  the  end  of  the  day,  blood  is  thicker  than  water  and  for  all  she  knows…  tristyn  might  be  the  only  family  she  has  left. 

♱ BACKGROUND

born  and  raised  in  the  humid  warmth  of  southern  florida. when  the  wu’s  found  out  they  were  pregnant  with  their  firstborn  child,  they  both  decided  that  the  best  way  to  raise  her  would  be  through  a  firm  hand.  faith  was  the  foundation  of  their  household.  her  father,  a  charming  preacher,  and  her  mother,  a  sharp-eyed  homemaker,  set  a  rigid  example  of  devotion  and  discipline  from  an  early  age.

deirdre  spent  her  elementary  school  years  homeschooled  by  her  mom  in  a  little  commune  they  shared  with  some  fellow  members  of  the  church.  academically,  it  did  wonders  for  her.  while  other  kids  took  naps  and  drew  pictures  in  class,  deirdre  was  reading  scripture  and  analyzing  holy  text.  by  the  time  she  was  enrolled  in  middle  school,  deirdre  was  ahead  of  her  peers  in  most  subjects  but  there  was  one  fundamental  thing  that  she  was  far  behind  on,  and  that  was  socializing. 

growing  up,  deirdre  struggled  making  friends  because  of  how  indoctrinated  she  was  by  her  parents'  influence.  with  them  pushing  for  utmost obedience under the lord’s eyes ,  she  couldn’t  help  but  nitpick  at  the  flaws  that  kids  around  her  had.  flaws  that  she  thought  would  transfer  to  her  like  a  disease  if  she  wasn't  careful.  she  was  usually  spotted  clinging  close  to  a  wall,  worlds  away  from  her  fellow  classmates.  it  was  lonely  and  even  the  few  kids  she  did  manage  to  socialize  with  (  cousins,  usually  )  didn’t  seem  too  keen  on  being  around  her.  how  judgmental  she  was.  a  goody  two  shoes  with  a  knack  for  snitching  and  telling  people  they're  going  to  hell  for  the  dumbest  shit.

the  wu’s  move  to  stonehaven  just  in  time  for  deirdre  to  enter  highschool  as  a  freshman.  by  then,  deirdre  had  become  enough  of  a  loner  that  all  she  ever  did  was  watch  people.  how  they  socialize.  what  gets  them  to  laugh.  what  makes  them  mad.  what  gets  people  to  like  you.  so  while  she  could  never  remove  fully  remove  herself  from  the  ‘jesus  freak’  title,  she  at  least  learned  how  to  wield  it  better.  threats  of  damnation  were  replaced  with  wise  encouragements. 

she  joined  plenty  of  clubs–  cheerleading,  orchestra,  student  council,  beekeeping,  anything  that  would  make  her  integration  to  town  smoother.  so  over  time,  she  became  the  type  of  girl  that  most  people  would  feel  comfortable  calling  a  friend.

UPON  RETURNING  TO  STONEHAVEN… 

 shock  and  denial.  she  still  sends  her  parents  text  messages.  she  visits  their  house  and  cedarfield  church  daily,  almost  as  if  shes  expecting  for  them  to  be  there  one  day.  panic.  prayer  has  become  her  anchor.  sometimes  she's  seen  clutching  at  her  rosary,  whispering  desperate  pleas  into  it.  investigation  and  documentation.  deirdre  has  been  adamant  about  scouring  around  town,  looking  for  any  signs.  shes  been  finding  herself  documenting  every  clue  into  a  worn-out  journal,  hoping  to  make  sense  of  their  new  life.  the  role  of  the  archivist  came  easy  to  her,  and  she  thinks  that  if  it  wasn't  for  that  she  might  have  lost  her  mind  by  now.

 ♱ PERSONALITY

at  first  glance,  deirdre  is  a  lovely  girl  to  be  around.  always  smiling,  always  willing  to  give  a  helping  hand or listening ear. never  one  to  yell  or  say  a  cruel  thing.  the  type  that  will  remember  any  little  details  shared— birthdays, allergies, favorite snacks, etc. always  tries  to  do  the  right  thing  and  encourages  others  to  do  the  same.  the  more  you  are  around  her  though,  the  easier  it  is  to  notice  certain  quirks  that  betray  her  otherwise  pleasant  demeanor.  how  her  smile  doesn't  always  reach  her  eyes, how  incessantly  she  smooths  out  her  hair, the  way  her  eye  twitches  when  something  doesn't  go  her  way.

♱ WC

an  ex.  i  have  some  ideas  for  this  but  i  would  love  something  silly  like  they  just  did  it  for  appearances  or  maybe  they  only  lasted  a  couple  months  cus  they  were  better  of  as  friends,  yada  yada  hmu  dont  be  shy 

crush.   i  also  have  some  ideas  for  this  if  anyone  is  interested  but  i  think  it  would  be  extra  fun  if  the  crush  was  unrealized  by  deirdre  or  unrequited  by  the  other  person/vice versa literally anything

friends.  ride  or  dies!  friends  from  class.  unexpected  friends.  maybe  they’re  in  the  same  club  at  school? 

ex  friends.  maybe  they  were  close  in  high  school  but  they  went  on  different  paths.  maybe  deirdre  was  too  fake  for  them.  maybe  they  were  too  wild  for  her.

antagonists.  rule  breakers,  people  who  are  set  on  defying  authority,  people  who  love  pissing  deirdre  off,

jealousy.  someone  give  me  deirdre’s  “lacy”  hsjfhfj  someone  who  she  thinks  is  just  perfect  in  every  which  way  and  it  intimidates  the  hell  out  of  her!  this  person  lives  in  her  head  rent  free!

experiences  from  the  weekend  trip.  someone  she  got  in  an  argument  with,  someone  she  shared  an  unexpected  tender  moment  with,  someone  who  didn’t  know  she  existed  until  the  trip  &  vice  versa,  if  you're  feeling  saucy  maybe  someone  she  kissed  on  the  trip?  oooo  someone  who  had  to  go  on  the  trip  cus  her  ass  snitched  on  them  and  that  was  their  punishment  fdkjdkjdf

[hellokittyballsack]

WAIT. DO U ALSO HC DRIX AS TRANSFEM. OR AM I. LOSING MY MIND.

I DO IN A WAY ? ITS COMPLEX SORRY

i dont like labels but i do refer to drix as she/her because i see her motherly love and gentle soul that she carries around on her sleeve. i love her sm... ARGHH also i love ur pfp

(im gonna use this opportunity to rant about labels since i was looking for an opportunity to share this somewhere NOT MAD AT U OR ANYTHING LOL TLDR: hairy balding cis men are beautiful women the way they are ♥️ masculinity can be feminine vice versa if you let it be🖖)

you can skip blue text and just read the green part, blue's more of a personal experience laadeedaa!!

🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻

with a lot of my fav cis male characters i tend to slowly start calling them she/her the more i love them, dont really know why but i think thats just me projecting since im a trans man so i cant really enjoy femininity authentically, yknow? (or the way i want to) ide get misgendered since the body i was born with is "female" or "feminine". 🍅 🍅 🍅

plus im almost certain if i was somehow flipped and born a cis man ide still end up transitioning(not medically but thats a personal thing) and then yearning for masculinity, simply because i hate how these bodies limit the perception people have of me. i want to be my own person, identify as me first, not to have my label define me or my identity for that matter bc identity is SO much more complex than just one word.

its like Ying Yang but sadly i cant ever be a true neutral because that would mean dressing androgynous which i cant do because me, dressing androgynous, would just be a boyish girl. and me dressing masculine would get the results of "being seen as androgynous" because of how my body is naturally. but is that fair at all? so the only thing i can do to be seen as masculine is to medically change my body? ☹️

and i dont want to be seen as androgynous either at all, i love my male identity, dont love what comes with it but love it. and want to be perceived as masculine, ..but being androgynous is the only way you can build up your identity on your own without someone viewing you with a gender filter on their glasses.(sorry for the shit metaphor) and after people find out whats in your pants they will immediately talk to you differently and that SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if i want to put on a dress that doesnt make me a woman or a feminine man, let me enjoy this dress, masculine-ly ‼️‼️🤲 PLEASE

🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻

(⚠️this isnt relative to the asked question as explained prior, use labels all you want guys but know its okay if someone doesnt use labels ect ect. just explaining the jist here quickly⚠️) sometimes people use labels to put others into boxes and focus on "whats womanly" / "whats manly" --- so its difficult to have people respect your identity while "breaking the rules" (their rules) of said identity. aswell as people focusing on the physical. (body and such) rather than finding beauty in feminine and masculine features you have without that lowering your validity of said identity. this being said that usually happens in heteronormative spaces BUT it occasionally slips in into the lgbtq community.

masculinity can be femininity vice versa, its not just black and white 🫂 body hair can be both for example, even in "masculine" areas, it still can be feminine. and that should go for any body part, clothes, action, interest or anything for that matter ♥️♥️

🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻🔻

like with peter strahm from Saw (aswell as mark hoffman) thru months of writing scenarios between them and my brainrot i now see them as the most beautifully gorgeous women and that includes all their hairy appendages. that doesnt necessarily mean i headcanon them as transfem, i see their "male" bodies to be the peak of feminine beauty, as well as their masculinity. i mean that i dont "genderbend" them and turn them into cis women, and i dont add or take away from the original character, longer hair or a sudden change of clothes, or trans scars even though im trans myself and will probably end up with such scars (in a perfect world i would be seen as male with or without boobs) theyre perfect the way they are and i love them dearly oh so much 🫂🫂🫂🫂....(not saying its bad to do any of that, live your truth) i may draw them wearing dresses or lipstick time to time but thats not what defines their identity as women, who says theyre 100% only women either fuck it lets go full genderqueer!! theyll never be cis women yes, but thats not what my goal is at all. trans love everybody ♥️ transexual pride!! ♥️♥️(and even if you dont identify as trans but still arent cis ♥️♥️youre valid however you feel, whenever ⭐) But that doesnt mean i headcanon them as trans also, theyre them, and i want to see them shine, not being shadowed by a label or limited by one, that goes for Drix too. that doesnt mean im against such label, though theres really no way of explaining without it SOUNDING like i am, go fuckall with your headcanons imagination is free!!!! just labels arent for me AND THATS OKAY

theyre all my girls who are boys who are girls MUAH 💋

[wild-wombytch]

Motocultor 2024, Friday the 16th, Karaez, Poher (Kernev) and neighbouring cities and landscapes

(Too many passerby/friends in my other pics that could be identified, that's why I'm not posting much of the festival itself)

It was my first Motocultor. A friend kindly abducted me into going there. Honestly, great experience. If the organisation stays as it is, it is safe for women to go alone. There is a libfem association that was patrolling to ensure it. There were a lot of women (including in security and staff), it was quite accessible for people with physical disabilities. Toilets are clean and well thought. Everyone sleeps about everywhere on the festival undisturbed. There are many tasty vegan/vegetarian options in foods (and a good selection of Asian and African foods). You can dress however you want without being harassed (some women were in bras for comfort -yours included- and there were male travestites and they seemed to feel safe). Also, you can wash yourself/brush your teeth, fix your muddy shoes etc about 5min of walk outside of the fest (technically there is water on the fest but it's less crowded outside and actually made for that purpose (it's a sport's spot).

The vibe it gave was very libfem, so don't expect some activist radical lesbians everywhere, of course, or to not see bdsm stuff or performances of feminity. But it was still better than most festivals with a lot of very toxic macho males a lot of people don't feel safe around. They had stuff to protect your drinks and your ears. They had power banks. You have a market so if any of your clothes for some reason tear or whatever you can find some stuff. The light is well thought so there aren't dark isolated corners. The control of items at the entrance is good. You can have a cashless account you can add money to in advance as soon as you have your ticket, so you don't need physical money. You just need a credit card if you want to buy merch, but you can 100% come to the festival without credit cards or money anywhere else than in the bracelet they give you at the entrance. Also, Nazi symbols were explicitly banned in the rules THANKS FUCKING HELL. But according to the girls who were our tents neighbours, the other fest in this city, Les Vieilles Charrues, had some of those guys as well. Be careful for festivals in France in general (especially WOC), the people are becoming properly insane and violent these days. For the head up, as far as I know this is a far left separatist city, so people here are Bretons, not French. We unite in hatred of Paris.

The musics were a bit of everything. It depends of the days. We had Faun and Opeth at the same time, to give an idea. Some groups were rap/metal, other electro/metal, folk/metal, symphonic/metal and uh....well, just listen to Igorrr yourself, I can't explain it but it was fire and rhe female singer was fucking POSSESSED she was amazing and touching and funny as hell. We had punk on the Saturday, a good amount of female bands in comparison to other fests. Not just metalheads in the public, a lot of punks and other alt cultures as well. Booze was great (and unlike the previous fest I've been to where we got harassed by homophobic white supremacists, there was coffee and energy drinks, as it should).

Camping was crowded but had a good mentality. We had about twenty people cheering for us when we were trying to put the tent back in its bag. We asked for a Qeshua expert around and ended up at five people trying to wrap it up like idiots. Then -of course it was a woman 😭✨- Our Lady of Qeshua came out of thin air to our rescue and wrap that shit up on her own in about 30s, like a proper badass. I love you my sister in tent. Also we had the honour of witness a 4am dumpsters joust and the next day to talk with one of the dumpster warriors. So uh...maybe bring earplugs if you intend on actually sleeping. There is also the Makumba here, where it's purposely shitty and memeish old pop songs being played and remixed for people who are still alive and not dead-drunk after 2am. We did shitty dance. It was funny. Except I was tired, in sandals (because honestly fuck combat boots after one to many miles of walk and pogo) and it took about 2min for someone to spill his whole beer on my feet and for another dude crowd surfing in my back and falling from the sky on me (I'm fine, I believe he is?). The morning, if younre early you may miss the queue for a well-deserved watery coffee.

Honestly the ticket is expensive for my budget (now kinda dead because I shamefully admit I fell a bit for the capitalist evil. But I'm wealthier of sturdy leathers that will last a lifetime and supporting a lot of female owned businesses) but it ended up being a wonderful investment! 100% recommand (maybe 1-2 day for a start, because you need a medal if you survive to 4 days).

[zinniajones]

Michelle, Phillip, and Denise:

Below are the five topics related to transgender/gender identity issues our group has been discussing. As you know, Alliance Defending Freedom is seeking medical, biological, and/or psychological experts to research and write on these topics. We would like “white papers,” for lack of a better term, written on each topic. These papers should be empirically/data based, yet written in a manner that the general public can easily digest. Here is an example of the type of paper we have in mind. As I mentioned on our last call, topics 1, 2, and 3 are the most pressing. If there is any way to get papers completed on those topics by mid-November, that would be terrific. If they can get done earlier, even better.

Thank you in advance for your willingness to assist on this project, and to link us with others who may be able to assist as well. Please let me know if you have any questions.

1) Substantiate the psychological harm that can befall both sexes (but girls/women especially) by having their right to bodily privacy invaded by males. Can lead to fear; body image anxiety/complex; other long-term psychological harms.

2) Substantiate that it is normal during adolescence for children to go through a phase when they identify (to some degree) with the opposite sex. It is inappropriate (and could have psychological, medical, other harms?) to interpret this common stage as gender identity confusion that warrants treating a child as the opposite sex (in language, dress, appearance, etc), and pursuing more drastic measures like hormone therapy and genital change surgery.

3) Substantiate the physiological differences between males and females as they relate to sports. Explain that when transgender or gender identity confused boys are permitted to try out for girls’ sports teams that the girls are necessarily disadvantaged. We want to make the point that interpreting Title IX to include protections for “gender identity” will harm girls by allowing boys to displace girls on competitive sports teams.

4) For those who have undergone hormone therapy and genital change surgery, a paper that says they are no happier (and perhaps worse off if the research supports it) even though they took these drastic measures.

5) Biological/medical paper on the many differences (brain, anatomy, physiology, etc) between the sexes from the earliest stages of human development and moving forward. This would help substantiate the point that a person’s brain is not and cannot be hard-wired to be an opposite sex than the sex his or her chromosomes, DNA, and anatomy say he or she is.

– This paper could also deal with intersex and other anomalies and explain why these exceptions do not undermine the rule.

– This paper could also include the point that no matter how many hormones a person takes, and no matter if they have genital change surgery, they are still biologically, physiologically, etc their birth sex. For example, a transgender man will still go through menopause.

-ADF ordering up anti-trans arguments from the American College of Pediatricians

[eliasreznikoff]

**Attention** RVA Callout

Tw : alleged sexual assault // statutory rape // abuse // coercion // manipulation

We feel obligated to speak up so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else and so people can be aware if/when dealing with a serial rapist. This post is to call attention to the damage done by Elias Reznikoff // Zachary Wozniak, white, age 23. Photo of him below:

**REMOVED SO THE POST WON'T GET TAKEN DOWN FOR COPY RIGHT**

He’s been put on blast once before very publicly in his Texas hometown for raping a girl and fled to Richmond to hide in 2013. (link to past post/screen cap below)  In Texas he went by his birth name, Zachary Wozniak, though legally has changed it to Elias Reznikoff. He has also gone by Dan, Piotr, texas-reznikoff, afterschoolknifefight, sea#9316, zdwozniak, and elirezni in person and/or online. These various names are a continuous attempt to cover his tracks, just as he attempted to do from the callout in Texas. (He will accuse people of deadnaming him if they mention his past identities) During his time here in Richmond, for over four years, he has consistently repeated his abusive habits of sexual assault, manipulation and gaslighting/silencing of his past romantic/sexual partners. He is a danger to those who are in a relationship with him // engage in sex with him // minors.

Elias is a repeat abuser who targets POC (fetishisizing asian femme/female presenting people), Queers//Femmes, Women, Individuals coming from turbulent home, and Minors. His tactics generally start by targeting these more “vulnerable” individuals via dating apps/online and showcasing grand gestures of ‘romance’ (ex. asking to move away together), grooming them to see him as a shy/weak individual, then coercing people into sex (specifically unprotected sex), forcing sex on sleeping individuals, withholding information and gaslighting by using ‘savvy’ language  (i.e “ You are forcing me into sex I didn’t agree to by saying I have to use a condom”), emotional manipulation to gain power, isolating you from your friends, among other behaviors - the list could be exhaustive. On top of the active mechanisms of abuse he employs during the relationship, he refuses to return your personal belongings, keeping “trophies” of his previous relationships as a tool for reliving those relationships long after they have ended.

One of his largest threats is his demeanor/appearance upon first encounter. He isn’t a menacing person (fairly small in stature), charming, well-dressed, and quite knowledgeable on various topics/social justice issues. His seemingly charming personality and blanket of lies allows him to hide his true/past self to those around him. He continually leaves people who were or are apart of his life in the dark, leaving them to fill their own blanks on the person he actually is. He will often go in and out of therapy/medications as a way to convince current/past partner’s that he has “atoned for his sins”. These very intentional constructions of his self made identities/personalities, along with the romancing and grooming, are how he manipulates individuals to disregard red flags of emotional and sexual abuse.

We need to be able to identify the people in our circles who are preying on minors and our peers to be able to act before someone is assaulted, not after. As a community people are less safe engaging with him without knowing these are the behaviors he has continued to repeat for years and years (in secret) even after fleeing from a different state for his first publicized offense. It should also be known that he has a very small internet persona and often hides in the shadows (of okc, tinder, etc. but also favors the richmond music scene [was recently kicked out of a local rva shoegaze/dreampop band - has all of the equipment to start a band] and Ipanema). After this post, he could go into hiding once again- changing his identity (has previously changed his name, along with changing his hair color to yellow/platinum blonde/black to conceal himself. Along with physical changes he rarely shows his whole face online) and move to another part of the country to start a new life where no one knows of him. It is important to share this, so that hopefully no one else is abused and left in the dark by him. 

We want reformation and accountability from him, and hopefully, one day that will happen- but knowing his continuous pattern’s of abuse, the people in his life deserve to know and be made aware of the things he has been capable of for their own safety and so that they can make their own judgement call.

As unfavorable as these circumstances, all of us who have connected are there for anyone else who has been hurt or left in the dark by Elias. If you feel as if you might need closure or support please reach out! All of us have created a safe space where we support one another, we want to give you the space to be heard and validated so that hopefully you can get closure as well. You can message anytime, so please don’t hesitate to reach out - we are all here for you and we will listen to you!

*2023 Update*

Post was removed due to copyright as I'm sure the individual would prefer to hide this information from potential victims.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

The Slightly Humorous Story About How Straight People made me Queer.

Let’s be clear here, when I was in Korea, I was halfway tripped up on Korean dramas. Korean dramas which didn’t have kissing until much later in the series, and lots of small romantic gestures were on screen. From what I know, I liked cartoons and TV shows to block the noise from my parents arguing all of the time. I disliked the Japanese occupation drama that was popular at the time because it had loud guns in it. So I’ve always loved rom coms the most on television. They gave me comfort. I also watched Historicals with my aunties.

I had to figure this out on my own, by putting things together.

So when I came to the US (adopted), I had this really strong notion that went something like this...

I would get married, have kids, I didn’t know how. And then my husband would tragically die of natural causes or we’d get divorced or something of that sort and he’d disappear. And then I would have dogs and be a widow.

No straight person has a thought like this when they are five years old, and maybe it should have clued me in that people usually don’t kill off their spouses in their heads that maybe just maybe I was not straight.

I had bouts as a kid, too, of loving frilly pink things, then hating it, etc, though this got confused under all of the Second wave feminism my mom liked to shove on me, which often was white feminist and racist and oddly anti-LBTQIA.

I liked pink for a while, because it was girly, then converted to purple, because it felt more neutral, but then couldn’t identify with any color after that. Maybe this, too, was part of the harassment my mom had around colors, insisting that I wear black because it was “practical” but I couldn’t really perform gender that well. I would really, really try to conform to one gender, but then feel highly uncomfortable with it.

I wanted to learn girly things to know it, but I didn’t want to perform it. I wanted to do sports, and learn various types of things that were told to be gendered--but honestly, I saw it as kind of pointless to call wiffle ball a “Boys game” and girls “Cooking.” I never felt stable. I would flux and convert at turns a little, and I was comfortable with that. I didn’t see the point of gendered pronouns. WTH. I got constantly corrected on them for years probably because I couldn’t feel them in myself either. And the thing was, I liked dressing up in costumes, I didn’t care about the gender of the clothes. I also absolutely loved anything that played with gender roles and expectations. I was drawn to it.

I found myself drawn to queer books, though a lot of the romances I read were het, maybe as a remnant of watching too many het romances on television from very young and also because reading queer romances would have exposed me more.

At the same time straight kids would endlessly tease me for being a lesbian, gay, or something. And I was puzzled over sexual attraction and romantic attraction for myself. I thought people were lying in television shows--also maybe because of the gap between US television and Korean. US--two seconds, in bed. Korean 10/16 episodes in and you get a kiss. And for a kid that doesn’t feel primary sexual attraction, this was quite confusing--I didn’t know that kids could know their sexuality at five years old.

From the time I knew sexual attraction was a thing(TM), I was thinking, unlike the kids that teased me to be gay and lesbian. I was fine with “whatever” the most ace thing in the world. (Though if it was a woman in my head, I thought things like, well, if I’m attracted to women, well, the dying early thing won’t be in the cards. I’ll figure it out then.) I was fine being bisexual. As long as I could punch my schedule of having kids and a dog. (This is kinda ND to me... which might also be why I got bullied--besides being Asian. I didn’t think like most other kids and I was extremely precocious.)

At one point I was asked if the “Backstreet boys was hot” when I was nine and in a fit of NDness, probably, I watched their music videos to figure out *why* that person liked them, and I couldn’t figure it out at all. Totally went over my head. Was it a personality trait they had?

But nothing happened for a long ass time. And then aesthetic attraction happened. I thought aesthetic attraction was the same thing as sexual attraction for the longest ass time. It took me a long, long ass time to realize people actually do want to have sex upon looking at someone and saying “I’d do them.”

Even the kissing games like spin the bottle and dares, etc, I stayed out of with the thought of, “I don’t see the point if you don’t have feelings for each other.”

I also thought probably because of a steady digest of rom coms, Victorian romances, and so on, attraction would be this magical moment of floaty clouds, etc. But I found it extremely annoying in part and I wanted to distance myself from it. At other points I didn’t want to deal with it at all. And I was told it was the greatest thing in the world.

My friends asked why I didn’t date anyone and I answered with the most ND answer ever in my head. “I didn’t have a large enough pool of people to be attracted to.” The other thing I thought was, “There is no point of dating in Middle School and High School if you’re going to break up with people,” *cough* Grey-ace, maybe? Have a clue.

But I had no terms for this, or my kind of half-hearted attempts at presenting cis. Presenting fully as a woman and performing it was too much work in my head. And I know some women just don’t like makeup, and some nonbinary do, but putting the effort in to perform being a woman 24-7 felt like too much for me. I kept slipping every time I tried. I never quite felt comfortable in the gossip circles women do--it also might be because I was also extremely precocious and ND-ish that it was harder to fit in.

But straight people kept flagging me over and over trying to figure out why this or that was true. Why I had no attraction to anyone. Why I couldn’t perform womanhood, even though I knew how. The feedback from straight people told me over and over I was very queer. And I felt an attraction to queer culture, but I didn’t know how I slotted in and I couldn’t place it because the dominant labels were not me. But I didn’t feel straight either.

I semi-dated long distance a guy I felt romantic attraction to (after I got to know him for a while), but I didn’t feel sexual attraction to. In truth, I probably wasn’t that committed and the long distance hampered my ability to feel attraction since we separated in early stages.

I did finally date someone I had sex with, but I still don’t get why people love sex that much. My sex stance is sex indifferent most of the time, sometimes favorable, but rarely, so it was a meh moment for me. I liked sex for the intimacy, but sometimes I felt like it was kinda pointless. I did feel sexual attraction after knowing the person for a while. I’m not clear on my secondary sexual/romantic attraction orientation completely, though. It’s like trying to reach past a brick wall. I’m not against it being more omni/pan/bi still.

And the guy of the time was straight--also had this weird relationship with trans people where he kept harping on it. So I closeted my NBness really hard during that relationship, but I kept slipping and he kept on me for why I didn’t perform womanness correctly. lol Maybe I was also trying to get that man dies before I’m 80, but we have kids thing going too.

lol Queer people kept semi-kicking me out though I kind of had an attraction to queer people as in I think I’m one of you, but I don’t know how. So I struggled a lot to find the correct labels.

I wish I knew earlier that this was a thing, though, since I was destructive in some ways when I thought I was straight, but a little strange and trying to fit into the allosexual/alloromantic/cis box. I could have sorted it out faster and better and probably gotten past the grey-ace/aro wall by approaching it differently.

All straight people kept cluing me into the fact I was queer. It wasn’t queer people that told me, hey, you, you’re queer. It was 100% straight people--though they got the brand of queer wrong often. I just couldn’t perform their straightness to their standards no matter how hard I tried.

So no dog, no kids, but hella queer? I do have reptiles. But I do plan to eventually have dogs. The straights converted me to queer.

[vibrantpixels]

gosh, i wanted to be an author so bad when i was a kid. i went to delete my old abandoned email when i noticed the storage drive had a folder with all my book ideas and i want to share the most fleshed-out, non-fanfic, one here because i have nowhere else to post it and i want to immortalize it in some way. im sorry for the cringe but this is entirely for me

"Ofelia… (WHY I CHOSE MY OWN INTERNET NAME IDK)

…Is what they called her and she didn’t know why.

As she opened her eyes for what felt like the first time in her life, the brown-eyed girl was met with faces she couldn’t recognize but knew she should have. Ofelia, she heard called out over and over again in the background while tears of joy fell from the eyes of a middle-aged man sat at her bedside, who wore harsh laugh lines on both corners of his mouth and had splotches of blue, green, and purple staining the thin skin beneath his cloudy gray eyes; the tears dampening the cotton blue sheets that encompassed the girl’s fragile limbs. (I STILL LOVE RUN-ON SENTENCES)

Those eyes of his in which she saw pain, hopelessness, and fear; the color, lacking any saturation; so pale and unblemished that they would appear to fade into the white canvas surrounding the iris if it weren’t for the fine blue tint that outlined the gray. Those eyes that she intrinsically knew and brought her immediate comfort. Not the calling of her name, which should sound familiar, or the tight and welcoming embraces from her supposed “loved ones,” but the haunted eyes of a man who claimed to be her father.

While trying to piece together the broken fragments of her memory, the girl named Ofelia discovers terrible truths about herself and the world she lives in.

~PLOT~

Ofelia. No last name. Father is a visionary. (Can perceive future events in dreams or while in a trance) Government makes everyone who is a suspected visionary undergo rigorous testing. If they are found as a positive subject, the patient’s melanin is drained from their eyes (they turn pale gray) in order to be identified (naturally gray eyes do not exist for the purpose of this plot) in public. These people are protected at all times and are well respected in society (though they are strictly prohibited from discussing any visions with anyone but government officials in exchange for said protection), but can be targeted by border-hopping criminals (their intentions are to save the people from their corrupt government, but the government makes them the enemy and their people follow). Border-hoppers want to capture visionaries to prove to the other citizens that their future is bleak under their government’s rule. Subjects who test negative are not spared. These people are killed because the conditions in which they are treated and the tests they go through reveal too much about the corrupt ways of the government that they couldn’t risk letting them go free. Ofelia is a visionary and gets scary dreams often so her father requests for the tests to be performed on her (her father is one so it is common that children inherit this “gift”). When Ofelia takes the tests, she doesn’t take them seriously and fails, not knowing of the consequences. While waiting on death row (she does not know that she is awaiting her death), at the same time, her father is trying to convince the president to give his daughter another chance. Just as the president is about to agree, the room where the ‘negative’ visionaries are held until their death gets a tranquilizing vapor siphoned through the air vents, and they are all dragged out by the Border Hoppers. Ofelia begs to be taken back home, but she is knocked out. When she awakens, she meets a girl she once knew dressed in border-hopper-attire [WHATEVER THAT IS LOL, I CAN'T PICTURE IT]. Ofelia feels betrayed. The girl tells Ofelia what her government does to those that fail the test and that it was going to happen to her. Ofelia doesn’t believe her so they show her hidden security footage that the border-hoppers stole from the government building (they had an inside man; her father) and she cries. Her father shows up briefly to reassure her and ask her to help the border-hoppers destroy their government. She was the key. Ofelia only gets visions in her sleep, so she is sedated for most of the day, only conscious to eat and use the restroom. She almost gives up because she is so weak and tired from being under all the time. Then she encounters a boy, a boy she knew was still living on the other side. They were speaking through their visions but he was not found as a visionary yet. Together, they slowly reveal all of their government’s secrets and manage to tear down the wall that separated the two states. But it is not over yet.

FIRST OF ALL, I smell the Divergent trilogy influence as it was one of my favorite book series during this time (2014!!!! can u believe??!?!?) like killing all divergents and tris' mom being in on the whole shebang

Sprinkle in some divided nations specifically from the legend series by Marie Lu (god i loved those books; i bought champion and rebel years ago but have yet to read them :| )

And you see how I set up the idea for a sequel when i never even wrote a single chapter for this one????? i was CONFIDENT

if you read all this, im sorry

[tranquilpetrichor]

a crash course in everything ballet

hello! my lovely friend @sungbeam asked me to tell them about ballet, and well, there's way too much to say. this post is divided into sections for reference. like i said, there's a lot to learn about ballet, so this post will be quite broad in terms of topics and some things i say will be based on my own experience. i'll link other good places to look if you want to learn more! if i make any spelling mistakes, rip because i suck at putting accent marks correctly.

please remember i am not a professional but i have danced at a ballet school for about 15 years, and i draw on those experiences. i also identify as female, so a guy's experiences might be a little different than mine. also we're pretty much focusing on classical ballet here.

the origins of ballet

ballet originated in the italian renaissance courts of the 15th and 16th centuries.

it eventually spread to the court of louis xiv in france, so that's why ballet terms are french yay

the basic principles of ballet

aka the broad stuff you want to keep in mind

one is turnout - the legs rotate from the hip socket, and the feet follow.

in general, ballet calls for graceful lines

we also use port de bras - which literally means carriage of the arms (this is how you use your arms in ballet)

i'd say in general ettiquette is a large part of ballet (like curtsying to your teachers at the end of the class and such).

some basic steps of ballet

before we start with actual steps it's important to talk about the 5 basic positions, very cleverly named first, second, third, fourth and fifth position! (honestly we don't use third that much but just ignore that)

above shows how the feet are placed in each position, as well as corresponding arms.

if you don't know these, you won't get very far because harder steps often use these as a foundation/pass through the position.

OK on to some steps!

i don't wanna bore you for too long because ballet has many steps so please check out a post like this for more

plié - to bend. in demi plié the knees bend slightly but your heels stay on the floor, meanwhile in grand plié, the knees bend a lot more and in almost all positions your heels will naturally lift off of the floor.

tendu - tight/stretched. the working leg extends until only the tip of the toe touches the floor

releve - to rise. can be done on one foot or two, at the end the heel should be high enough so that all body weight is on the ball of the feet.

i can sit here and say how these steps should be done but i really suggest watching clips of the actual step

the ballet class experience

first up, what do we wear?

the exact dress code can be different per studio but generally from what i've seen, females wear a black leotard over pink tights and males wear a white shirt, black tights and sometimes a dance belt. (males and females both wear ballet slippers, although for us it's pink and the guys it's black)

or if it's a pointe class you'll see the girls with their pointe shoes on, more on those later

i'll be honest i didn't pay attention much to what guys wore until recently because i've only had about one in my classes consistently.

at my level, a lot of us wear street clothes such as sweatpants and jackets over our ballet stuff when we're cold (or just too lazy to take it off).

trashbag pants are quite a popular style.

for hair, it's up in a bun for girls

now for actual class stuff!

depending on what teacher i have, they either have us start at the barre or on the floor for warm-up stretches

alright maybe i should explain what a barre is

no, not like a bar with wine, a barre runs along the wall or there are portable barres, and you hold onto them for support

the point is that if you use the barre to find your balance, it'll help you when you don't have the barre with you anymore

barre consists of exercises like pliés, tendus, dégagés, frappés, etc

then there's centre (where there's no barre)

centre consists of combinations like adagio, tendus, pirouettes, petit allegro (little jumps) and grande allegro (big jumps).

we usually do stuff in small groups for centre, usually staying around the center of the room, going from the back to the front, or moving diagonally from one corner to another

last is usually a révérence, meant to wrap up class and show respect to the teacher (and piano accompanist if there is one)

the point of pointe

yes i had to make this stupid pun, anyways let's learn more about pointe shoes!

they are not just something you buy with no thought, you should be given approval by your teacher before getting pointe shoes.

in my opinion, people should be at least 11 before starting pointe technique because of the fact that the bones are still growing and hardening and it's good to be careful

regardless, receiving pointe shoes is a large milestone for dancers as it demonstrates that the dancer possesses a certain level of maturity

also i've gone to a professional pointe shoe fitter whenever i've needed to get new pointe shoes, don't buy shit off of wish.com like an idiot, that's how you get shoes that don't fit.

anyways let's get onto the anatomy of the shoe

usually dancers sew ribbons and elastic on themselves (each dancer does it somewhat differently due to personal preference)

let me just take this opportunity to say that contrary to popular belief, pointe shoes are not made of wood or metal LMAO

the outside is satin, the box is usually layers of fabric, cardboard and glue packed together, the shank is usually made out of cardboard layers and then the sole is a thin layer of leather.

an important aspect of being en pointe is being over the box (but not too over the box)

this blog post shows the difference between not being over your box and being over. in the top pic, see how the front of the platform is off the ground? that is considered not being over the box.

sometimes because of flaws in a dancer's technique they won't be over the box completely when they need to be, but it can also be due to the shoes being badly fit as well (as the post above states)

it's important for the shank to not be too stiff nor too soft, usually we bend the shoe when we initially get it to help "break in" the pair.

of course, the shank softens naturally the more we dance in the shoes, and when it's too soft we call a pair of pointe shoes "dead" and it's really not fun dancing in a dead pair

alright so you might wonder if it hurts?

well dancers do some stuff to mitigate the pain slightly.

we put certain things on our feet, like toe pads or even using toe tape so to protect from blisters

professionals do some crazy hacks on their pointe shoes lmao you wouldn't even believe it

now how long do these things last anyways?

i'm not a professional who goes to long rehearsals and does all the stuff they do, from what i've seen the girls at my studio can usually use one pair for months

meanwhile for professionals, depending on the pointe work they have to do the pair might only last a few hours

yea professional ballerinas tend to go through a lot of pairs per season

performances

preparing for a performance is fun but quite exhausting

for my studio, we do two productions per year (a spring show and a nutcracker)

after a cast list goes up, we start to work on the choreography, learning the steps and then cleaning once we know the steps

cleaning a dance basically means getting to a point where the steps are executed precisely

as we get closer to a performance we usually do entire scene rehearsals outside of class to get a greater sense of how our choreography fits into the whole production

there's usually one blocking rehearsal and one dress rehearsal and (edit: in) the theatre we use

blocking is just to get used to the space and what not

dress rehearsal is ran with costumes now that we've been able to practice a little on stage

also lemme talk about some stage terms to help people

did you know that part of the stage nearest to the audience used to be lower than the part further away (obviously most stages are not like that today)

so the part of the stage that would slope down is called downstage and the part that is at a higher elevation is upstage

and when someone says stage left and right that is from the dancer's perspective, facing the audience

the wings are offstage, used by dancers preparing to enter. props are also usually stored here

on performance days there's usually a class held before to warm up

during the actual show it's quite hectic backstage and whatnot

sometimes costumes are altered last minute

there are always stagehands moving stuff (we love them)

i remember girls with huge tutus would fold the sides up like tacos as they passed by people so that they'd be less of a nuisance

after all shows are done, the older dancers usually help take stuff down, for some productions since we bring the backdrops so we gotta help take them down lol

oh yea and we gotta untape the dance floor we bring

overall i would recommend watching dancers vlog their show experience, it's quite interesting to watch

is there a difference between what guys and girls do in ballet?

the answer is yes, although to be honest there are girls that can do what guys do and vice versa.

pointe is a technique largely used by females, although a common role where guys wear pointe shoes (for the jokes) is the stepsisters in cinderella.

some of the women are part of the corps de ballet, which are expected to act as one body (examples include the snow corps de ballet and the flower corps in nutcracker)

i think the guys are expected to be quite proficient with jumps (lmao the one guy in my level at my studio is always practicing his tour en l'air jumps)

a pas de deux is a dance for two, the guy usually lifts and supports the girl as and she turns and jumps and all that.

well-known ballets + the variations

variation - solo dance

the nutcracker is def well-known and a lot of companies perform it around christmas, i swear every ballerina has wanted to either be sugar plum (her variation and the pas de deux are pretty iconic) or clara when they were younger

a lot of people are familiar with swan lake and that’s prob the image that comes to mind when it comes to ballet (a swan). also search the dance of the little swans, my friends and i learned it and boy was it hard, we looked goofy as hell

the romeo and juliet ballet is also a classic, the source material is self-explanatory but since i don’t care much for shakespeare i won’t be saying much about it

i don’t think i can really make this list without talking about sleeping beauty, the rose adagio that aurora has to do takes a crazy amount of balance. also i really like the different variations the fairies do.

call me biased but the kitri act 1 variation from don 1 is so damn cool (another one of the classics!)

i also mentioned cinderella earlier! also a classic.

if you have reached the end of this, thank you for reading all that i have to say! drink water and stay healthy!

[primewritessmut]

20 - FREEZE

My psychiatrist collects Precious Moments figurines.

I never would have pegged him for it. He’s short and stocky with a shiny bald scalp, and he dresses in short-sleeved white button-ups paired with drab polyester ties.

A little boy balancing on the back of another boy like a cowboy on a horse. A little girl wearing yellow polka dot rain boots, splashing in a glazed porcelain puddle with a frog at her feet. An entire shelf of soppy, big-eyed children with their palms pressed together over their hearts, standing, kneeling, praying. Watching.

An entire schoolyard worth of kids stuck forever in twee poses.

There’s a hanging wall calendar from the NRA pinned behind his desk with a black thumbtack that looks like a key ripped from a typewriter. The ampersand. The calendar is open to a photo of four artfully arranged hand guns, the barrels all pointing at each other across the circle they make like that Spider-Man meme.

It’s terribly lit and the month written underneath the picture reads September.

“Your outreach coordinator called me,” he says gruffly, leaning back in his chair in a way that never fails to make me think that the entire thing is going to flip over backward. “She’s worried that you haven’t checked in.” There’s a pause long enough to choke on. “Why haven’t you checked in?”

I stare at the hand guns and try to identify what they are.

A Luger P-08 that looks like it was made for World War II.

A Smith & Wesson Model 1 that’s a clear recreation.

A Walth—

“You know,” he sighs gently, “this works a whole lot better if you talk to me.”

I freeze in my chair like prey being hunted. Or maybe like a small porcelain child entreating a god that doesn’t exist.

“Your boss said your work is exemplary. Your landlord reports that you’ve paid your rent on time every month since the eviction notice. These are the kinds of wins you should be sharing.”

I can feel his eyes boring into me. His eyes, and hundreds of little porcelain eyes, and the black holes of the gun barrels all watching. Eyes upon eyes upon eyes. Probably even some I can't see. Don't want to see.

“Is there something else going on?”

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood but it doesn’t keep my eyes from dropping to the source of the problem. It’s such a human fucking reaction and it makes me feel human for just a second until I actually see what I’ve looked at.

If you asked me, I’d tell you that it happened yesterday.

But my arm tells a different story.

My left hand is black from the tips of my fingers to midway down my palm and, when I flip it over, I can see wisps of shadow snaking through my veins. Thicker toward my fingers and fading as it travels up my forearm. There’s darkness swimming in my veins all the way up to my elbow.

An inch below my wrist, someone drew a line in Sharpie and wrote 4 weeks. The writing looks like it’s been gone over more than once to keep it from disappearing. It might be my handwriting but I don’t remember writing it a first time let alone several times.

I curl my fingertips toward the palm of my hand and—

“I’m here to help you.”

My psychiatrist leans forward over his desk, pressing his forearms into it and giving me an approximation of concerned empathy. His desk isn’t glass but the top is lacquered and I can see fingerprints smeared across the top. I don’t know why I think about that.

“I think you should tell me what else is going on.”

I lift my eyes to his as I shove my hand into the pocket of my hoodie.

“My hand is cold,” I manage.

And I think it's the first time I've ever talked to him.

19 - SCANDAL || 21 - FRAGMENT

[snowverit]

Parian Doll Chapter 7

Chapter desc: first year: Quidditch tryouts Chapter words: 2.3k Fic desc: Regulus gets sorted into Gryffindor total words: 21k/?

Two students from last year's Quidditch team graduated. This means that regardless of the previous year's team, two students must be accepted in order to have a full team. 

I stand in the middle of the pitch, fully dressed in a tattered practice jersey. A dolphin could smell me on the other side of the world. (And dolphins cannot even smell.) The jersey reeks of previous players’ sweat; Maroon just dark enough to hide any explanation on where the smell comes from. It should be burned. 

Barty and Pandora sit in the rafters, alongside groups of Gryffindor students, eager to watch the tryouts commence, alongside Slytherin students, equally as eager to laugh when their enemies fall off their brooms. 

The Quidditch team captain scratches the back of her head and mumbles something to a group of upper years. Within the group, I can identify the Prewetts, a blonde girl who sat in Sirius’ train cart on our way to Hogwarts, Potter, and a rosy-faced boy who must be Bagman. They are the remains of the previous year's Quidditch team. 

I stand amongst students who are much taller than me and look far more confident than I do. I straighten my back and puff up my shoulders, yet still don’t look like I belong here. Sirius runs across the field, in a similarly tacky jersey as I have, and stumbles to my side. 

“What are you doing here?” Sirius smiles and pats my shoulder with a good natured grin, “Come to support your older brother?”  He moves his hand to mess up my hair, knuckle grinding into my scalp. 

“In your dreams.” I have to let out some of the breath I was using to hold my shoulders up to respond to him, “I am trying out for seeker.” His face drops. Without another word he lets me go and looks down to the ground. 

“Hey, Arct,” A new voice emerges.

Sirius and I both glare towards the voice's owner.  

Potter grimaces back at the two of us, “Don’t shoot the messenger, but…” 

-

“I can’t believe first years aren’t allowed to try out!” I stomp circles around my room. White hot rage surges through my veins. “I don’t know how, but this is all Sirius’ fault!” 

[starseekerdragon]

Something I haven't shared here...

Yeah I haven't posted stuff in a while, I apologize. I've made a post like this on Twitter, but in short form.

So...a couple months ago I went through a big body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria all in one day and night (for those who don't know, in 2020 I had breast cancer and had to have a mastectomy). I didn't share this right away cuz honestly I wasn't sure HOW to. Also I think I was afraid to as well...

Last month as I calmed down I started to process why I had that moment in time. Why I felt the way I did, about not just my body, but also my gender. I realized there was some specific things I've kept bottled up since middle school! One of those specific things was my gender. While I do accept I was born female, when puberty hit I started feeling...another feeling, inside? Something a bit more masculine. I mean for a while I was developing some male traits (some peach fuzz on my chin, jawline and the sides of my upper lip for example).

But this was the 90's, and sharing this thought during those times was a BIG no-no (also a no-no when living with a conservative christian family). So I bottled this up, as I felt it was "wrong" to feel like I'm also a bit masculine along with my feminine. That I'm a girl, so I should only think and feel like a girl, nothing else.

Until now. I want to let go of all that BS. I want to be more genuine with myself. I don't want to hold back anymore. So I did my research and discovered something called "Bigender" (not the same as Bisexual). Reading into it...make me break down in tears. It sounded EXACTLY like the identity I wanted to be but kept bottled up.

So now I'm identifying as Bigender. :) This feels right to me. I do believe this will help me in many ways too. Firstly helping heal my inner young teen who was struggling with their identity. And secondly I can stop looking at my body and thinking of as a "damaged woman." With a different view of myself now, I can see the mix of feminine and masculine of my body, and I can start the process of loving and accepting myself again.

Also I think I'm gonna get some more men's clothing. Back in 2018 my aunt and uncle were renewing their wedding vows and we were invited. I'm not a HUGE fan of dresses (it's rare I ever want to wear one), so I wore men's slacks, white shirt and a vest. Oooooohhh lemme tell you, seeing myself in the mirror gave me BIG TIME body euphoria! <3 I actually felt good looking! Sexy even, haha!

Oh, and when it comes to pronouns, I prefer she/them. I'm not entirely ready to use male pronouns, but I want to (past reasons have made things feel uncomfortably awkward for me when using he/him, but again, trying to heal that part of me).

So...yeah. Not sure who's gonna read this big ol' wall of text, but if you do, awesome! If you want the TLDR: I went through a big body/gender dysphoria, had some self reflection, realized I'm bigender. She/them.

[lily-of-rabanastre]

Ascilia—Chapter 09, Scene 01

Writing is getting difficult to focus on lately. Not feeling up to it. But have what I've finished thus far.

Walking the same path as they'd taken to reach the Studium several hours ago, Y'shtola and Ascilia took a sharp left turn. There they followed the path to yet another ostentatious edifice. But where the Studium was a place of learning, this one—Noumenon—was one of the world's greatest repositories of knowledge. And though Ascilia had been here on several occasions by now, every time she passed through its massive doors and gazed upon the thousand, thousand tomes held fast upon its many shelves, she couldn't help but feel in awe. "... To think the means I so tirelessly sought may actually exist but a few yalms away from where you found me napping," said Y'shtola, her voice little higher than a whisper. "If I had known of Alzadaal III and Vrtra's exploits sooner, I could well have saved myself days of research. Even a children's book might have pointed me in the right direction."

"It really does feel a touch like a hero's journey," Ascilia mused, matching her friend's hushed tones. "The heroine, uncovering a hidden clue, must return to where she began her adventure... but a children's book? That seems a bit hyperbolic..."

"To achieve the impossible, one must needs be flexible of mind and look beyond conventional wisdom," Y'shtola replied, glancing back over her shoulder with a bemused grin. "A lesson I'd already learned, but clearly hadn't taken to heart."

"True enough wisdom, I suppose," she whispered back, shrugging her shoulders. "So, where is this... 'Index Page'?"

Wordlessly, Y'shtola offered her hand. And as Ascilia took it within her own, her Archon friend guided her across the center catwalk. "We're looking for a mammet. I should be able to tell it apart from a Lalafell by its aether, but if you spot it first, do let me know."

"A mammet..."

Glancing about, Ascilia spotted several such automatons. Each was dressed in bright red clothes, and wore upon their bulbous mechanical heads a white wig. With no other discerning features among them, it seemed to her that deductive reasoning had served its purpose and so they'd have to question them one at a time. But then her gaze fell upon one in particular, standing aside from a suspicious looking wall jutting out from between the bookshelves.

"... Why don't we try that one over there?" she asked, pointing towards the mammet.

Looking over to where Ascilia directed her, Y'shtola narrowed her eyes. "... Hm. That would be the entrance to the restricted archives. For efficiency's sake, I suppose that makes sense..."

As the pair approached the aforementioned wall, the mammet she'd identified sprung to life, craning its head to look upon them. "Archon Y'shtola and Guest identified," it declared, its pale white eyes lighting up. "Follow me, if you would. Watch your step, and please note that the use of naked flames is discouraged."

The suspicious looking wall before them rumbled to life. As it slid open Ascilia half-expected it to reveal a hidden stairwell or lift. But instead the room beyond was empty of anything save for a device not unlike an aetheryte. The lower half of the device resembled a brazier, while a smooth transparent crystal filled with a pale blue light rested atop it.

"I've seen devices like these before," she said aloud, taking a moment to examine the crystalline lantern. "Way stones, the Ronkans called them. Or so claimed the history books one of my successors was fond of."

"One of your—" Y'shtola began, only to cut herself short with a soft gasp. "... Which... Minfilia would that have been?"

"Second to last," Ascilia replied, closing her eyes. Memories of the girls she'd shadowed over her hundred year odyssey resurfaced like pearlescent foam upon the sea. "She lived a longer life than most, and where most of her predecessors sought to fight the Sin Eater hordes directly, she believed the Oracle should serve in a supportive role instead."

[ot3]

Okay, we once again have an overwhelming victor. So lets get into it.

I expect disagreement on some of these but hear me out.

YURI ENTHUSIASTS -

Phoenix: Now this may seem strange to some people but I've always in my head viewed Phoenix as a shoujo manga enjoyer and I feel it would be very easy for him to accidentally pick up a yuri or two without realizing based on the cover and have it awaken something in him. Essentially the inverted version of a teen girl realizing she's not straight by getting into yaoi. He likes cute drawings of girls and sappy but fraught romances.

Lana: dyke

Adrian: dyke

Franziska: also a dyke but i don't think she's as in touch with it as the other two are and is coming at it more from the misandry angle. She rationalizes it that she likes yuri because she is not interested in foolish men and their petty squabbles which is true.

Susato: over identifying with the cross dressing princely female leads

Sholmes: i fully admit i have no objective grounds on which to rationalize this one it just feels right to me.

YAOI ENTHUSIASTS -

Ema: When I was talking about teen girls realizing theyre not straight by getting into yaoi that's what's going on with ema.

Maya: presented as a fujoshi in certain extracanonical materials and i support this take enthusiastically.

Mia: she's just here to objectify men. I think a lot of BL is too twinky for her though.

Kristoph: Doesn't care about women's stories.

Asougi: Also here to objectify men

Oldbag: Now you may want to peg her as terminally het, which is true, but she's one of those women who is so terminally het that the idea of the fictional men she finds fuckable having female love interests completely puts her off, since they're not her. would be going absolutely hogwild on kindle unlimited erotica if she knew how to do that

HET ENTHUSIASTS -

Gumshoe: I just think he's a man whose media interests are pretty mainstream and by default that means he is exposed almost exclusively to hetero arcs

Iris: We all know what she and phoenix were like when they were together lets be real

Pearl: Pearl is into ROMANCES romances. hallmark style. what if an unrealistically perfect and hunky dude fell for the down to earth everywoman who really loved him

Klaiver: klavier's taste in wish fulfillment romance media is exactly the same as pearl's but from the opposite point of view. a beautiful friendship could bloom here.

Justine: I just think she's into really high drama network tv, prestige tv, telenovelas and soaps, etc. Feels right

Greg: Definitely has old man media tastes and is into black and white golden age hollywood films

GEN ENTHUSIASTS -

Edgeworth: I know a lot of people see edgeworth as being into steel samurai yaoi but that's not my vision. I think edgeworth's feelings around romance and sexuality are fraught and having to think about that during the little time in his life he takes to fucking chill out for once his NOT his idea of a good time. i think the reason he likes tokusatsu in particular is because it is so free of the trappings of adult life that are so stressful to him in the real world.

Kay: She likes heist movies and action movies and ninja movies and shonen anime and sentai stuff and doesn't care whether or not anyones kissing during them.

Apollo: Just doesn't really give a shit about romance in general i think. it doesn't narratively compel him. he's more interested in cool worldbuilding and platonic character interaction

Trucy: She's fine with romance in media but it's not her main draw. shes watching magical girl anime and other various shit where tweens save the world with the power of friendship. i think overall she's mostly into adventure/fantasy stuff

Lang: also into the action and heists movies kay is into and they should really just go watch the new fast and furious together. likes procedurals too.

Iris: She's writin them mystery novels bayybeeeee!!

DOES NOT RECREATIONALLY ENJOY MEDIA -

I just think none of these guys are particularly big readers or watchers of things. like they'll do it incidentally but narrative media just isnt particularly big on their priority list

democratically selected posting was a good idea. let's do another. comment with your post ideas and i'll make a poll out of them to see what we're Posting about today

[infiniteglitterfall]

Howdy, I don’t know who to send this to but can you debunk this clowns claim that Jughead was a homophobic caricature and therefore can’t be ace? This post has bother me for years: rabbittiddy(.)tumblr(.)com/post/157508044328/missvoltairine-acesarelgbtgranny

i fucking bet! let's see, i think I saw a good debunking of that....

i'm gonna end up doing one myself while i look for it, aren't i

Some of these focus on him being aro. But it's sort of a stand-in, in the comics, for him being both aro and ace. Anyway, I tried to pick stuff that highlighted the fact that Jughead wasn't a woman-hating gay-coded 'confirmed bachelor.' He was a romance-hating, often touch-averse, ace-coded 'confirmed bachelor.'

There are plenty of examples of the former, throughout popular media, during the first 75 years of Archie Comics. The queer-coding for them is completely different. The only similarity is that both types were often shown as recoiling from even the idea of relationships with women.

Some of the queer-coding for gay men included high voices, limp wrists, being an interior designer -- "feminine" attributes." Or:

"‘friend of Dorothy’, coloured handkerchiefs, or soft, pastel, violet clothing. Because film at the time was black and white, colour coding was either referred to, or often the handkerchief would be ‘perfumed.’ "In The Maltese Falcon (1941) a character sends in his business card and Sam Spade’s secretary notes it smells of 'gardenias.' A few minutes later, Spade smells the man’s handkerchief and doesn’t say anything but does raise an eyebrow high, clearly telling the audience ‘this fellow is queer.’.

"Otto Preminger’s Laura overtly coded Waldo Lydecker as queer: shooting him in a bathtub with plenty of suggestion he was interested in McPherson; playing up his impeccably dressed dandy-ness; clearly portraying him as the sharp-tongued gay-best-friend type."

By contrast, Jughead was never portrayed as anything but a clever, independent, slightly self-centered high school guy with a high metabolism and a passion for hamburgers. There was no winking at the audience. There were no gay in-jokes. There were no hints, in any decade, that maybe there was "a reason" he didn't like girls. That maybe he was just closeted.

And notably, when the series introduced a gay character, they did NOT go for Jughead. They had to invent a completely new person.

If they had ever been hinting that Jughead was gay, he would have been the obvious choice. It would have raised a lot of questions, and probably a lot of concerns, for them to introduce Kevin Keller instead -- or, at least, for them to introduce him and not imply that he and Jughead were going to end up together.

Honestly, the true test for any of these bigots who claim Jughead is gay should be, "Can you really picture him with Kevin Keller?"

Instead, mainstream pieces at the time said things like, "Jughead came out as asexual which explains why he’s never seemed interested in anything except for cheeseburgers."

Here are some good examples from older canon:

"Twelve Cent Archie references a story from Jughead 119 (April 1965) in which a machine built to identify Jughead’s perfect romantic partner inevitably self-destructs due to the impossible nature of its task."

"And though he wasn't a 'confirmed aro/ace' in the original comics and a few issues tried to explain away his behaviors with random back stories, over the course of hundreds of issues it was made obvious he preferred food to woman and constantly avoided romantic interactions and relationships and loathed such endeavours."

"What is it about aromanticism that makes showrunners pretend we don’t exist and fellow aces turn their faces when we say we do? What’s so bad about saying no to love that an aromantic asexual character is allowed to say he doesn’t like sex on TV, but not to say he doesn’t like romance? What is the difference? Why is it here where everyone draws the line? Why is it okay to not feel sexual attraction in this case, but not okay to not feel romantic attraction?

"I will tell you why. I’m not available to anyone. Neither is Raphael and Jughead, and lots and lots of aroaces, some of us not even as queerplatonic partners. There aren’t love stories to be told about us or sold about us. If Jughead and Raphael are made ace and aro, their ships sink, unless their fans are okay with queerplatonic relationships and most aren’t. For many people, for most people, if you take the romance out of someone, that someone loses its meaning, its interesting aspect. That’s how focused on romance our society is. Ships can survive without sex, but in a society so focused in romance that it can’t even comprehend queerplatonic relationships, they can’t survive without romantic love.

"There is also the little matter of we aroaces being considered too weird, too different. Cis allo straight people can’t relate to us the way they can relate to you, alloromantic aces. After all, romance is universal, right? Except it isn’t. And if we are in the picture, we are reminding everyone of that, and some people just don’t like that, don’t like us."

[image transcription: a page titled "Archie in The Look of Love - script: frank doyle; pencilling - dan decarlo jr; inking - jim decarlo." Archie and Jughead are walking down the street, and have the following conversation over several panels. Archie: "Got a question for you, Jug! Do you believe in love at first sight?... Jug? Did you hear me?" Jughead: "I heard something! But I'm sure you didn't say what it sounded like you said!" Archie: "I asked if you believed in love at first sight!" Jughead, to the reader: "He did! Did you hear? He actually asked that question of ME!"]

[image transcription: the second page of the comic continues their conversation. Archie: "Stop talking to them and answer my question!! Do you believe in love at first sight?" Jughead: "Not hardly! Twelfth, maybe, or forty-eighth... or more likely, nine hundred and sixth! What's with you, Arch? You know girls are not my thing!" Archie: "I wasn't thinking of girls!" Jughead, his hat flying off in shock: "WHAT!?" Archie, hearts flying around his head: "With me it's that little red convertible in Bedell's auto showroom!" Jughead: "Oh! - Love for inanimate objects! Now you're in my ballpark!!"

[last three panels. Jughead: "Y'know how those surfer guys travel the world, looking for the perfect wave?" Archie: "I saw the pic! But who--" Jughead, head surrounded by many, many little pink hearts: "Exactly! I search for the perfect burger! Now that'd be my love at first sight!"]

[an old panel in which a shocked crowd of high school students is hearing Jughead's voice, over the loudspeaker, saying: "I am in no way a romantic! I stand by my ways as a lover of food only! The only girls I like are Swiss Miss, Mrs. Butterworth, Little Debbie and Sara Lee!"]

AHA YEP I HAVE FINALLY FOUND THE POST I WAS THINKING ABOUT!

[jughead and archie are coming out of a movie theater. jughead says, "That's what I dig in a movie - a happy ending!...The girl didn't get the boy!" Archie reacts with heterosexual surprise and confusion/]