#i never posted the original bc to me i felt like i could do more but i've included it under the cut! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

skzfairyyydreamz · 2 months ago

Text

Replaced? (Part 6)

Genre: Skz Smau, Text posts, Skz!Fic, Non!idolAu, Angst, Crack/humor, Mini series

Pairing: Bsf!skz, Fem!Reader, Bf!Felix, Stoner!Skz, Stoner!Reader

Warnings: !!Slow Build!! , Strong language (ofc!!) , Mentions of SA, Mentions of Alcohol, Mentions of smoking, Mentions of cheating, Mentions of fighting, Suggestive humor !!MDNI!!

Synopsis: Some people say friendship breakups hurt more than actually relationships .. and now y/n sees for herself why some friend groups are best kept separate

A/n: and we're back with another chapter of REPLACED? this chapter is definitely giving reality tv type MESSY and i LOVE it bc this is where the real angst starts to kick in. I know this fic was originally meant to be a text post series but i decided to add written parts as well to enhance the details! Chapter 6 is for sure a THICK and JUCIY one so buckle your seatbelts! Thank you all for sticking around and enjoying these silly little stories with me! hugs and kisses! MWAH!! 💋 xoxox <3 <3 <3 <3

<<<Previous | Next >>> Screenshot count: 26 Word count: 3.9k

“Omg TYSM! can you guys just grab these and bring them up I have to piss like a fucking race horse!”

“Yea yea go ahead we got it! ” Chris waved you off as you hoped out the cab doing your little pee pee dance.

Minho couldn’t help but to point and chuckle as he mocked the way you hoped from side to side like a little toddler who couldn’t hold their bladder.

without any thought you quickly flicked him off almost like it was a reflex before you took off running up to your apartment building with the speed of light. “The doors open!” Changbin shouted behind you

You didn’t even realize how quiet it was in your apartment until you came out of the bathroom. walking back towards the living room to check on everything…

“Oh hey there!” you heard from behind you in the far left corner of the room. “Ughhh ofc its him… obviously … just keep your Distance fuck boy” you think to yourself as you mentally roll your eyes before turning around To see Alex holding some plugs in in his hand.

“Alex, hey!” You force a smile trying not to seem awkward (but failing miserably) “you all good, you got everything you need?”

“Yeah yeah all good just finishing my set up now” he responded from behind the table with all his equipment as he plugged his last cord into his laptop.

“Cool cool cool, perfect timing guests are about to start arriving any second.”

“ nice .. you know I had no idea you were so close with the whole gang from work .. Chris, changbin, minho , jeongin.. you guys get along pretty well I assume.”

“Oh Yeah we’ve all been super close for years! We’ve been friends Way before we even started working the club actually.”

“wow.. for a long while huh? Would’ve never known”

“Yeah.. that’s family ” you say with a soft smile of adoration “where is jeongin btw ? Is he in the back?” You turned on your heels heading towards your bedroom to quickly and smoothly escape this conversation you no longer wanted to be a part of.

“No, he and his girlfriend went out to get more ice!” He yelled out before you could get far quickly dismissing your escape route “fuck!!” You thought to yourself. “Oh okay .. water?” You offered him as a distraction turning to walk towards the kitchen wanting to be as far away from him as possible.

“Yeah sure” there was a few seconds of silence .. then he spoke again. “Listen ..thanks for booking me for this gig, I’ve only really been working the club the past few months so I appreciate you considering me.” He spoke out loud enough for you to hear him from the kitchen.

“Oh it’s no problem, you do a pretty good set at work and everybody loves good music so why not?!” You force a chuckle trying to seem polite as you emerged from the kitchen walking over to hand him a bottle of water.

And as if the way you felt his eyes shamelessly roaming your body wasn’t enough to make you want to die in that moment, it was like the energy in the room got more and more dense every time he opened his stupid mouth.

You extend your arm out to give him the bottle of water and ofc instead of being a normal person he grazes his warm clammy fingers across your hand before taking the water bottle from you “thanks” he says “ AHHHH EW EW EW I HATE MEN I HATE MENNNN WHY WOULD HE FUCKING DO THAT EW WHY CANT HE FUCKING BE NORMAL WTF??!” The inner voice in your head was crumbling with the ick.

“Your outfit looks amazing btw ” he added make this moment even worse! at this point You genuinely would rather leap head first off your 7th floor balcony than stay in a room alone with him any longer. “DUDE WTF IS TAKING THE GUYS SO LONG OMFG !! GET ME OUT OF HERE!! ” your inner voice still raging with panic. He then grabs your hand and pulls you into a hug. “ ha thanks” you reply to his yucky compliment forcing yet another painful smile. “And you smell so good” he inhaled your scent (like the creep he is) almost whispering in you ear. He had a very strong grip and everything was happening so fast you barely had a chance to pull away or react.

his hand kept creeping around your lower back as he tried to pull your body closer into him. His hand then landing just on top of your ass as he full on groped you with no shame. And what made it even worse was that you were wearing a mini skirt.

“Ew bitch wtf are doing!!?” You pushed him hard enough for him, a man twice your size and height to stumble backwards almost falling into his DJ equipment. Your fight or flight senses kicked in real fast. (Thank god)

“Wdym princess.. I thought you were feeling me?” he replied with a sly grin on his face like what he had just did was okay or some kind of funny joke. You were livid at this point.

And without a thought or a second guess your hand came crashing down making contact with his face. The slap was so hard the sound echoed through the quiet living room. “You think this shit is fucking funny!? You’re about to be in a house with all my MALE best friends and my BOYFRIEND… you think it’s going to end well for you if I tell them you just sexually assaulted me??!”

“Idk what you’re talking about pretty girl, I didn’t do anything” he let out a small malicious almost inaudible chuckle holding his face where you slapped him. You continued to look at him with pure rage and disgust.

“ you’re fucking disgusting.” you turned away attempting to storm off but before you could even walk away..

“Cmon princess don’t be like that”

“Shut tf up and do the job you were paid to do before I kick you out of my fucking house Alex! "

“Well yeah , you could kick me out but … what’s a party without music ?? And I mean .. you already paid me in advance so really it would just be a loose loose situation for you, no? ” he chuckled lightly as he mocked you with that menacing grin still lingering on his face.

“Do the job you were paid for and Stop fucking talking to me before my boyfriend blacks your other eye!”

“Boyfriend ?? do I know him??” He laughed out loud this time yet still holding his face where you slapped him. He was putting on such an unbothered douche bag persona but you could tell his face was definitely ringing.

“Use that tiny fucking brain of yours and figure it out”

“ I know another way you could put all that feisty energy to good use”

“ oh bitch you’re playing with fire .. ” that stupid grin never once leaving his face had gotten under your skin so badly you just had to one up him. “you’re disgusting you fucking pig!” You glared at him before fixing your mouth to spit in his face before Finally storming off away from him and into the kitchen.

Just as you turned your back to walk away Changbin and Minho walk through the door.

“Sorry we took so long there was traffic on the elevators. Chris should be coming in right behind us” changbin said as they both walked to the island counter to set the cakes down. being as close as you were they both immediately knew something had happened. And they were definitely gonna find out what was wrong.

The tension in the room was so thick it could be sliced with a knife. Minho and bin Just shared a suspicious and concerned look communicating with each other without ever having to speak a word. Carefully watching over you as you grabbed a shot glass from the cabinet and slammed it close.

“ you okay squirt? ” Minho said watching you crack open a bottle of vodka as anger clearly oozed off of you.

“Mhmm… you wanna drink? ” you try to deflect but your clenched jaw and very noticeable heavy breathing gave it away. You were not okay. In fact you were fuming.

Neither of them answered you, they just continued to read the room intuitively trying to figure out what had just went down in the spare of 10 minutes. You threw your first shot of the night back with urgency . Finally making eye contact with changbin. “ what happened??” He silently mouthed to you so Alex who was sitting across the room wouldn’t hear it. You shook your head trying to indicate “nothing” but the eye contact you held with him said something entirely different. After what happened , two of your very protective best friends being present with you brought you some comfort and You were finally able to slow down your breathing.

You let out a loud sigh before removing yourself from the kitchen and walking towards the balcony "I need some fresh air”

Minho, being the quiet observant one he continued to read the room until he saw it and let out an involuntary gasp.

Changbin immediately snapping his head in his direction with furrowed eyebrows “WHAT!?” He silently mouthed once again. Minho just quickly pulled out his phone and started typing a text message and bin immediately understood also pulling out his phone…

“ sorry for the wait I’m back! And look who I founddddd” Chris’s voice come through the door

“Familyyyyyy” Rachel poked her head through the door

“Hey y’all heyyyy!! ” Olivia walked in behind her with jeongin and Sophie following, both of them holding bags of ice.

"Heyyy!!" Changbin jumped up holding out both his arms inviting Felix’s sisters in for a hug

“No waaaaayyy!! Lix is going to be so happy to see you guys!!” Minho added

“Where is she??” Rachel asked after greating them both

“Yeah where’s my sissy pie??” Olivia added

“She’s out on the balcony getting some air” Minho pointed them into your direction

The room was silent until the balcony door could be heard opening “watch this!” Chris grabbed everyone’s attention and then put a hand up to his ear just as you let out an extremely loud screech of excitement “AHHHHH STFUUUU UR JOKING??? YOU GUYS ACTUALLY MADE IT?!!!! ” and everyone burst into laughter.

Before you knew it your house was filled with all your friends and mutuals of your friend group everyone was chatting and catching up with each other in the mean time until the birthday boys arrived. Chris found you in the kitchen pouring yourself another drink. “Y/n you did such a good job! Look everyone is already enjoying themselves! ”

“Yeah we seemed to pull it off perfectly huh?”

“Is something wrong?? Whats the long face kiddo??”

“It’s nothing ”

“ You know you can’t lie to me y/n ” he replied standing up straight from where he was leaning against the counter across from you and slowly pulled you into a warm hug. “What’s the matter hmm?” He added as he rubbed your back.

“Idk I just feel stupid .. and violated, it’s whatever I’ll feel better when Lix gets here”

“violated!? Y/n did somebody here do something to you bc I’ll handle that shit” he responded quickly pulling back to look you in the eyes making sure that you understood he was serious. “No no Chris it’s okay I’m keeping it chill for the sake of the party we can talk about it later”

“Y/N … what. Happened.” He said more sternly in his fatherly tone.

“Tell me. I’ll handle it right now.”

“Chris not now.. please?” You looked up at him with pleading almost teary eyes “ we’ll talk, I promise” there was a moment of silence between you two as you waited for him to trust you and agree to the promise you were making him. You and Chris had a special type of friendship and you understood each other well.

“… I promise.” You repeated as he wiped away the single tear sliding down your face. He didn’t verbally say anything he just nodded and pulled you back into a tight hug. You squeezed him back glancing over his shoulder almost physically cringing at the sight of Alex still eyeing you from across the room. You just tucked your head into his chest trying your best to relax in your best friends arms almost like a baby hiding from a Scary monster

“ OKAY OKAY EVERYONE PLACES!! PLACESSS!!! THE BOYS ARE ON THEIR WAY UP!”

“ I ’ll get the lights!! ” Minho jumped up to turn all the lights out as everyone started to scramble to their feet making sure to hide behind something or someone.

The apartment was so quiet you heard exactly when the boys stepped off the the elevator loud laughter surrounding them as always.

“Ouu I hear them!” Olivia said

“Omg they’re cominggg shhh shhhh ” you whisper shouted with anticipation.

“Go in, Y/n said the door is open” you heard Hyunjins voice as they neared the apartment door.

“K, cool” Jisung spoke before turning the door Knob and pushing the door open …

“SURPRISE!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!”

The party had slowly begun to come to and end. Some guests starting to grab their jackets and head out while others were still mingling and some even passed out drunk in various areas of the house. “Chris we’ll be right back we’re just gonna walk Liv and Rach down stairs!”

“Yeah yeah no problem ” he responded while giving both you and Lix the “help me” side eye. Jeongin had been passed out drunk for the passed 2 hour and Sophie.. in her natural weird bitch fashion, has been following Chris around ever since. “We’ll be super fast” you whispered to him while speeding out the door.

“Y/n We had such a good time sissy pie!” Olivia said “we really did!” Rachel added.

“Yay! I’m so happy you were able to make it it’s been so long since we seen you guys !”

“ my head is still spinning , no way you actually got my sisters to fly out here from Australia just to surprise me for my birthday! ” Lix shook his head at you in disbelief but his big brown eyes were filled with love and admiration. “ anything for my little nugget!” Rachel interrupted hugging her younger brother.

“yeah we missed you heaps, Lix” Olivia added grabbing them both into a group hug. You just watched with a huge smile on your face quickly grabbing your phone to snap a picture of the precious moment without them even realizing.

“You deserve to be celebrated and surrounded by love hun.. especially for your birthday.” He then walked over pulling you into a tight squeeze “ and you .. my love, deserve to get your back blown out” he whispered in your ear so his sisters wouldn’t hear. You looked up at him with a giggle “is that a promise, pretty boy?”

“ it could be” he smirked back “ well, actually it can’t be bc there is a black out drunk jeongin upstairs in my bed right now”

“He can watch” Felix grinned playful raising his eyebrows up and down. “Ew Lix, behave!” You hit his shoulder as You both laughed out loud.

“Our hotel is only about 20 minutes from here, so we can just walk” Rachel’s voice grabbed your attention away from each other.

“No way!” “Absolutely not!” You and Felix both practically scolded her simultaneously.

“ it’s after 4 am you’re not walking anywhere this time of night! ” Felix spoke in his protective voice his tone dropping an octave as if Rachel wasn’t HIS older sister 😂

“It’s alright babes I already ordered you guys an Uber , I think that’s it pulling up right now!” You added

“Ugh such sweethearts, I told you these two were meant to be together!” Olivia smiled to Rachel as you all hugged once more and said your goodbyes before heading back into your apartment building.

“You ..” Felix turned you around to face him putting his finger through your belt loop and pulling you into him once you stepped onto the empty elevator.

“Me??” You smirked batting your long fluffy lashes at him “innocently” flirted back with your boyfriend.

“Yes you..” he pressed your body into his placing his finger under your chin “you have no idea how in love with you I am”

“idk .. I think I might have an idea” you whispered back wrapping your arms around his neck smoothly leaning in for a kiss which quickly and effortlessly turned into a mini make out session. Your hands tangled in the back of his hair, his free hand squeezing your ass. So lost in your tipsy bliss you barely noticed the elevator stopping at your floor.

Felix’s teeth softly biting and pulling at your bottom lip earning himself a not so quiet moan to escape your lips as the elevator door opened. Pulling away slowly from each other regaining focus is when you realized that someone was standing there watching you two.

Turning around to see none other than Alex. Your energy entirely shifted once you saw his face as if his presence just irritated your whole soul and spirit (and it did!) you let out a loud sigh and sarcastic tight smile (on purpose this time!)

“Finally heading out?” “Uhh yeah….” Alex responded. putting his head down trying his best to avoid eye contact with felix.

“Perfect!” You said rolling your eyes giving him the nastiest resting bitch face. You grabbed Felix’s hand walking out the elevator bumping passed him with Felix close behind you giving him a death glare of his own.

“Babe..” Felix nudged trying to get your attention once he knew alex was gone. “hmm?” You responded avoiding eye contact because you knew exactly where this convo was headed.

“Babe wait! Stop walking, look at me? ” he pulled your arm to get you to turn around and face him.

“Hmm?” You repeated, hesitantly looking up at him

“baby what was that?” “What do you mean??”

“Listen you know I don’t like that bitch.. and I understand if you’re doing the whole my boyfriend doesn’t like you, so I don’t like you either thing.. but that felt like a whole different type of animosity. What’s going on? ”

“Lix it’s nothing ” you said reaching to pull your keys out of your pocket as a distraction.

He gently grabbed your chin raising your head to make eye contact with you again “princess .. I know it’s something. I’m not gonna pressure you but you just say it the word and I’ll beat that fuckers ass again you hear me? ”

You nodded as he left a kiss on your forehead. “I’m not shutting you out Lix , I just want to end tonight on a good note okay?

“I get it.. whenever you’re ready princess” he said giving you one last forehead kiss before walking back into your apartment.

“Yo yo yo what are you doing??!..” was the first thing you heard as you opened the door to your apartment. You and Felix Looked at each other in suspicious confusion. “Aw Chris c'mon you’re no fun.. ” you heard Sophie’s voice coming from the kitchen as well. you rushed over to see what was going on. And nothing on gods green earth could have possibly prepared you for what you had just saw.

Standing at the entrance of your kitchen you could not believe your eyes as Sophie literally threw herself at Chris, grabbing the back of his neck and kissing him. You and Felix both frozen with your mouths hanging open in utter shock. You all were aware of the shady disgusting person Sophie was but this was a new level even for her! Chris reacted before you could even say or do anything.

“Bro Wtf is wrong with you!?” He raised his voice as he pushed her off of him. “You’re literally dating my best friend have some goddamn decorum for fuck sake!”

Still neither of them had realized you and Felix were standing there until you opened your mouth to speak “ oh my fucking god” you said just above a whisper almost as if you were trying to confirm what you were seeing was real and not just some drunken fever dream.

Their heads snapped in your direction and Felix swiftly tried grabbing your hand to calm you down. He definitely knew you were extremely close to loosing your shit at any given moment at this point. And ofc within milliseconds You we’re snatching your hand away from him charging towards Sophie with boiling blood pumping through your veins

"“ HOW FUCKIN DARE DO THIS TO HIM!" You grabbed the nearest liquor bottle off the counter attempting to throw it at her. Felix swooping in grabbing you and picking you up from behind as chris tried to snatch the bottle from your hand. Both of them failing with the amount of rage that was pumping through your body. But luckily for Sophie the glass bottle missed her head by an inch and hit the wall behind her. “JEONGIN LOVES YOU, YOU STUPID BITCH AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO TO HIM ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS SOPHIE!?”

“ Omg did you just throw that bottle at me??!! What is wrong with you, you’re a fucking psychopath!!! you're crazy!”

Hearing all the commotion and shattering glass Minho and changbin came rushing out from the balcony to see what was going on.

“ I told yo stupid ass months ago if you ever hurt him that I was gonna dog walk you bitch and I mean that shit! ”

“Y/n it’s not even like that!”

“Shut tf up i just watched you kiss Chris after he told you NO! Don’t tell me it not like that when you’re in my kitchen feeling up on another guy when the man who is madly in love with you is passed out drunk in the next room! "

She just stood there stunned looking stupid and tipsy as she realized she got caught.

“You’re a compulsive liar and horrible friend! I’ve been wanting to beat your ass for so long now but I held out for my best friends sake. I regret ever introducing you to each other and I pray to god he starts to see you for who you really are!”

“Y/n-”

“Get your shit and get tf out of my house before I beat the living shit out of you! Delete my number and you better hope I never catch you out in the street bc unlike some people I AM a woman of my word.”

“Touch me and I’d gladly press assault charges.”

“Idgaf Bitch I would GLADLY go to jail for beating your ass!”

“Don’t test me y/n”

“WASSUP HOE!! TRY ME!!! I FUCKING DARE YOU!!!! ” You started raging once again grabbing yet ANOTHER liquor bottle off the counter. This one being bigger and alot heavier Chris and Felix immediately rushed you out the kitchen saving your house from becoming crime scene as Minho and Changbin stepped in to escort Sophie out of the house.

Taglist: @hanniemylovelyquokka @milknhoneyracha @tinyelfperson @jiisungllvr @imastraykidsfan@simpracha @turtledove824 @laylasbunbunny @armystay89 @eclipsemina @4ln-stay8@aalexyuuuhm @scribblesnsketches05 @amarecerasus @euphoric-univers @stellasays45 @night-storm7 @vixensss @blossomlilly @jc003 @hanniesbubuwife @beccaskz@soyeonbean @kawaiijellyfishtimetravelr @chuuyaobsessed @estella-novella @gabriellamarie@livelaughloveskzmwah @thatshroomiegirl @flowerbunnii @whoa-jo @babygirlskz98@leftenemydestiny

@dazzlingjade @hyuneyeon @nightmarenyxx

(plz lmk if you would like to be removed or added)

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voidspiraling · 1 month ago

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AGGHH I deleted the original post I’m so saddd.

Anyways I wanted to talk abt this pic idk if it’s canon or just a non canon drawing but lets assume that it is significant for this analysis.

In this pic Till is wearing his R2 outfit, his mic headset and his mouth his open like he’s singing. This makes me think that he’s onstage in Round 2 singing his Unknown (Till the End) song. HOWEVER. While he’s singing this song the background is red with shooting star, meteors, debris whatever it is.

Doesn’t it remind you of something? My thoughts are that while Till was outwardly singing about his love for Mizi he was actually thinking about Ivan.

The thing abt Alien Stage is that everyone’s an unreliable narrator. In Round 1 everything seems like a sci-fi idol show until the ending where Sua dies. Then in Round 3 we are led to believe that Till never glanced at Ivan when that is in fact a lie and Till DID look at Ivan. Methinks Round 2 is also told by an unreliable narrator, only the thing that’s unreliable is Till himself. In Round 1 we are fed false info abt the type of world they live in. In Round 3 we are fed false info abt Till’s attitude towards Ivan. So in Round 2 I think we are being fed false info abt Till’s feelings.

Here’s something that always struck me as off. Here Till has just finished his “confession” but he doesn’t even acknowledge Mizi off stage. Usually after you confess to someone, you check for their reaction right? Onstage Till looked at Mizi after he smashed the guitar. But here when he is physically closer to her he doesn’t even attempt to look at her. Compared to Ivan who kept looking at Till even when he was being shot, and kept his eyes on him even as he died, turning to look at Mizi shouldn’t be too difficult.

Some of the lyrics of the song were also weird too (I’ll be using the Eng translations so some things maybe lost in translation)

First the line “I wanna know all about you” this line was weird bc how do you not know everything abt Mizi already? Mizi lived a very sheltered life, so she never had to build any walls to protect herself. If you wanted to know all abt Mizi you just had to look at her. She doesn’t hide anything at all, everything abt her can be found on the surface. It would’ve made more sense to say “I want you to know all about me” considering that Mizi isn’t aware of Till’s feelings.

Second is the line “How dare you think this time’s enough” this line is so… aggressive. Like I can’t imagine Till actually saying this to Mizi at all. Till is usually super shy and freezes up around Mizi. Could he actually say something so confrontational to her. I can’t imagine that all.

But I can imagine him saying that to Ivan.

“I want to know all about you” bc I spent so much time with you and I still don’t understand you and “How dare you think the time’s enough” when you don’t understand my feelings. You just assumed what I felt you don’t actually know how I feel about you.

(Till is actually the character I understand the least. This is just my imagination lol)

Another thing that makes me think Till was crying is this scene. (How does he look so pretty when in distress. Till I can’t you’re too endearing wth)

Here it looks like he’s sweating a lot but it also looks like there’s a tear slipping from his left eye. He even does a little sniffle which makes me think he was sobbing.

My theory is that Till was trying to tell himself a narrative in order to cope with his traumatic life. And the narrative he tells himself is that the only person he loves is Mizi and that the only person who can save him is Mizi. So while he’s onstage he sings abt his feelings for Mizi, but while he’s singing he accidentally also sings abt his feelings for Ivan.

Don’t you think it’s weird that Ivan doesn’t show up in the R2 flashbacks. Considering how often they were together growing up you’d think he’d at least me off to the side somewhere. I mean Sua was in the flashback but Ivan wasn’t? I think Till was intentionally suppressing his thoughts abt Ivan in order to make a point that he only loves Mizi. However bc the song can also apply to Ivan he inadvertently sings abt his love for Ivan and starts crying. That’s bc his love for Mizi is just a performance for the world and for himself.

In his personal narrative it is better to be the guy that loves the kind and gentle Mizi than the boy who is hopelessly entangled with the enigmatic Ivan. It hurts less that way. Till can look at Mizi at a distance bc she is like a bright light in his bleak world. But Till can’t look at Ivan because he is too bright, he fills up an entire sky with light and it haunts Till to this day. I remember reading somewhere that Till can’t escape from the red sky. The red sky could represent Till’s feelings for Ivan.

It’s where we see Till at his happiest.

It’s where we see Till the closest with another person.

As well as where he’s the most conflicted/scared.

Basically the picture of Till crying shows how he actually feels abt the meteor shower scene and how bc of his feelings for Ivan it haunts him even when he’s trying to sing abt someone else. He loves Ivan but he also can’t bare to be with Ivan. Maybe he realizes the self-destructive nature of their love. Maybe he knew it was dangerous for them to be in love in this world. Or maybe he was just to afraid of the pain and wanted to protect his heart in any way he could.

I don’t think we’ll ever get an answer. But I think that Till idolizing Mizi is just a fantasy he uses to cope with his awful life. And that bc his relationship with Ivan was uncanny and different from the love he received from his mom Io, he tries to reject even the thought of Ivan. Bc if he thinks abt Ivan too much he’ll unravel bc love is obsessive and all consuming. And Till def would have been consumed by his love for Ivan. It would have just been consumed by the aliens for entertainment. Their love is doomed no matter what he does. Might as well pretend it never existed maybe then it would hurt less.

It didn’t ;-;

#alien stage #alnst ivan #alnst till #ivantill #alnst

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saetoru · 1 year ago

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this blog is now archived !! find my MASTERLIST here !!

hi guys, and here’s a long overdue post that i wanted to take the time to make after collecting as many screenshots as i can for a lot of rumors that i think need to be addressed. before i do that, i wanted to apologize to all of my mutuals who ended up wrongfully harassed in their inboxes for simply knowing me—the irony of this issue being about bullying all the while people on this app have been simultaneously being genuinely awful to other writers who have zero involvement has been ridiculous.

i would’ve made this post sooner, but december was very busy—as you all know, i’ve been working with two separate companies for my capstone projects, and i had final presentations with boards to worry about. and then a cruise which was fun, but i was offline. now that i’ve finally had time to enjoy my break and collect my thoughts, i’d like to voice my own side to the discourse i’m sure you’ve all seen posted by @/garoujo, who is now @/gojoath.

first and foremost, i’ve been on tumblr for almost 4 years now, and while i may not have the brightest moments on here (no one will be spot-free in that amount of time), i’d like to think that if i actually went out of my way to vicious or bully people, this would’ve come to people’s attention a lot sooner. i’ve had a relatively large following across all 6 of my blogs in my time here, and while i don’t like to get into the metrics of my blogs, the reason i point this out is because i have willingly started my blog over 6 times. 3 of these were sfw blogs under my nickname tee, another 2 of which were my previous nsfw blogs under a different alias, and saetoru which is the current one, where i finally decided to combine my sfw and nsfw writing into one space. i just wanted to bring that up because i had quite a habit of leaving and restarting blogs before this one, and had i been obsessed with outperforming other writers in terms of follower counts, i would not have left the previous ones as often as i did.

that being said, i’ll also go through a timeline of events and how they’ve snowballed into an issue that is not as one-sided as most of you might think. i’ve been mutuals with emmie since my first blog, and i’d been mutuals with her through most of her blogs as well. we’ve never really had issues until her last blog @/garoujo, which she’d started after deactivating @/atsymu due to discourse regarding racism accusations. the reason why we had a falling out was because i felt that there were a series of odd coincidences that felt slightly purposeful, but i was still questioning whether or not i was looking too deeply into it to actually point any of it out.

admittedly, when i saw her first set of banners, i felt our layouts were a slight bit similar, but i really didn’t mind too much because i had been planning to change my banners anyway because i was bored of them. so i took that as an opportunity to do so. it just so happened that within a day or two of every time i changed my banners, hers would be changed too—i never said i owned the color gray, and i even fully acknowledge that the last two sets of banners, at first glance, wouldn’t be a red flag. because, like i said, i was more uncomfortable with the pattern of coincidences than the actual layouts. then i switched to my instagram theme, and not long after, i noticed her add instagram story visuals to her navi. again, no one ever said instagram was my original idea, and that no one else could use it, but it was an unsettling feeling having the same moot continuously make changes around the same time as you, and changes that are different enough that you can’t exactly point out an issue, but slightly similar enough that you can’t exactly ignore the slight oddness.

coincidentally, the same day, another blog (who i will not name bc they’re not very active anymore and are also not very relevant to this story) made the same theme as me and i was a bit peeved because this same blog is someone who has copied a few other things from me and a handful of other moots, so i made a subpost on my moots-only personal blog at the time. keep in mind, i made this post fully aware that emmie was on this blog because i didn’t intend for that post to seem like it was about her. but she reached out to me, and i explained to her the situation, and i even provided the relevant screenshots to show my points. i still considered her a decently good friend at the time, and even with the slightly off feelings, i was still adamant about brushing them off and considering them coincidences that perhaps i was being a bit too critical of.

it wasn’t until i woke up a few hours later after changing my theme and going to bed that i noticed she’d then fully switched to the insta theme. again, instagram is an app used by millions and, at one point, was a very popular theme used amongst most people on this app. i’m not entitled enough to believe i was the first person to do it, but like i said. there are just off vibes most of us will not help but feel when a series of coincidences continue to happen back to back to back by the same person.

there were, amongst these things, a number of other small touches that made me feel off. most of them i don’t remember by now or have screenshots of, so i won’t bother to go into all of them, but for reference, one example i’d also like to point out that i’d had the phrase “you’ve reached the hanmas” in my inbox when she was still on @/atsymu, and sometime after, her sfw blog @/loveatsu had the phrase “you’ve reached the miyas.” small things like this are not things i make an issue over and am more than capable of brushing aside, but like i have said and will continue to push firmly is that i felt there were multiple instances of emmie, in particular, making small tweaks to her blog shortly after me that made me feel were not all coincidentally similar. the issue was never themes or thinking i am the first or only person to do something a certain way, the issue has always been me countless times feeling that one particular individual is exhibiting a behavior that is persistent and uncomfortable no matter how minuscule the instances may be. maybe they were really just unfortunate coincidences that happened with poor timing, or maybe they weren’t. but i stand by the fact that anyone in my shoes would be valid to question the timing of each of these events over and over again.

i would also like to bring up kinktober (though this happened a while after the rest of what i will get into) because this was the first public discourse that emmie and i got into due to an anon’s claims of similarities between our posts. i had received an anon who told me “i think someone copied your kinktober masterlist” which i answered to ask if they could let me know who. they had come back to say it was garoujo, and i did not reply to the ask, instead, i made a post to vaguely tell the anon that i appreciate them letting me know, but i will just leave it be and continue on with my kinktober regardless of emmie’s mlist. i do think there were some vague similarities, but honestly not enough to really question it, so i figured a confrontation or issue was not necessary. a while later, several moots had messaged me to let me know they had received anonymous asks saying to “block @/garoujo she copied @/sakusins and she’ll copy you too” (or something along those lines, i don’t remember exactly.) i myself was very confused (and upset) by the situation because i did not, and still would not, want to be publicly name-dropped in other people’s inboxes over issues that do not involve them. unfortunately, it led to some not-very-kind asks to both of us, and while i am sorry she had to deal with that, it is not an apology from a sense of culpability. that situation was, and still is, entirely out of my control. i would not have seen the masterlist unless the anon had mentioned it, and i did not take part in having people send asks about her to other writers. especially not in a manner that was pretty much social suicide for me as well.

(this is a poorly made collage i know lol but i hit the picture limit bear with me here.)

i would also like to point out that i am not the only individual who has had issues with emmie and feels she had copied them. although i cannot disclose urls (they have been blocked out for privacy reasons) here are a few conversations i have had with my own mutuals, and i would wager there are more people whom i haven’t talked to who also feel this way. they might be small enough instances that sparking issues over them was not worth it to all of these people, therefore she has never heard from people herself about this issue, but the point does still stand that this claim about emmie is not one i alone make, and is one that i have heard countless times before. her never being approached by these individuals for the sake of peace doesn’t erase that they have been, and are, upset by these events, and it’s a habit that she seems to continually partake in. i would also like to link this post where she has been called out by another writer while she was still atsymu, which was posted while we were still friends. i’ve actually had a discussion with emmie about that post, and at the time, i had quickly skimmed the post and felt it was perhaps a reach, but after my own experiences, i went back to reread the post and considered perhaps there was validity to it, and that this might not be a one time occurrence. plagiarism in manners such as this will always have conflicting opinions, and it is hard to sometimes tell if something is a coincidence, a popular and overused idea, or something that has actually been copied. my point is that a number of people have all felt that perhaps there is a good chance this was not an accident, and please consider that so many instances of people feeling this way might suggest that there is a certain degree of validity to the claim.

at the beginning of all of this, when the masterlist banners had first started bothering me, i was upset, and i chose to vent to an ex-moot of mine who most of you would recognize as munsonsins. abby has deactivated a long while ago, but she’s relevant to this because i had chosen to vent to her at the time, and this is more or less what later caused this situation to escalate. at the time of venting to her, i knew she wasn’t mutuals with emmie because, as you can see, she’d told me as such.

one thing i would like to point out is that there were a handful of people i had vented to about my frustrations with emmie, but one thing i had always been mindful of was ensuring these were a) individuals who i considered close friends and not just random individuals, and b) were not friends or moots with emmie in the event that i accidentally made people who she cared about think lesser of her. had abby been mutuals with emmie, i would not have shared my feelings, and once again, i was not loose-lipped enough to just tell anyone because they’d listen. i told abby in particular because i had felt we were sufficiently close individuals who talked one-on-one and were able to vent to each other. a bit after i vented to her, though, she befriended emmie, which i had no such issues with because abby was/is her own person and is an adult who can interact freely and befriend whoever she wanted/wants to.

not long after that, on the night before eid (this detail is relevant in the future) an ex moot of mine @/kazuwhora reached out to me. if you guys remember, there was a discourse last year that was all over dash about how writers on this app should be open to criticism. a lot of people (including me and kc) were upset by that sentiment—which is still valid. please don’t give constructive criticism to writers without their explicit permission !! but regardless, kc sent me a screenshot of a mutual of mine who had posted their opinion on this discourse, and their point was clearly that while constructive criticism is important in some aspects, writers do not have to be subject to receiving it should they not want to. unfortunately, i felt as if kc misunderstood what this individual was trying to say, and i was trying to explain it to her, but we got into a small argument over how we interpreted the post. i felt some of the things she was saying about this individual were inappropriate, and i had made it clear that i was very fond of this person, and it made me uncomfortable to be having this discussion. regardless of whether she saw my interpretation of the post or not, i wanted to drop the discussion, especially because it was the night before eid. eid is the one holiday i celebrate, and there are traditions i quite enjoy the night before, and i didn’t want them to be spoiled with a poor mood over a silly argument. unfortunately, she wasn’t very willing to drop the topic, and it ended up making me upset. so i posted this screenshot to my moots only personal from the conversation that consisted of my messages only and said, “tonight i had to explain what a debate is.” it was petty, perhaps, but very harmless, seeing as there was no context given and no names/pfps to indicate who the person was.

truthfully, i had vented separately to cat, eris, and abby about this argument because i was friends with the three of them at the time, but needless to say, venting to your friends about arguments is a universal action, and i believe it is something all of us have partaken in.

eventually, i decided to softblock emmie because i felt it would be more comfortable for me on my blog to do so. after a bit, i was informed of a subpost that seemed like it couldn’t be about anyone other than me—to make things clear, emmie subposting me was not my concern. i did not hold it against her because she is more than entitled to have her own feelings and vents on her own blog, but the thing that did concern me was that it seemed slightly evident that she was aware of my feelings when i had never explicitly had a conversation with her. it made me question who would tell her, and as you may have guessed, the only person with whom i had shared my concerns who could also be in contact with emmie was abby.

at the time, eris had also voiced concerns that they had trusted abby with the ending of the plot for the diluc series they were planning, and coincidentally, one of abby’s friends had posted a fic idea eerily similar to their concept, to which abby had been commenting and reblogging more brainstormed ideas under. all of these ideas were very close to the plans eris had for their series plot, and understandably, they felt that it was not a mere coincidence that their entire plot was being brainstormed on dash by a person who was fully aware of their outline. i’d voiced my concerns with believing that abby may have also been sharing things i trusted her with, and as a result we both had made a few vague subposts that we liked from each other—a petty behavior, i will admit, but not something that i think is very out of the norm for a lot of people on this app. sometimes, we all just want to vent out our frustrations, and because we all more or less use tumblr as an outlet, these can sometimes be vaguely taken to dash. it’s not something that is ideally recommended (i’ve learned the hard way) but it’s also ?? not exactly something that only i’m guilty of, or is even a rare behavior. i think to shoot down one person for this behavior is quite frankly hypocritical. again, subposting isn’t a habit i would like to push as mature but it’s something i’d like to point out is very normal in this community, and is not something only i take part in. beyond that, i take to ensuring that whenever i do, i’m not explicitly exposing who i’m talking about in order to keep them out of unnecessary issues.

after this conversation with eris, it kind of solidified in my mind that i did not want to trust abby with any more personal vents, or information, and i had ultimately decided to soft block her too. i had also decided to take the opportunity to softblock kc as well because i figured i might as well just remove individuals who i felt made me uncomfortable. this is, again, my right to do so to curate my own space. not long after, cat, eris, and i had been softblocked/hardblocked by a number of moots, and we were a bit confused, until cat ended up having a conversation with kc. many accusations were made about all three of us, more specifically, about me to kc by abby because the two of them had been discussing that they’d both been softblocked by me recently.

the list of accusations we were told of is as follows:

me, cat, and eris have a “burn book” where we “blacklist people.” it’s important to note that every time this discourse resurfaces (this is now the fourth time), the “burn book” has fundamentally changed in its composition—it has changed from a discord server “burn book”, to a google doc “burn book”, to the current rumor that it was an entire blog that was used as a “burn book.” it is consistently changed to fit whatever narrative is trying to be pushed, and regardless, the rumor itself is entirely untrue and has been addressed multiple times. cat has had a tumblr theme, a collab theme, and a server theme all dedicated to the film mean girls. she simply had a channel that was to share the urls of minors to block for interacting with nsfw works, or people who were anti-dark content—this is something that i have seen in all servers i’ve been in during my time on tumblr, and is not a new concept for many of you either. it’s simply a precaution a lot of servers take to warn writers about potential minors to block, and potential anti-dark content harassers. the name of this channel happened to be “the burn book” because it was a mean girls themed server, so the name just fit. nowhere in this channel were other writers in the community “blacklisted” or spoken negatively of, and here are the screenshots of the channel. this was simply something abby had twisted in order to paint us negatively. here is the link to cat’s post addressing it for proof and explanation (i run out of pictures or i would include them myself.)

abby also claimed that i was using this channel to talk poorly about kc and a handful of other moots. this is also false bc this server had several strangers (as it was cat’s server and i didn’t know all her moots), but it also had several of kc’s mutuals/friends in this server as well. i’m not so dense as to talk poorly about other writers publicly in a server, let alone a server i know has people who are friends with kc

now, this next part, emmie has conveniently painted out to be about me, as i apparently harassed and blacklisted people for liking itto from genshin impact, but i have been playing genshin for over a year on this app, and quite a large number of you are my own followers who see my rambles and my writing and i don’t have to explain that i have never written for itto, nor explicitly expressed an interest in him apart from perhaps one or two posts from back when i did his story quest. i never had, and still to this day, have no interest in the character itto. i’ve skipped his banner, i plan to skip his upcoming banners should they come, and i have never written for him, nor do i plan to write for him. this issue with itto is between eris and another individual, and i do not have the details to this, as i was new friends with eris at the time, and i’m no longer friends with eris as of current time. quite frankly, even if i knew the details, i wouldn’t go out of my way to share them because it has nothing to do with me. plain and simple.

as you can see, there were a number of rumors spread here to kc by abby, and as you can see, all of which led me to seem quite vicious in character. i’ve provided, to the best of my ability, screenshots and receipts of why each of these is quite drastically out of context and far from true to what abby has claimed.

i did in fact, after these events confront abby because i was genuinely appalled by the way she knowingly and purposely twisted things conveniently to villainize me. she expressed that she was upset and paranoid by the subposts that she figured were about her once i’d soft blocked her, so i apologized for the posts. she had conversations with both me and cat about the rumors she’d started, and she also apologized for them to both me and cat.

the rumors that emmie has claimed about me in her post, which she conveniently provided no evidence of, are all rumors that are more or less a result of my differences with abby and kc. unfortunately, despite cat trying her best to explain to kc the falseness of most of these rumors, she didn’t really believe them—which is her business. to each their own. i’m sure if i had been in kc’s shoes and in one night, someone i had considered a friend had been painted to do a series of nasty things behind my back, i also would not know what’s true and untrue, and she is entitled to piecing together what she believes is her truth. what’s not fair, however, is for emmie to have no involvement/understanding of these events apart from a twisted narrative she heard from one person and dog pile them into her claims of my behavior to further paint me as a villain. emmie is more than entitled to have her beliefs on my character based on her own experiences, which she has provided her own evidence of, but simply slapping an “and i heard she also….” does not necessarily make claims true, and is very manipulatively thrown into the post to add a list of things that make my character questionable to further validate her point.

not only this, but she has made a point to openly admit that she and her friends have collectively mocked me for my relationship with my ex-boyfriend, who they have apparently labeled as my “fake” boyfriend that i used to get attention on this app. quite plainly, i get enough attention on my blog that i don’t need a fake boyfriend to amp that up. but furthermore, i am a south asian, muslim individual. my parents are immigrants with very strict religious and cultural beliefs that i feel are very restricting at times, and though i love my family, i struggle with my identity quite a bit as i live in a very western culture that clashes quite a bit with my cultural norms. i do not get to freely explore my sexuality or even romantic life in general, unlike some of you. my parents have been kept in the dark about my relationship because them knowing about it is something that could quite literally create a rift between us, and i find it very insulting and almost suspicious that a white girl is making a mockery of my cultural struggles and my personal life. many of you are either desi or muslim or simply children of strict immigrant parents with quite stubborn traditional views. i’m sure plenty of you understand where i’m coming from when i say that i have to keep my relationship hidden from the majority of the people around me. tumblr is the one place i can anonymously share bits and pieces of my life without worrying about if it will literally cost me my relationship with my parents, so sometimes i may have overshared silly or pointless things, but that is because it’s my own way of being able to express myself and my relationship the way i have always wanted to. apart from that, dragging and making a joke out of someone’s personal life is quite unnecessary in this case. the issue is about tumblr discourse, and i find it very hypocritical that i am being labeled a bully when people, more specifically a white and privileged individual, is plain and simple mocking and poking fun at my personal life and situation that i have no control of. that is my piece on that. whether some of you believe i had a partner or not is not my business, nor do i have to go out of my way to show you evidence of my personal life. what i will say, however, is that there are a handful of close friends i have on this app who are involved in my personal life and have seen evidence of my love life through pictures and private stories on social media. quite frankly, these are the only individuals who i have to justify the validity of my personal life to, and it’s honestly quite violating for someone to stoop to dragging someone’s outside life into issues about tumblr. i extend a very genuine fuck you to every single one of you that have ridiculed my personal relationship and just know that you are extremely bold to consider yourselves above bullying when this is the type of behavior you admit to engaging in. individuals with complex familial relationships, and identity struggles between cultural norms, their ethnicities, and the western world are not your playground to make a joke out of. some of us have very real struggles, such as not being able to pursue careers in favor of arranged marriages, not being able to pursue actual relationships that mean something to us due to a lack of familial approval, being forced to bear children at young ages due to familial pressure, and so on. they are not laughing matters, and are a part of my reality. and before some of you get started—yes, it really is that serious. i have struggled my entire life with having white girls poke fun and tease at my cultural norms, and i refuse to allow another white and privileged individual who already has a record of racially related discourse walk away with once more poking fun at my personal struggles and not be called out for it. i hope you had a good, long, satisfying laugh emmie.

onto my next points based on claims @/anantaru has made about me. the main thing i’d like to really point out here is that anantaru and i have never, not even once, interacted to the extent of my knowledge. they claim that cat and i cannot stand it when people cross us in numbers and that we go through people’s likes in order to find minors and blank blogs to explain all the notes. a) i am very bad at checking for minors and blanks in my own notes, so this is not even a logical approach on my end, but b) this claim is made because cat made this post under the tags of a post going around last year that asked to hear unpopular ficblr opinions.

what cat means to articulate here is that sometimes, when she is scrolling on dash and interacting with moots and their shit/talk-posts, she peeks at profiles she sees in the notes and has happened to catch minors lurking. cat, firstly, has never followed anantaru, so they are not a “victim” to cat glancing at their likes, but secondly, this is not nearly as psychotic as it’s painted out to be. cat is not, and was not, jealous of other blog's notes. quite plainly, she’s not exactly a tiny blog either, and she’s only stumbled upon minors in the talks-posts of moots, including me. shit-posts/talks-posts are easy to notice minors lurking on, and while most people recognize that it’s quite impossible to catch every minor and ageless blog in writing posts with numerous notes, a simple shit-post on dash is more simple, and her unpopular opinion was simply that blogs that grow rapidly need to be better about catching those minors because they are susceptible to having more of them lurking. it’s a really harmless sentiment, and she’s gently reminded me as well on more than one occasion to be more responsible about my habit of being lazy when scouting for minors in my interactions.

this is not out of jealousy, nor is it some sick and twisted habit she has to “explain” why people get more notes than she might get. it’s also out of a place of concern for her own content ?? i myself and plenty of other large blogs reblog from mutuals, and they are well within their right to be concerned that perhaps minors are lurking on our pages and interacting with works we reblog from our mutuals. cat has voiced this concern to me before, also out of goodwill and simple concern for my content, her content, and minors in general. there is simply no need to twist it into her viciously looking down upon large blogs and their notes counts and claiming they’re “only because they don’t block minors.” admittedly, though, i do need to be better about catching minors, and i have always appreciated her trying to keep me in the habit of being responsible about it. more importantly, it was a small passing comment under a post of unpopular opinions, a lot of them were hot takes, and this is hardly a serious one to get so heated over.

i’d also like to point out that anantaru has claimed we blocked them for being a gatekeeper and because we’re jealous of their notes. 💀. a) i am very grateful and very happy with the level of interaction i get on my writing, as more people than i imagine leave me countless comments and reblogs. i have never had an issue with comparing my interaction with that of other writers because i have always been abundantly content with the interaction i get. i have no other comment on this other than cat and i blocked anantaru at the same time because we happened to see a post of theirs reblogged onto our dash that made a joke that we felt was a bit insensitive to/alluded to SA—i’m sure it wasn’t meant to be taken that way, but it made us uncomfortable regardless. while we are both dark content supporters, and i myself have read more than one fic that includes noncon in particular, it doesn’t mean we have to like/enjoy everything related to it and we simply decided to block them. i’m not going to bring this post up bc it’s simply not important. they are an adult who is more than entitled to make jokes on their blog and cat and i do not have to like them !! we simply did what we were well within our rights to do, and that’s blocking them.

there’s more they go on to say about receiving hate asks and that apparently it’s because of our “group of friends.” cat and i don’t have a group of friends. i don’t have any group chats with her besides the one with her boyfriend because i get along with him sometimes as well, and we used to play genshin together a lot when i was in low ar. not that i have to explain my friendships here, but i quite literally do not have a group of people to “send after” anantaru because people are well aware of my close friends, who i text with my personal phone number. i’ve posted silly screenshots of convos on my blog multiple times, and none of these friends overlap because i do not have a “group” of friends, just individual friends who i talk to one on one. cat is not friends with my other friends, and my other friends are not friends with her. there are no inner circles that conspire together to send anyone hate because i “tell them to.” and if there are screenshots of me explicitly encouraging someone to send hate on anon, i would love to see it. if i had sent my anons after anantaru, it would have to be a public post, and i’m sure if there were a post of such nature, it would have been brought to light by now. they have also claimed they were given multiple urls of mine to block. i only have ONE writing blog, @/saetoru, and the only other two that are still up are archived blogs @/hanmine and @/katsuphilia, which are side blogs attached to saetoru and have been inactive for several months. there are however, multiple individuals on this app who also go by the name “tee,” and perhaps we have unfortunately been mixed up as the same person, but the only blog i have is saetoru, so there is no other active blog they have blocked me from that belonged to me and was able to harass them.

not only that, but anantaru has claimed that one person off anon sent them hate with a kaeya url which they insinuate to be me. once again, you are all more than aware of my history of urls, and many of you have all been here to see them. i’ve never once had a kaeya url, nor have i ever been particularly interested in kaeya outside of a small number of posts on a rare occasion. my genshin favorites have always been characters from sumeru and, at one point diluc, and once again i don’t have to ?? explain my selfships to you all ?? but literally, i have nothing to do with a kaeya blog or kaeya account, and im unsure why it’s being thrown into my name. quite frankly, i’m not sure what their moot has told them we have said about them, but the only conversations cat and i have ever had about anantaru was that one about the noncon joke, and that’s it. outside of that, there is literally no evidence of us speaking about this person because it simply doesn’t exist.

i implore you all to, instead of starting public discourse over things you hear, confirm them first. had anantaru reached out to me or cat and expressed that they are upset that we are supposedly spreading false rumors about them gatekeeping, then whatever misunderstanding it might have been could have been cleared. i would like to also point out that it is not above bullying when you simply dump numerous accusations that you have heard through half whispers from moots and provide 0 evidence for them. i am perfectly aware of why emmie may consider herself to have issues with me, but i have never had an encounter with anantaru, and truthfully, i’ve never actually even read their writing before. my main (and pretty much only) experience with them is seeing the joke i saw reblogged onto my dash, and as i stated earlier, the only thing i did for that was block and move one.

and lastly, the other point i’d like to make is that numerous blogs who i have been objectively very kind to have come out to take the opportunity to stomp on my character and reputation. for example, tumblr user @/osaemu, who used to follow me and interact with me quite often. i have always been excited to interact with her because she was really supportive of my gojo writing, and at one point, i had a small area of concern with her using the same exact title as me for a gojo fic. below are screenshots of our conversation regarding the titles.

i am quite confident that this is a very polite interaction, and i was very clear that i didn’t think that her writing elements, including gojo’s parent dynamics and his dynamics with the reader, were copied or even something that i felt she needed to change. i pointed them out as a way of indicating that between these parallels and between the fact that i know she reads my rb! gojo series, i find it difficult to believe that our fic titles being exactly the same is a coincidence, and it made me uncomfortable—my concern was not how she wrote gojo’s parents or his dynamic with reader. i never accused her of stealing ideas that were mine alone to use, all i simply wanted to do was shed light on the fact that based on these parallels, i figured the names being the same was a touch difficult for me to brush aside as a chance similarity. i was very clear to outline that i know these dynamics and themes in writing are generic, and that people can pull inspo from them because i have done the same thing. my only concern was the title, which i politely asked her to change, and she agreed. case closed. i have been, again objectively, quite kind to osaemu, and i had no intentions of blocking her like a moot had suggested because i felt it was a very silly issue to block over since she was very lovely to me.

i did, however, block her because she posted one-paragraph posts with multiple characters tagged. that’s not a crime on her end, and i’m certainly not here to police her posts in the tags, but as me and plenty of other people on this app have voiced multiple times, it is a bit irritating and feels like spam to see posts of these kinds in the tags so i blocked her. this is a very popular opinion and i refuse to be considered problematic for it. i am not here to police what constitutes an appropriate post to tag x reader tags on, and while i have made posts simply sharing my opinion on what i feel should and should not be tagged, osaemu is more than welcome to post whatever she feels she would like to into the tags. i do, however, block anyone who i come across who makes those kinds of posts because i simply don’t like them, and i don’t like seeing them. i don’t owe an explanation for why i block anyone, but seeing as i have been painted as some bitch for doing so, here is my reasoning. quite a lot of people agree on this sentiment, and to each their own, but i don’t enjoy seeing those posts. i did also unblock her at one point, as she mentioned. this is simply because a mutual of mine had voiced that they felt someone had copied the concept of their drabble, and i was helping them word a message to send, so i went back to this exact conversation to look back on what i said because it was a similar situation. as you know, blocking someone hides their dms from your dm list, so i had intended to temporarily unblock her just to see how i worded my message to help formulate a message for a mutual. there were no screenshots sent, i simply wanted to jog my memory of my points, that’s all. i did forget to block her again for a bit but eventually did, and that’s the extent of our interactions. i don’t recall posts telling people that i condone sending anons with death threats like she has claimed, and if she could point out the particular posts i have made where i encourage people to send anon death threats on my behalf, i would be more than happy to clear them up, or address them.

i have admittedly, on a few occasions said in my responses to anon hate itself, the phrase “kys” out of frustration, and there are i’m sure conflicting opinions on that, but i do not regularly use this phrase in my vocabulary. i have been on the receiving end of graphic sexual and violent asks in my inbox regarding me, my teenage sister, and my mother, during my time on here, and sometimes out of frustration i have said less than dignified things, but this is not a constant behavior, and frankly, i think once people make graphic, violent, and inappropriate comments about my 16 year old sister, saying “kys” in response is not the greater of the two evils. it is a tad bit hypocritical to expect benevolence from me to an anonymous hate ask just because there is “another person” at the end of the screen when they have not extended the same sentiment to me.

all of that being said, jumping on the trend to trample on someone while you have the opportunity to because you’re bitter they blocked you is also no better than bullying. apart from blocking osaemu, I have taken careful steps to always be respectful to her due to the very kind comments she’s left on my writing. leaving nice comments on my writing is deeply appreciated and welcome, but that doesn’t mean i have to subject myself to seeing posts i do not want to see on my dash on my phone. i pay for the phone bill, so i will cater my phone to show me what i want to see, and if that includes blocking a few people, i am allowed to do that !! i should not have to apologize for or be crucified for blocking someone and their feelings being hurt over it.

not only this, but several of you have somehow started a rumor that i am 26 or even pushing 30. that’s nowhere close to the truth. i’m 21, soon to be 22, and i have stated multiple times i am an undergraduate college student. of course, there is no timeline to college, and people of all ages complete their undergrad degrees, but i have made it a point to vent about my concerns numerous times that i am very stressed about taking extra classes every semester to compensate for changing my major late because i want to graduate on time. my graduation year is 2024 (as would make sense seeing as i will be 22 years old), and if you don’t believe me, i have celebrated my bday on april 12th of every year this blog has been active. you’re more than welcome to check my archive to see if that’s true, and for further reference, here is a picture i have sent to mods of servers i am in to be accepted. (note that my url used to be hanmas before saetoru.)

although there is no shame in being 26 or pushing 30, the reason why i wanted to address this is that i wanted to point out that yet another rumor has been fiercely pushed on my name and has been believed to be the truth. no one has to walk away from reading this post assuming that i’m a saint and i have never done anything wrong or that i have been faultless in differences i’ve had with other people. but a lot, if not all, of these claims are exaggerated with 0 evidence, and people have just run with claiming them as true. i physically cannot deny a large majority of these rumors with evidence or screenshots because half of them are made by people i have never interacted with or talked to, and i cannot produce evidence for interactions that never happened. i have seen blank, burner blogs post stories of their experiences with me, one in particular that claims i dm’d them to tell them their hanma fic was breathtaking before i harassed them about their theme, boyfriend, and parents. a) i do not dm anyone to compliment their fics because i am simply too shy to do that. i would have only reblogged the fic with comments if i enjoyed it. b) again, there is no evidence on their part, and i cannot dispel this story with evidence of my own because evidence of conversations that never took place does not exist. and c) i would like to think i do not come across as dense enough to attack someone in their dm’s viciously about their boyfriend and parents openly with my account, where they could easily spread the proof around if it had actually happened. i am not responsible for people’s internet literacy, and if people believe every story that is shared with not even a small piece of proof that it took place, i cannot do anything besides simply urge you all to formulate your opinions based on what you see, not based on what you hear.

i would also like to end things off with an apology to all of you—mainly because there was no reason for so many of you to be dragged into something that did not involve you and also because there are very disturbing and important issues going on right now in real-time in the world that are affecting a lot of people. i never want to be involved in something that takes attention off of important discussions such as genocide, and while many of you like to claim i am deflecting, i think it is quite telling that some people have posted nothing about something this important but have made multiple posts regarding discourse. i did not feel it was appropriate at that time to focus on discourse, and i still do not think so, but i wanted to leave off with my own statement.

i would also like to apologize if i have ever come across as unkind during an experience with me; it is never my intention to be that way purposely. i have a habit of being petty sometimes and can be a bit short-tempered, and it’s something i work on. with as large of a following as i have, sometimes it’s better not to say anything at all than say it—however vaguely it might be. i hope some of you who also have larger followings keep that in mind so that you can avoid discourse erupting into something grand scale. please vent to people you trust and be wary of having a habit to subpost. but mainly, please remember that people trusting you with their feelings and troubles is not something you should take pride in spreading. there is nothing to be proud of about sharing people's private socials, urls, and conversations. while i am not always able to keep my temper under wraps, and while i have had my fair share of petty moments, i, to the best of my ability, have always made sure that i don’t come across as intentionally cruel or mean, nor have i purposely broken someone’s trust. sometimes i have retaliated back a bit fiercely, but i stand by the fact that i never purposely chased or drove anyone off, mocked or belittled them, or sent people over to dislike/hate them. i have at times vented to those who i believe are people i can trust, sure—but this is something we as people are all guilty of. there’s no way any of us can hold one person more accountable than others for partaking in closeted conversations that are never meant to get back to people and hurt them.

i genuinely loved, and still love, writing very much, and i have always appreciated every ask, every reblog, and every comment. writing is a hobby i am greatly passionate about, and it’s always a hobby i was very excited to share with people on here because i don’t get to share it with people irl. i don’t willingly tell people irl that i enjoy making elaborate plots about anime characters, and i have always been very excited to share that hobby with you all, whether you are a reader or writer. i’ve read fanfiction for a very long time before i ever decided to try my hand at writing it, and i would never want to knock other people down simply because they “surpassed” me. i enjoy finding writers to read from, especially those who write better than me, because they are where i draw the most inspiration and motivation from. the moots i look up to most are moots who are in my opinion, far stronger writers than me, and moots who i always firmly believe deserve much more reach than i do on their stories because they’re far more fleshed out and in-depth than anything i can produce. and i am proud of them !! and even those of you who feel you are stuck not getting as much reach as you would hope, i am proud also of all of you for picking up a google doc or pen and writing and trying, whether you choose to share it or not. i will always strongly encourage you all to try your hand at writing if you have ever considered it because i have genuinely built such a better sense of self-esteem when being able to incorporate pieces of myself in my stories and express parts of who i am—i think some of you might really enjoy the catharsis that writing brings, and if you ever debate on trying it out, please do !! you might become really passionate about it.

anyway, this post is abysmally long. none of it is to clear my name in hopes that i will be “un-canceled” (LOL) because i have decided saetoru is long overdue to be put to rest. i hope you can all, at the very least, allow other writers some peace and stop harassing them in their inboxes for knowing me (because that is also bullying and very ironic of you), and i hope you all got some sort of understanding of where i am coming from. if you think poorly of me, that’s okay. i have an opinion of myself, and the close people who surround me, that i am confident in, and while i may not have always handled things in the brightest of manners, i am well aware of what my intentions have always been.

i’m deeply grateful to all 41k of you, and thank you for reading my works and allowing me to write for you !! thank you for all the very, very kind asks that i never got a chance to fully answer each one of, and thank you especially for all the supportive comments and love on the writing i’ve posted. they might be silly fics you read once and moved on from, but they’re all pieces of me, my life, and things that are important to me, and as cringe and cheesy as it sounds, it means quite literally everything to me when people read them and take away something from them.

also, as a parting gift, i will be posting the nerd gojo, ex-convict geto, and a marriage rb! gojo fic to my ao3 (also saetoru) for those of you who have been patiently awaiting those wips to enjoy. please (a little more patiently) keep your eyes peeled for those <3 i will no longer be posting or active on saetoru, and in the event that i keep writing, it will be posted on my ao3, so you all will know where to find me !!

so for the last time, i love you my little runts !! wishing you all the best, and goodbye to my lil saetoru bestees.

mwah !!

— tee <3

ps. i also have turned off reblogs for this post and limited replies to people i follow only. a lot of you will jump to say that it’s simply because i am “hiding,” but it is solely because i have said my piece and i intend to move on. thank you and have a lovely day shawtee ✌🏽

#thanks to all my mutuals who have reached out !! i love you all #and i will miss you tons !!

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yandere-yearnings · 5 months ago

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Okay but see I'm so petty I would ignore vio forever now until he apologized that man needs to get on his mf knees if he even wanted me to look his damn direction fr

the promised continuation of the vio angst🥰 i didn't screenshot all the asks requesting for it bc then this would just be a very long post of nonnies slowly cursing vio out more and more violently with each pic ahaha (which i love tbh😩💕) but know that i've read each and every single one🥺🩷 i wrote this one in his third-person limited so there's a bit more insight into his thoughts❗❗

(that being said, there isn't much grovelling and his asking for your forgiveness here which i'm really sorry abt. i did try to go that route originally to align w/ some of the requests i've gotten, but vio actually just isn't the type. at least at the point in the relationship being depicted!! gotta keep in mind he is super arrogant and has probably never apologised once in his life😔💔 tho, he is suffering in his own way, rest assured. the silent treatment kinda broke him haha)

warning that there is a bit of violence here and gaslighting (??), ig just typically what you'd expect to see in a yandere work,, this really ran away from me bc it's like 800 words😭

Three days had passed. Vio sat inside his trailer, feet up on the dressing table, more annoyed than he’d ever been in his entire life. Blue hair in his reflection, mussed from his constant ruffling, looking unkempt and barely like himself — and it was all your fault. His agency was paying you a salary in five figures and your only job was to take care of him, which inherently, you were doing, but you were also ignoring him and Vio couldn’t stand it.

His eyes flicked over almost instantly when you walked in, tracking every movement from your shutting the door to hanging your coat over the back of the closest chair. All Vio could see were the snowflakes in your lashes because that was all you’d let him, your gaze downcast, avoiding his. Pride made him bite his lips, because actually, he fucking missed the way you’d look at him. He missed your voice and he missed your pretty words, and it was all lumping in his throat so he couldn’t admit it although he wanted to.

Something weak sounded from him; a desperate grab for your attention that didn’t work. He kicked his script to the floor knowing you’d pick it up, then watched with a clenched jaw as you did exactly that, not even a fleeting glare in his direction. Somehow, Vio felt like he was running out of time, papers placed back neatly and your back already turning, it was the curl of worry in his gut that had his hand snapping to your wrist and tugging you back to him.

“You,” he gritted, frustrated at the pull back, at your resistance — no, your refusal of him. “Don’t fucking ignore me!”

Clearly, you weren’t listening, for all that Vio wrested you into his lap, your eyes wouldn’t even meet his through the mirror. Your bones solid against his palm, and he squeezed, hard enough to take you in, to let out the anger. Though, watching your face twist in pain, tendons in your neck constricting just to cut off the whimper, Vio didn’t even know who to be mad at anymore.

All he wanted was for you to give in.

He’d missed you so much, he would dream of you saying his name again. As you always would, and give him that love he was addicted to — yours, that tasted like kisses to open flesh. Raw and sincere to the point that Vio would rather stay splayed and bloodied instead of getting help. He didn’t feel like he could come back from this, or who he’d become because of you. If he was falling from grace, he’d hale you with him.

“Y/N…” This time, it came as a whisper, erratic mind lulled quick to the sensation of your pulse pressing firm against his fingers. Counting throbs, taking breaths for you, telling himself to be kinder, kinder. “Talk to me,” his forehead rested on your shoulder blade, “let’s not do this anymore, hm?”

Gentility got a rise out of you, it seemed, in the form of a gasp and the violent twists to free yourself that followed. “Don’t you dare,” your tone was accusatory, yet when Vio leaned away he saw the tell in your tears, “you’re not allowed to act fucking civil after what you did.”

His brow twitched. Irritation. He didn’t have a clue what you were talking about. Either way, acting was already his whole career — it might as well have been his entire damn life, and he wasn’t going to be reminded. If you weren’t a director and he wasn’t the star of your show, he didn’t need you telling him what he could and couldn’t do. His grip on you tightened.

“I didn’t do anything,” he hissed.

Outside it had begun to rain, heavy droplets melting the sleet from the windows. Steady patters the furthest thing from therapeutic in his current headspace, Vio almost missed your broken, “liar.”

Knocking his knee to white wood had the make-up brush holder tipping, contents rolling around, more noise buzzing in his head as he adjusted you. Finally, you were forced to focus on him, and Vio's eyes were unblinking, boring into yours. “You’re making baseless accusations.”

“You told me no one would love someone like me.”

“I asked you who could,” Vio bit back instantly, then, his voice softened, “...and the answer is me.”

Purple dotted into red when he let you go, wiping at your wet face. Speckled like poison in a garden of roses — what he was to you, and what you were to him. Vio thought it was fitting, beauty in that you were both to die of each other. His incurable illness. His darling disease. You shouldn’t have gotten so close to that gaffer.

“Only I can. Only I am allowed. Remember that, and love me in turn.”

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butchdiaz · 12 days ago

Text

tagged by @iinryer to do a 2024 fic roundup but i'm adding my videos in too because. uh. its fun to look back! and i want to!

MARCH

american teenager (36s)

my first ever commission! for my best friend bia! to this day i hear do what you want (do more!) everytime i listen to this song.

APRIL

arms (1:02)

this was for seti. and it hurt.

good luck babe! (1:11)

literally never felt euphoria the same since the week of bi buck when i made this. changed the timeline. (although i was so euphoric and excited to post that i cropped in a rush and left a little white line in one of the shots and it pisses me off massively to this day. yes im a virgo thanks for asking)

to open up my arms and give it all to you (2.5k)

my little buck coming out to chris fic with hints of buddie <3 bi buck got me writing again after months of literal Nothing. god bless

one of your girls (3:09)

kirby's vision went OFF. so proud of this one like. its gotta be one of my favs and i feel like it became a bit of a butchdiaz classic which makes me so happy :D

MAY

kill her freak out (1:33)

this video is my little baby. ohhh samia. ouaagh eddie.

scared of my guitar (2:23)

shoutout to the way the dialogue syncs up in this one. rly satisfying to me hehehe. honestly didn't think i'd like this one as much as i do but she hits hard

promise (1:15)

love when people commission me to edit songs im already currently obsessing over yay!!!!!

JUNE

happy to be here (2:16)

julien baker. eddie diaz. aka abby had a mental breakdown making this one.

closed hands, full of friends (45s)

this was my first time editing a song i had Never heard beforehand! 3 cheers for finding new music!!

JULY

l'amour de ma vie (3:26)

ok not to toot my own horn but. this one is good. i feel like i really told a story u know. and about now is when i started to play around with fun/more intricate text ooh ooooh

a burning hill (1:01)

this prompt was designed in a lab to kill me specifically. i wanted to do the whole song originally but i like. could not go on.

my ego dies at the end (2:49)

i reallyyyy like this one. long edits my beloved! i love to build to something. i rewatch this one often tbh. jensen mcrae is everythinggg

AUGUST

north star (2:16)

again, had never heard this song b4 i got this prompt and it got me obsessed with this searows album. this edit makes me feel all soft. rly loved incorporating fleabag into it bc like. fleabag for life. shoutout summerofbuddie for the inspo

feels like (58s)

this song has been on my buddie playlist(s) forever so i was So excited to get this prompt. it was so fun to make something. not depressing and just like. fluffy. fun fact i hand drew all the hearts for this in ps and they were such a pain to work with but i really love how it turned out cause i'd never done anything like that before :')

pink balloon (2:29)

finally made a proper buck amv. after so many eddie ones it was actually nice to switch it up. felt re-inspired! also always so inspired by samia ugh. i am an eddiegirl literally to my bones tho so this was both v hard and v fun to make.

SEPTEMBER

"i want a divorce" / "it was a date" (2:19)

the buckshannon parallels ouuugughhh. this was one of those ones that haunted me so persistently i literally was forced to make it. saw hanna's post and then blacked out and i was posting this.

had a feeling i could be someone (3k)

leave tonight or live and die this way (1.1k)

dyke buddie!!!!!!!! these fics are sooooo near and dear to my heart. i love to make everyone wlw! i love to project my butchness onto my fav characters! wrote these so fast (for me) like writing has Never flown out of me like that. i was possessed by the spirit of lesbianism. and. GOD. the response to these fics also makes me want to cry daily. the beautiful art that was created?????? for me and my little fic?????????? i actually can't believe it i love you guys so much. lesbians forever and ever and ever.

did it to myself (1:11)

another one of my favs. i think it slaps so hard tbh. i tried a lot of new stuff and it was so FUN. orla's music is so much fun to edit to i need to do another one of her songs asap.

afraid of heights (2:46)

boygenius wrote this for my friend buck buckley. got entirely consumed by this one. thank u han for being my buckafraidofheights warrior for life <3

headlock (2:23)

i love buck but i remember coming back to making an eddie amv and breathing a sigh of relief. i just Get him. its so easy. this one's underrated i think oop it kinda slaps

OCTOBER

savior complex (3:16)

this one was a rly good challenge and idek why. super happy with how it turned out though i like watching it back

NOVEMBER

funeral bell (2:54)

the buck thesis statement. to me. and such a crazy unique process. loved working w kaitlin on this one and sending her 10 million drafts (she rly got a behind the scenes tour yall and it was not pretty). this was an absolute BEAST to make despite it not even being that complicated. i think i just cared so much about making it perfect for my dear friend who trusted me with her visions and inspiration and that made it all the more special!

you get your dreams for free (14.8k)

drunk cuddling!!!!!!!! my longest fic i've posted to date and i fully thought i was never gonna finish it. i abandoned this last YEAR but im SO glad i came back to it and most of the reason for that is because of the absolutely lovely responses to my earlier fics this year <3 literally hilarious to me that i originally wanted to post this on halloween 2023. abby. abby no.

surrender my heart! (1:30)

post-confessions euphoria + a carly rae jepsen prompt? i was literally in heaven. SURRENDER UR HEART EDDIEEEEEEEEE

DECEMBER

every place leads back to your place (2.1k)

music inspires me soooo much (looks up at this post. no way right.) so i absolutely loved writing based off a song! and a chappell song nonetheless!! so fun to twist a breakup song around to fit Them. i particularly love the kiss in this one <3

oldie's station (3:17)

phew we're almost there! this one is recent but lowkey it feels like another classic to me already. i really really like it. making it felt like cooking a three course meal and watching it kinda feels like eating one :D (thank god) (i spent so many hours in that kitchen)

letter to god (1974) (2:27)

letter to god (1983) (1:52)

putting these together bc they are sister songs and sister videos. first time in my life i've worked on two videos at once. it was fun because they kind of grew together and influenced each other very directly. not fun because i ran out of space and my laptop crashed. several times. these felt rly indulgent and raw. kind of shocking to me how perfect both songs feel for both of them. had a lot of fun messing with the voice/video filters to try and place these in their respective eras bc im obsessed with that aspect of the songs. halsey's artistry is crazy yall if u havent listened to her newest album GO. NOW.

the rush of slumber party kissing (3.2k)

posted this literally yesterday lol. also my first time writing smut. somehow. scary! but i did giggle all the way through writing this tbh. when buddie reveal their true nature as silly teenage girls >>>>>>>>>>

SPECIAL SHOUTOUT

fleabag au wip, who saw the light of day again this year. she could be finished in six months or six more years, but she Will be finished. im determined!

ok if u read all that uh. wow congrats fhdhhdh im gonna get sappy for JUST A SEC now cause uh. im actually blown away by the support and love and appreciation this fandom has shown me this past year. you guys have given me so much confidence in my skills as both an editor and a writer and you also quite literally helped me pay my rent. by making videos about gay firefighters. its actually kind of mind blowing to me how lucky i am and i never want to take that for granted <3

to anyone who has commissioned me, or sent me a prompt, or left a comment on a fic, or a tag on a video, or sent me a kind ask, or subscribed to me, or followed me, or reblogged anything of mine this year: thank you.

im so grateful for this little community and all the friends and connections i have made through our collective insanity over a procedural drama on abc (neé fox). yall rock so hard.

tagging @userbuddie @chronicowboy @confessionseddie @try-set-me-on-fire @userautumn @lovelettered @exhuastedpigeon @sibylsleaves @saryasy @team-118 @lemmeaskthedevil @eddiebabygirldiaz if u wanna do any sort of yearly roundup!

#this is. CRAZY seeing it all laid out like that. thats so much. wtf abby #they speak #wrapped

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feyrescourt · 6 months ago

Text

This is a long and rambly discussion post for elriel nation btw so strap in

I want to preface this by kindly asking the elriel hive to not use any tags of #those ships if reblogged. I want to keep this in the elriel echo chamber. Please and thank u!

A huge part of fandom culture is to ship canonically compliant characters and crack ships. Everyone’s got them, and it’s totally normal, and it’s usually fun to engage with.

The majority of the time I have no issue with this (I am a wolfstar shipper and even though there is canonical evidence of them in the original HP books, they’re widely accepted online and balked at IRL usually due to homophobia and #that nasty, nasty woman’s bigotry), but over the last few years a certain group of crack shippers have taken it upon themselves to fly a little too close to the sun, and want to make it our (elriels) problem. I am talking about the Glees.

It’s late and this just popped into my head so I want to rant about it.

My friend who got me into ACOTAR gave me a breakdown of the ships (bc I read ToG first and went in blind. I became a doraelin shipper very early on and remained one halfway through QoS, it was a whole thing when I realized they were not end game lol), bc I asked her to after my ToG experience. She told me all the characters names and then told me about feysand and nessian endgames but didn’t mention az or elain’s situation. I asked her about it and she told me that she didn’t want to mention much about Az because “by the end of the series azriel has two options for how his story could go, elain or another way”. She shared some anti elain sentiment with me because she’s “boring and doesn’t do anything”. That went in one ear and out the other with me tbh.

When I started acowar, and feyre returned to the night court, I saw how elain and azriel were interacting and I concluded that mor was the second LI of az bc of acomaf. I was not apart of the fandom online at this point, so I was genuinely in the dark about everything around these two. I was just reading and talking to my friend about what I read. I also want to add that I still liked L*cien at this point in the series (it changed in acofas, I became apathetic towards him rather quickly when I finished reading that whiny ass convo with feyre…..I don’t play when it comes to her) but wasn’t sold on eluce because they had like one interaction and it wasn’t a great intro to a ship.

However this first meeting in acomaf….. :)

‘Can you truly fly?’ He set down his fork, blinking. I might have even called him self-conscious. He said, ‘Yes. Cassian and I hail from a race of faeries called Illyrians. We’re born hearing the song of the wind.’ ‘That’s very beautiful,’

“Rhys chuckled, Cassian’s wrath slipping enough that he grinned, and Elain, noticing Azriel’s ease as proof that things weren’t indeed about to go badly, offered one of her own as well.”

Well imagine my surprise when I finished acowar and it turns out mor (the person az has crushed on for 500 years) comes out to feyre before the book ends and she explains that she can never love az the way he loves her. After three books, and everything that happens in acowar it was clear to me that elain and azriel were being set up as each others love interests, despite the mating bond with l*cien.

After Acofas I was officially on the elriel train. I mean…

“Azriel strode to the lone window at the end of the room and peered into the garden below.”

“Azriel emerged from the sitting room, a glass of wine in hand and wings tucked back to reveal his fine, yet simple black jacket and pants. I felt, more than saw, my sister go still as he approached. Her throat bobbed.”

“But Azriel only took Elain’s heavy dish of potatoes from her hands, his voice soft as night as he said, ‘Sit. I’ll take care of it.’ Elain’s hands remained in midair, as if the ghost of the dish remained between them. With a blink, she lowered them, and noticed her apron. ‘I—I’ll be right back,’ she murmured, and hurried down the hall before I could explain that no one cared if she showed up to dinner covered in flour and that she should just sit.”

“Elain swept in, apron gone and hair rebraided. ‘Please don’t wait on my account,’ she said, taking the seat at the head of the table.”

“He [Azriel] was the portrait of relaxed, an arm braced against the carved mantel, his wings tucked in loosely, a faint grin on his face and a glass of wine in his hand. He slid his hazel eyes toward my sister without him moving an inch.”

“Azriel and Elain remained in the sitting room, my sister showing him the plans she’d sketched to expand the garden in the back of the town house, using the seeds and tools my family had given her tonight. Whether he cared about such things, I had no idea.”

(Damn the more I read elriel’s acofas moments the more I can’t help but conclude that they just hate/don’t understand introverts 😭)

Before I started SF, I decided to look at the online fandom and bitch……my jaw hit the floor with all the elain/elriel hate I saw on TT. And everyone was talking about a newer character in SF, and I was seeing the glee fan art and was like oh shit ok maybe elriel isn’t endgame.

Fast forward to SF……

‘What happened to Elain?’

“Nesta saw the blow land, like a physical impact, in Elain’s face, her posture. No one spoke, though shadows gathered in the corners of the room, like snakes preparing to strike. Elain’s eyes brightened with pain.”

……and I’m thinking ok, az obviously likes her. Then comes az’s BC. When I finished the elriel portion of the BC I was actually crying bc I was like oh fuck I really love these two….I knew it was over for me, and I was freaked out bc I thought I was going to get got with this “new ship” involving az. Plus I was thinking about elain being left alone in the dark without any explanation and feeling like an idiot for finally showing her true feelings towards him😭. It was like 3AM when I read it so I was hyper emotional lol. But then I read the rest of the BC and was still confused because I didn’t see any romantic subtext with g/wyn. I read it and saw a hurt male who couldn’t stand what he had done to elain the night before, was pissed at his brother for stopping it and making him feel bad when he was finally willing to voice what he’s been feeling for the past year or so and hating that he was shut down because we know he never voices his emotions, and couldn’t bear keeping a gift he picked out specifically for her. A necklace…..for solstice……Then I finished SF as a whole, and still, was confused as to why glee is a ship. Nearly all of their conversations were centered around training, and Sarah didn’t use any descriptors in their encounters that elude to any romance or mutual interest. (Btw I have a whole take on rhys’ part in that BC and I think a lot of ppl are dense and don’t understand what he was going through in that book but I can save that for another time)

Cassian and Feyre have more chemistry than those too lol.

I then talked to my friend about the these ships (elriel, eluce, and glee) ((i didn’t talk about eluce much in this post but that’s a lifeless ship too. I mean…..she can’t stand that red head anyway soooo)), and I said “I’m an elriel through and through. Idc that eluce are claimed to be mates you can tell she does not like him. also glee makes no sense to me.” Not verbatim but you get the point. My friend is very sensible so by the end of our convo, she told me that she’ll accept whatever way Sarah goes and that she’ll give elain a chance when her book comes out.

But isn’t that what all of this shit is about in the end: unjustified dislike/distain/hate for elain? That’s certainly how is appears to me. You cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that you love elain if you ship her with a male whom she has expressed, on multiple occasions, zero interest in AND becomes a shell of herself when he’s around because she just doesn’t want to interact with him. (I want to reiterate that I don’t hate L, I don’t think he’s awful or anything. elain just doesn’t want to know him. And that’s her right.) The glees don’t like her bc she doesn’t fit their stereotype for what they want in an FMC and therefore, for azriel. Which is why they have been chirping that the next book will be azriel’s. Not elain’s….WHAT??? You sound fucking crazy. The eluces (even though they claim they like her) dislike her so much that they go on and on about how she needs to grovel and apologize to the male they like because HE deserves to be happy……the same male who she associates with one of the most traumatic days of her life. Who also has not apologized to her for the part he played in that day, but I digress.

I say all that to point out that Glee specifically is in the crack ship category. No canonical evidence in the text can be used to claim they are ‘mates’ or endgame or anything more than acquaintances. And that’s fine, but don’t act as though they’re to be taken seriously as a canon ship when there’s no evidence to support it. Don’t boldly claim that azriel “has two love interests” when he literally doesn’t. He can’t sleep because of elain. He can’t stop thinking about her. He’s short with his family and others around him the days and weeks following solstice. His shadows threaten to strike nesta when she hurts elain and causes her pain. He doesn’t assign his spies to watch L*cien in acofas because he doesn’t want to know if he’s trying to court elain. He goes full lethal when he hears she may have been hurt. He follows the sound of her laugh to see what caused it. He goes on a suicide mission to save her. They communicate through looks alone when their family is around. Have you read an SJM book before? This is how she sets up her relationships. Like, holy fuck.

You cannot claim elriel is a crack ship because they have had background build up that both FMCs in their respective books have noticed and commented on. Cassian has noticed it too DESPITE not being hyper aware of what’s going on with az in SF. (referencing the scene in SF where elain tells everyone at family dinner about nesta’s love for dancing and the ball story from when they were human).

This ship war shit is fucking crazy because really this should only be between elriel nation and the eluces. Anyway, I’m over dealing with the fever dream brigade and their hallucinations. They’re going to come crashing down like Icarus when the elriel bible release day arrives and all our suffering will finally come to an end.

Then after that I’ll need to defeat the tamlin redemption arch threats, bc that is not a claim, that’s a fuckin threat and I won’t stand for it. But let’s tackle one problem at a time.

Pink: side notes/thoughts that give more context to my points

Blue italics: convos I’ve had being referenced

Purple: elriel moments <3

#this post is really just for elriel nation and my moots #crack ships should stay as such #because they are a crack ship #I refuse to use their full names ever tbh #pro elriel #elriel #the side characters will never be her main focus #she just cares about the ic #I hope there aren’t any typos lol

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vintagemulti · 1 year ago

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shards and splinters

parings: marc spector x reader , steven grant x reader

desc: apparently what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. now you’ve died and returned alive, perhaps it’s time to test that theory; or risk losing your life once and for all.

warnings: blood, angst, swearing, fighting, guns and gun violence, death descriptions, long as fuck, sex mentions i guess(? if you squint), hurt/comfort, gory i guess (jake🤷🏻‍♀️) writers note: idk how accurate these are bc i’ve been writing this on and off for years but cover all bases i guess xx

a/n: psa to pls reblog anyway she’s BAAAAAACKKK did you miss me ?? i missed youse … if there’s even a moonknight fandom anymore 🫣 i’m so sorry for the 2 years gone from the face of tumblr, i’ve quite honestly had two years from hell and insane writers block so. can anyone even remember this series?? idk maybe you should all reread the first parts 👀👀 anyways. there’ll be one more part to this (will it come this year? next? 2026? who knows…) bc i HATED my original ending and just had to change it. also sorry if this feels rushed or like it jumps around a lot, it’s been written over YEARS, but i’ve tried my best for continuity. also, i know there’s a lot missing in like fight scenes but they are BORING and i hate writing em so i’m not doing it. tried, got half way thru then didn’t touch this for 7 months so.. it’s no fight scene or no part at all. but my last part is pretty much done so hopefully it’ll be posted soon! ill let youse savour this for a while tho lol. on a real note thank you all SO much for all the love, even two years later. it means the world. all my love, all the time x

series masterlist

masterlist

the air felt different now. it was funny; you and marc had been apart hundreds, if not thousands of times, but he had never felt your absence. not like this. no, never like this. it was different now because he knew he could look for you everywhere and you would still be in that room, not breathing, not living.

he could see it all so clearly now. all of what? all of it. everything; life, your life, his life, where everything went wrong, what he should have done, should have said, how he could have saved you.

there was nothing you could have done, marc.

“that’s easy for you to say.” he mumbled, looking down at his hands. “you’re not the one who was halfway through a fucking argument when harrow took her. and if you can remember, harrow took her because of me.”

steven sighed, and went quiet.

“i should’ve died on that fucking alter.”

marc said it over and over, like a prayer, to go back in time and pull the trigger. he was fuck knows where, it looked like the middle of the desert but marc didn’t care enough to question it.

he had walked out of that pyramid and kept on walking - for hours. the hot egyptian sun had began to set, casting a rosy hue on everything. the humidity make marc’s head ache.

steven had gone silent - a small hum of anger in the back of marc’s head. it usually would have surprised marc, for steven to be the angry one. but he wasn’t sure he would never feel surprised again.

are you going to wallow here forever?

marc looked up, low sun glinting in his eyes, making him squint. but he could tell exactly who it was - crescent staff in his peripheral.

“fuck off.”

khonshu laughed. that’s one way to talk to a god.

“fuck off.” he repeated.

and why should i, mortal? why should i listen to you?

“you did this.” it was stiff, cold, a definite statement. “you did this to us.”

khonshu groaned, moving to block the sun from marc’s eyes so he could see him properly. aren’t you going to question how i am here?

“no.”

perhaps you should.

marc could never cope with khonshu’s riddles. they had always infuriated him - never getting a straight answer. but this one, he could tolerate.

“fuck does that mean?” he was looking directly into khonshu’s eyes now - something he had readily avoided for years. “and don’t give me any of your goddamn riddles.”

if you must be so blunt, it would seem like osiris has taken a liking to your poor lady wife. hathor isn’t half fond of her, either. maybe you ought to go back to the pyramid, something tells me your needed.

and he was gone. disappeared with a gust of wind, leaving marc alone in the saharan sunset, shaking and still covered in his wife’s blood.

she’s alive?

“i-” marc looked around. “i don’t-”

his eyes slipped into the back of his head.

steven took a deep breath, swallowing hard. he set off in a run - towards the pyramid.

“this feels so fucking weird.”

you were pressed flat against the wall, peeking around every few seconds to make sure one of harrow’s followers wasn’t coming your way.

i must admit, it’s been a while since i’ve had an avatar.

you let out a breathy laugh. was that your first ever laugh since being revived? you supposed it must be. oh, you wished it was one of steven’s jokes you were laughing at instead.

you didn’t think you’d ever find one of his jokes unfunny again.

“where is he?”

it’s hard to tell. i can’t check, unless i’d like ammit to spot me.

humming, you looked around the corner once again, breath hitching when you saw a shadow come closer.

what made your breath stop completely, however, was the slow, melodic tapping of a cane, following every footstep the person took.

harrow was less than two feet away from you.

swallowing hard, you pushed yourself against the wall even harder, back cold against the concrete. you hoped - prayed with your newfound faith in osiris and his mercy - that harrow would turn back the other way, not hearing your thumping heart.

but your luck had ran out for this lifetime.

the tapping of the cane became louder, until you could see the tip of it in your peripheral, crunching glass finally becoming audible. he was about to come around the corner, and see you. you would be impossible to miss, even the bright red of your new outfit making you stand out.

it seemed like it was impossible to escape harrow, and the tapping of his cane. he had killed you once, what would stop him from doing it again?

apparently, a guardian angel. someone spoke, making harrow turn to look behind him.

this was your chance - to slip away and turn the opposite corner, escape harrow in your new life as you couldn’t in your last.

his voice made you flinch. cool, charming, low. like a snake - exactly like a snake, now you thought about it. the way he slid through life, from the bar all those years ago, to now, awakening a centuries old god, aiming to destroy the world.

you could slither away too, though.

still holding your breath, you sidestepped along the wall, making sure to watch your step over any lose stones, until the wall fell away behind you and led you into another corridor.

as soon as the light from the hall had faded, you let out your breath, hands coming to your forehead and rubbing your eyes.

we have to keep moving. ammit is almost ready to begin.

nodding - although it felt like your brain was rattling around your skull - you looked back up and saw hathor, still looking as beautiful as ever.

this hallway was much dimmer than the last. colder, too. it was like all the light had been blocked, the only thing keeping your vision was the small, fading candles lining the walls every meter or so.

perhaps it was your natural instinct, or a new given sense as an avatar, but you could tell - something wasn’t right. something in the air had shifted, on top of the hot, sticky, egyptian heat, there was something sinister.

your years as a mercenary had taught you to recognise something - blood in the air. and there was certainly blood in the air around you.

“what is harrow’s plan?”

he wants to judge people. through ammit, he believes he can rid the world of everyone bad, even if they aren’t already bad.

“so he’s playing god?” the corridor seemed to go on forever.

he would never admit it, but yes. and ammit is the perfect enabler for him, she’ll know exactly what he’s up to, but because he can give her her power back, she’ll play along.

you scoffed lightly. “harrow isn’t stupid either. he’ll know what she thinks.”

hathor shrugged, a few paces in front of you. only time will tell, my dear.

for a few minutes, the walk along the corridor was silent. the tap of your shoes echoed down the hall, breeze from your passing flickering the candles on the wall.

why did you marry him?

it stopped you in your tracks, hathor stopping too.

“what?”

marc. why did you marry him?

you stuttered for a moment, looking around as if someone would come and help you.

i don’t mean it in a rude way. i’m the goddess of love, it’s natural for me to want to know.

“well,” you paused for a moment and began walking again, slower this time. “we were young when we met, i was coming up for 18 and he was 19.”

and?

“and i knew what i had done to him.” you swallowed. “i felt fucking awful, i thought, maybe if i get to know the guy, and he’s not as much of an ass as everyone makes him out to be, it’ll make it easier for me to forgive myself.”

the corridor kept on, as if it were never ending.

“as you can tell, it didn’t work.”

he wasn’t as much of an asshole as everyone thought?

“no, he was,” you gave a dry smile. “it just so happened that assholes are my type, and i think he worked it out pretty quickly. so after only about two months of knowing each other, he asked me on a date. a real date. it was my first ever date too, god knows anton never took me out. but god, he was such a gentleman.

he picked me up, gave me flowers, wore a fucking tie. and he payed for everything, too. dinner at a four star restaurant, a movie, then out to a bar for drinks.

i knew i had fucked up when he kissed me that night.”

you regret it?

“not for a day. and that’s my mistake- i mean, i was supposed to hate him. i told myself i would hate him. so i wouldn’t feel bad about telling someone to kill him. i didn’t even know how he got out alive- he didn’t tell me about the khonshu shit until after we got married.

oh, our wedding,” you smiled again, a real one. “it was perfect. i was twenty one, marc was twenty three. we were so young. it was a small wedding, just some friends, neither of us invited our family. it was the best night of my life.

it was the night i met steven, too. i think the stress of the day must have triggered it. and that was it- there was marc, and there was steven.”

didn’t it take a while to get used to?

the corridor began to open up, getting slightly wider by the meter. still - there was no end to it in sight.

“it did and it didn’t. i knew for a while there was something happening to him, he would disappear, look confused all the time. i knew it was a matter of time until something changed. and then came steven, perfect steven.

he changed so much- it was like dating all over again. he was even more perfect than marc, stupid english accent included. but, naturally, abuthing that’s perfect must come to an end.”

hathor sighed. and it gave you the impression, just for a moment, that she already knew the whole story. that she was humouring you by letting you tell it. her sigh, sad and resigned, almost confirmed that she knew what was coming.

“the-” you stopped. your voice had broken, and your feet no longer moved. hathor continued for a few paces before looking back at you.

i understand, but if there’s any time you need to tell this, it’s now.

“you know?” you voiced your suspicions.

take into account which god i am, my dear. there is no one else i could chose, but you.

you swallowed. “what’s the point of talking about it if you already know?”

you have been born again. revived. would you like to carry this, this horrible vendetta against someone who has done nothing but love you, for the rest of your new life?

“no.”

then voice it. i can take this pain from you, if you only ask me too. i can help you.

you bit your tongue, looking down at your feet and kicking around a few of the loose rocks. hathor waited.

“the baby was supposed to be born just after my twenty-third birthday.”

a beat. hathor didn’t reply.

“but he didn’t live past twelve weeks.”

you looked back up at hathor, anxious for a reply. she didn’t give you one, only nodding.

“i don’t- i don’t know what i did. i was waiting until i could get a scan, tell marc, have it done properly, you know? but when i went to my appointment, i knew. she didn’t say anything, she just looked. then she left, got the doctor to come in.

he said that the baby had died, that they weren’t sure of the cause, but it was a boy. that my baby boy had died.”

tears threatened your eyes. never - never - had you spoken about this before. not even with marc.

“i went home, with a hatred in my heart. the next few days were the worst. i was grieving a child no one knew i even had. the blood was horrible, it hurt so badly. i told marc i was on my period. fuck, for all he knew i was.

and then my baby was gone. and i hated marc.”

why did you hate him?

you shrugged. “i have no idea. i needed someone to blame and marc was the easiest. that’s when it all went downhill, you know? i wanted him to be there for me, for something he didn’t even know happened. and when he wasn’t, i blew up at him. and he blew up at me.

and that was it, for three years. this horrible hatred towards each other, me hating marc for something he knew nothing about, and marc hating me for every other reason.

he hated me the most for making him stay a mercenary. he wanted out, he wanted a normal life in the suburbs with a dog and a big house and maybe, one day, a child.

but i can’t have that. i don’t want that kind of normal - not when i was so close to it and lost it. so i pushed him into this world. i made him take jobs and work himself to death, even when i found out about khonshu. i made him do it.

and that’s why we’re here. because i told him to follow khonshu here. and now look what i’ve done.”

hathor took two, wide steps towards you, and cradled your face in her hands.

you have done nothing that makes you inhumane. none of this mess is you fault. khonshu would have gotten marc here one way or another. anyone in your shoes would be the same.

her hands were warm. you felt a tear fall, running underneath her fingers. “but i’ve been so horrible. i’m a monster - if not for this, for everything else.”

hathor shook her head. you are a human being.

there was silence as you cried and hathor wiped your tears. at least two minutes passed - but it didn’t matter to you. harrow could come running around the corner and you wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

hathor took a deep breath, looking to her left along the corridor. she opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, another figure appeared.

is now a bad time, human?

you flinched at the rough edge in khonshu’s voice. “what do you want?”

what do i want? there’s a long list.

even through your tears, your patience thinned. “seriously?”

hathor took her hands from your face, turning to look at khonshu. enough of your riddles. just tell her.

the unmistakable sound of footsteps, running, drew your attention. they were getting closer.

i don’t think i have to say a word, actually.

just as khonshu had finished, a figure appeared, coming around the twists and turns of the corridor.

your heart stopped.

marc looked around in a daze, eyes falling first on khonshu, then on hathor, then…

“y/n!”

just as he had stopped running, he started again, coming towards you like a lion out of his cage, wrapping his arms around you and lifting you off of your feet.

“oh baby,” he mumbled into your neck.

you had just reached - wrapping your arms around him in equal tightness, hands flying into his hair. oh, god. his hair - his curls, his skin - you’d never take it for granted again.

he pulled back, hands on your cheeks in a mirror image to hathor. his eyes locked into yours, brown irises melting into his pupils, filling with tears.

marc stuttered, trying to get several sentences out at once, before you hushed him.

“please, marc, we don’t have much time. harrow is gonna-”

“i know,” he nodded, eyes still not breaking from yours. “i know- baby, i know. please- please, just give me a minute. i never- i thought i’d never- oh, baby.”

he leaned in, moving his hands out of the way to rest his forehead against yours. he was hot - sticky with sweat and dirt and, although you didnt want to think about it, your blood.

“i know,” you whispered, closing your eyes. “marc, i know.”

barely having finished your sentence, he leaned in and kissed you.

it was like the first kiss all over again, and you supposed it was. hot, needy, passionate, desperate. you could live in this moment.

but the unmistakable sound of khonshu clearing his throat broke your kiss.

if you wouldn’t mind, harrow is about to release ammit. i’m sure your couples catch-up can wait another hour.

“yeah,” you nodded, breaking away, but marc was far more hesitant to let go.

“i can’t-” he looked around, paranoid. “i can’t do this, y/n. i just lost you, i can’t run the risk of losing you again, i’ve never- y/n, i can’t let you go, you’re everything to me, and if harrow- oh god, what did harrow do to you? i swear to god, the minute i see him, i’m gonna-”

he blinked. a beat.

“paranoid git never did know when to be quiet, did he?”

“oh, steven,” you threw your arms around him again. “fucking hell.”

steven, unlike marc, seemed far more willing to let you go. “love, i know, but if we don’t go now, we’re all gonna end up dead. please, we can do this all after, yeah?”

he took your hands in his, stilling your shaking fingers. he was so warm - always so warm.

“okay,” you nodded, looking between him and the gods beside you. “okay.”

you had severely underestimated how far harrow was willing to go. it had been what felt like hours, an unrelenting fight. you weren’t even sure when layla showed up, hoping to help you in any way she could.

but her attempts were futile; ammit was huge. really - huge, bigger than the pyramid behind her. khonshu had, as usual, gotten involved too, so that meant he was the same size, almost trampling you with every step he took.

you had tried. really, you had. you’d tried to use your new found avatar abilities to at least land something on harrow, but truth be told, you were failing. he’d hit you far more times that you’d even aimed for him, you were covered in cuts and rapidly forming bruises, you were sure your shoulder was dislocated.

but worst of all? your head wasn’t right. you weren’t sure what was wrong with it - it seemed fine every time you focused on identifying the issue, but every time you weren’t paying attention, it was there again. dizzy, a ringing in your eyes, everything a second or two behind; your vision lagging and cloudy. but just as you’d notice it, it was gone.

it was getting worse, too. you could see marc out of the corner of your eye; he was one to one with harrow. it would have made you anxious if you could properly focus on what was going on. but you couldn’t - your thought were scattered, a ringing back tenfold in your ears, the world had gone distant and hazy.

the doctors told you it was a concussion the next morning. layla had actually came in very handy, able to translate the man’s arabic into english for you.

he had told you that you’d sustained a massive head injury - you figured it would have been investigated, if you hadn’t been one of the people there last night.

‘there’ was all people could talk about. first the sky had gone backwards (you’d missed that part, thanks to being dead), then, out of nowhere, two ancient egyptian gods had appeared, destroying all the buildings in their wake, pyramids too.

it wasn’t that you couldn’t remember it. you could - it was clear in every aspect. it just didn’t feel like you’d been there at all. even the build up to it, every moment from when you’d stepped out of that pyramid, hand in hand with steven, hot air hitting your face;

it wasn’t you.

well, obviously it was you. but it wasn’t the same you. everything felt different, you didn’t have the same emotions you did before. the same key ones, yes, like how you felt about marc, and steven, and who you are as a person, but basic thing, like fear, and compassion? it was gone.

you’d have voiced this to a doctor if you could put ‘i died and got brought back to like by an ancient god, but not the same one who destroyed half of your city last night, sorry about that, by the way’ into layman’s terms.

trauma induced dissociation was enough of a label for you. it fit - everything just felt a little hazy, was all. not that you’d asked your doctor, a google search (excluding the resurrection part) had taken you to pages and pages about dissociation and how it’s normal to feel it after a traumatic event. you were pretty sure dying was a traumatic event.

and yes, you could bring it up to your doctor, he was payed to help you, after all. but there was a strange gnawing in the back of your head: that if you voiced this feeling, it would only get worse, and the happy ending you and your husband currently had would be shred in two because you couldn’t feel properly.

so instead, you listened to his professional diagnosis; a severe concussion, fractured rib, dislocated shoulder, several cosmetic wounds, and mental trauma that would be discovered at a later point, if you ever got around to voicing it to a doctor.

what a lovely shopping list, you thought.

it was three days before they let you out, and marc wasn’t getting out for another two after that. you’d had to beg him to even go to the hospital in the first place, but now he was getting the medical attention he’d needed for years, he seemed content in his hospital bed. not that he’d ever admit it.

with two days to yourself (not nights, you’d go back to the hospital and stay with marc), you decided to have the egyptian holiday you had come for.

the first stop was obvious; buy clothes. all of the ones you had were either covered in blood or halfway shredded. once you’d achieved this, in a new white linen sundress (cut below the knees to hide the still raw scars), you felt just slightly lost.

of course, you weren’t lost, you were always quick to get your bearings in new places - mercenary years had left you with a few skills, after all - and you kept yourself in a fairly small area, close to the hospital in case you got an emergency call.

no - the feeling of being lost came from deep down. ever since you’d come back to life it was the same, a strange longing for something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. something you felt you just had to have, maybe not right now, but in the near future. the hazy feeling had already begun to pass, you were sure google had served you well. but it left behind this in its wake, a new, even stranger feeling.

a breeze blew your hair lightly as you looked down the street in front of you. it was picturesque, all kinds of small shops and cafes as far as you could see. you could hear kids playing somewhere, a baby crying in the distance.

the lost-longing feeling piqued at this.

“oh.” you breathed. “oh.”

beside you, hathor, dressed in a golden, floor length dress and looking beautiful as ever, laughed.

oh, indeed. did you forget which god i am?

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apolloscastellan · 5 months ago

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Never quite buried | loss of my life chapter 4

Pairing: Art Donaldson x Tashi Duncan x Patrick Zweig x FemaleTennisPlayer!reader

Summary: Your life had always been divided in two: before you met Tashi and after you met Tashi. The second you had laid eyes on her for the first time you knew you had been changed. You were soulmates, meant for each other Nothing could ever tear you two apart, or so you had thought. You could've pinpointed the junior U.S. Open as the night that changed everything. Now you have to juggle your hate-love relationship with tennis with your love-love relationship with Tashi and the two guys who you can't seem to stay away from. Tennis, after all, was only one of the most fucked up relationships of your life.

Warnings: challengers spoiler, challengers content warnings, super minor character death, terrible mother figure, use of y/n, polyamory.

Word count: 6.5K

A/N: Please let me know what you think bc my motivation is severely lacking rn, i feel like i'm writing into the void

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Tashi remembers perfectly the day your retirement from singles hit the news. It was all everyone could talk about. First, it was the statement on your social media. A well thought out paragraph about your struggles with continuing to enjoy tennis the way you used to and deciding to take a new route, it ended with a promise for more and better news soon. Then it was the teasing posts from Adidas, the “she is not done just yet” and the “love conquers all”. It all came to a peak with the release of the pictures of you and Patrick. Both of you wearing matching Adidas apparel, practicing in the private court you had in your backyard. The chemistry between the two of you was obvious to everyone who saw them. There was a glint in your eyes that no one had seen since you went pro. She knew the smile you were giving Patrick all too well, it used to be reserved for her.

Her and Art, who had just very recently reconnected, sat on his couch for hours watching the tennis channel, waiting for updates. The relief they felt when it was announced that you were not quitting because you were fatally injured, as everyone had originally thought, was short lived. Neither of them spoke as the commentators showed the images of you and Patrick. Practicing, giggling, getting closer, him giving you that teasing smirk they both knew, you throwing your head back laughing, him beaming at you when you weren’t even looking, both of you focused on the ball, kissing… They both thought about turning off the TV, hitting some balls to work out how they were feeling, but then you were introduced into the set, a vibrant smile as you walked in, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt too big to be yours. The Mark Rebellato Tennis Academy logo only confirmed the obvious. You shook hands with everyone, sitting on the sofa they had reserved for you.

“Y/n Y/l/n, thank you for being here” the older man said, over the clapping of the crowd.

“Thanks for having me!”

“What a day it’s been for all of us, tennis fans. You’ve had us on the edge of our seats! First we mourned, now we’re celebrating… Please tell us why did you do this to us?”

“I am so sorry! I am, I really am” you laughed as the man teased you, God how they missed that laugh. “I have a flair for the dramatic, I must admit, and I am, in a way, saying goodbye to my career as I know it. It’s the start of a new chapter, and it’s really exciting, but it is also a goodbye and it felt right to give it its proper moment. I didn’t realize so many people were going to be so upset about it.”

“Why the switch? Why decide to give up singles completely?”

“I wasn’t enjoying it anymore, it was painful and I had started dreading every second of it. Fortunately, I am in a position where I can decide I don’t want to keep doing something that is bringing me down, so I took advantage of it. I didn’t want my stubbornness to completely ruin my love for tennis. I thought I could step back, maybe take up teaching and try to find that passion again. I was going to quit regardless, so this playing doubles thing happened at just the right time.”

“Yeah, let’s talk about that! You’ve decided to become a full time mixed doubles player with Patrick Zweig, who is a challengers player, somewhere in the two-hundreds. You are currently ranked number one in the world, how does this happen?”

“I think rankings and numbers can be misleading sometimes. Sometimes a player is not playing their best because of external reasons, or simply because they are not meant to be where they are. I think me and Patrick are meant to play together, I really do. And if you can’t trust anything else, trust this: I am really competitive and I hate losing, I would not put myself in a situation like this if I really thought we couldn’t win.”

“From what I’ve heard Zweig and you are committed to each other both on and off the court. You’ve never been open about your private life in the media, and he is the first boyfriend you’ve ever made public, what’s different about him?”

They couldn’t take their eyes off you as you let a bashful smile spread on your face.

“I mean… Everything. I am pretty possessive of my privacy and we still don’t plan to share everything we do, but the truth is that I have never been open about any boyfriends because I have not had any serious relationships since I went pro. Patrick and I will be playing and training together so I thought it was bound to come out, so to me, I'd rather have that happen on my terms. And I do think Patrick is very different to all relationships I’ve had before, in the best way possible”

Art swallowed, refusing to look at Tashi when she turned to watch him. He didn’t deserve to be jealous. He knew that, if he had treated you right, you would still be together. That knowledge didn’t change how he felt.

“How does that happen? How does one manage to make the Y/n Y/l/n fall in love with them?”

“Well, me and Patrick met each other a while ago, at the U.S Junior Open, actually. He won it, I got second, we hit it off instantly. But it was one of those situations where it’s never the right time, you know? We kept missing each other, we were in relationships with other people, and we ended up drifting apart when I went pro. And then, funnily enough, we bumped into each other at an Adidas party about a year ago, and the rest is history.”

Art couldn’t bring himself to be angry when the TV shut off. He turned to look at Tashi who stood there with the remote in her hand, not looking at him.

“I’ll see you in ten in the court. We need to work on your serve.”

He didn’t need to be told twice, grateful for the excuse to take his feelings out on the ball. To think about anything that wasn’t your smile as you talked about Patrick. He didn’t say it out loud, but he knew Tashi felt the same way, the sudden urge to train had not come out of nowhere.

New Rochelle, New York. August 24, 2019:

You look down, shaking your head as Patrick crashes his racquet repeatedly against the floor. The umpire’s voice ominously announcing the score. You raise your face back up when Patrick gets given a penalty. Art walks nonchalantly back to the bench, you can feel Tashi’s smug grin beside you. You make eye contact with your husband and shake your head, he rubs his face with both hands, then nods. As much as you both don’t really care to win this tournament, he knows you’ll be angry if he just lets it go, gets angry and in his head and lets Art have it on conduct alone. So he sits back and waits, ready to be better, to prove himself to you once again, like every time he steps on the court.

Earlier that week. New Rochelle, New York. August 18, 2019:

Tashi is working, writing stats on her computer when she sees Patrick walking towards her from the corner of her eye. She rolls her eyes as he stops behind her, pointing at her screen before he speaks:

“He’s not bad, I played him at a few of these things when I did singles.”

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be practicing to not humiliate your wife before she carries you through the U.S. Open?”

“I just finished, thanks for caring.”

“Wonderful” she says, not a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Hey, come have a cigarette with me, I have to talk to you.”

“Yeah I don’t smoke, and I’m not talking to you.”

“Neither do I. It was just an excuse.”

She looks back at him, unimpressed, but he doesn’t let up. He stands there, staring at her until she gives in, closing her computer and standing up. Patrick is not sure what he is doing. He probably shouldn’t be doing anything at all, if he’s honest with himself. But he has dug a hole too deep to jump out of now, so he is going to follow through. He is doing this for you, he reminds himself, no matter how angry you’ll be with him at first, he is doing this for you. They find an empty alley and look back at each other, Tashi waits for him to speak, he takes his time collecting his thoughts before he does.

“I’m gonna propose something to you and it’s going to make you angry. It’s going to make you very angry,” he can’t help the smirk growing on his face, her expression doesn’t let up. “I want you to be our coach next season.”

“What?”

“Our coach is retiring, we need someone else. I want you to be our coach from next season on.”

“Does she know you’re offering me this position?”

“No, not yet. But she will, and she’ll agree with me.”

“You know that’s bullshit. Plus, why would I want to coach you guys? I already have a highly successful athlete under my wing.”

“Yeah, but even if he wins the Open and completes his career grand slam, Art’s still gonna retire as someone who was really, really good. That’s what you guys will have done together. But imagine if you could get your hands on us. Imagine if you could make us great. You’d go down in history. We have a couple more seasons. We still have a couple more good seasons and I need you to bring it out of us. What do you think?”

He doesn’t expect Tashi to slap him, turning his face completely, although he really should have. He mumbles a curse under his breath.

“How fucking dare you?” she sounds angry, too angry for his stupid proposition. “You want me to give you my best piece of advice? To coach you? Ok, quit.”

Patrick can’t even begin to think of a response, the murderous gaze Tashi gives him fixes him to the spot.

“Quit right now, right fucking now, quit.”

“What are you talking about?” he is too shocked to be offended.

“You’re dragging her down. She should’ve gone down in history as the best ever player. She would have broken records. She should have been good enough to beat the men, and she is what? Going around playing mixed doubles with you? It’s pathetic. Quit, and maybe she’ll have a chance at being an ounce of what she should’ve been.”

“You’re fucking joking”

And now Patrick is angry too. Because he is tired. He is so tired of the endless comments and judgment. He is tired of being blamed for ruining you and your career as if it hadn’t been your decision. As if it hadn’t been your idea. As if he was capable of ever doing that to you. As if he hadn’t begged for you to think it over a million times before you took a step that you wouldn’t be able to come back from. As if he hadn’t been the sole reason the world of tennis hadn’t lost you completely. As if he didn’t try harder than he had ever tried to be enough for you and make sure you never resented him or regretted being with him in any way. The thing that makes him the most angry, though, is that it’s Tashi. And how dare Tashi, the woman who had abandoned you and ruined your love for tennis in the first place, blame him for something she had pushed you to do. Something that was nobody’s fault but hers.

“You must be fucking delusional if you think for just one second that I would ever, ever, ask her to give up on her career for me. You know whose idea it was to play mixed doubles only? Y/n’s. She thought of it, she asked me to do it, she orchestrated every single little detail. And you wanna know why she did it? Because she hated tennis. She was going to quit. She couldn’t stand the thing she loved the most anymore. And you wanna know what made her start to hate tennis, even though her love for it never wavered before, not even with her borderline abusive mum who only loved her for her talent in it? You, Tashi. You did. You ruined tennis for her. So get the fuck off that high horse you continue to ride everywhere, because if there’s one person here to blame for ruining her career, it’s the one I’m looking at.”

He is out of breath when he finishes speaking, and he doesn't know what to do. He has so much shit he wants to throw at her, so much resentment for all that she had put you, and him, through. But he can’t say anything else, the second Tashi’s expression falls, even if it is only for a moment, he can feel his heart shatter inside his chest. No matter how much he hates Tashi, how much he resents her, he loves her. He loves her so much it hurts deep inside his chest, like an ache that is so present he had almost forgotten it existed. But looking at her right now, he feels it, pulsating all through him, and he knows, with a certainty he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge before, that he will never not feel this way about her.

“You don’t know what you’re saying” her voice is stern, but Patrick knows her too well to believe her tone.

“You hate me” it’s not a question. “And you hate her too. Me, for having her. Her for having the career you deserved. And it’s driving you crazy, because as much as you hate us both, you also love us. And as much as you love Art, you hate him too.”

“Excuse me?”

“You hate him because he is just Art, that’s all he can ever be. He will never be me, and he will never be her. And as much as you love him, just Art will never be enough for you.”

“I don’t know what gives you the right to speak about my marriage…”

“The same thing that gives you the right to speak about mine. Does Art know about Atlanta?” he cuts her off.

The pure, unfiltered shock on her face lets him know he has caught her off guard. She did not expect him to know about it. She collects herself quickly, but she doesn’t say anything.

“You keep saying you came here because Art needed matches, but I think you came for something else.”

“You think I came here for you?”

“And for her” he says nodding. “I’ve been signed up for this tournament for months, there’s no way you didn’t see my name in the participants list.”

“You think I came here, to throw it all away for you?”

“Maybe you just wanted to see us…”

“I don’t need to see you to know that you look like shit, and she should get as far away from you as soon as possible.”

She starts to walk away, decisively.

“I’m going to beat him,” he says, it stops her in her tracks, she turns her face to look at him. “If we both make it to the final I’m going to beat him.”

“Even if you did, it wouldn’t change anything.”

“It would break him, you know it would.”

She shakes her head and starts to walk away, too exasperated to come up with another hurtful retort about his failed career. She jogs after her, catching up with her pace almost effortlessly. He grabs her arm, makes her stop walking. He pulls up a piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans.

“My number, in case you change your mind about the coaching… Or about seeing us again.”

“I won’t.”

He nods, shrugs his shoulders. Then, he watches her put the note in her pocket. He smiles.

New Rochelle, New York. August 24, 2019:

Patrick hasn’t looked away from you even once. You know even though you are looking into your lap. You are hyper aware of every single person around you. Most accurately, you are hyper aware of the woman next to you and the two men playing against each other. You play with your ring as you feel Tashi tell Art to focus. When you finally meet Patrick’s eyes he doesn’t smile. He raises his left hand and kisses the ring on his finger without breaking eye contact as the umpire announces the start of the next set. He crosses paths with Art as he makes his way to the other side of the net but he doesn’t move his eyes from you until he is getting ready to serve. You know then, with absolute certainty, that he is doing this for you.

Atlanta Open, Atlanta. July 18, 2011:

Even though Patrick and you both know why you are sitting in the stands during practice time instead of walking around the venue, or actually practicing, you are still shocked when you see Tashi and Art walk into the court. Your hand reaches for Patrick, holding on to his thigh as if on a rollercoaster that is suddenly going down. You both try to look composed and careless, but you don’t know if you are doing a good job. Art and Tashi do the same, pretending they can’t see you, even though you are the only other ones there and you stick out like a sore thumb. Patrick and you talk to each other, although neither of you would be able to recall anything said during your conversation, and share the fries you had bought before walking over. You pretend you just casually stumbled to sit there for a snack, that you hadn’t checked the schedule to figure out what time and what court Art Donaldson had for pre-match practice. Art hits the ball like he hasn’t been able to hit it in a while, grunting as his racket made contact with it. Tashi looks at you for a second, then back at Art. She nods, satisfied. You want to run away, want to erase that satisfied smirk from her face and your memory. But you stay glued to your seat, hand in your boyfriend’s thigh, heart pounding, and you take the way they ignore you like a punishment.

New Rochelle, New York. August 23, 2019:

The wind is relentless, the trees hitting against the window making repetitive thwack noises that remind Patrick of the sound of the ball hitting the racket. You have been answering emails and making calls to finish preparing things for tomorrow, the U.S. Open, and whatever lies in store for you both after that. Patrick knows that you’ve been messaging potential coaches and though the guilt pit on his stomach keeps growing, he can’t bring himself to say anything to you. He hopes you haven’t set in stone anything, because he is still delusionally confident that Tashi will accept his offer. He knows he should help, whatever you are doing affects him too, but he is too nervous to do anything productive so he just lays around, throwing a ball against the ceiling, or the wall, or whatever he can find. After the third time the ball slips from his hand too early or too late and hits you, you stand up and point to the door.

“Leave, right now” he makes no attempt to move. “Patrick, I mean it. I’m working and I know that you are nervous but you’re stressing me out so go down to the sauna, or get a drink or something that’s not going to make me ask you for a divorce or have to spend the rest of the night finding a place to hide your body.”

Patrick smiles as he stands up. He picks one of the keys from your bedside table and walks over to you, kissing your head before making his way to the door.

“I love you.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, love you too. Leave now, please.”

He giggles all the way down the elevator. He doesn’t feel like drinking, which means he doesn’t feel like making a fool of himself tomorrow for getting drunk the night before a match, especially not in front of Art and Tashi. So he walks around until he finds the sauna, maybe that will help him calm down. But as he gets naked and opens the door he can’t believe his bad luck. Although there is a white towel covering his face, there is no denying the naked man sitting right in front of him is Art Donaldson. Patrick doesn’t think there’s a world where he wouldn’t recognize him, no matter how much he’s changed from that scrawny blonde boy he once knew like the back of his hand. He thinks about turning around, walking out, pretending he never saw him, and finding something else to do for the night. But there’s no way Art hasn’t heard the door opening, and Patrick has never been one to run from conflict, not really. So he steps forward, lets his mind get a little bit caught up in the past, sue him he hasn’t seen this guy in years, and opens his mouth:

“Can you do me a favor? Can you not like, demolish me tomorrow?” He says it with the inflection of a pick up line, and before he can even finish his sentence Art is pulling the towel away from his face and looking at him like he already knew that it was him standing at the door, even before he said anything.

They are both smiling as Patrick pulls the sauna door closed and walks toward Art. He is acting far more comfortably than he feels, but if he stops to think about what is actually happening he might start shaking and poop his pants, which would be a terrible thing seeing as he isn’t wearing any. He gets way too close to him, and raises one of his legs on the bench, dick fully on display. Art makes a valiant attempt pretending he doesn’t look down.

“Hey, congrats on being a Phil Tire’s Town Challenger finalist.”

“Yeah, you too” Art says, looking forward to not have to look at Patrick, who is smiling far too wide for the situation they are in and the past that they have.

“Hopefully the wind dies down by tomorrow and we can have a fair fight” Patrick lets himself pretend this is normal, like they are two competitors getting ready for the final, maybe even pals catching up after not having seen each other in a while.

Art doesn’t let him have a second of the little fantasy he’s made up in his head, though. He slides down the bench, getting as far away from him as he can without looking like he is actually running away.

“C’mon, can we talk?” Patrick says, and his voice sounds pitiful even to his own ears.

“Can you put your dick away” Art’s voice is stern, but he looks him in the eye for the first time since he walked in, so he counts it as a win.

“This is a sauna,” Patrick scoffs, putting up a fight so Art won’t notice he’d do anything he told him to. “Look, we've been here for a week and we haven’t said two words to each other. It's just… it’s silly, man. It’s dramatic. I mean, really, why are you so angry with me?”

He sits down, obeying Art and covering his dick. Art is finally looking at him, really looking at him. It has the same effect it did back when they were kids, Art looking at him makes him feel brave. He can’t stop himself from rambling on.

“Look, I don’t buy that it’s because of Tashi, I don’t think it’s because of what happened to her. And I hope it’s not about Y/n, because you have no right… So, I think, maybe, you’re just really disturbed by the fact that they could’ve been into someone like me. Both of them”

“Tashi liked you when we were teenagers.”

“Sure, but I just got married to the girl you said was the love of your life.”

“I ended things with her.”

“And you regret it every single day of your life,” Patrick knew, because it was the same way you and him felt about him and Tashi, “and you know that Tashi does too.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We both know that if Tashi had been a little more brave back then, she would’ve never taken either of our numbers. If she had been a little bit more honest with herself, she would’ve swept Y/n away and neither of us would’ve had a chance with either of them.”

“That still happened when they were teenagers. When we were teenagers.”

“Huh” Patrick looks thoughtful. “When they were teenagers…”

Atlanta Open, Atlanta. July 18, 2011:

You slip out of your room in a t-shirt that is definitely not yours and the first shorts you stumble across on your way to the door. You can’t sleep and Patrick’s soft snores, which you often find endearing, are getting on your nerves. He doesn’t stir, even as you close the door softly behind you. You don’t know what you are doing, or where you’re going. You take the stairs down, needing to move your body for a little bit. You walk outside, feeling like no matter how hard you breathe in there’s not enough air in your lungs. You lay your weight against the brick wall of the hotel. You get your breathing under control after a couple minutes of staring at the sky trying to look for constellations you don’t know the name of anyways. When you turn around, to go back inside the hotel, you realize that right next to where you were standing there’s a window to the hotel’s bar. There, sitting down, nursing a glass that you can only assume contains something strong, already staring at you, is Tashi Duncan. You don’t know what you’re doing, but you let your feet guide you inside. Then, instead of going up the stairs like you should, you take a right turn and walk right into the bar. Tashi finds you immediately, having been looking at the door. You don’t understand what you’re doing, but before you can think about it you are sitting right in front of her. You haven’t looked at her this up close in years. You search, but you can’t find many differences. She looks exactly like the girl you knew with her hair a little shorter. You wonder if it’s the same on the inside, if the million secrets you knew about her still hold true. If you could still tell which of her smiles were fake, or when she was about to cry but was trying to hold it down.

“I heard you gave up,” she whispers after a minute of staring into each other’s eyes.

“I quit singles, I didn’t give up,” but you can tell she doesn’t really believe you, so you scan her, trying to find something else to talk about. Your eyes lock on the ring in her finger. “That’s a gorgeous ring.”

Your fingers find your own ring instinctively. You don’t know if you’re trying to make sure it’s still there, or if you are trying to ask your dad for strength. Her gaze lowers, first to your ring, then to her own.

“It’s his grandmother’s.”

You nod, you know what that means. Art had always talked about wanting to propose to his future wife with his grandmother’s ring. Back when he fantasized with you about it, it was your hand that ring ended up on. He always talked about taking you to the residency so you could meet his grandmother, completely sure she would love you and give you her blessing immediately. You think of your own sentimental family ring, unsure you would ever be able to trust anyone enough to carry it, no matter how much you loved them.

“How is she?” you ask, more out of politeness than anything else, you never got to meet her, after all.

“She died. Stroke”

You grimace, knowing the feeling of losing the one person who truly believes in you too well. You look around, trying desperately to find something to say, you will your brain to remember the million icebreakers and conversation starters you had been forced to memorize for the awfully boring networking parties your mum used to throw for you. You come up with nothing, so you look back at her and lean over the table and she imitates you. Your faces inches away from each other. You feel drunk even though you haven’t had a single sip of alcohol all day. You don’t question it, Tashi always made you feel like you were going crazy and a little bit drunk. It must be that what pushes you to say what comes out of your mouth next:

“I miss you.”

She doesn’t say anything, but she leans further over the table, getting impossible close to your face without touching it. Then, when you are completely sure she is going to tell you to go fuck yourself and leave her alone, her hand makes her way to the back of your neck pushing you towards her until your eyes meet. There might be a million things that have changed since the last time you did this, but kissing Tashi Duncan feels exactly the same as the first time you did it. It feels like coming home.

New Rochelle, New York. August 23, 2019:

“You’re right” Art says finally, leaning his back against the wall. “I do find it disturbing.”

“There’s no need, man. Lots of girls were into me, but only one of them wanted to marry me. I’ve always thought that was not what I was for, so I don’t know how I did it.”

“Yeah, neither do I.”

Patrick feels his entire skin burn with the way Art looks him up and down. He curses in his head the years they’ve spent apart and the secretive, mature person Art has become, he can’t read him like he could. He can’t tell if he is teasing, or trying to humiliate him. He can’t tell if he’s angry, or just as desperately sad as he is.

Atlanta Open, Atlanta. July 18, 2011:

You don’t know how but you and Tashi have stumbled onto a hotel room that you don’t recognize. It’s much bigger and fancier than yours so you assume it’s hers. You want to ask where Art is, if he is about to walk in on the two of you making out on his bed, but the way she is kissing you makes you forget about everything. You roll onto the bed, hands on either side of her face as hers roam your body freely. It’s too much and not enough simultaneously and you moan and pant on her lips. It’s everything you’ve always dreamt of and you can’t help wanting more. More of her and her body, of her lips, more of her heart. You try to not be greedy, take what she gives you, and soon you’re seeing stars and rolling over, breathing with difficulty.

“That was…”

“Yeah” she mumbles.

“So… What happens now?”

“What do you mean what happens now?” she seems confused as she stands from the bed, walking around until she finds your clothes.

“We just had sex,” you say, obviously.

“Look, we shouldn’t have done this. It was a mistake.” She throws your t-shirt at you, you put it on slowly.

“A mistake?” you’re getting angrier by the second, but you don’t want to yell and alert whoever is sleeping in the room next to this one.

“Yeah, we will act as if nothing happened.”

“What about Art?

“He doesn’t need to know,” you shake your head as you finish putting on your clothes.

“That’s fucked up.”

“Do not act as if I was the only one who cheated! Aren’t you and Patrick dating?”

“I never said that! You can’t just run away from everything you refuse to accept. You haven’t talked to me in years!”

“Yeah, and it should have stayed that way.”

“One day you’re going to wake up and realize that everything you’ve refused to accept all your life is catching up to you, and by then, it might be too late.”

“Get out” she says, instead of replying to what you said, you don’t need to be told twice.

You manage to hold back your tears until you are standing in front of the elevator. You’re fully sobbing when the doors open, revealing a very confused Art. You see him step towards you, but you refuse to let either of them continue breaking your heart. You step backwards, then turn around. You run until you find the stairs. By the time you make it back to your room you look like a mess. You knock on the door, you must have left your key in Tashi’s room but you are too upset to care about that or waking Patrick up. His entire face changes when he opens the door. Worry taking over his expression.

“Y/n, what happened? Where were you?

You fall onto his arms, sobbing. He leads you in, closing the door behind you. You don’t speak until you’re both seating in bed.

“I saw Tashi… And I… We…” you don’t say anything else, but you don’t need to, he understands.

He holds you through the night. The next morning, you forfeit the tournament and go home.

New Rochelle, New York. August 23, 2019:

“Honestly, I thought you’d be happy I was in the draw” Patrick is not ready to let it go, to shut up and walk away from Art, he doesn’t know when’s the next time he’ll be able to talk to him again, so he runs his mouth. “I mean, you’ve always wanted to beat me in a tournament, and two weeks before the open… It’s the perfect confidence booster.

He settles on cocky because he doesn’t know what else to do. He has never been very good at being vulnerable, not with Art, and no amount of therapy is going to make him start now, when he can see how done he is with him from a mile away.

“I know what you’re trying to do right now,” Art smiles.

“I’m not trying to do anything, Art,” but he doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth. “This is a challenger, I don’t need to play mind games with you.”

“Right, you don’t give a shit.”

“Hey, I didn’t say that…”

“We both know that you have a considerably higher stake here than I do.”

“Do I?”

Art laughs, but there’s no real humor to it. Patrick does too, trying to conceal the way he is sure his entire body is shaking.

“Oh, fuck… Where do you get your swagger from, man?” Patrick can tell, from the way Art is looking at him, that this is the part that’s going to hurt, he doesn’t try to stop it. “I mean you come in here swinging your dick around like I’m supposed to be afraid of it but do you realize how embarrassing it is that you are here right now?”

“Not quite as embarrassing as you being here,” Patrick has never known a way to back down, so he stirs the pot.

He’d rather have Art yelling at him or humiliating him than not talking to him at all. His therapist would not be very proud.

“I’m just stopping by, man. You would live here if it wasn’t for her” there’s a pause, suddenly Patrick wants to take everything back, run away with his tail between his legs, but it’s too late. “You know, I’ve always tried to figure out what happened to you, but the more I thought about it the more I realized… It’s what didn’t happen. You never grew up. You still think you can talk to me like you’re my peer because we came from the same place, because you’ve managed to stumble into some of the same competitions. But it’s not about where you came from in tennis, Patrick, it’s about winning. And I do, a lot. And you only do because you tricked Y/n into playing with you. But one day, she’s going to wake up and realize she wasted her entire fucking life in a pathetic man who thinks he’s the shit because he won the junior U.S Open a trillion years ago. And then, you’ll be left with what you deserve: nothing.”

“You’ve never beaten me,” he says, as if it’s what matters out of everything he said.

He says it because if he focuses on what Art said about you, he might cry. He doesn’t want to cry, not in front of Art, not right now. He doesn’t have enough willpower to fight him, like he knows he should, like he did with Tashi.

“So what? I haven’t beaten most of the guys who play in these things, or the ones who only make it into the big tournaments playing doubles. This is a game about winning the points that matter.”

“I don’t matter?” he doesn’t know why he says it, or what he is expecting to get in return.

“Not even to the most obsessive tennis fan in the entire world,” his voice is monotone, tired, Patrick wants to crawl out of his skin.

“We’re not talking about tennis.”

“What the fuck else do I have to talk to you about?”

“I wanted to come in here to wish you good luck, Art,” he says, and he means it.

“That makes no sense,” Art scoffs, looking away, he’s talking to himself more than Patrick.

“I wanted to say that I’m looking forward to it, I miss playing with you,” he is being vulnerable, but he knows Art won’t believe him, which is probably why he says it in the first place.

“Yeah,” he nods his head and he looks amused, but Patrick can see right through him, he’s about to finish him off. “Well, I don’t miss playing with you, man. I’m too old for it.”

As soon as the door is closed behind Art, Patrick lets himself drop onto the bench. He tells himself he is not going to cry. There’s tears running down his face by the time you open the door of your room to him. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t need to, you understand.

#challengers x reader #challengers #art donaldson #tashi duncan x reader #tashi duncan #art donaldson x reader #patrick zweig #patrick zweig x reader #annie writes challengers #patrick zweig x art donaldson x tashi duncan x reader #patrick zweig x art donaldson x Tashi Duncan #loss of my life series

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