#i think most of this boils down the perfect victim mentality to where if someone who underwent or is being abused is not a perfect example

[dykedvonte]

You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

[transhawks]

Genuinely confused about the arguments on twitter about dabi not being abused among other “hot takes.” I didn’t really understand why fandom people sometimes say there are 0 reading comprehension until today ….

I'm allergic to anitwitter, but I'm guessing there are people saying Touya wasn't abused? Because I know for a fact emotional neglect is abuse, and that's among what happened to Touya besides other emotional abuse from his father. Not to mention no one took him to therapy after he snapped at Shouto as a kid.

(please don't come in here with a 'culture' thing, I know, and if they have mental hospitals he can lock Rei up in, they have therapy for disturbed children like Touya)

Add to that the physical abuse against his wife and youngest son, and we have seen him handling Touya roughly. Just... no.

I think this is exactly why so many of us were so hard on people for years about excusing Endeavor. We knew when we had the real truth out there people would find anyway to excuse and minimize what he'd done because we all grow up in a "well you must have done something wrong; was it really that bad mentality".

If we break ourselves free from it, we start seeing how regularly fucked up a lot of things are, which isn't making people happier. So a lot of people are very happy to stay in a state of dissonance and delusion about things like emotional abuse.

"It wasn't that bad." "That's just how it is for non-Westerners." "I grew up with stuff like that and I am fine."

It always tells me more about the person than their reading ability. Most of us don't really want to unpack our cultural norms around families and parents, especially in those of cultural backgrounds known to have ideals of filial piety and family above all else. To challenge these norms and ideals is to question one's identity and family, and how many of us want to do so?

Horikoshi has explicitly laid the blame for the death of Touya on the conditions of the Todoroki house, on his father's actions.

There is, of course, the other side of this where this is fueled by the consistent lack of empathy we have towards imperfect victims. I can likely go dig up my myriad of answers on this exact topic but it boils down to the idea that victimhood is noble, virtuous.

When someone has been wronged that must mean they're in the right. An abuse victim must suffer and not retaliate and remain Good in order to get our collective pity and outrage.

Dabi doesn't fit a normal victim. Rei is almost a perfect victim on a surface reading. She was abused, hurt, trapped. She did have a psychotic break with reality and hurt her kid, and hurt her other kids too for years with her parenting (according to novels and Touya's recollections), but she fits very much what we think of when we think of abuse victims.

We don't like thinking of people like Touya.

Dabi brings up the painful moral quandary of how much of a person's actions are their own and how much are of an environment or a result of actual brain damage from trauma. He brings up the moral quandary of how we do we treat abusers when they're "good, talented, valued" people outside of their abuse, and whether the actions of the victim matter in this case.

There are other messy lines of thought - do we owe abusers forgiveness? Is forgiving morally good? Is then seeking any retribution morally wrong? Can one remain a good person if one refuses to forgive those who have harmed them? Does it matter then if that person seeks revenge or simply wants a life apart?

The issue with this convo is that it's one not made for twitter discourse. It's a societal reckoning that we see play out, from various celebrity abuser scandals, to courtrooms, and our own living rooms.

Some people simply do not want to have these conversations. That's what those takes are telling me. That for whatever reason, accepting that Dabi is a victim and someone who has hurt others, is beyond them. That looking at the society itself with how it defends people like Endeavor means looking at our own society, when we watch men who have sexually harassed women be awarded Oscars, when we ignore whispers of abuse among our own families because they implicate people we love, is too big and painful a burden.

I'll end this like this - abuse victims are everywhere. They are watching. They watch as their friends argue that something they have experienced "wasn't that bad", and that they should swallow all the resentment, rage, and grief that come with abuse because their abuse isn't enough to care about.

Is a rt to show your dislike of a character worth that feeling?

[thefanficmonster]

You Call It A Mess, We Call It Baking

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: Tons of fluff

Summary: A friendly argument via Discord leads to a baking session. Said baking session leads to a kitchen looking like it was the victim of a tornado. The lesson here is: don’t leave Corpse and Y/N in the kitchen together.

Requested by Anon, thank you so much for your request, hope I captured what you wanted well and I hope you enjoy reading it.

Corpse’s POV

I’ve been sitting in a Discord call with Y/N for about three years now, keeping her company as she’s editing some footage Sean sent her earlier. In the meantime, I’m reviewing the recently submitted stories by my viewers, reading some lines I find funny or downright terrifying to her.

“When I went in the kitchen to check on the cake, it was already out of the oven, a sticky note next to it on the counter that read: ‘smells nice’. My blood ran cold.“ I read the eerie sentence that is suggesting one of my most frightening scenarios - a stalker getting inside your house. I get chills just imagining what was probably going on in the sender’s head when they saw that.

“Jeez, it’s been so long since I’ve cooked something other than omelet.“ I hear Y/N reply absentmindedly, completely neglecting the fear factor of what’s going on in the story.

“Good job missing the point.” I chuckle, my eyes continuing to scan the email until my brain actually comprehends what she said, “Wait, you mean to tell me you have baked anything ever?! No offense, Y/N, but I was honestly doubting your ability to make an omelet as well. In all the years we’ve been friends I can’t remember you ever not saying ‘I hade takeout’ when I asked you what you had for dinner.” 

The scoff that comes through my headphones is the most adorable thing ever. She’s one to easily take a joke and never get offended by anything, but I know how heated she can get with her sarcasm. If I’m being honest, I’m always here for it. 

“There are many things you don’t know about me, Corpsy. A girl’s gotta have some aces up her sleeve.“ I can just imagine the narrowing of here eyes and the tilting of her head as she says that. She has a very specific way of expressing her thoughts. When we first met I accidentally made the comparison to one of those children’s books that have pictures, stories and small buttons for audio. That comparison has stuck with me and I look back at it very often. To fully catch her point, you don’t just listen to her. No, no, no. You focus on every change in her face and body. The way she looks away during certain parts of her speech, the way her voice plays with several different tones at once. Her posture while speaking. Just like those books - you don’t just listen to the audio, you look at the pictures and read the text.

“Well you know how much I like playing poker, why don’t you come over and throw those aces down.“ The last thing you should ever give Y/N is a challenge. She won’t only homerun it, but will never let you forget it either. When we met she was a girl with self esteem in the negatives, so seeing her brag about her achievements to me always brings me joy.

The details I’ve listed are pretty in-depth, aren’t they? That’s because I don’t want to let anything slip when it comes to her. This realization hit me early in our friendship and it was only like two years in that I finally connected the dots - this investment in her of mine was not simple nor platonic. Come to think of it, I reckon it never was.

“No way, I’m not changing out of my pajamas just to come to your house.” She laughs, once again making me picture her full body reaction to her statement.

I smirk, knowing I’m about to bring out my main weapon, “Oh come on, I’ve seen you in pajamas countless times. You can just admit you don’t wanna embarrass yourself. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

I can sense her fuming even though she’s like two miles away. “I’ll be there in 15.”

She hangs up before getting the chance to hear me lose control of the laughter I’ve been suppressing. 

Man, I love this girl.

Y/N’s POV 

“It’s on.“ I say as soon as the door in front of me swings open to reveal the smug smirking face of my bestfriend. The foundation of my tough, unbothered act is shaken up by the outburst of butterflies in my stomach which occurs every time I see him. I can never look at this man and not turn at least a little red in the cheeks. 

It’s been long since I self-diagnosed with the malicious ‘falling for someone who would never reciprocate my feelings’ illness. I’ve been living with it for a while. What medication do I take? Dating other guys. One bad relationship after another, scolding myself that every one of them has been a desperate attempt to get him to change his gaze on me from ‘best friend’ to something more. Hell, I don’t even know how to define that ‘something more’. I once even tried to admit my feelings, but I was so vague and so incoherent that I didn’t understand myself, so how was he supposed to grasp my downright sad excuse of a confession. 

“No ‘hello’, no nothing?“ He moves aside to let me in. I walk right past him with a sassy flip of my hair to mask the nervousness of being aware that his eyes were on me, “Rude.“ He murmured with an obvious smile in his tone.

He looks as cute as ever, black sweatpants and a black tee, hair messy as though he has just rolled out of bed. I can say with the upmost certainty that he’s the only one who can pull of that hairstyle.

I hide mine as I throw on the apron that’s hanging by his fridge, ready to take over his kitchen and put those aces of mine to use. I can’t help but furrow my brows when I see him enter the kitchen behind me and lean against the counter. That’s when I notice the counter is lined with all the ingredients I’ll need for the cake I had in mind. 

“OK, what do we do first?“ he claps his hands together, straightening his posture as he gives me a expectant look.

It takes all my brain cells to prevent me from freezing up completely. I’m not usually like this, mind you, I’m a lot better at keeping what’s going on inside my head camouflaged. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I don’t have much time to dwell on that. If I do, he’ll pick up on it right away.

“Um, we are not gonna do anything. I will be here baking, and you will remain outside the kitchen until I’m done. If you need something, ask and I’ll bring it to you. I can’t have you sabotaging my project, impostor.” I narrow my eyes at him like he’s the most dangerous of threats. And he is, for my mental sanity.

He fakes a hurt expression, clearly fighting to the best of his ability to hide how much he’s enjoying messing with me. “We’ve known each other for five years, Y/N. Don’t you trust me?”

I lean over the counter to where we’re about two feet apart and whisper, “Not. Even. A. Little. Bit.”

He smiles, “You’re just trying to get away with making this cake by watching a YouTube tutorial. Admit it, you can’t even crack an egg properly.” His eyes are now as narrowed as mine as we stare each other down at a proximity that’s rapidly raising my body temperature and heartbeat. It’s not fair. I’m a mess around him so he automatically has the upper hand.

As expected, I give in, “You better not mess around though.”

After I force him to give me several different oaths, we start. I’m working on the batter, he’s working on the frosting. We decided to decorate it with crimson and dark purple frosting. We’re both really pick about the color shades so he’s currently struggling to get the crimson perfect. 

“Let’s make it a layer cake.“ He suggests out of the blue, “Two layers, nothing crazy.“

I think it over for a moment or two before shrugging, “OK, but then you better grab a bowl and help me with the second layer. You know how to make the batter, right?”

He confirms that he does and walks out of my line of sight. I hear him open the fridge as I whisk the eggs I have cracked with the sugar. 

“You want something to drink?“ He asks while rummaging through the fridge.

I decline, try to focus on the recipe that I have somehow memorized to the smallest of details. As I’m reciting the it silently to make sure I didn’t skip any steps with the batter, I feel something cold run down my back causing me to scream.

“What the fuck was that?!“ I turn around and glare at him just as the ice cube slips out from under my hoodie and falls to the floor. The fucker’s laughing whole heartedly, not giving a damn that he just gave me a mini heart attack. Mainly cause I thought it was a roach or something, and he know I hate bugs.

“You do realize how boiling red you are, right? You look like a lobster. I thought you needed something to cool you down.“

Instead of being annoyed, I do a full 180 and decide to play his game, “Yeah, I know...” I trail off, reaching my hand back towards the bowl of flour. Grabbing a a handful of the white powder I throw it at him before he can even catch on. Needless, to say, his outfit and hair aren’t so black anymore. “Ah, I knew your hair would look good with snowflakes in it, but you can never be too sure.”

“This means war, Y/N.” His smile is borderline malicious, getting me excited for what’s to come. 

Him and I have always had these so called wars, but never like you’d imagine. We are silent, strategic, subtle. Neither of us knows when the other will attack until it’s too late. That’s why instead of going for a counter-attack right away, he heads to complete his mission of making the batter for the second layer.

All is quiet except the noises of the utensils clinking together every now and then. I keep a close watch on him out of the corner of my eye and I notice no sus behavior. That is until I see him take a spoonful of his batter and eat it. I whirl around at the speed of a gust of wind, eyes wide, “Do you want to fuck up your guts.” He ignores me as he takes another spoonful, bringing it close to his mouth. This time, I grab onto his arm causing the contents of the spoon to spill on my hoodie.

I roll my eyes, unbothered by the brown stain that by some miracle missed the apron and fell on my grey hoodie, “Don’t. Eat. The. Batter. Copy?“

“Paste.“ He nods, smirking with pride as he puts the spoon aside.

I sigh and return to my side of the kitchen, focusing on the next task: poring the batter into the circular baking tray which he, for some reason, has two of. He repeats the task soon after me and we put the two trays in the oven. I help him with the frosting, getting the shades close enough to what we had in mind. 

After about five minutes of the crusts baking, a wonderful smell spreads throughout the kitchen. At this point, all we have to do is wait for the oven to signal that our cinnamon crust is ready to be taken out, wait for it to cool down and then frost the cake.

“It smells really good.“ He comments, turning his head to look at me.

I’m sitting atop the kitchen counter and Corpse is standing next to me. This is the only time him and I are at approximately the same height. The realization brings a thought to my mind, one that makes me feel like an evil mastermind.

“Hey, remember earlier when you said I couldn’t crack an egg properly?“ He hums affirmatively, “Well...“

The carton of eggs is within arm’s reach. I grab an egg, chip it off the side of the counter and crack it apart above his head, its contents coating his hair. “How’s that for a proper egg crack?” I ask victoriously.

He lets out a surprised sound, something between a gasp and a laugh. Shaking his head to get the yoke to fall down, he says amusedly: “I don’t know...you tell me.”

Too late for me to do anything. There’s milk all over me.

The malicious smile on his face is replicated on mine and now it’s really on. However, as we reach for the items meant to be out weapons, the oven dings.

Frosting the cake goes about as well as you expect: there’s more frosting on us than the cake itself.

“Let’s make amends, please. I’m so not looking forward to taking three showers tonight.“ I say, raising a white napkin and waving it around.

“Fair enough.“ He shrugs and we shake hands.

As I’m about to pull my hand back, he holds onto it, making me look up at him. Our eyes lock and I suddenly regain that same shakiness and vulnerability I always have around him. It never leaves me, I just manage to ignore it. The sound of my panic is muffled by the sound of my heart thumping the loudest it has ever. 

Expectedly, he is the bold one who makes the first and final move. The move to end one era of us and start another. His lips touch mine and all fades. It’s just him and I. The friends who were never just friends. The cowards who suck at dealing with emotions. The fearful little kids that are afraid of rejection because we both mean so much to each other, to the point of suffering to prevent the possibility of losing one another.

We embrace who we are, finally admitting that friends is not what we are meant to remain forever.

The kiss might’ve been brief, but the meaning it carries makes it the most valuable moment of my life. One I’ll cherish forever. Something in his eyes tells me he will too. That’s all I need. That’s all we need. No words are necessary.

Suddenly, our bubble bursts as a result of his ringing phone. He lets go of one of my hands and takes his phone from the counter.

“It’s Dave”, he smiles, picking up the call and turning to get me in the camera frame. “Hey Dave, look who’s here with me.“

I wave at the camera and at the baffled face of Dave. “Hi!”

“What, in the name of God, is that mess?“ He raises both his eyebrows as his eyes scan us and the kitchen behind us.

“You call it a mess, we call it baking.“ Corpse and I look at each other and smile, blushing as red as the streak in Dave’s hair.

“Am I missing something here? Did I call at a bad time?“ He asks, still struggling to rationalize what he is seeing.

“Yeah, you actually did. I’ll call you back.“ Corpse dead-ass hangs up on him, putting his phone away before turning to me, “We have more important matters at the moment.“

He kisses me again, this time more confidently. His arms wrap around me and prep me up on the counter, insinuating that this kiss won’t be as short as the last.

[pleasantanathema]

The Witcher’s Woes

Pairing: Ushijima Wakatoshi x Fem Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: bruising/marking, rough sex, dirty talk, light degradation, mentions of blood/injuries, very mild angst, porn with plot

Word Count: 10k

A/N: This is a collab piece for the Pleasant & Strider Present: Fantasy AU Writing Collab hosted by myself, @present-mel, and @linestrider​ 

You can find all the other wonderfully creative and smutty pieces on our masterlist!

P.S.: This is a long one, if you feel like only reading smut, feel free to jump down to the second line break and begin there. 

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         A Witcher: someone who has undergone extensive training, ruthless mental and physical conditioning, and mysterious rituals, which take place within Witcher schools such as the Wolf, Cat, and Griffin in their respective hidden Kaers, or home castles, in preparation for becoming an itinerant monster slayer for hire. (source: fandom.com).  

          The storms were raging on the coast, salty waves crashing into the shore like heavy hands attempting to crawl out of the sea, only to get dragged back into the abyss. The winds were howling, lightning crashing, yet the storm was the last thing on your mind as you opened the door to your lowly estate.

           Ushijima of Velhad still had his arm raised from where he knocked on the wood, his yellow eyes glowing against the darkness of night. Your breath caught in your throat at the sight of him, his chestnut hair tousled, lines of rain water dripping down his nose, his cheeks pallid. Even still, The Witcher looked to be a living memory, no new wrinkles or scars that you could detect when the rumbling flashes lit the sky. If it wasn’t for the rain, he would’ve looked entirely the same since you last saw him years ago, smiling in the evening glow of the countryside before departing for a new journey.

           You ushered him in quickly, silently, your instincts for hospitality taking over before you could begin to think of questioning him about his sudden arrival. His armor was damp, heavy, sloshing and clinking as he undid the leather and meteorite laced straps from his shoulders. He was breathing slowly, deliberately. You rushed to grab towels from a chest, blanketing him in warmth as he sat before your rolling fireplace. He uttered a quiet thanks, never one to use words out of place.

           The tea you had been brewing above the fire began to boil. You quickly poured two cups, adding a dash of the alcoholic white gull to his and using a burst of fire magic between your palms to keep the cup warm. You settled into the chair beside him, noticing how his gaze leered into the sparking fireplace.

           “Ushijima,” you finally called him, after time had passed and his hair began to dry, “are you hurt? Is that why you’re here?”

           He grunted from beside you, moving the hand you noticed had been clutching his rib cage.

           “Yes, but not badly. I needed refuge from the storm more-so than a potion.”

           “How did you know where to find me?”

           He was quiet for a moment, perhaps pondering if he should simplify the truth.

           “A sorceress, even in hiding, is never hard to find. The townsfolk talk, you know. I knew you were nearby before even beginning my hunt.”

           “You could have asked for more than the tea I gave you, you know I’m here to help.”

           He leaned back in the chair, his thick, long legs spreading out before the fire, his socks still damp and clinging to his toes, a big cat uncurling his weary limbs.

           “It would have been rude to barge in begging for assistance.”

           Ah, yes. He was still as courteous as always, his Griffin School teaching still ingrained in his mannerisms. Most Witchers were not so polite, but that school in particular valued traditional teachings. You knew you’d have to indulge his small conversation before getting more answers from him; he always played the chivalrous game, after all.

          “Tell me, what brings you to the shores of Blaviken? Last I saw of you, you were riding north, returning to what is left of Kaer Seren.”

           “There is nothing left,” he sighed, both arms now resting on the chair, the last remnants of tea staining his cup, “everything was destroyed, save a few books I found amongst the rubble.”

            “What a shame, that library was a marvel. I would’ve liked to visit it myself.”

             The story of the destruction of Kaer Seren was only well known to those acquainted with the last remaining Witchers. The keep was tucked away amidst the edge of the sea and the snowy mountains of Kovir to the north. The Witchers of that school, all of Ushijima’s kin, were well acquainted with magic and kept a vast library of mystic tomes within their home. But they were secretive, protective of their knowledge. Witchers, men created by magic to become the monsters they killed, were guarded for good reason. Years of persecution had left their numbers in ruin.

            A group of mages felt scorned by the Witchers’ refusal to share their wealth and toppled the castle of Kaer Seren in an avalanche, leaving bodies and crumpled books in the wake, all never to be used again. You could almost picture the blood and ink that stained the snowy graves.

           You’d only heard this story from the mouth of Ushijima himself, one night after too many scuffles and too many drinks.

            “I brought some for you,” he smiled then, warm and soft, full lips on display, “that’s the real reason I’m here.”

            His eyes were especially luminous in the firelight, gold irises reflecting the flames like the most precious of coins. His cheeks were flushed now, color regaining across his skin. Freckles smattered his cheeks like dried blood; you had to hold yourself back from reaching to him, from caressing his skin to see if the marks were lost war paint or new stories etched into his skin. He was tanned from all his time spent meditating in the sun, truly a unique specimen to behold. It was rare to see someone so brutal be so beautiful.

           You were excited at his words, your fingers digging into the grooves of your cup at the mention of magical books awaiting you to peruse them.

           He could see the eagerness behind your eyes and he laughed, then coughed, but continued his soft chuckling again. You paused, realizing he must be in more pain than he was letting on. His arm had returned to his torso, the thickly corded muscle clutching and protecting whatever injury was lying beneath.

           “They’re in my bag by your door, you should go look at—.”

           “Ushi, you’re hurt. Let me take care of you.”

            Before becoming friends with the valiant hunter, you would’ve leapt at the opportunity to read hidden knowledge. But years of acquaintance with the hardened man had your heart tugging in another direction; suddenly, Ushijima was becoming more important than all your years of study and practice in sorcery.

            He had a habit of breaking everything he touched: monsters, glass cups, weapons, he had a very powerful grip, and perhaps you were just the next thing in line to come undone by his hands.

            You stood from your place by the fire, strolling over to a cabinet where you kept all the alchemy ingredients you had collected from your years living alone here by the sea. Many travelers had come by, having heard of the witch by the shore, bringing elements and components to sell at a high price. And you had taken them all, emptying your purse at even the faintest glimpse of a rare material peeking from their bag. You loved your craft, you had perfected it, almost, and every day you spent toiling away finding new ways to create potions and expand your magical knowledge.

          “I need to know what you were hunting earlier.” Your fingers began rustling within the crowded shelves, grabbing an empty bottle as you heard him sigh behind you.

          “A Hym,” he said softly, “it scratched my side, it’s deep, but not fatal.”

           You stilled, eyes darting across all your ingredients. He said the word so easily, so nonchalantly, like he didn’t just battle a demon.

           “A slice from Hym’s ethereal claws drains the life force from their victim, the longer that wound sits untreated, the worse you will get.” You mentally cursed at him, blaming his chivalrous nature for hurting him for longer than he deserved to be in pain. If he had said something when he came in your front door, you could have had him on the mend already.

           “I know that, but a small potion to get me through most of the pain until now.”

           “You’ll need more than that. You’re lucky, I just went to town last week and managed to find vitriol. I can make you a superior swallow drink, just…stay still.”

            Quiet mumbles tumbled from your lips as you worked: measurements, ingredients, small musings as you set aside all the components to begin assembling them upon your alchemy table. Plants like white myrtle, celandine, crow’s eye fell into the bottle of enhanced swallow you already had on hand; you added fruit, nothing too exotic, just the common berbercane, and finally the blue tinted vitriol powder.

           You eyed the hunter as you mixed the potion, swirling the now red liquid within the high neck of the bottle, speeding up the mixing process with a little magic of your own. Only he would have such insouciance concerning a fight with such a wicked creature. He was talented, perhaps not as much as the more legendary Witchers that roamed the lands, but Ushijima was strong, sturdy, nimble and smart when in battle. His stoic nature allowed him to distance himself from the horrors of his life, a life you knew he had not chosen.

           He was an orphan, brought up by the Griffin School and transformed into a monster hunter without much consent, though you knew he had none to give. But he wore his profession like a badge of honor, looking at his life through a lens of helping those who could not help themselves in a world infested with demons, ghouls, and humanoid monstrosities.

           You’d always wanted to admit how admirable you found him, but you knew he was never one to take compliments.

           Standing next to where he was patiently sitting, you offered him the small bottle, the glass precariously dangling in your fingers.

           “Take this,” you pulled the flask away just slightly as he reached for it, “but only after you tell me what the hell you were doing fighting a Hym.”

          “You said it yourself, I get worse every moment I don’t drink that.”

          “You’ve lasted an hour, Ushi,” you chided, “I think you can take a few moments to tell me why there was a Hym near Blaviken.”

           You sat the bottle back on the table, moving to stand behind him and press the towel around his shoulders a little tighter into his neck. He gave you a contented sigh, eyes closing. He never liked to talk about his work, but you always pressed him. You lived in this monstrous world as well, had killed a few drowners while walking along the sands, aided an earl with a botchling, once even made friends with a rather tempting succubus. Everyone in this world was plagued by wretched creatures, he was just more qualified to kill them with his training and silver swords.

          Your fingers pressed into the soft cloth around his neck, picking up the fabric and using it to brush against his hair and continue drying the damp spots still lingering around his ears, the back of his neck. You normally weren’t so blatant with your affection for him, but you knew you had him as a captive audience within the chair. He’d have to tell you his story before earning what he desired, but you might as well humor him with soothing touches while he did.

         “Hyms are nasty things, you know. Demons that feed off the guilt of others.” He began.

         “I found a note from a daughter in distress about her father on a notice board not too far down the road. He was going mad, she wrote, she thought perhaps he had become possessed. I did some searching in their house, found love letters tucked away under the old man’s mattress addressed to his sister-in-law. He wanted her, he loved her, so he killed his own brother to have her. But then she threw herself into the sea from her own grief; I think the Hym could’ve gotten to her first, then transfixed itself onto the man.”

         “Hm, the things we do for love.” You mused, hands coming to rest on his shoulders once again.

          Somehow, he felt stronger, broader than the last time you’d touched him. You sunk your fingers into the sinews on display in his damp shirt, humming to yourself. You’d thought about this before, about having the strengthened hunter sit vulnerably before you, only your thoughts involved the two of you in much less clothing and talking of much less rotten things.

          You closed your eyes for a moment, remembering the sketches you’d seen of Hyms in bestiaries. They were murky, shadowy beings, devilish horns upon their faceless heads, long black claws dripping from their hands. You would have cowered at the sight of such a creature, yet Ushijima sought out to destroy it.

          His gruff voice continued on, “I confronted the man, called out the Hym, and it began to attack. Its claws are long, it scratched me from the very beginning. But it’s gone now, perhaps banished to the dark realm from whence it came.”

          You plucked the bottle from its resting place, handing it to Ushijima over his shoulder. He took it with a simple thanks, head tipping back as he drank the entirety of its contents. You watched almost gleefully at his thick, irresistible neck on display. Everything about him was so strong, so well kept, even as he sat before you dampened from a storm.

         “You know, Ushi, I could listen to you talk like that for hours.”

         “Oh yeah? Then maybe I’ll stick around for a bit this time, let you listen to all my seedy tales.”

         “Mhm, they’re only seedy when that bard friend of yours is around. Is he still alive? Tendō, that is.”

           A flash of red hair and a catlike smile flashed before your mind’s eye as you thought of the dangerous, yet comical bard who often clung to the Witcher’s side.

           Ushijima laughed, clutching at his stomach as you circled his chair and came to stand before him, arms crossed delicately in front of your body. Your figure cast a silhouette across his own, making you seem larger than life in the firelight. He was enraptured in the inky vice of your shadow.

          “Yes, somehow he is still alive. Last I heard of him, he’s off singing songs in the capital of Redania to some rich heiress.”

          “Good to hear,” you shrugged, “I always liked him.”

          “No, he always liked you.” He wiggled his eyebrows, the action sending you into a fit of giggles as well. “And I can’t blame him.”

          Your laughter subsided at his words, a warm tingle spreading across your body. Normally Ushijima was not one to flirt without the aid of alcohol; perhaps you’d given him more than you thought in his tea earlier? You watched him relax in his seat, lifting his shirt to reveal a quickly fading wound upon his tawny skin, the old blood sinking back into the muscle where it belonged.

           Thunder rumbled outside the walls, a heavy boom resounding from the gods above.

           “You should bathe, Ushi.”

           “What, do I smell?”

           He was suddenly so playful, so charming, his grin making you feel flustered.

           “You will soon, I’m sure. Go beyond those doors,” you pointed over your shoulder, “It’s a heated pool, one of the reasons I chose this god forsaken estate.”

           “Will you join me?”

           You took a pause. This man was always making you pause, making you step back and evaluate your words and actions around him. Surely, he was joking. But the gleam in his bright eyes told you a different story, there was more lingering behind his words that you did not yet understand.

           “I will, but only after I take a peek at those books you brought me. Now, off with you.”

           You brushed by him as he stood, arms stretching above his head, his body shifting as he evaluated the healing wound upon his flesh. His heavy boots clunked against the floorboards as he followed your command, the sound of an enhanced predator marking his path. He slid through the door at the back of the great room and left you alone once more.

           You would’ve been ashamed if he saw how quickly you rushed to his bag, gathering the cold, dusty books in your arms before setting them gently on the table. They were relics, ancient, undoubtedly hiding secret runes and magic within their spines.

           Your fingertips brushed over the titles of the four books he brought you, but despite being entranced by the knowledge lying in wait for you, you were imagining your fingers to be elsewhere. You flipped one book open, your nails following the lines of ink, but your mind took in no words you read.

You were somewhere else; you were mentally with Ushijima, your fingers back in his hair, your hands exploring places unknown to you on his skin. He was the well-guarded book you desired to read, to hold, to explore.

______________________________________________________________

           Ushijima was astounded by your bath. He knelt to the stones on the ground, using his keen senses to feel the heated rocks and look for their source. There were some offshore vents that were connected to this place, feeding in warm water to the bath. He took in a deep breath, smelling the lingering hint of salt in the air, but the scent didn’t entirely match the ocean.

           He dipped his fingers in the water, finding it smooth, warm, unsalted. You must have put magic in place to filter all the sediment from the pipes. You always were clever, even in the smallest of ways. Your wit was something he admired about you.

           He took his time undressing, his ears perked as he heard you rustling paper in the other room. He had felt embarrassed at first about being so sentimental towards you; he had known from the beginning of his journey that any tomes he found would be placed into your care for you to enjoy. He’d read them, of course, the journey from Kovir and Poviss still a long one to the border of Redania where you lived. As he divulged himself in the ancient knowledge of his Witcher school, he always pictured you reading the same words he did; he felt your presence nestling into his skin, enveloping him like a magic spell. He liked to imagine how you’d react to the pages, how many notes you would scribble down from certain intriguing sections.

           Ushijima thought about you more than he cared to admit.

           Naked, he stepped into the bath, his screaming muscles finally silenced under the hot press of water against his body. The bathing pool had a ledge around its border, and he took a seat at the back, arms spreading out like heavy wings along the rocky edge. He sat where he could watch the door; it was instinct, he told himself, to always be aware of his surroundings, but he knew he was just waiting to glimpse your figure appear before him.

           Some nights, when preparing his tent under the stars, he would think of the first time he met you. He had traveled with Tendō to some opulent gathering in Toussaint, one filled with wine and vampires he knew were hidden amongst the crowds, but any thought he had of a hunt had vanished when he saw you. You were delightful, enchanting, eye-catching amongst the throngs of people. It didn’t take long for his friend to seek you out, to gain your friendship, and Ushijima watched patiently from the sidelines, watched how you held yourself with such poise and dignity. But all the while, he was aching to get closer to you, to touch you, to know you.

          You had become his guilty pleasure over the years, a fantasy he envisioned as he lay alone at night. Even when he was meditating, he was hard-pressed to not find himself seeing your skin behind his eyes, imagining how your body would feel within his hands. The hands of a killer, a fiend, hands that crushed whatever he held all too easily. But you, you were so powerful, so seemingly untouchable, and he found himself unworthy to behold you. He was just another creature, a man turned monster, someone wholly undeserving of a divine sorceress.

          He huffed to himself, a shy smile pulling at his cheeks as he thought of your words from earlier.

         “The things we do for love.” He repeated the words to himself, sinking a little deeper into the water.

           He didn’t have to wait long for you to enter. He was unexpectedly aware of his nakedness as you entered, fully clothed still in your corset and trousers. He felt heat rising to his cheeks, spreading down across his belly, at the prospect of watching you change; it would be impolite to ogle you. He turned his gaze instead to the water, watching how the surface lapped at his skin as he shifted his weight.

           “Are you comfortable?” You called out to him from across the room. He could hear your clothing shuffling, hear the laces coming undone one by one from your body. The room felt quiet, the air smothering. He’d felt so bold earlier, but now he felt almost ashamed that he had asked you to join him.

           “Ushiwaka,” you implored with a little more strain to your voice, “don’t tell me you’ve gone shy on me.”

           His gaze shifted up for only a moment, catching a glimpse of your naked back as you peered over your shoulder at him, your hands ready to pull down your breeches and become fully naked. He couldn’t help himself, he gawked at your beauty, tracing every curve, line, and dip across your splendidly sculpted skin. You looked more beautiful than any constellation he pointed out with his finger in the night sky. He unabashedly gazed at the planes of your shoulders, the gentle slope of your spine. He imagined taking his time to map the uncharted waters of your body, of discovering every hidden cosmos tucked away within your curves.

           “Yes,” he cleared his throat, “I think I’ve become even more comfortable at the sight of you.”

           He held his breath for a moment, waiting for your reaction. Upon seeing you smile and turn your face away, he sighed, sinking deeper into the pool, arms barely keeping him afloat from where they rested on the edge.

           He heard splashing as you waded into the water, submerging yourself up to your neck before you came to sit just a few feet away from him. From here, he could study you more closely, see the elegant slope of your neck into your shoulder. He was pleased to note that he could still make out the form of your breasts in the water, the lovely globes just barely dipping out of sight.

           “I must say, even in the given circumstances, you’re still a sight for sore eyes.” He always loved how silky your voice was, always melodious to his ears. He always worried he’d forget how it sounded, but your timbre matched the tone he had been playing in his head since he last saw you.

           “I haven’t heard the name Ushiwaka in a long time,” he confessed, “it’s always Witcher now, or Ushijima of Velhad since that’s where I did most of my work.”

           “Well, you lost that name—Wakatoshi—a long time ago when you were picked up by the Witchers, but I know it is sentimental to you still. If you prefer, I can just call you Ushijima.”

           “You know I don’t mind it.” He felt like he said the words too quickly.

           “Hm, well, I’ll call you anything you let me, Ushiwaka.”

           A shiver hit his body at your words, he was keen enough to know there was innuendo laced behind them.

______________________________________________________________

           You closed your eyes, head leaning back against the warm stone as you allowed the steamy water to wash away the grime of the day. You moved your hands over your body, feeling the sticky sweat melt away. You reached for a small towel, tossing one in Ushijima’s direction and watching how he caught it so effortlessly, like a cat swatting at a shadow on the wall. He received a small bar of lavender soap with the same ease, his nose wrinkling at the flowery scent.

           You both took a moment to wash, you humming an old tune, Ushijima remaining silent aside from the sloshing of water made from his heavy limbs beneath the surface.

           You’d never been in such an intimate space with him before. A bath is time of solace and cleansing, but also one of exposure and susceptibility. Water intentionally brings forth feelings of intimacy and ambivalence. You knew he was there, watching, his heightened senses attuned to every sound, smell, every minimal movement around him. You couldn’t take his silence any longer.

           “I—,” you began quietly, “can I ask you something?”

           His movements ceased, those radiant eyes now focusing entirely on you. You instantly felt heat spread across your chest, climbing up and darkening your ears with blush. You wondered for a moment if he could see through you, in you, see how fast your heart was pounding blood through all your veins. His intense stare made you feel like he was closer, his deadly hand wrapped acutely around your heart, aiding it as it struggled to beat harder, faster.

           “Of course.” His words were direct, poignant, the deep vibrations almost tingling the water itself.

           “When you were facing that Hym, at any moment, did you fear it would sense your grief?”

           You could tell he was taken aback by your words. He placed the wet cloth to his chest, his long fingers digging into the fabric as he pondered what you said.

           Once again, he wasn’t sure if he should simplify the truth. He mulled over your question, let the words seep into his consciousness as he looked up to the ceiling. He should’ve known you were astute enough to see through him.

           “Yes,” he stated, “I did.”

           He didn’t wish to elaborate any further, but he could tell his curt response didn’t satisfy your internal reasonings.

           “I see.” You noted somberly.

           “How did you know?”

           He watched you slink farther under the water, searching for cover, searching for a way not to express your thoughts. He noticed how your legs crossed beneath the surface, the light from the hanging candles glittering through the water.

           “I know you didn’t choose this path, didn’t choose to be a Witcher. That was forced upon you; you were lucky you even survived the Trial of Grasses that made you into what you are—.”

           “A monster.” He interjected flatly.

           “You’re not…” you sighed, dipping your head into your wet hand, “you’re no monstrosity, Ushi, not even a miscreation.”

           He tensed at your words, catching how you regarded him with a solemn look.

           “I didn’t choose a life of sorcery, you know. I was torn away from society when I was a girl, taught to use my source of magic to heal wounds, but also how to kill someone in an instant. People…powerful people used me to their advantage. It’s why I stay hidden now, I’m running from my past misdeeds. I know what it is like to have regrets; to grieve.”

            He only nodded in understanding, afraid of using the wrong affirmations.

            A heavy silence fell between you once again. You plucked the soap from its resting place behind you, thoughts tumbling through your mind like the waves crashing at the shore outside. So many words were desperate to leave your mouth, to be birthed and said and made into reality between you, but you dared not.

           If anyone understood the weightiness, the hidden meaning behind silence, it was Ushijima.

          But even he couldn’t bear it much longer. He grunted, running his wet hands over his face as he contemplated his next move.

         “Well, tell me this. What would you be if not a sorceress?”

         “Hm? Oh, I’ve never thought about it before. I’ve just…always accepted my fate.”

          “I’d have been a sportsman,” he declared, a slight uplift in his voice.

          “Oh really?” He watched as a grin pulled at your cheeks, the heaviness of the conversation before dissipating. “And what sports are you good at, Ushiwaka?”

          “Anything with a ball,” he shrugged, “some kids down south play games with poorly strung nets, and they do their best to keep the ball from hitting the ground as they toss it back and forth. I think I’d be quite decent at it; I am agile, after all.”

          “Powerful, too.” You remarked.

          “You think so?” He teased.

           He eyed you carefully as you set the cloth and soap aside.

           You began to move... towards him. His eyes narrowed, his hands mimicking your actions and setting his bathing instruments to the side, freeing his hands.

           You were ethereal in the water, gentle waves lapping at your skin, the ebb and flow of it shimmering around your body.

          “Now that I think about it, I know what I would at least be proficient as if not a sorceress.”

           The smirk that tugged at your lips intrigued him. Before he could stop himself, he was reaching out for you, taking your arms and pulling you towards his chest.

          “And that is?”

           Time stopped for a moment as you settled yourself into his lap, the sound of your breathing, the feeling of skin upon skin, touch upon touch, the only increments of time needed.

           His body was so hot, so willing to accept yours upon it.

          “I’d be a wonderful whore.”

          Golden eyes flickered up to you, lashes low, his lips parted.

         “Care to show me?”

          Your skin was cold to his warm touch, his hot breath fanning across your cheeks. He was so close, so eager, you could feel hardness begin to form between where your thighs cradled his.

          Your hands slid across his shoulders, feeling the grooves and puckers of scars pass under your touch. You settled your grasp onto his neck, steadying yourself above him. His hands played against your skin under the water, the heavy fingers finding your hips and sinking into the smooth flesh he found. You gasped aloud at the feeling; his grip was strong, iron-clad, daring to leave marks behind. You wanted to break under his touch, collapse against his chest and allow the water to pull you both under into euphoria, but you secured your inner desires. Your back straightened, your fingers clawing into his thick skin.

          “Ushiwaka,” you whispered it like a humble prayer, your lips brushing his, “kiss me.”

         He groaned, pulling you a little closer, spreading your thighs a little wider.

        “Why don’t you kiss me, little temptress? Show me how much you want me.”

         You felt bewitched, wondering for a moment if he had placed you under a mind control spell with his words. Your thoughts were jumbled, but they were still yours: kiss him, touch him, read the hidden words on his inky pages like you had long desired.

         Your lips met his tenderly, hesitantly, tasting the salt of water and sweat against his awaiting mouth. He breathed through his nose like he was exhaling life into you. He moved his mouth against yours, testing you, pushing at you, and effortlessly you gave in. Your eyes were closed, but you felt like you could still see him, felt like you knew every step in the dance he was leading you in. It felt so natural, so smooth, and you found yourself clinging to him with every press of his lips against yours.

          Then his mouth fell open; an invitation. You followed him, sliding your tongue in, finding his own past his teeth. He felt like true sin, his tongue tempting yours to reveal its secrets to him. It was slow, methodical, a mutual exploration of tastes and pleasures you had both long craved to discover.

          Your chest fell to his, your breasts meeting the hard planes of muscle found there. You moaned, the sound of water moving igniting your hunger as one of his hands meandered up your back, fingers lapsing into your soft muscles. He offered you a groan, and you took it desperately, hastening your kiss and plunging you both deeper into one another. One of your hands wandered from his neck, slipping down his chest, pressing him back against the edge of the pool. Your nails pulled at his flesh, wanting, needing, unknowing how to gain purchase against such solid muscle.

          He tasted like tea leaves: earnest, alluring, but also like the earth, like something natural and primal. It was a taste that was familiar, enticing, and every time he took a moment to breathe, you found yourself diving back in for another taste, another glimpse of what lay hidden beyond his lips.

          “Mhm,” he moaned as he finally pulled away, chest rising and falling, “perhaps I’ll mold you into my own personal whore.”

          “I’d like that, Ushiwaka.”

           The blood within his veins rushed to his cock at the sound of his name, of that personal name, falling from your sweet voice. Fuck, he would give anything to have you, but it seemed that he didn’t have to. He could feel by the way you clung to him, by the way you kissed him with such fervor, that you desired him all the same. It was thrilling to know you wanted him, and he wondered how far he could take you.

           His hand glided away from your back, circling around to your chest. He cupped one of your breasts in his hands, holding back a groan as he felt the weight of it within his palm. He watched how the water lapped at your skin, the ripples from his movement brushing against a hardening nipple. The small sound of delight that left your lips had him refocusing his gaze to your face. You wore a sly smile, your own hand upon his neck tightening in anticipation of his next move.

           “I’m a dark man, my love. Hardened.”

           He was toying with you, but his words offered some truth. Ushijima had been envisioning you like this for far too long; there many devious things he wanted to do to your body.

           You leaned forward, pressing a wet kiss to his ear, your voice low, “hardened indeed…I can feel you between my thighs.”

           He smirked at your words, taking your nipple between his fingers and listening to you gasp as he gave it a simple tug. Your teeth found his ear in response, nipping tenderly.

          His eyes fluttered at the feeling; a groan caught in his throat. He wondered if you could sense it. You pulled back slightly, angling your head to give him another kiss. He accepted it gladly, tongue ready to find yours again.

    ��    “You can be an obedient little whore, can’t you?” He rumbled against your lips; his words being lost inside your mouth.

          You ate the words like you were starved, a hot moan swallowing them down as you felt a shock of pleasure race down your spine. He grunted at your action, the hand upon your breast squeezing in response.

         “Yes,” you said softly, as he allowed you to escape his kiss, “where did all your chivalry go, Ushiwaka?”

         He smirked as you teased him, his lips dipping to your neck, tongue tracing the lingering water droplets that fell down your skin.

         “It’s waiting between your legs.”

          It was a growl, the sound of a predator marking his prey, the sound of a man holding back his lusts.

         You sucked in a breath, eyes closing as you dipped your head back and allowed him more access to the length of your throat. The hand at your breast squeezed harder, his thumb and forefinger rolling languidly across your straining nipple. You felt like you were lost at sea, the weight of the water around your bodies feeling heavier as Ushijima pulled you into his tides. He was the moon, pushing you, pulling you; he always has been. For so long he kept you at arm’s length, toying with you, teasing you, bringing you so close to him but never close enough. But tonight, the moon was waning, his control faltering as he finally gave in and allowed himself to fall into the calling sea.

         He held you back on his thighs, but you could feel the heat radiating from his body below the surface. One of your hands trailed down his chest as he sucked dark red marks into the junction of your shoulder and neck, staining your skin with colors from his own making. He bit your skin especially rough when your wandering fingers found the hard lines of his stomach.

        You were tentative, taking a moment to feel if his wound was finally gone from the magic bestowed upon him. You could only feel scars underneath your palm, though one felt particularly puckered and new. But his stomach wasn’t your goal, it was what was straining against it.

        He cursed into your skin when you wrapped your hand around his cock, fingers pumping against the silken skin within the water. His lips fell lower, his eyes closing as he littered open-mouth kisses against your chest, now using both hands to cup your breasts and bring a nipple within his mouth. You moaned loudly, a rush of ecstasy coursing through your veins. He pulled you forward, forcing your hand away from his cock. Instead, he shifted to where his cock was nestled between your pussy and his stomach, allowing just enough friction to keep you wanting.

        He needed to keep his head clear if he was going to please you in all the ways he had dreamt of. He was going to taste you, tease you, earn the right to claim your body as his own.

        “Ushi—,” you went to whine, but a calloused pinch to your nipple ripped his name away from your mouth.

        “Be quiet.” He demanded against your breast, teeth lightly tugging at your hardened bud.

        You only gasped in response, hands smoothing across his broad shoulders as he worked his way to your other breast, hands needy, mouth exceptionally hot. Your hips pressed down and you felt the length of his thick cock against your aching pussy. You experimentally slid yourself against him, desperate to feel more touch against your most sensitive flesh, against the place that had wanted him for so long.

        His hands moved to your hips to still you, his vice-like grip returning.

        His mouth left your breast, his chin tilting up to look at you. Those glowing eyes were dark, ravenous; perhaps there was something monstrous sleeping inside of him, ready to awaken.

        “Stop tempting me. You’ll regret it.”

         His reflexes snapped as your lips parted to speak. Two thick fingers slid onto your tongue, pressing it down, the taste of water and leather swirling in your mouth. His taste was a mixture of his worn gloves and the floral soap he’d cleansed himself with. You groaned, head tilting back as you let him have his way, your mouth suctioning around his fingers for some kind of relief.

        He eyed you carefully, watching the sinews in your neck come on display for him. Bruising marks of his design were blooming on your skin, little fragments of memories coming to life before his eyes. Your mouth felt like sin and he could already imagine how it would feel to have his cock sliding against the supple lips wrapped around his fingers.

        Ushijima twisted your nipple again, a little harder, a little tighter, feeling pleased with himself as he heard and felt the grumble of a groan against his skin. A small drip of saliva trickled down your chin and he used his thumb to smear it into your cheek.

         He could’ve held you like this for all eternity, had you pressed against his cock, his fingers padded against your tongue, your beautiful breasts on display as he groped one, watching the flesh mold into his hand. He had you subdued, compliant, a wondrous creature caught in a dangerous trap. He could do anything he wanted to you right here and now, and the realization had his cock twitching against your cunt.

         For his own enjoyment, he was going to mark you, leave something behind on the picturesque pallet of your body.

         You would never be allowed to forget him, as he knew this vision of you would forever live inside his mind.

         He took his time, each bite and suck carefully and meticulously placed. Ushiwaka was never one to use his mouth without purpose, whether it be for his words, or his kisses. Your shoulders, your chest, your breasts, nothing was forgotten, and you felt like you had been sitting on his lap for eons. Each time his mouth curled into your flesh, his hair tickling you, you felt hotter, more alive than before. You pressed down harder against him, searching for some kind of release to the pleasure he was building inside of you. But he had you pinned, a strong arm encircled your back and kept you exactly where he wanted you.

         When he sucked your nipple back into his mouth, you cried out against his fingers, your tongue darting between the digits as you sucked a quick breath in through your nose. He paid you no mind, his own tongue licking meticulously at your nipple, up and down, slow and steady. The bliss that erupted from your breast was almost mind-numbing. Your thighs clenched around his, your head lolling back even farther than before. You needed more, you were desperate to feel that talented mouth back on yours, to feel his fat cock slip inside you were you needed it.

         Finally, he released you, his mouth leaving your breast as he slipped his fingers from your mouth. You took a moment to catch your breath. He splashed his drool covered fingers in the water, bringing the wet digits back to your face to wipe you clean, his thumb tracing your lips with care.

        “See what being quiet gets you?”

         You nodded your head in agreement, your nails finally releasing his shoulders where they had been clawing into his skin.

         ���I need you,” your arms wrapped around his neck, your mouth finding his in a tender kiss, “please, Ushiwaka.”

         “You beg so prettily, my love. Perhaps I should have you beg a little more.”

         “No! Fuck, please…” you entangled yourself around him, legs curling around his toned waist, your face nestling into his shoulder. You brushed the skin found there with your mouth, hungrily moaning against him. You were frantic; you had already waited for him for so long, thought about him for too many nights, too many years.

         His strong arms enveloped your back and he lifted you easily from the water. You adhered yourself to his body, ready to have your muscles clench around him to assist, but he needed no such help. Your weight was effortless to him.

         Ushijima used the ledge of the pool as a step, faultlessly exiting the pool like a nautical divinity coming to soft shores. He was cautious as he laid your wet body upon the heated stone, careful not to crush you under his weight. He watched your eyes alight as you took in the sight of him out of the water, now hovering above you. Your gentle fingers traced over his biceps, his shoulders, his chest, finding the constellations of scars upon his skin, his own physical galaxy for you to explore.

         He took your face in his hand as one of his muscled thighs spread your legs. You were entranced in his gaze, finding yourself lost in the molten amber of his eyes as his pupils danced across your face. He was taking in every bit of you that he could, burning this vision of you below him into his memory. You were flushed, lips parted, slightly swollen from his ardent kisses. Your delicate hands moved to rest beside your head, palms facing him, submissive.

        “Please,” your voice broke him from his trance, “don’t make me wait any longer.”

         He nodded in response, eyes tracing down across your body. He relished having you before him like this, back arching towards him, breasts falling, your hips shifting against his legs. The hand on your face trailed away, making a path down your torso, fingers swirling against the lost dewy droplets against your skin. And then he finally peered down farther, having to steel himself from groaning as he found your awaiting pussy.

        Your skin was prickling from the cool air meeting it, gooseflesh creeping up your legs, down your arms. Your heart was pounding in your ears as you watched him, waiting for him. You could practically see the thoughts racing through his mind, though you wished you could know them. What was he thinking? Was he hesitant?

        Your own contemplations vanished when his warm, wet fingers spread your pussy, two fingers deftly sinking along the sides of your lower lips. You moaned, eyes fluttering closed, heat pooling within your belly. He took his time exploring you; he was a man of patience, after all.

        You could feel his weight shift back as he sat on his knees, spreading your legs across his thighs. He curled one leg back for him, opening you up more for his viewing pleasure. His finger slowly traced up the center of your cunt, finding your sticky wetness coating the digit as it carefully curled against your clit. You let out a quick gasp, hips twitching, and he repeated the motion, watching you slowly come apart from the simplest of touches.

        His other hand found his cock, fisting it as he played with you. You could hear the slick pumping of his hand against himself, and you moved your weight upon your elbows to sit up and watch him. Even on his knees, Ushijima of Velhad was intimidating, all broad shoulders and heavily corded muscle across his body. You admired how his arm flexed as he stroked himself, how his toned stomach was clenching with need. Your mouth fell open as you glimpsed his thick cock within his palm. It fit so perfectly in his big hand, throbbing, thick veins calling out to be inside of you.

         You wanted to beg for him again, but your words were lost when one of his fingers slid inside of you, stretching your walls to fit around him. You dropped back against the warm stone, mouth falling open.

         “So tight,” he said it like a fact, like he expected it, “you’ll feel so good stuffed with my cock.”

          You bit into your lip in a whimper as he curled the digit inside of you, pumping it once, twice, with agonizing slowness. But soon, he added a second finger, the thick digits spreading you, testing you. His pace was calculated, fingers pleasurably systematic. You moaned at every twist and plunge, hips arching off the floor to meet his pace. His thumb began to circle your clit and you swore that stars overtook your vision, bursting in the corners of your eyes as you tried to focus on the ecstasy churning deep within your stomach. His long fingers were stroking your velvety walls just perfectly, each plunge feeling deeper and deeper than before, fanning the flames beneath your skin even hotter.

        “Ushi, please…”

       “Please what, my love? Tell me.”

        He was particularly cruel, electing to rub your clit faster, harder, making your words choke in your throat. You cried out, feeling the orgasmic coil begin to tighten in your belly. You were already so strung out for his love, for his touch, and you knew your little death was just around the corner.

       “Make me cum, p-please!”

        You felt his heavy body come back to yours, the hand on his cock ceasing its movements and instead finding your hand beside your head. His strong fingers wrapped around your flesh, curling into your forearm, thumb tactfully pinning down your wrist to the stones below.

       He repositioned the hand between your thighs, now using the palm of his hand to press against your aching clit. His fingers found the soft patch of flesh inside of you, petting against it skillfully, like he already knew exactly what you needed, knew exactly what made you fall apart to his immoral hands.

       His face dipped to yours, causing your eyes to flicker open to find his adoring gaze above you. He pressed a lazy kiss to your lips, muffling your moans as your legs began to press against his forearm, thighs begging for the release he could bring you. His mouth matched the rhythm of his fingers within you, his body in harmony with your own, pulling you tightly like the strings on a well-played lute. You were so ready to snap, so ready to sing songs of praise up into him, but all too soon his mouth and his hand left your body.

        He could read the bewilderment on your face, feel you try to press back against him, but he held you down easily with the weight he forced onto your wrist.

        “I want to feel you come undone on my cock,” he whispered against your lips, “are you ready?”

        His hand, now slick from your pussy, pushed your thighs apart wider, curled your legs back farther, his own thighs pressing into your soft flesh. You felt his cockhead brush between your dripping folds.

       “Yes! Take me, for the love of all things hol—!”

        His hips slammed into yours, his throbbing cock filling you, stretching, pressing you far beyond what you expected. He hushed your cry with his mouth, his hand cupping your thigh and urging your body to move with him as he began to thrust within you. Your hand that he pinned to the floor fisted in on itself, your nails threatening to break your own skin as your mind struggled to catch up with your pleasure. You were so full, so fucking full, so overwhelmed by him.

        His dewy, tawny skin felt so sinful against yours, the lingering moisture on your bodies bleeding into one another. His hips were strong, fast, each plunge of his cock going deep, deep, deep into your awaiting depths, finally uncovering every hidden place on your body to have as his own. You gasped and moaned into his mouth, and his sighs melded with yours, his kiss desperate, lips crashing into yours with more fervor than the storm that raged outside.

        You felt so utterly lost, yet so wholly encompassed by him, by his earthy scent, by the weight of his body against yours. Your breasts slid against his chest, nipples pebbling as they brushed against his downy hair. Your back was skating against the warm stones below, the pressure against the hard surface enough to make you ache, but it paled in comparison to the jolts of pure pleasure that resounded through your body with every thrust of his massive cock inside of you.

        “More,” you pleaded softly, lips peppering him with ardent kisses, “more, more, more.”

         You felt him place more pressure on your trapped wrist and you gasped, worried for a split moment that your bones would splinter under his power. But he was cautious, moving your arm gently to rest above your head. The hand on your thigh crept up your body, stopping for only an instant to grope at your bouncing breast. But his fingers quickly moved on, skimming up your other arm, palm smoothing against your dampened skin. He soon found your wrist, now using both his mighty arms to pin your own above your head, leaving you entirely at his mercy.

         “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

          His words were a dare, a wicked promise.

          At the nodding of your head, he smirked, lips coming to your ear.

         “Tell me to stop if it becomes too much, you promise?”

          His thrusts had never faltered, the air in your lungs still hot from all your heavy breaths. You closed your eyes again, finding your voice.

          “I promise.”

          The primal sound that left his chest startled you; you could feel the rumbling spread across your body like aftershocks of an earthquake. His hands around your wrists tightened, arms tensing. He shifted forwards, pushing your hips up, legs wider.

         And then he began to pound mercilessly into your body. You screamed, the high-pitched shrill echoing within the room, rebounding off the walls, soaking into his naked skin. Every fantasy he ever had of you suddenly came alive inside his mind, burning like a roaring fire, making his vision go blind as he pounded himself inside of you. You were so warm, so god damn tight, your pussy sucking him in with every unbridled thrust that he felt like he would break open from all the euphoria that was crackling within him.

        He called out your name, over, and over, and over again, reminding himself who he was with, who he finally had coming undone below him. He was still holding back, too afraid of breaking you, but even still his hips moved faster, harder, the sound of skin slapping against skin ringing in his ears like the constant moans and praises that feel from your mouth.

         “Ushi, fuck, fuck, yes!”

         He was being cruel, he knew it, slamming into you like this, making your body bow into the floor, but he didn’t care. He needed to feel that coil that was tightening inside of you earlier come to fruition on his cock, he needed to spill his seed inside of you.

         You couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, could only feel what was happening to you. All your focus was upon his cock stretching your pussy, filling you so perfectly that you knew you’d never want to feel another again. It was like you were made for him; all your limits were being pushed at once. Your wrists ached within his grip, surely bruising under such an immense hold, but you felt secure, safe underneath his power.

         Your knees were bent to their threshold of flexibility, your ass now well above the floor as he curled you to fit him. His cock was so deep, his thrusts now remaining almost entirely inside of you, pounding away at your insides like a man gone mad. You were at the borders of your composure.

         “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” you chanted, eyes watering, mouth open, body stinging, longing, begging for him, “g-gonna, gonna, cum!”

         “That’s right,” he murmured, tongue daring to skim the shell of your ear, “cum on my cock, baby, cum for me.”

          Your nails finally pierced the flesh of your palms as you came completely undone around him, orgasm bursting forth and blooming around you in euphoria. All your senses came crashing down, every small detail becoming more alive and ever present than ever before. It was all so much, the pleasure pooling in your belly and spreading across your body faster than lightning that raced across the sky. His hot breath was against your neck, your legs aching, blood dripping down your palms, water still cooling against your skin, his balls slapping against your ass cheeks. You could hear every sound: your screams ringing against the stone, his grunts into your hair, the wet suck of your pussy around his cock, even the still water resting in the pool.

          Your body was wrecked with tremors as he continued his ruthless assault, sweat beading at the nape of his neck. Your orgasm drenched his cock with thick, wet slick, encouraging him to drive a little harder, push a little deeper. He heard little pained gasps from your mouth, but he warned you he was corrupt, told you to stop him, yet you were taking him so fucking well, so fucking perfect like he knew you would. He was so close, so painfully close, his cock throbbing, his rigorous pace becoming unsettled as he felt your sweet thighs wrap around him.

          Then there it was, the sound of your voice, the sound of his goddess calling to him.

          “I want your cum, n-need it, please, fill me up, make me yours.”

          He finally crashed, your words like the irresistible call of a siren. Hot cum filled your tight pussy, his cock thumping deep inside your womb. You felt like you could breathe again, his inhuman strength finally laxing upon your ruined body.

          His mouth found yours again, his lips tender and now so familiar and welcoming. The tension in your body washed away, his loving hands tracing over your body as he allowed your legs to finally rest. Your heart was hammering in your chest; you could feel every beat inside your rib cage as you finally calmed down, mind returning, body waking up from its lust.

         Ushijima slid himself from inside of you, leaving your body with a groan of satisfaction. He watched his cum pool between your thighs, pearl white and stark against the stones. He looked up at you, all of you, admiring your spent body below him. He watched how your breasts heaved with breaths, how your eyes were blinking mindlessly up at the ceiling as you came down from your high.

        But then he recognized the bruises on your arms, the bites on your chest, the indentions of the stone upon your sides, the bloody nail prints in your open palms. He cursed himself, cursed his monstrous hands—he knew he was never meant to hold you, that he was unworthy.

        “I hurt you.”

         His simple words brought you back to reality.

         You sat up then, stretching your body as you came face-to-face with him once more.

         “Oh please.” You chided, a smile forming on your face as you cast a simple spell within your torn hands. He eyed you curiously as the blue tinge of magic twisted within your palms, your small wounds closing, even the marks upon your chest healing to a more reasonable color. They were still there, the small reminders he created, but they would fade on their own in a few days.

         You took his face in your hands, thumbs caressing his handsome cheeks.

         “No more grief, Ushiwaka. Please, for me?”

          He only drew you closer in response, cradling you in his arms.

          A few words of thanks came forth from his mouth, but you paid them little mind, too caught up in his embrace. You remained entangled in one another for a moment longer, both at ease in the company of each other’s breaths, your heart beats, the feeling of fingers skimming over skin.

        “Stay with me awhile?” You questioned softly into his chest.

        “Did you think I was going to leave after that?”

        “You always leave, you know, at some point.”

        “Not this time, my love. I’ll stay for as long as you’ll have me.”

         You both felt the pull then, the same tug that you had both longed to feel for so long.

         You were at home.

         Ushijima pulled you to your feet, wordlessly leading you to get dressed and follow him back into your great room. You saw the books still open on your desk, forlorn and nearly forgotten.

         He settled back into the chair after stoking the fire in your pit, bringing the flames back to life. He stretched out, yawned, and appeared wholly comfortable there, magnificent arms crossed upon his chest.

         You could get used to seeing him there, and you knew little by little, he’d allow you to read his pages, too.

_______________________________________________________________________

Note: I don’t own anything from Haikyuu or the Witcher Universe. 

Taglist: @badtimechara​ @present-mel​ @sgoldberg1997​ @donica95​ @hi-itsbonny​ @linestrider​ @shoutosplaything​ @kyberhearts​ @dhyaena​ @heyybrittannia​ @thisisthehardestthing​ @presmiic​ @kittifer​ @lemonsqueexx​ @iwaizumi-chan​ @kitten-on-ecstasy​ @dekulover​ @thatpeachybandgirl​ @skincrepe​ @whats-her-quirk​ @littlewhitefairy7777​ @unboundbnha​ @tinitimesims125​ @disasteren​ @misfitgirlwrites​ @tsum-samu​ @pineappleinmyass​

[specialmoogakii]

Medieval!Vampire Bakugo x reader

-STILL A WIP,i found this old piece around my documents-

((if you like me to continue it,write it in the comment))

There were many nights where katsuki was furious or agitated, there was always a new problem for katsuki to fix mostly caused by your father, you could hear his steps running in the hallway and screaming to the guards to follow him in the military supply room for a private conversation. It disturbed your nap, clearly hear katsuki yell insults to the guards from the third floor.

 Other than multiple steps of the guards, the whole castle including the village was quiet as usual. The village was fullied of vampires like katsuki, they were fugitives of your old town because of your father's strict rules on species like them, he wasn't a fan of them especially after they killed your grandpa in a cold war.  Now, he is planning an attack on the vampire town after you decide to run away with katsuki.

"THAT FUCKING BRAT! NOT EVEN ONE MINUTE OF PEACE!" Katsuki says frustrated and tries to keep himself in control, the guards look at him afraid to say something to the angry king, it would be a self-destruction move if they try to even get close to him. The king calms down and takes the map, he walks to the big table and commands the guards to get close to it. Katsuki prepared a new technique of resistance, for now, he isn't planning to strike an attack because even if his hate for the humans is strong, he doesn't feel like causing a new massacre as they did with his species.

"B-but sir! we cannot submissive to their attacks forever! We need to atta-" Katsuki slams his hands on the table and growls, the guard screams a surprise "EeEk-" and immediately shut himself up, trembling like a scared dog hoping he didn't make the king more mad than he usually is.

"Did I stutter? this is an order, not a kid game. If I said we need to do this new resistance method.." bakugo takes a deep breath in and composes himself, trying to not murder the guard for speaking back. He was ready to slams his hands on the table again to make the guards more afraid than before. He slams the hands on the wood stronger than before, showing his powerful powers and his big fangs. It's a thing that vampires do for showing their power and dominance.

"...THEN YOU NEED TO FOLLOW IT. NO SPEAKING BACK, BRATS!" The guards immediately went away from the room, trying to get away from the king as much as possible and warning the others about the order that katsuki gave to them. The steps of the guards were very loud, they can probably disturb a whole neighborhood in the morning if they were able to survive with the light of the sun. He hopes they didn't disturb you while sleeping,bakugo doesn't want to see you tired than before.

Even though he already woke you up with his screams but doesn't perceive it yet.Katsuki knows the mentality behind these entire circumstances, he acknowledges it's not only for the old king, your father desires to get you back to his side. He wants to change your mind on vampires, your father always hated the fact you were stubborn like your mother.

You were stubborn about protecting katsuki and his species, you love them, you were curious about them, and that the reason why you're married to katsuki now without his consent. His blood boils thinking about it, he hated seeing you with the king of all vampires. His overprotective behavior makes him go out of control and katsuki knows this behavior more than the father himself. You were his queen, a human, a mortal that not all the peoples in the village appreciate. Most of the vampire ladies were jealous or most of them want you to be dead, just to try your "royalty" blood.

He sighs and looks outside of the open window, the cold air caress his face while the messy sounds of the populated village slowly go away with katsuki thoughts. His thoughts were always the same thing, about his life without you, a boring and superficial life like he used to have. A life where everyone misunderstood him and avoid him, you were the only one who never leaves him no matter what and he couldn't handle the thought so katsuki went for a walk in his big garden.

Hoping that he could free his mind from such negativity on his mind. While he was walking in the hallway for going to the big garden, someone was getting close to him in slow steps. Katsuki immediately alert and went into defense mode.

"WHO THE-" He saw you and stopped yelling, you look so tired and disturbed and you just wanted a hug. He smirked and hug you softly, katsuki wasn't a soft man but accept all your love and affection if there aren't any guards around here. For your own security, he refuses your affections in public because he doesn't want someone to use you as a vulnerable victim to get what they want from him.  

He doesn't want to show any vulnerability in front of someone unless it's you, The only thing he does as an affection gesture is a kiss on the forehead. His hug was warm, it's was perfect for cuddling in the cold bedroom you slept in before.  Even though the hallway is fullied of darkness, you can clearly see his crimson blush and his rare smile on the grumpy man's face, you don't see his calm expression every day especially in this situation but honestly, you love when he is mad.

"Why are you up so late, shitty woman? You need to recover all your energy at night like a typical mortal." Katsuki says in his monotone voice, no yelling, just looking at you in the eyes in silence. The usual annoyed bakugo, he is very strict on.. well everything.

"Oh you know... with a wolf that always screams isn't really easy to fall asleep" you giggle a little looking at bakugo's confused face for a moment, then his face starts to get soft and annoyed at the same time, he wasn't so loud, right?Y/n  POV

"Tsk, those guards are deaf like shit! that why I always have to yell" he looks at the guards' dorms with his murderous face, he really hates them, huh? I'm surprised they are still alive.

"But, you scream every day with everybody-" I say trying to hide my giggling with my hand, not wanting to risk death today but teasing him is sarcastically fun. I catch his attention and now his eyes are looking at me.

"Don't question me, shitty woman. I barely have any patience today"  Katsuki growls and decided to walk to the end of the hallway to go to another room,

"You don't even have patience katsu! Are we sure we are talking about the same person?!"

[blackjack-15]

Death, Philosophy, and the Runs — Thoughts on: Legend of the Crystal Skull (CRY)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. Like with all of the Odd Games, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I go into what makes this game stand out as a little strange.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: CRY, mention of CUR, mention of ASH.

The Intro:

 It’s time for New Orleans, y’all.

Legend of the Crystal Skull is a game that’s often rated highly by the fandom, especially for its atmosphere (which is among the most well-done and pervasive of the whole series). Honestly speaking, were it not for the mental health/death/immortality storyline(s), CRY would simply be a Jetsetting game a bit out of order, given its fascination with its location (even if the amount of locations is slightly smaller).

One of the high points of this game is honestly its location and ambiance. CRY takes the idea of the “dark and stormy night” and plays it to perfection, cloaking everything in such thick atmosphere that the players, like Nancy, can’t always see the way ahead, and have to take leaps of faith every once in a while.

The characters contribute to the thick atmosphere; Bruno is a shadow, Henry’s hiding everything under a guise of nonchalance and a fishnet glove, Renée is all gardening grandma hospitality but never says anything about herself, Gilbert has Southern Manners while avoiding saying anything bad even when he means it, and Lamont refuses to get involved in anything outside his shop. They aren’t perfect suspects, but they’re good characters, and it elevates the game.

Bess’ hesitance to delve into this atmosphere makes her the perfect partner for Nancy who begins by investigating just who the Skeleton Man was who attacked her before spiraling deeper and deeper into the mysteries surrounding Bruno Bolet and his crystal skull.

But while the costumes, pageantry, puns, and secrets all contribute to the atmosphere, nothing quite reaches the same level of Sheer Aesthetic as Bruno’s last years being dedicated to finding a crystal skull. Glittery and gothic with power over life and death, it’s easy to see why the game is named after it (which, of course, I’ll get into below).

This isn’t to say that CRY is all sizzle and no substance — far from it. CRY doesn’t attempt to teach the player the entire history of New Orleans, the complex background and practices of voodoo (or any of its other sister practices), nor does it get into iguana physiology or the mechanics of how to make someone sneeze or get the runs.

While education is of course present in CRY, it’s more centered in philosophy than in hard, straight facts. Professor Hotchkiss – a returning character perfectly suited to the French-influenced New Orleans and her love of slightly sinister history – gives the mission statement of the game, summing up its central philosophical question – “Does this mean that there mysterious external forces at work in the universe of which we do not and cannot ever have full knowledge? Or does it all boil down to us? If the human heart desperately wants something to be true, does the human mind have the power to make it true?”

It’s a fascinating question, and touches on all sorts of real-life phenomenon – the power of suggestion, the placebo effect, intelligent design, among others – without ever seeming like HER is trying to Teach a Lesson. Out of all the edutainment elements in this series, CRY (and I would add ASH in here as well) features some of the most subtle work that HER ever accomplishes.

The Weird Stuff:

Of course, a discussion (one-sided as these metas mostly are) of CRY wouldn’t be complete without addressing the things that qualify it to be a truly Odd Game within the Nancy Drew franchise.

The first and most obvious is that we’re dealing with death – and a recent death at that — for the first time in a while. We’d have to go all the way back to CLK to see another death of a relative not long before the mystery starts, and Emily’s mom’s death and Josiah Crowley’s death don’t hang over CLK the way Bruno Bolet’s death hangs over CRY.

Bruno is given instead more weight – part of the mystery is figuring out who he was, what he liked, what he wanted, and what he did every day, especially leading up to his death. The house is almost a stand in character for Bruno; it reflects him perfectly, including all the things that were important to him, and just as determined to keep his secrets. A lot of Nancy Drew games have the house/location as a character, but only a few associate the location with a specific character, and CRY does it possibly the best.

The second thing that makes this game so odd is the showcasing of an abusive relationship. Sure, Summer doesn’t hit Henry or anything, but is just as abusive all the same, and the game doesn’t shy away from showing her horrible behavior and the effect that it has on Henry. He stays with her because, like a lot of abuse victims, he doesn’t think he can do ‘better’ – that somehow this is what he deserves – and the only slight problem with how it’s portrayed is that we don’t get to see Henry leave her and be happier.

Lastly, in an oddity for Nancy Drew games so far, mental illness is put at the front and center of the game (rather than being a one-off random thing not really mentioned like in CUR). Henry, separate from the abuse he receives from Summer, is obviously depressed, and the game doesn’t really shy away from showing it. Sure, they might not use the term “clinical depression”, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not acknowledged. Henry’s depression, his sadness, his feeling of being out of control and yet still tied down – that permeates every moment of the game, and especially his conversations with Nancy. The whole reason Nancy’s there at the Bolet mansion in the first place is because Ned was worried about his shy, depressed classmate.

Gosh, Ned is such a good guy. He deserves so much better than Nancy “Lacks Tact” Drew.

Unlike a lot of the “Odd” games, the odd things in CRY don’t detract from the game; they make the game what it is. It’s a bit more mature, a little more introspective, a touch less black and white than most of the Nancy Drew games have been up until this point. No characters are simply caricatures, there’s very little stereotyping (for a ND game), and it’s not pointlessly spooky or try-hard in any way. CRY is the rare game that simply is what it aspired to be; while what it aspired to be was odd (and it is Odd), it doesn’t make it bad. It makes it feel genuine and honest – and after ICE, I can’t think of anything better for a game to aspire to be.

The Title:

We’re getting to the portion of Nancy Drew games where, regardless of the quality of the actual games, their titles are smash hits every time. “Legend of the Crystal Skull” is an incredibly good title on multiple levels.

First, it tells us what the game is about – not the Crystal Skull itself, but the legend of it – the myths, mysteries, and effects of the Skull. Not only does it (correctly) indicate that this game is a little more about philosophy than it is about something concrete.

The second thing it does is establish a sense of mysticism that is reinforced the second the game begins. We’re in New Orleans, we’re learning about this Crystal Skull, it’s dark, rainy, and spooky, there’s death and specters and possibly more afoot…and this doesn’t start with the Skeleton Man cutscene, or the phone call, or even the warning on the screen to play with the lights off – it starts with the title.

The Mystery:

We begin with Nancy and Bess visiting New Orleans – the French Quarter, to be specific – for a fun little vacation, only to be met with a Dark and Stormy Night. Ned, knowing of his girlfriend’s plans to visit New Orleans, asks her if she can check up on a classmate of his who’s going through a hard time: Henry Bolet.

Determined to get the visit out of the way, Nancy leaves Bess back at the hotel and traipses over to the Bolet Mansion. When she walks in – I know, honestly, Nancy –  the open door, she’s greeted by a person in a skeleton costume in the front room, rather than a miserable college student.

She’s soon knocked out by the Skeleton Man, coming to when an elderly woman offers her an odd concoction and the Skeleton is long gone. Soon, Nancy discovers that Henry’s dead uncle was in possession of a Crystal Skull that was to protect its owner against any source of death other than murder, the plot starts to thicken quicker than a bubbling roux.

CRY is home to an incredibly solid mystery, full of atmosphere, colorful characters, and even a food minigame as if to draw me in specifically. While I don’t think it’s the best Nancy Drew game by a long shot, I would say that it’s definitely the best of the Odd games, and by far the most successful mystery + atmosphere combination that we’ll have until we reach SAW, quite a few games later.

Now, let’s move on to our colorful characters.

The Suspects:

We’ll start with Renee Amande, as I think she’s our first character who is properly introduced post-cutscene (with her concoction). Bruno’s elderly housekeeper, Renee is a practitioner of voodoo (kind of) and a believer in the crystal skulls – she wants to reunite all thirteen of them to move the world to a higher plane of understanding.

Our villain, yet not our killer – not directly at least – the only thing Renee is guilty of other than attempted murder of a plucky Illinois detective is falsifying a letter. The shock of the “false” crystal skull shocked Bruno so badly that he had a heart attack and died, but Renee didn’t actually kill him. She’s one of those villains in Nancy Drew stories who commit a minor crime, and jump immediately to murder when she’s discovered.

As the villain, Renee is actually the only suspect that could even work. The game plays with Dr. Buford and the mysterious Skeleton Man, but in reality Renee’s the only one with motive and opportunity. But, given that Nancy spends 3/4ths of the game trying to figure out what crime has actually been committed, rather than working with cold hard facts, that works out pretty well.

Henry Bolet, on the other hand, is apparently catnip to a good section of the Nancy Drew fandom, and is the closest thing to a living victim that we actually have in this game. When his parents died, he was shipped off to live with Bruno – and Bruno shipped him off to military school, so he should be a bit more muscular than he is – and he’s never gotten over their deaths.

Like, “Nancy finds him crying over his parents” kind of never got over their deaths.

I’ll be honest, while I know lots of people who did Love him with everything in them, I never really saw the appeal of Henry Bolet as a love interest for anyone, or even as a compelling character. His voice actor – Brian Neel – does a great job, with his voice definitely being the part of him with the most obvious appeal, but otherwise…maybe it comes from my distaste for underdog stories, maybe it’s that I’m no good with crying people, who knows.

As a suspect, Henry’s pretty much out from the moment that he confesses to Nancy that he sold a trunk for quick cash for his abusive girlfriend. HER isn’t bold enough to have that be a lie, nor are they dumb enough to make him the culprit after that. Henry’s out of the running for most of the game, but he never really becomes Nancy’s confidante, not like other early-clear suspects.

Henry’s an interesting puzzle as a character, but that more comes from his place as the central piece of CRY’s “Oddness”, rather than any interest in him as a possible suspect.

On the other end of fandom appeal lies Dr. Gilbert Buford, whose greatest sin as a character is declaring an obvious heart attack an obvious heart attack and using regular, polite Louisiana manners for a man of his age while interacting with a character who obviously has no problem with it at all.

Dr. Buford is hard at work giving the majority of Bruno’s characterization that doesn’t come from his house to him, as well as giving a truly excellent scare when finding Bess in the Secret Meeting scene. As a suspect, Buford is a moderately good one – cagey, a doctor, knows about the Skull – but ultimately falls short as he just has too many of his own secrets to carry.

I personally like Gilbert Buford as a character, and find him an entertaining source of exposition – but then, I grew up around Southern manners (and military manners, which aren’t too dissimilar), so that might be the reason why.

Rounding out our suspect list – though barely qualifying himself, honestly, is Lamont Warrick, owner of a curio shop and intensely vulnerable to hot sauce and sneezing powder.

One can only imagine the Horror that would occur if Nancy were to mix those two allergens. Well, one can also Giggle at the mental image, but still.

As a suspect…well, even HER knew that he was a non-entity; his biggest part to play is actually after the game concludes, where he closes his curio shop in order to search for Bernie, who has swallowed the crystal skull.

I guess someone had to search for it? I’d love a follow-up with him, maybe over Labor Day, or Memorial Day, where Bess goes back to see if he’s had any luck, only to find that he found a dead body along with the alligator, and in order to not get suspected for the murder, they have to bring the body with them and pretend that it’s alive, taking it to bingo games over the course of the 3 vacation days.

Yes, that was all to set up a bad “Weekend at Bernie’s” reference. Hush.

The Favorite:

As you might have guessed from…well, most of this meta, one of my favorite parts of CRY is the sheer atmosphere that the game embodies from its beginning through the closing puzzle.

The Bolet mansion is just the right amount of cluttered yet comfortable, shadowy yet detailed, and gloomy yet homey to be a nigh-perfect location. The graveyard isn’t hard to navigate, is filled with puns, and does a lot of the character work for Bruno and (to a slightly lesser extent) Henry while allowing both characters to be private and a bit mysterious. The greenhouse is simultaneously cozy and elegant and yet slightly cage-ish and slightly claustrophobic.

Even the locations that Nancy stays away from — the hotel balcony, Zeke’s, the food truck, the secret meeting — are thick with a different kind of atmosphere: less wet, less foggy, more brightly lit, more French Quarter than haunting mansion. Bess’ locations are welcoming yet secretive, perfect for the reluctant amateur-amateur detective who just wants her vacation to be fun and mystery-free.

Adding to the atmosphere is the sheer number of cutscenes/cinematic camera usages in CRY. The opening with the Skeleton Man, Bess getting caught at the meeting, opening the final crypt, Renee shutting the tomb…they’re all so perfect, and do a great job at making you feel really immersed in Nancy’s New Orleans experience.

My favorite puzzle is honestly finding the glass eyes. CRY isn’t really a game I remember for its puzzles; they fade a little bit into the background (with the exclusion of a couple I don’t like) because they’re well integrated into the story, and because the game doesn’t really grind to a halt to make Nancy complete minigames like in, for example, CUR.

My favorite moment is split between two very different moments. The first is, unsurprisingly, the conversation with Hotchkiss mentioned above where she lays out the theme of the game. It’s a shockingly nice moment in the game, coming in the start/middle of the mystery and being a familiar face – er, voice – for Nancy to get help from. It’s a moment that lets you stop and think about what Nancy’s actually dealing with, rather than effectively pausing the game through a rhymed puzzle about the skull or other such nonsense.

The other moment is a little more obvious and a little flashy – the moment when Bess is discovered at the Skeleton meeting. The tension right before, the sudden pop-up of the skeleton mask between the boxes, the conversation afterwards…it’s just as close as possible to a perfect scene. It’s long enough before Bess is discovered that the player can kind of get comfortable, but not so long that it drags on. The moment of discovery is startling, but not scream-worthy or too scary to replay over and over or in the dark. It’s just great.

The Un-Favorite:

There’s not a ton to complain about with CRY, but I do have a few small things that make replaying it somewhat of a chore.

The first is my least favorite puzzle: the loquat bug spraying. It takes a long time, it feels shoved in the game just to have an extra puzzle, and Nancy can only take one loquat at a time. I feel like the player should be able to take up to 3, and then come back and do it again if they need/want any more loquats. Honestly, it’s a puzzle in a place where a puzzle really just shouldn’t be.

My least favorite moment in the game would probably be the chest that Henry sells to Lamont. After selling it and building it up for quite a few minutes, it’s kind of a letdown that it only has a few things it in. This would have been a great place to have more character-building work done, but instead the focus is on “how do we find it/open it” and less on “what can this do for the story”.

Finally, I mentioned it above, but I’m not a fan of how Lamont pretty much is a non-entity in the game. I’m fine with one suspect being less suspicious or having less ‘dirt’ on them than the rest, but Lamont really doesn’t have anything on him. He’s never a suspect for the Skeleton Man, he doesn’t really do anything sketchy…he’s just underwhelming.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Legend of the Crystal Skull?

I think really the only fix that I would attempt is to give Lamont a little more plot significance. Sure, his curio shop is beautiful and wonderful and important to the plot, but Lamont himself really isn’t. In order to include him more in the plot, make Lamont a bona-fide treasure hunter that manages the curio shop for cash in between expeditions. He’s heard that Bruno has a treasure that people have killed for, but couldn’t figure out what it was before Bruno’s death. He buys the chest from Henry and searches it top-to-bottom trying to figure out if it’s hiding something since it’s obviously Bruno’s personal chest.

To add a bit more importance, I’d place him at the Bolet mansion on the night of Bruno’s death as well. Renee’s there, Dr. Buford is there, Henry we’ve already written off completely in the actual game as a suspect, so Lamont should be there as well, snooping around to try to figure out what treasure Bruno’s got and if he can persuade him to sell it (or at least let Lamont see it). Nancy can match footprints in the garden to his boots, or some other method of proving he was there. I’d just like for Lamont not to drop off the map early on. It also makes his canonical ending that much neater.

Honestly, that’s it.

Sure, I’d appreciate the loquat bug spraying minigame to be fixed as well, but CRY is honestly a pretty character-based game, thick with philosophy and legends, and it doesn’t need a ton of help in that area. Make all the suspects viable for most of the game, and I think an already entertaining and atmospheric game would be just a little bit better.

[yyparkq]

superman

pairing: jaebeom x reader

word count: ~2k

summary: you finally bare your burdens with the person you trusted the most, your best friend turned boyfriend, lim jaebeom.

t/w: implications of rape, violence, anxiety

a/n: got too emotional writing this and i dont think i could continue...my heart’s just drenched for y/n. i hope you like it nonetheless! 

requested by anon~

Fighting your own demons completely alone for years is beyond exhausting. How you’re able to genuinely connect with other people despite being utterly damaged yourself on the inside should be considered some sort of anomaly in the humankind. But everything breaks at one point or another, right? Things, whether good or bad, shall pass.

Every single day, all you ever ask from the universe is to make you numb. Numb from all the pain and memories that relentlessly haunt you. To be free from it and be genuinely happy yourself for once. Is that too much to ask? Were you not worthy of living a normal life at all?

When you think of other people in the same situation as you, you can’t help but feel anguish. The little girls being touched by their stepfather or uncle or brother’s friends without their consent, the teenage girls being forced by their boyfriends to do sexual acts to prove their love for them, the wives being used by their husbands anytime to satisfy themselves without their consent.

“Beom-ah, will you kill someone for me?” you ask your best friend without looking.

It has been quite a while since you set your book down on your stomach and watched the sky in front of you, your right arm tucked under your head as a makeshift pillow while lying under the tree.

Jaebeom lowers the book he’s been reading and looks down at you. Unlike you, he was sitting with his back leaning against the trunk. He uncrosses his legs and leans forward to better see your face.

“I just want them dead,” you continue to stare blankly in front of you. When you were younger, you could easily make shapes out of the scattered formation of the clouds in the sky. “But they don’t look like they’re dying anytime soon. And I can’t do it. I’m too weak to kill anyone.”

“What’s going on?” Jaebeom asks slowly. He studies your face carefully albeit being upside down. Something doesn’t sit right. You’re never a violent person and hearing you speak about wanting to kill someone sent a shiver down his spine but made his blood boil at the same time.

“I’m just kidding. Did I scare you?” You smile at your best friend and fake a laugh. Clutching the book on your torso, you sit up and brush your hair with your fingers, scooping closely beside him in the process. You see him still looking at you intently. Somehow you know he will not let your brief slip of the tongue away so easily unless you tell him the truth. His gaze on you is sharp and you worry he’ll easily look right into you again this time.

Jaebeom’s gaze continues to pierce into you and you sigh loudly before collapsing onto the grass again, placing your head on his lap.

Tears attempt to prick the corner of your eyes so you close them, hoping to feign a tired look on your face so he could leave you alone with your thoughts again. Instead, you feel his hand caress your cheek tenderly. His other hand brushing away the strands from your face.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” he asks softly.

Not trusting yourself to speak without sobbing, you only slightly nod your head, though a single tear trickles your side of the face afterward.

Jaebeom immediately wipes it before it even falls halfway down the side of your cheek and dips his head down to place a light kiss on your temple.

In a world where people judge more than try to comprehend the victim’s claims, it is mentally taxing to ask for help.

Not that you never asked anyone for help. In fact, you did. A lot of times. But what do people usually get in return? Nothing more than a mere dubious look from your family and friends and even verbal excuses to downplay your issues. “Should be a slip of the hand, honey,” “Were you both drunk that night?” “He’s your husband. It’s okay.”

The thing is, it is never okay. It never is but somehow you will just learn to live with it.

Sometimes you just wish the tears you shed will be enough to drown all the monstrosity in this world.

Your heart clenches at the mere thought that at least one of the people you meet every day are being abused in one way or another. The only thing you think you could help anyone with is by treating them with utmost kindness and respect unless they prove to be not worthy of either of those.

Everyone except, probably, your own family who caused you an awful lot of mental distress.

They say when you wish someone dead, chances are, they will live longer than you expected. You never cease to wish it though, every time you get a glimpse of their mere shadow inside your house. But aside from that, you also wish to be old enough to help yourself run away from the very place where your nightmares originated.

Before you got into college, you saved the majority of your allowances, took part-time jobs, and even applied for scholarships to save enough money to live on your own, determined to finally get away from everything and start again. You plan on not looking back and build another version of yourself away from the people who inflicted your pain.

And you did. You were able to score yourself admission to a respectable university in the capital. It hasn’t been easy but you felt a lot better than before. You only hoped for the best the moment you stepped inside the university. Soon, you were able to find yourself a number of trustworthy people you can count on. No one knew your past and they’re never really nosy about such things. It should be fine since you wanted to forget about everything from your past anyway, but sometimes you can’t help but feel as though you’re not being fully honest with them. Like you’re creating a different version of yourself that you want to be liked by the new people around you. There are times when you wanted to tell them your story but you’re too afraid they’re going to judge you and they will start to see you differently. You cannot afford to make the same mistake you did in the past when your stories drove your family members and your friends further away from you.

Finding your way to college has been the greatest decision you’ve made so far. If you haven’t pushed yourself way harder to get where you are right now, you wouldn’t be able to meet  Lim Jaebeom—your best friend and now your boyfriend. For almost a decade now, you have been each other’s constant rock.

You met Jaebeom in your favorite coffee house near the university. Unlike most people, background noises in coffee shops actually help you more to focus when studying. It was evidently full the moment you entered one afternoon to study for your upcoming exams. Most people that came in came out after a minute or two after realizing that the coffee house was a full house. But you’re not most people. You didn’t mind standing by the side of the counter as you wait for the other students to wrap up and leave a table until someone pokes you from behind and offered to share his table.

Jaebeom’s mind has been wandering that day, unable to focus on the questions from his mock exams and reviewers. Seeing you enter the shop with your books clutched against your chest and a serene look on your face didn’t help him at all. Before he knew it, he was already approaching and offering you the seat he’s saving for his friend. His heart raced when you smiled warmly and lightly bowed at him, grateful for his generosity.

Oddly enough, you felt really comfortable even when sharing a table with a total stranger for the very first time. A couple of times you caught him staring at you from the corner of his eyes which made you blush but not at all fidgety or uncomfortable. When your second cup of coffee turned cold and the low temperature inside the premise mixed by the sudden pouring of rain outside made you shiver for the second time, Jaebeom offered you a black hoodie hanging in the back of the chair beside him. You refused the offer a few times before accepting, too shy to wear a stranger’s clothes but eventually accepted because the temperature is just too cool for your body’s liking. Both of you, with a few other students, ended up staying in the coffee house until closing. Before parting ways, Jaebeom insisted you keep his hoodie on your way home and used it as an excuse to get your name and your number. Since then you started hanging out and eventually became a couple.

The very first person you told your past about is Jaebeom. Within the course of a few months, somehow, you have developed an unusual bond and attraction for each other which made telling your life story to Jaebeom so much easier.

After accidentally thinking out loud during one of your breaks at the campus garden a month before, you wanted so much to share the ease the burden of you still being occasionally haunted by your past to someone. You felt incredibly lonely more than ever and Jaebeom had always been the most perfect fit to talk to when it comes to your troubles. With him, you feel safe and secured. Most of the time, you get easily overwhelmed with your troubles and he’d always be there to help you look at things objectively, encouraging you to try to make a sound decision each time.

Jaebeom pulls you closer to his body and kisses your temple. His lips stay pressed on the side of your head and you can feel his chest rapidly rising and falling on your back after hearing the side of the story you just bared with him. He’s flushed with anger. How can people do such things and get away with it so easily?

You bask in the warmth of his body against yours. Even after all these years, talking about your traumatic experiences sends every limb of your body to shiver at the memory. Meanwhile, as opposed to what you have expected of yourself, you barely shed a few tears instead of sobbing uncontrollably.

Jaebeom shifts slightly and starts to guide your body so you’re facing him on the couch. His hands soothe your back and arms when you face him and you settle at the crook of his neck comfortably, breathing in his familiar scent. You stay pressed like this for a while until you hear him sniff slightly.

You pull yourself just enough to look at his expression and you’re shocked to see the corners of his eyes red.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all that. I promise you will always be safe with me,” he whispers, slightly croaking. His eyes are wide with sincerity. “We can no longer change the past but, I promise you, you will never have to go through that hell again. Our future kids will never suffer. Not when I’m alive. I will make sure of it.”

You don’t remember the last time you were genuinely consoled by anyone’s words until now. Jaebeom’s words weigh more than a simple I love you. He’s committing to providing a safe haven for you. And even though at the back of your mind you know this couldn’t be foolproof—you cannot control the people around you, after all— you wanted so much to hold onto his words and trust him.

“Thank you for trusting me, baby. Please, please, let me share your troubles. You will never be alone again,” he whispers before bringing your lips to his, showing you just how deep his love for you.

“I love you,” you say between kisses. You didn’t realize you were crying until Jaebeom kisses your tears away.

“I love you so much.”

That night, you fell asleep in Jaebeom’s arms and wake up in his bed the following morning. Over brunch, he convinces you to see a therapist to help you better deal with your traumatic experiences.

[mellometal]

Hey, everyone.

If you saw the post from earlier, I had to delete it. There were things I forgot to discuss and things that didn't get saved into my drafts. Sorry if you have to see this again.

I've been WAITING to talk about Glee. Not in the good way either. There's so much wrong with the show, and it's sickening. Yes, I've watched the show last year. Against my will, but that's because of other people refusing to put on anything else besides Glee. I can say that I hate Glee with my entire being. (My initial reason for hating it was because they covered "SING" by My Chemical Romance and turned it into a slow, patriotic song when it's a song about rebellion. NOTHING about "SING" is patriotic. I hated the show since I first heard about it...for that very reason. I was like thirteen or so at the time when I first heard about Glee? Despite it being out since 2009.

Though it's been over for several years now, it's a show that many people have mixed feelings about. From what I've seen, you either love Glee or you absolutely hate it. There's no in-between that I've seen. (If you can't already tell, I hate the show.)

The show is a literal dumpster fire, the characters are all fucking awful people and all of them are poorly written, the script pisses me off, it literally makes me feel disgusting, and don't even get me started on the covers. Most of the covers aren't that good. A lot of them sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. The pacing of the show makes NO sense in certain areas (like when Blaine was initially made to be a grade above Kurt, but was then changed to be like the same grade as him so he'd stay). It just feels like everyone in the show is either a Mary Sue, a Gary Stu, their whole personality is just that they're from a minority group or they're EDGY AND HARDCORE DELINQUENTS BLEEEEHHHHH, creepy as fuck, bigoted as all hell, or they're just background characters who occasionally have the spotlight.

TW: The following post and any other posts that I'll make about this show contains subject matter that may be triggering for some audiences. It will go into subjects like racism, homophobia, ableism, outing of a person in the LGBT community, bigotry in general, statutory r@pe (between teachers and students), teachers being creepy towards students, mentioned past child m0l3stati0n and invalidation of the victim's trauma, making fun of su1c1d3, making fun of overdose, making fun of drug addiction....a lot of fucked up things.

If anything mentioned above is triggering for you, please feel free to scroll and consume safe media instead. I'd rather have you be safe than to be triggered by anything I'm gonna talk about.

Let's start off easy. The characters. It's easy to tear them apart. At least the most problematic ones.

Rachel, the Main Character™️, is textbook definition of a Mary Sue. Instead of calling her Rachel, I'm gonna call her Mary Sue for the whole post. She's almost completely perfect (like too perfect), her flaws are minor if anything, she gets all the special treatment....you get the picture. When Mary Sue does anything fucked up or she says anything fucked up, it either goes unnoticed, people make up excuses for her being a shitty person, or it gets twisted so it looks like Mary Sue is the hero! (I hate her. So much. I cannot stand her.)

Aaawwww, Mary Sue didn't want some OTHER GIRL (Sunshine) to steal HER spotlight, so she SENT THIS GIRL TO A CRACK HOUSE. A FUCKING CRACK HOUSE, OF ALL PLACES. A PLACE WHERE THIS GIRL COULD HAVE BEEN PUT IN SERIOUS DANGER. THIS GIRL COULD HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY INJURED AT BEST AND KILLED AT WORST. Yes, I'm aware not all drug houses are the same, but still. It doesn't matter what this girl did. What Sunshine did is irrelevant. It's not okay to send people to strange places where they don't know anyone, and are put in danger, even to the point of either getting injured or killed. But it's okay, because at least it's not an "active" crack house you sent Sunshine to, RIGHT, Mary Sue? You still sent some poor girl to a place where she could have been put in serious danger, even to possibly get injured or killed, all because you didn't want her to steal YOUR spotlight. You fucking disgusting, entitled, bratty cunt. You don't need the spotlight all the time anyway. THAT'S HOW THEATRE WORKS. YOU DON'T ALWAYS GET THE LEAD ROLE. YOU DON'T ALWAYS GET THE ROLE YOU WANT. AND THAT'S OKAY. YOU WORK WITH WHAT YOU GOT. Sincerely, a theatre kid.

There are other fucked up things Mary Sue has done, but this is the one thing I could find anyone talking about. If I remember correctly, she hurt her Gay Best Friend™️ Kurt in some way. All I remember is that Kurt was mad at Mary Sue about something. Mary Sue is annoying as fuck. What else can I say about her?

Next, we have Finn, who's textbook definition of a Gary Stu. I'll call him Gary Stu throughout this post. I hate this fucker too. He's the Main Character's Boyfriend™️, the Hot Quarterback™️, and The Good Guy™️. Yet....he's not a good person. He's treated like he's a good person, but he's really not. His flaws are fairly minor and excused (and any major flaws aren't even talked about much), he's almost completely perfect, and every fucked up thing he does is ignored or is justified in some way. Like how he outed Santana as lesbian in the hallway WITHIN EARSHOT OF EVERYONE. HE DIDN'T EVEN APOLOGIZE FOR THIS.

As a woman who has struggled with her sexuality growing up, this really brought back shit I went through. I "dated" boys when I was younger to cover up the fact that I'm only attracted to other women. I wasn't happy with these guys at all. I acted like I did so nobody would suspect anything. I felt nothing for them, except for in a platonic way. I've been outed twice. Once when I thought I was bisexual with a strong preference for other women (by my dad's girlfriend at the time), and when I came out as lesbian (by my brother). It sucks to be outed. The people who outed me in real life could have put me in danger. They could have made it so I had no place to go back to. They could have had me get hurt. It's a scary feeling. Like, it doesn't matter if you're supportive or if you're in the LGBT community. You don't fucking out people without their explicit permission. You especially don't out people to their abusers or to people they don't trust, let alone out them publicly. That's what happened to me. I don't wish this on anyone.

***By the way, for anyone who's closeted, you're valid, I love you, and I know how it feels to be stuck in the closet. You don't have to come out right now. Come out whenever you're ready to. Whenever it's safe for you to do so.***

Or how about the fact that Gary Stu made fun of Kurt's voice because he's gay? Gary Stu apparently has ✨anger issues✨ and that's pretty much the excuse they use to justify him doing fucked up shit to people.

They treat the characters who are from minority groups (i.e., BIPOC, AAPI, LGBT community, disabled people) like absolute garbage, put them through all this horrific shit, or they put them on a pedestal simply for being in a minority group. The teachers and other school staff are either written to be total bigots (Sue), or they're total pr3dators (Mr. Schue, the school nurse, and another teacher who I can't remember her name off the top of my head).

Sue pretty much only exists to be a poorly written villain who's a bigoted bitch just to be a bigoted bitch. Yes, there were some things she WAS right about (like how "Blurred Lines" wasn't an appropriate song choice for the Glee Club™️, but Mr. Schue The Pr3dator™️ downplayed it). Other than that...that's all I can think of. Because everything else that came out of her mouth was bigoted bullshit. Like these right here, for example:

Or how she drugged the principal, date r@ped him, and blackmailed him?

How about them making a tasteless joke about Sue committing su1c1d3 and having her "overdose" on multivitamin gummies?

DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN HOW FUCKED UP ALL OF THIS IS? I do? Well, first of all, she called people racist, homophobic, ableist, and otherwise disgusting names. She boiled them down to their race, sexual orientation, their disability, and their appearance in general. Second, SHE DRUGGED, BLACKMAILED, AND DATE R@PED SOMEBODY. I don't think I need to explain how that's bad. The evidence is right there. Third, she said she was committing "sue-icide" by overdosing on multivitamin gummies. (Yes, you actually can OD on vitamins in supplement form, and it can cause serious symptoms and even death. Specifically with vitamins A, D, E, and K, and Iron. Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble. They're a lot harder to remove from the body. The B vitamins and vitamin C aren't as severe if you do OD on them because they're water-soluble, but still be careful. You can't OD on vitamins and minerals you find in food. If you take supplements, vitamins, etc., only take what's on the bottle.) As someone who has su1c1d@l thoughts on and off, this is extremely insulting. Yes, I do use humor and I joke about my own experiences to cope, but this? Nah. Nothing about this is funny or cute in the slightest. Enough said.

Do I need to explain how fucking terrible it is to make light of a serious topic like this? It was never funny to see Britney Spears' mental health be at that low of a point in 2007. It was never funny to see the abuse the paparazzi inflicted on her. How the fuck was this ever okay? You can dislike Britney Spears all you want, but this was never it.

This is all I have for now. I'll probably make a part two because there are way too many things to talk about.

[loopy777]

Thank You! Finally someone who also understands he hardships that Mai went through! A lot of people thinks that Mai is a bored spoiled rich girl and I’m like “Did you not understand the scene in the Beach episode???” Mai is explaining how she was emotionally and mentally suppressed during her childhood. Do they not know how that can really damage a person? Mai’s childhood, similar to Toph’s, explained her upbringing as a person; and they don’t see that? But the thing is I think they do. [1/3]

Like everybody understood that Toph’s childhood was rough too despite herself being an upperclassmen daughter who could technically get whatever she wants. Is it because people don’t really jive with Mai? Or is it because the shipping wars have to do with this lack understanding of Mai in the fandom? I also remember seeing a post here saying how “Mai is toxic to Zuko and here’s why”. What? Toxic? Are you serious?! Like they stated how Mai shouldn’t be with Zuko due to her lack of- [2/3]

-expressions and that Zuko needs someone who can openly show affection. Um... Do you not see how Mai would Smile Around Him?! How She would physical Express her affection via kisses and touches? One would argue that she is dismissed toward Zuko and would source the scene with the “I don’t need to hear your life story” and the Beach episode where she dismisses Zuko attempts to pleases her. I should end it here. I guess I’m asking is: “What’s your personal take on why Mai is misunderstood?” [3/3]

Well, to be fair to some of the Mai-haters out there, I think a big part of the problem is that The Beach has terrible writing. As I jokingly allude to in that post, Mai’s explanation of her childhood is a vast understatement compared to what I described about the abuse she suffered. Here it is in full, with Azula’s own take on it:

MAI: What do you want from me? You want a teary confession about how hard my childhood was? Well, it wasn't. I was a rich only-child who got anything I wanted. As long as I behaved and sat still, and didn't speak unless spoken to. My mother said I had to keep out of trouble. We had my dad's political career to think about.

AZULA: Well, that's it, then. You have a controlling mother who had certain expectations, and if you strayed from them, you were shut down. That's why you're afraid to care about anything, and why you can't express yourself.

Naturally, Mai can’t also detail about how she was controlled and abused by Azula, nor can she get into everything she hates about Fire Nation society. And it fits with her character that she would understate things, leaving it for those who would truly empathize (Ty Lee, at least, and perhaps she’s testing to see if Zuko will get it) to understand what she’s leaving unsaid.

So only an audience really paying attention to Mai will see the shadows behind her relatively innocuous words. Yes, she’s not describing a good situation, but it’s easy to mischaracterize what she’s talking about as mere “teaching discipline.” And then Azula jumps in with her take, which is going to be colored by her own experiences and issues, and I think The Boiling Rock makes a good case that Azula does not have Mai fully figured out. ;)

We have to also keep in mind that there was a space of 9 months between the airings of The Beach and The Boiling Rock, so that’s an extra opportunity for people not paying attention to Mai to miss all the dynamics in this conversation. Heck, even Azula’s abuse of Mai was only glimpsed through innocuous reminders like breaking up a Sunset Maiko Date, compared to her ordering Mai to give up her brother to rebel terrorists in her introductory episode- which aired 13 months before The Beach. Even the Fountain Incident in the flashback of Zuko Alone can be seen as a mere prank by those not connecting the dots. The perception of the fandom was largely that Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee were real friends, from what I saw of it before the TBR came around. (I was only in the fandom for 4 months before Mai’s big moment.) It’s only in hindsight that most people realized that Mai was making daily evaluations as to whether it was time to die gloriously trying to ram a stiletto in Azula’s ear.

Toph, by comparison, is easier to understand because the cartoon outright shows us her father calling her weak and declaring that he’s going to lock up her so that she can’t risk herself. Mai’s background is something we glimpse in the way her mother ‘politely’ shuts down her opinion of living in Omashu, and then her own understated confession on Ember Island. It’s a perfect illustration of the storytelling fallacy of “Show, Don’t Tell.” A more accurate and helpful version of that advice is to dramatize the important stuff rather than leaving it in dialogue, and Mai’s issues are largely undramatized.

All that said, I have no idea how anyone comes away from AtLA with the impression that Mai is expressionless. I still see it today, despite the whole story being available; I just got a review on a story the other day that praised my ability to find depth in such an “emotionless” character. Right in her first episode, when Ty Lee teases her about meeting up Zuko, Mai can’t hold back a smirk and turns her face away so that no one can see it! That’s the entire character dramatized in one scene! Never mind how she does allow herself an outburst in The Beach in response to Azula’s trying to psychoanalyze her, or everything in The Boiling Rock where she’s clearly hurt by Zuko’s leaving her to the point of nearly being in tears at several moments- or her grand romantic gesture of choosing to die to save Zuko’s life.

Maybe people are confused by Mai not actually dying thanks to Ty Lee’s intervention?

Also, while I’m not enough of an expert in humanity to say, the rest of Tumblr has plenty of theories about how Mai is probably the victim of unconscious sexism. She’s not traditionally feminine, so some people don’t empathize in the same way they do characters like Katara or Ty Lee or even Azula. Even Toph sheds tears for the audience! Mai, however, will hold back those tears no matter how much she’s hurting.

You have to look directly into her eyes to see her pain.

Another factor, which again other people could elaborate on with more expertise, is that the abuse I described for Mai is what I called a ‘soft’ kind. She wasn’t physically beaten, so it’s not a kind of abuse that people are used to recognizing. It’s hard for people to see manipulation as a form of abuse, but it certainly can be one. An entire childhood of being told that your opinions are wrong is definitely a form of abuse, but it’s not the kind we usually see in stories, so Mai’s story doesn’t fit the patterns we’re trained to recognize. The result can be audiences simply missing what’s going on with her, or even outright disliking her for the ‘oddness’ of her story.

Which, ironically, is kind of like what Mai’s life was like in-universe. She didn’t fit the pattern that was expected of her, so she was pushed to either conform or become invisible. And when she does finally allow herself to stand out, a portion of the fandom becomes Azula to kill her with lightning.

Which leaves the Mai-fans as a metaphorical Ty Lee.

Which I think makes us all uncomfortable. XD

[itsclydebitches]

I would really love to hear your thoughts on Yang's PTSD arc. I hope you don’t think it was handled well. I forgot their account, but someone pointed out about how Tai's joke and calling Yang's suffering moping was toxic as shit. That’s not even getting into her curing her PTSD by killing Adam. Like the racism, it was offensively handled. FNDM loved it, but only because they used PTSD as way to confirm a ship. It’s disgusting for both parties to see/use PTSD like that, this has caused suicides.

First, I think it’s worth acknowledging that such an arc was doomed from the get-go in terms of pleasing anyone. PTSD is an incredibly complex, varied disorder and thus one depiction seen as realistic to some viewers may come across as absurd to others, depending on their experience, knowledge, etc. Like writing a redemption arc, or a dealing with sexism arc, or a breakup arc, whatever, a PTSD arc encompasses too much of the human experience to boil down into one, “right” depiction. Some people will like it whereas others won’t; some people will think it’s realistically done while others won’t; some people will be able to connect with it on an emotional level and - again - others won’t. So when I criticize aspects know that it’s coming primarily from a place of “This didn’t work for me.” Not a claim that it can’t work for anyone. Different people need different types of stories. 

That being said, I’m only really a fan of the beginning of Yang’s arc. I think RT did a good job there: having her unable to get out of bed, rejecting Ruby (which was HUGE for Yang), not seeming to care that her little sister ran off, eventually managing to get herself dressed but not anything past watching TV, emotionally flinching away from the arm as a way to “fix” the situation, her firm acknowledgement that she has lost a piece of herself and things will never be the same... that was all compelling and, dare I say, realistic. Including, in my opinion, the arm comment from Tai. This is a perfect example of how different people need different things. Me? I’m Yang. At a certain point I want people to joke about the bad stuff in my life because 1. It helps normalize it, 2. It helps lighten the mood after nothing but Bad Times, and 3. I’m an emotionally constipated person who more comfortably receives affection via humor than heartfelt sentimentality. The important takeaway is that just because you would have been offended by Tai’s comment doesn’t mean everyone else would have... and the really important thing is that Yang wasn’t offended. She smiled. She laughed. She joked right back and we never saw that comment haunting her later, implying that the previous stuff was all just an act. That moment told us how well Tai knows his daughter and what she needs at this point in her recovery: to be treated like normal, someone who is teased and pushed and challenged, not a delicate victim who needs to be tip-toed around. This is also a great example of how the fandom will often ignore the canon in an effort to “prove” their headcanon/subjective reading. Because they want Tai to be the bad guy here they’re just going to conveniently ignore Yang’s response to his comment - the response that overtly tells us whether we should be offended on her behalf or not.  

So all that was well done. I’d even go so far as to say it was really well done. The problem is RT didn’t maintain it. Not that a character has to be in this depressive state indefinitely, just that things moved far too quickly after that and (as per RWBY’s usual) had no impact down the road. Meaning yeah, Yang’s hand shakes, but that doesn’t actually affect her performance in any way. She’s still able to spar playfully with Tai. Still able to punch out an asshole at the bar (a moment played mostly for comedy). Still takes out Raven’s goons easy-peasey. Is still willing to fight Raven herself - her long-lost mother - with barely a blink. Still participates in the Battle of Haven with, again, absolutely no difficulty. Indeed, as I’ve mentioned before, Yang removes her arm and goes after two maidens and a third, incredibly powerful fighter. Not only is that stupid for anyone on Team RWBYJNOR to do, it makes even less sense to give that moment to the one fighter who should currently be struggling to fight at all. 

The problem comes down to structure. RT front-loaded all of Yang’s difficulties, had her hit a moment where she’s “cured” (putting on the arm), and from then on any “proof” that she wasn’t cured was superficial. It had no impact on her or the plot. Conveniently, Yang’s two flashbacks - in the kitchen and in the Apathy barn - happen when there’s no danger. She’s safe with Tai and safe with Blake, meaning that her PTSD never has a negative impact on the group that Yang has to work through. She never freezes during a battle. She never struggles with whether she can even enter one. Indeed, when she’s faced with the very person who caused this all in the first place, she blasts through Adam with total confidence and control. After Volume Six I received a few anons/responses claiming that this is, in fact, realistic. That anyone with real (“real”) PTSD will struggle when they’re safe but be perfectly capable of pushing through the actual danger if needed. It’s something Steven Universe did much better in my opinion. Steven starts experiencing his most overt symptoms when his galactic war is over - something the show actively has him question and then explains - but the PTSD still has a massive personal impact on his life. I don’t agree that Yang should have been able to confidently blow through every battle like she did. Even if we all unanimously agree that it’s realistic (which, from what I’ve gathered, we don’t), this isn’t a documentary. It’s a crafted story and stories have expectations attached to them, one of which is that we’ll see the impact/outcome/resolution to problems in a way we often don’t in real life. That’s one of the reasons why they’re satisfying via being “unrealistic.” That aside though, even if RT really didn’t want the PTSD informing the plot in that way (what does the group do if Yang can’t fight at Haven?) they could have at least pulled a Steven Universe and had it change the dynamic of the group on a personal level. As it is, no one in the show acknowledges the strong connection between Yang’s PTSD and her current behavior. She’s always been hot-headed, but lately we’ve seen Yang making even more reckless choices (telling Robyn about Amity) and taking her anger out on others inappropriately (the bird conversation, screaming at Oscar, etc.) At no point does the story go, “Hey, you might be doing this because you’re still grappling with PTSD, but that doesn’t make it okay. We need to address this.” Rather, Yang’s PTSD has been forgotten and her behavior continually excused. To the extent that this volume multiple people told me it was absurd to think that Yang should struggle at all with Adam’s death. That’s the legacy her arc has left: such a shallow treatment of the issue that the ongoing nature of PTSD and killing your first person and having that person be the guy who cut off your arm is a combination of things that Yang is expected to just shrug off with a cocky smile. Because that’s mostly what RT has had her do. 

Again, there are expectations for stories. Another of which is that - in rejecting realism - a character need not (necessarily) be burdened by their mental health in the way someone would be in real life. I 100% get that RT wouldn’t want to write Yang out of the group as a fighter just in the name of telling a “realistic” story. I also 100% get that the audience doesn’t (again, necessarily) want to watch a character struggle with the same issue indefinitely, especially when the story’s in-world time doesn’t match up with real life time. If you decide Yang needs two years to start making significant progress with her PTSD, that’s going to take a whole slew of volumes considering we’ve had four covering just one year (at most). People don’t necessarily want eight years of RWBY content where it feels like Yang is static. So yes, there’s a balance to be struck between “This is what PTSD is actually like” and “This is what a fictional story needs.” On the whole though, I don’t think RT did a particularly good job striking that balance. They started strong, but weren’t able to maintain that quality. 

[dear-yandere]

lots of ilya (oc) q&a below - part 2

tw. heavy and graphic mentions of noncon and murder (typical ilya stuff), mentions of childhood abuse.

[ part 1 ]  [ part 3 ]

question: So, would Illya still like being murdered by his darling if the darling was immortal? Like he can shun the darling, but how would he feel if that darling surprise-attacked him?

answer: betrayed, at least in the first few moments. there’s something particularly romantic, to him at least, about a darling who loves him so dearly they’d go against his wishes and still reward him with the highest form of love he thinks anyone has to offer - death. he’d certainly like being killed by this type of darling, and being the little shit he is, he’d mock them in his last moments; after all, they just killed the only other person that could possibly understand the reality of murderous love.

“is this worth being alone for eternity, darling?”

question 1: How would Ilya feel about a darling that is an assassin for the mafia? Would he view them as more exciting prey since they can fight back? I feel like assassin darling might view his attempts on their life annoying especially if it’s during a hit.

question 2: How would illya feel about an assassin darling? Would he find them interesting because they are capable of fighting back?

answer: ilya would no doubt find this darling intriguing; it’s not everyday he somehow manages to court an assassin, especially one that’s after his head. it’d be a game of cat and mouse, one where he’s likely to lose given that he isn’t a mastermind. he can’t keep his game going for long, not against someone who’s literally trained to kill evil men like him. considering how lax he is about who he courts and kills, ilya no doubt has a bounty over his head among the underworld. one wrong kill and the next thing he knows, the mafioso father of his last lover is hellbent on rearranging his guts. it’s not an easy life, and that makes it all the more fun to toy around with an expert killer while he has the chance.

question: I can't get this outta my head ever since that one ask where ilya would be happy if his darling successfully kill him and I was thinking would he come back as a ghost because yeah he's happy that someone "loves" him but wouldn't he still have this hatred towards the world that makes his soul unable to move on? OR a better one is one of his darlings coming back as a ghost haunting him??? Idk these ideas have been rattling in my head for a while and I'm wondering your perspective on it.

answer: so ilya is actually set in a different world than every other oc i’ve made, so there’s nothing supernatural at play here. but if there was, he’d be annoyed that he’s come back as a ghost after such a wonderful display of love from his darling. what’s done is done and he’d rather just move on.

funny thing is, when i was originally playing around with the concept of ilya, my first thought was a ghost! darling who continually haunts him long after he’s killed them. perhaps they whisper totally unsexy things to him while he’s in the heat of the moment...and of course he can’t do anything about it.

i wonder if they’d drive him mad enough to consult an exorcist or something...

question: what if... ilya’s darling accidentally killed someone though? out of self defense they strike someone down with a bit too much force and end up killing them, what if it’s a coworker that maybe ilya feared his darling might have caught feelings for. would he read it as his darling being in love with the man they killed? would he misread the whole ordeal? what would he do?

answer: as a victim of abuse and assault himself, he understands the important distinction between ‘love’ and defense. in fact, the shattering mentality of a darling who’s just had their first kill would be a welcome change for ilya. will they ask him for help? what will they do -- what sort of fun mental hoops will they jump through? how long will it take them to break? will he even have to intervene, or should he just watch as they slowly fall apart?

even if he feared his darling has caught feelings for someone else, he isn’t all that fussed so long as that darling is smart enough to give him what he wants when he wants it. in the end, they’ll die at the hands of his suffocating love anyways; darling’s wavering affections really make no difference when it comes to their fate.

question: honestly Ilya is such a wonderful character to me because he's the absolute opposite of everything I believe in. Like I think hurting others BC you've been hurt is the most egotistical disgusting thing u can do and hypocrites make my blood boil. I don't even wanna b his partner in crime or his lover but I'd LOVE to just sit down w him and have a nice discussion about our morals lol

answer: this isn’t a question but i’m including it here because i’m lazy but -- i completely agree! even as his creator, i find new paths to explore with him every day; messed up characters like him, especially killers, are so interesting to explore and pick apart their psyche.

a bit off topic, but i think you may find the ted bundy tapes on netflix of particular interest. you get a glimpse into someone that i, more than once, found myself basing ilya off of.

question: How does Ilya decide how long he wants his Darling to stick around before he kills them?

answer: whenever he feels his darling would suffer the most! every darling is different, of course, so it’s really up to his discretion. if his darling is the type to take things slow, he’ll likely kill them the first time they have sex as it’s so fun to betray their trust in such a way; on the other hand, if his darling is more sexually-outgoing, he’ll simply kill them when they least expect it -- perhaps going so far as to assault them without consent, all the while calling them derogatory names and proclaiming they practically begged him for this. his favorite part of murdering his beloveds is catching them off-guard -- it always makes for the best expressions and death screams. if he’s feeling particularly sadistic, he’ll slit their throat right before they cum; there’s always that quick flash of surprise followed by betrayal and finally...realization.

question: out of curiosity, did you make ilya sex-crazed as a side effect of his childhood abuse? kids who were abused tend to act impulsively (ex: drugs, unsafe sex), among many other things. if not, that’s a wild coincidence, but if so, thank you for being attention to the effects of childhood abuse on a person.

answer: that’s exactly it! i was going to explicitly mention this in his character post, but i didn’t want to offend anyone and risk anons telling me that “not all victims react like that”...even though i have firsthand experience with this topic (not childhood abuse, but i don’t intend to go more in-depth). 

anyways, i really wanted to create a character who shows the extreme end of the coping spectrum; rather than becoming quiet and reserved and fearful, there’s still that underlying fear but it manifests as ‘outgoing’ / impulsive behavior, though ilya’s case is obviously particularly extreme. in a way, he became the monster he hated in order to get the ‘sweetest’ form of revenge -- that’s why he knows how much of a hypocrite he is. he knows that better than anyone, but this is the only way he’s found that’s helped him ‘cope’ while also ‘getting back’ at those he hates -- the adults who did nothing to help him and in, some cases, led to his messed up outlook on life. this sentiment eventually extended to a misanthropic hatred of every adult he comes across; having spent his entire life faking himself and being the perfect charming good-boy his parents wanted, wooing anyone he sets his mind to is now fairly easy.

now i’m no expert on serial killers, especially ones with traumatic sexual experiences, but i’ve had yet to see a yandere oc who can relate to assault survivors while also managing to be so hypocritical and abnormal to this extent. in a way, ilya is very very close to my heart and i enjoy the feedback he’s gotten! i think the obsessive love that comes with yanderes ties in nicely with his contradictory character; his love is suffocating, just like the “love” of his teacher and the lack of love from his parents. his story is one of tragedy -- the famous modern-day (still debating if i should set this in the 1800s) Jack the Ripper, an enigma who keeps everyone at a distance because he himself is too terrified to admit the monster he’s become. he’s a character meant to be so outrageous and morally-corrupt and yet so frighteningly human.

enough of my rambling though, i’m glad you caught this and gave me a chance to further explain my thoughts on him! thank you dearly :]

[memoriesofthefuckingbullshit]

I’d like to preface this with a personal note:

I do not want to write these posts. I absolutely hate that there is a need for it and it’s been chewing me up. It’s taken me the better part of a month to round up all the evidence (I had to be sure and double-check my sources) and to put this together, in bits and pieces so as to not overwhelm my own mental health. 

I loved the Underfell Fangame community. I briefly met Mania at ATLANTALE early 2018, before I even knew about the project. I became a patreon supporter because he seemed to genuinely love the community and Undertale and the game he was working on. I joined the Underfell community in March and made a second home there. 

I considered him a friend. Looked up to him as a fellow creator, game developer. A fellow community admin. And I thought it was really cool the way he did the whole community server events Ink vs. Error stuff. I loved the concept and have been passionately involved in it since its start over a year ago. I’m closely involved in the development of the comic series based on these server events, called Memories of the Multiverse War and have spent countless hours dedicated to expanding the world our comic takes place inside the Doodlesphere.

I have since learned much is a horrific farce. And I’m really unhappy about it. 

But if I don’t do or say something before I go I could never live with myself. 

There are so many victims already. And more than a few look up to me like their big sib. 

There are good ways to make the audience cry.

This is not one of them.

It hurts me knowing the other Event Masters put their heart and soul into creating fun content, intended for people to enjoy, while Mania twists their work into ways to torment people, and even drags them to emulate his behavior. How much more will get swept under the rug, if I don’t speak up? 

It boils down to: 

Mania knowingly emotionally abuses server members, most of whom are children between the ages of 13-19. 

He shows no remorse for it. 

Our Mental Health is a Joke to Him Part 1*  (xFrisk debacle; please take trigger warnings seriously) 

Our Mental Health is a Joke to Him Part 2  (Fallout from the xFrisk debacle)

Ink Was Never Going to Die  (He just liked fucking with us)

No, He Really Hasn’t Changed, And Won’t Be Anytime Soon*  (xPapyrus introduction, and all this matters)

*If this much reading overwhelms you, prioritize this post and starred pages above.

Important:

Event Masters are not the ones at fault here. They’re just doing as they’re told to play out the story Mania calls for, and probably do not even realize the impact their actions have on people since they’re told it’s all just for pretend. When they are aware, they’re under threat by Mania to keep quiet.

Abuse through role play is particularly insidious. Yes, the server events are a form of role play, by definition. Pretending to be a character, or otherwise assuming the role of as a way to interact with others is fundamentally role play. 

In terms of power balance, the server events are more like a D&D campaign than traditional online roleplay. We even have “Event Masters” to parallel the “Dungeon Master” who has nigh god-like power over what happens in the dice-based roleplaying game. 

There are dozens of articles about proper DM etiquette, and how to tell a uniquely engaging story to invoke high emotions in effective ways:

There's no shame in manipulating your players' emotions, because that's part of your job as a storyteller. But, like anything else, it requires a deft hand. Be mindful of how your players react, and be careful not to go too far. If anyone at the table starts to feel uncomfortable about the situation you're presenting, it can quickly start to take people out of the game. Be mindful of your players' limits, and give them the option of saying when something isn't going over well with them. But once you start to get the hang of it, you can turn a night of goofy dice-rolling over drinks into a tense situation, or provide a moving, emotionally honest moment for your characters.

In short: It was mere storytelling until the moment the characters reacted to and responded to the players. At that point, it is role playing and the concept of consent comes into play, because real people with real feelings are part of the story, which, curiously, is canonically enforced: 

And it’s it’s our fault for taking hurtful things that characters say and do personally?

Jerking player emotions around for laughs isn’t just an asshole thing to do; it’s straight up bad storytelling. 

There is no excuse for choosing abuse.

End of story.

I am hesitant to come forward with this, as I do not have evidence compiled other than the threat itself, and considering the nature of the issue there are privacy concerns regarding the victims. He has a tendency to target 17-19 year old girls, as a 28-year old. This was sent to me while playing minecraft while in server voice chat on June 16th, 2019. 

I’m including it because this is a perfect example of how he’ll backtrack and play upsetting things off like a joke. The threat has since been deleted so I’m glad I grabbed a screenshot while it existed. He has a habit of deleting things that could be used as evidence. 

hahahahahahaa no sir you do not get to drop a threat like that on someone and then play it off like a joke, particularly when “if you didn’t hear it doesn’t matter” 

It does matter. 

They matter.

All those kids are important. They matter and so do their feelings and all the grief they’ve experienced at your hands. The event may be more like a D&D campaign setting, in terms of balance of power, but this article does a great job breaking down the cycle of online roleplay abuse. 

Here’s an excerpt:  

Some people roleplay to heal their wounds, others play for fun or to escape. Any way you cut it, a good chunk of roleplayers have personal investment in their roleplay.

The human brain is a curious silly fickle sort of thing, a person who is capable of empathizing can empathize with anything that has human traits, be it a brave little toaster, a cartoon dog, a character in a book,crying at a movie, or screaming at the little man on playing sports ball on the television. People feel empathic sadness from witnessing sadness of others,people can feel empathic excitement by watching sports, in some cases to the point of violent outbreaks after their favorite sportsball team wins the big game.

Human beings are capable of immersing ourselves in the situation of others, and we are capable of feeling a wide variety of emotions as we endure the human experience of whatever we immerse ourselves in. This experience of emotional stimulation is not just a flaw in emotions or an inability to tell in character from out of character. Feeling this way does not make someone insane, weak, or flawed.

It is, in fact, a physiological chemical reaction in the human body. It’s chemistry, it’s oxytocin, it’s cortisol, it’s adrenaline, it’s dopamine, it’s serotonin, it’s estrogen, it’s testosterone, and who knows what else. When things happen in online roleplay we really feel it. (This is why consent is so important.)

In both roleplay and interpersonal interactions in online communities, and the feelings we feel when engaged in these things are real,are chemical, and they are not in our head.

Online community narcissists engage in their own flavor potentially insidious psychological abuse and manipulation, and it can cause real life distress, depression, anxiety, all in a situation where people are trying to escape, to relax, to have fun, and to heal wounds.

More importantly, this serves to validate the feelings of that the narcissist’s victims, be it ex-roleplay partner or a storyteller silenced.

You are not overreacting to a video game. Your pain is valid. The people you are interacting with on the other side of the screen are real; you are having real interpersonal interaction. The emotions you are experiencing are real chemical reactions in your body not a personal flaw. You are not crazy or stupid.

It is okay to cry about stupid online drama. It is okay to talk to your therapist if you have one. Know that even if you feel isolated and alone, even if you think everyone hates you. The truth is that outside of the narcissist’s circle, there is going to be people who do not even know of you let alone hate you, who do not care or believe the bullshit the narcissist tried to feed them.

—Credit to @zanpyr​. Thank you for this wonderful article.

Now. All of you, on the server, who’ve been subjected to all this fucking bullshit over the months or years you’ve been in the community: It’s not your fault. Your feelings and heartache are valid. You matter, and you deserve better than how we’re made to feel through this series of fucking bullshit. You’re not weak for caring about these characters; caring about characters is WHY we loved Undertale so much. You’re not stupid for getting hurt by someone you trusted and considered a friend. You can get through this and you’re gonna grow up and do great, okay? 

And any other adults who’ve been emotionally manipulated too: It’s not your fault. You’re no more at fault than the kids for falling for his tricks because guess what: you’re human and you have empathy. Those aren’t bad things. 

I know from personal experience that online interactions can be clinically traumatic, as in, diagnosable trauma response symptoms that should be taken seriously. I’ve already been talking people through their thoughts and feelings about this stuff and I recommend you do the same. Sorting out all the self-blame from guilt-tripping is important and if you have signs of trauma related to this event, please please please seek treatment even if it seems silly to be that affected by “a fucking discord event.” Gaslighting from any source messes with your perception of reality and doubting your ability to perceive the world can have lasting effects that topple like a domino effect. 

Once you’ve developed trauma response symptoms, you become more vulnerable to developing further symptoms by more common disturbing events. Don’t do like I did and let it go untreated for over a decade of accumulating traumas and Traumas. Many of you are already suffering with depression, anxiety, and existing trauma. The sooner you seek treatment the better. 

Outside Sources:

Quoted/Linked in Article: 

How To Manipulate Your Players (Into Having Emotions)

Wikipedia  - Gaslighting 

Abuse Through Online Roleplay 

Adventures In Random Roleplay: Safety/Consent Tools in Gaming

Additional Reading:

Lovebombing, Gaslighting, Benching, and Ghosting

Three of the Easiest Ways to Manipulate Someone

Gaslighting Definition, Techniques, and Signs of Being Gaslighted

Emotional Abuse in Non-Romantic Relationships

Signs an Abuser is Twisting Your Reality

Trauma: Big “T” and little “t”

20 Tips For Becoming A Better DM: Lessons Learned At The Table

One final addendum: 

As vindictive as I may feel after slogging through so many horrific conversations, I absolutely do not condone any attempts to actively harass him. Hold him accountable for his actions but do not send him hatemail, threats, or any other shit like that. He’s a fucked up human being but he’s still a human being and this whole effort has been to call attention to how much online interactions affect our mental mental health. Don’t do that shit to anyone, even if you think they deserve it. And don’t be a flying monkey, please.

Okay, that’s it. 

Stay safe everyone. 

[likesomekindofcheese]

I Put A Spell On You- Roger Taylor x fem! OC

A/N: Hello @benders-diamond-earring​ ! It is I!!! Your Secret Santa revealed!!!

This is my HalloQueen gift (plus a smol moodoboard!) for @dtfrogertaylor​ Halloween celebration. It is a gift for @benders-diamond-earring​ AKA Cora! In her honor, I’ve made Cora my muse and namesake for the OC. Read and enjoy Cora (and everyone!)

Words: 3245

Some angst and lots of fluff!

Context: Cora is in love with her friend Roger, but he’s constantly flirting with other girls and totes not interested or is he??????? So Cora enlists some...supernatural help.

London, 1976

“I’m a freelance, love, I don’t do cheap. But there’s a two-for-one sale with potions so pick what you want.” The witch explained over her counter.

Cora scowled a little at the prices, then shrugged. Witch shops of high quality took effort to find, even in a big city.  

It was a medieval building with a low ceiling and grey stone walls held up by wooden beams. Books and potion bottled filled up the bookshelves. A black cat hopped up to the small table full of cauldrons and bowls of snake skins. It eyed her carefully, still as a statue. Several larger cauldrons bubbled in each corner as if someone was boiling water for four pots of tea.

Mentally blocking the price tags of the potion jars, she studied the labels of each potion bottle she saw. If she was going to go through with this, she had to find the perfect one.

What other choice did she have at this point?

Just the other night at that bar she noticed how Roger was flirting with what seemed any gorgeous woman clicking by in heels and swinging purses by their side. Not that he didn’t have a knack for it. But it felt different that night.  

They laughed intensely. They batted their eyes and hooked onto him like koala cubs. It was just a simple band gathering. Cora could have talked to one of the other members or do some flirting of her own. But envy shut her throat tight. She clutched onto her glass, gulping it down and ordering another. Just wanting to forget.

Only she hadn’t forgotten at all.

If she didn’t act, at least one girl would stay for longer than just one drink. That girl had to be her. No matter what means.

“Are your potions…effective?” Cora asked. Peering into a cauldron of green stuff, she almost heard a voice singing from it.

A bit of Cora’s ashy blonde hair got a little too close to some purple liquid bubbling on a shelf under a little heater and the witch bolted from her counter to brush the strand out of the way.

“It’s magic, love, of course it’s effective. Everything you read on there will happen. But be cautious, it will happen!” the witch boasted. She gestured with long, pale hands with soft, clean nails.

Cora squinted at the witch as she walked back to the counter. She had black hair cut into a pageboy bob and brown eyes. She was older than Cora, but not too much older from the light in her eyes and lightness of her steps. If the flowy, black, maxi dress she was wearing was a different color, one would mistake her for a hippy.

None of the potions on the counters were exactly what Cora needed. She let out a little huff and drove straight to it.

“Where are the love potions?” she asked, her eyes directly into the witches.

“I thought so! That’s what at least a hundred girls come in for!” the witch giggled. She pulled open a squeaking door from behind her counter.

“Well, now it’s a hundred and one,” Cora replied.

She rolled her ball into fists and curled her toe impatiently. She just wanted to be in and out as soon as possible. Especially if someone noticed.

The witch turned under the counter and brought out a small pink jar. One might think strawberry flavored tea was inside it.

“If you whisper the name into the jar and press it to your heart and then have the person take a sip of it, they will kiss the ground you walk on. I hear it tastes like lemonade. More than you can say for some of the others.” she explained with a wink.

“That’s perfect! I’ll have that” Cora answered. She grabbed the jar and cradled it on the crook of her arm.

The witch looked around at the other jars along with her shop lining up on bookshelves.

“Alright, want to pick another one?” she offered with a winning smile. “Buy one, get one, you know.”

Hesitantly, Cora looked at each one. There was another jar that was in a rather large bottle with a long neck and glowed like honey. Its liquid was the color of honey, too, and ran like water when she swirled it around. It had one mere word in cursive, purple ink on its label.

“Confidence” Cora read softly.

She dropped the love potion on the counter and moved the confidence potion next to it.

“I’ll take that one too, please!” Cora insisted.

“I hope you like the smell of cinnamon, it’ll waft up the place” the witch added with a small nod.

She began to add up the price and tax on feather pen on a sheet of crinkly paper.

“I must warn you. My love spells are powerful but…they are just a spell, at the end of the day. Not a real feeling. It’s like you’re giving your victim lines to read and play, but it’s just the spell talking.” She warned grimly as she handed over the sheet with the price.”

“Thanks for your concern, but I’ve made my decision,” Cora answered, looking into the witch’s eyes.

“Fifty pounds, then.”

 Cora shuffled through to her little flat. It was small, with yellow walls and a red, raggedy carpet. She saw her flatmates gathered around the television engrossed in a comedy with its garish colors and ghostly laughter. She prayed they would be too hypnotized to crave a snack.

She tiptoed over to the kitchen and dropped her heavy brown paper bag on the counter facing as far away from the hubbub as possible. Immediately she lifted the pink jar and set it down with a clump.  

Cora unscrewed the top quietly, clutching it in her free hand. She bent down, inhaled it’s maple tinted perfume and whispered the softest, tenderest, most desperate whisper of a name into the jar. She quickly reattached the lid as if she had opened a firing canon. She hugged it tightly to her racing heart for almost a minute,

What was she even doing? Was this a mistake?

Well, too late to go back now. I’ve started this and I’ll finish it!

She almost wanted to kiss the top for luck. Shaking her head from such an adolescent idea, she pushed the potion aside and crept to the black telephone on the wall. She made some calls to her intended victim and his friends. It would be on the Friday before Halloween and she wanted to have a little get-together for the holiday. Her flatmates would be out of town or out. Of course, drinking would welcome.

She put the love potion on the fridge and pushed the confidence potion to the corner of the counter to hide it among the other jam jars and beer bottles.

Deaky arrived first, as usual, with Freddie and Brian rushing after. Cora stuffed her gripping fists into her pocket to pull off an air of a relaxed hostess. Until there were five unmistakable knocks on the door and she nearly leaped into the ceiling.

Roger arrived last, dressed in his denim blue jacket and his blonde hair a little windswept.

“Cora, love! How are you! Not too late, am I? The tube took it’s bloody time!” he greeted with a small hug.

Cora laughed a little and shook her head once he started to release.

“Oh no, we just started- make yourself at home!” she said.

She could still feel his arms around her still pressed lightly on her arm like that of a ghost once he let go.

Roger strutted over to the couch and plopped himself down on the couch next to Freddie. The two began talking about some ridiculous fashion choices the neighbor had made and were cackling.

With a friend like Cora, the band always felt like it was a tiny haven. No press. No managers. No pressure to top. Only relaxation and each other.

“God, I’m starving! Can I help myself?” he asked Cora. She nodded her yellow head.

Brian wandered to the kitchen, filled with pumpkin-shaped sugar cookies on platters. He smiled- not the usual “Skull” meatballs on platters like the typical Halloween party he had been invited to. He helped himself to one and opened the fridge for drinks.

Of course, the good stuff was on the very bottom. Near his calves.

“All the beers are at my feet! I swear, Cora, you’re a pixie!” he complained, crouching down.

“My flat, my rules!” Cora retorted from the corner of the kitchen. She kept one eye on the top of the fridge, just in case.  

Brian closed his eyes, shot up his eyebrows in admittance of defeat, and nodded his head. He did not see the pink jar or if he did he wasn’t interested. He got the chilled wine and set it on the table, near the other cookies, caramel apples, and orange buckets of popcorn.

The television buzzed with noise as Deaky fiddled with the knobs, flipping through channels. The knobs were so small his mammoth-sized hands almost crushed them.

“There has to be some Halloween program somewhere” he muttered.

Roger meanwhile stretched out his legs and looked up at the decorations of orange streamers hanging from the ceiling. His sapphire eyes turned to the beige walls where black cats curled over pumpkins with triangle eyes and toothy grins. The small balcony of the place had glass windows looking out to London amid another dark, autumnal evening. White paper ghosts with pointy hands and small, delicate facial features roamed over the glass, held on by tape. Far too detailed to be any of the dime-a-dozen plastic cats and witches at shops.

“Those are gorgeous!” Roger praised, his head turning to Cora.

Cora sucked in a bit of breath and wiped her sweaty hands.

“D’you make these?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I did, she asked me to” Freddie burst in.

He had already grabbed a bottle of the cheap champagne from the kitchen that had been out for him and a black ceramic cat with a witch’s hat. He set the bottle down on the coffee table and waltzed back to the kitchen for five glasses, the ceramic cat still under his arm.

Cora’s eyes darted back to the fridge. They had to stop doing this if her blood pressure would last the night. The pink jar was still untouched.

“Don’t you know my designs by now, Rog?” he said. He stroked the cats back as if it was real fur.

“Shut up!” Rog teased with a little pout.

Cora snuck a look and bit of a smile.

“Or shut in!” she added, throwing an in-joke.

Roger looked at her with gleaming eyes. Since she learned about the infamous cupboard incident, she labeled him a shut-in. He hated it at first, but it grew on him secretly. Now he allowed relentless teasings from Cora.

“You shut in!” he added. The others just stared blankly until it stopped.

Deaky kept turning until he found a channel showing the original Dracula film right as it was starting. Freddie practically hopped in his seat and begged him to let them watch it and Deaky relented, laying on the floor and watching.

The black and white movie continued and the three began their commentary over it. Brian was discussing how the crew pulled off the effects, and how the script compared with the book. Freddie was cooing over the capes and how amazing Bella Lugosi was. Roger was busy telling the victims in the box that they were obviously with a vampire and should flee instead of conversing with him “like dumb gits!”. Deaky quietly watched, mesmerized. Cora was secretly wishing it was something a little more current. And scarier.

“Is there any whiskey to drink? I want something strong” he asked Cora.  

“Let me make you some whiskey with lemonade!” Cora insisted. Her pulse was starting to pick up as she eyed the potion on top of her fridge and smiled as it still seemed invisible to everyone else.

“A bit too sweet for my taste, but it’ll do!” Roger said, giving her a smile that could have melted a glacier.

She shot up and walked to the kitchen. As Cora pulled out her stool stood on the top and reached for the jar her mind was half blank. It was when she got the glass from her cabinet that shivers hit her stomach.

This was it. One drink, one small drink, and all her fantasies would come alive. Roger would be at her heels. Glamourous dates, erotic midnights, and the warmth of his hands on her would all come true. He just had to take a sip.

She swallowed her fear and unscrewed the lid, ready to tip it over.

But she couldn’t pour it in.

One pour, one pour, a sip, and he’ll be all mine…and I’ll have a reason not to worry at night or cry…or feel angry inside when some girl or groupie hangs around him…

She tried again, but couldn’t pour it in. The witch’s words came again, clearly to her brain.

“I must warn you. My love spells are powerful but…they are just a spell, at the end of the day. Not a real feeling. It’s like you’re giving your victim lines to read and play, but it’s just the spell talking.”

She thought of him after the drink. Eyes glazed. Words that while romantic were severely robotic. She could practically feel his hands. But they weren’t warm. They were cold and tense as a stone.

She sighed and re-capped the bottle. She shoved the love potion to the back of the fridge with the leftovers.

“Flatmates drank it all, so how about Southern Comfort- I’ve smuggled it from them” she suggested. A plastic smile smudged her face and hurt her cheeks.

“Not a problem at all! I need to walk anyways” Roger answered, he hopped out of his seat to grab it himself.

Cora stopped him with her hand and retrieved a glass of Southern Comfort from inside the fridge’s back corner, pouring out two small glasses.

She watched the movie with them covering the commentary with sarcastic remarks and other light conversations while sipping drinks and eating. Close to the end of the film, she noticed Roger get up from his seat and walk over to the kitchen.

“I need another shot of that stuff…” he mumbled.

His shoes trotted over the kitchen floor and stopped right at the counter where the bottles stood.

“What’s it doing in the corner? Untouched? Whatever!” he commented, opening the bottle with a pop.

Cora’s memory jolted.

The confidence potion was still out.

And it looked exactly like the Southern Comfort bottle-glass, and all.

Cora got up and ran, but it was too late.

“Aw! Is it a new bottle for me, Cora? Hiding a gift, eh? Thank you!” Roger said as he swigged from the bottle in a millisecond before he could be stopped.

His face changed from pale to red to purple. Then he charged up at Fred, tackling him with open fists.

“MY SONG IS STRONG ENOUGH YOU BASTARD!!! FIGHT ME!!” he screamed.

Freddie’s boxing origins kicked in and he dodged each punch gracefully, preparing his fists for a jab-cross-hook at Roger’s chiseled jaw.

Brian and Roger at once fled over and began to protect Freddie and push Roger away. Cora pulled Roger back by the shoulders.

“Roger…Roger of course it is! You need some air, let’s go outside!” Cora demanded, practically dragging him there.

They went out to the balcony. Cars could barely be heard skimming the streets. More stars stretched over the sky, not threatened by the cities blaring, yellow lights.

“Roger, calm down!” she ordered.

Roger blinked at her for a moment.

“Cora, I’m calm…I’ve never felt this calm in ages!” he insisted. He began to lick his lips a little.

Cora cursed herself for immediately feeling woozy. Maybe it was the whiskey. She folded her arms and continued her reasoning.

“Roger, you love Fred more than anything and you know it! And the song’s already on the B-side…everything’s worked out” she insisted.

“Not everything” Roger answered. He sat down on the green, steel chair placed outside, cold with nothing but the constant chill around it.

“What do you mean?” Cora asked. She placed her hands on her hips to look even taller than him now.

 “You have everything you could ever want right now! Two years ago, you could barely afford beans and now you’re getting to be a rock star with hit songs, money, and girls at your feet.”

“Well, I don’t want those girls. They don’t matter if they aren’t you” Roger confessed, the cinnamon scent of the potion still wafting from his breath.

Cora felt as if she was dropped from the sky and plummeted to earth. She got dizzy and almost felt like she would teeter off the building but caught herself on the railing of the balcony.

“You’re joking!” she said.

“No, I’m not!”

“Did you have any of that pink stuff I had?”

“What pink stuff?” Roger asked.

He looked down, took a deep breath, and then took her hands. Cora felt them sweat slightly. He pulled her a little closer, so despite how short she was, she stood over his sitting frame. Roger looked up, his face soft with reverence and his eyes getting wide and his smile gentle.

“It’s that I just…I’m normally so nervous around you. I feel my heart picking up and I start sweating” he said quietly.

“What about those girls?”

“I used to devour them but lately… I like to use them as a warmup so I could be ready to ask you out sometime but…none of them were anything like you. They want my talent or that I’m a drummer in a band or something…they didn’t care about me…like you do” he said.

Winds picking up, the clouds above in the night sky moved further away. More stars dotted the sky like freckles on a face.

“But now, I feel…at peace. And I fancy you. And I’m not afraid anymore to say I fancy you...and…”

He bit his lower lip and Cora felt her body get hot.

“I always had a soft spot for blonde girls.” He added cheekily. Cora had to look down at the floor for a second to regain herself another time.

“There, I said it.” Roger finished, he tossed him arms and slumped back in the chair for a release.

She smiled coquettishly and went up to embrace him. He almost jumped from surprise. How could someone so strong, so radiantly beautiful, so brave, so confident, and awe-inspiring like obnoxious old him?

She sat on his lap from the hug and touched his face with both hands. Both of their eyes seemed to get a little misty.

“I fancy you too.” She answered. “I’ve fancied you for a while.”

“Do you…d’you wanna go out with me? Like, not as friends, but you know…”

“I will if you kiss me first!” Cora teased, biting her lip.

His lips were tender, and his breath had the sting of the southern comfort still on it, but it was a passionate kiss. One only witnessed by the stars in the sky.

That and three curious bandmates quietly staring through the glass. Brian cursed and slipped Deaky five pounds.

“Told you they’d be together” Deaky hissed.

[interestsofabookwormbitch]

Bakugo and Endeavor Are Not the Same.

Look, I know this isn't gonna get a lot of traction because I don't have a lot of bnha followers, but I still feel the need to elaborate on my feelings. Also warning: long post. I also made it on mobile so I can't do the read more thing. You'll just have to scroll really fast if you don't want to see it. Sorry.

I've seen many people on Tumblr still hate Endeavor, and don't want to forgive him, which is fair. I personally love where the story is going with him and his family, and how everyone has a different stance on how they feel. It's cool, and they've even established how forgiveness is not necessary, so that's good. But again, if you don't like it, or you do like it, but won't ever consider thinking anything nice of Endeavor, I 100% understand and support that. It's your life and your opinion. Hell, I'm not even sure if I'll forgive him, I just like the story.

Anyways, the issue I wanted to address were some comments I've seen on people hating Endeavor. Basically they say that if you forgive and like Bakugo now you HAVE to forgive Endeavor. This is what I want to talk about, because no you don't.

First of all, and the most glaring reason of all, if the age difference. Bakugo was an asshole 14 year old bully, whereas Endeavor was a wholeass adult. That right there makes their situations leagues different. You can't even convict kids of murder at that age (usually). (I'm not saying Bakugo would murder anyone. Despite his frequent use of the word he wouldn't. I was just giving an extreme example). That's because it is widely understood that kids at that age are not fully developed. They oftentimes don't understand the gravity of their actions, and are extremely selfish beings. I'm only 18 now, but I'm a completely different person from when I was 14. I may not have been a bully, like Bakugo, but I was kind of a bitch.

Yes Bakugo was a horrible 14 year old. Yes he was a bully. Yes he made Midoriya's life hell. And yes he did tell Midoriya to kill himself. All of these are horrible, detestable things. We can agree on that. But the thing is, Bakugo never for a second actually thought Deku would do it. Never. He barely understood that bullying was wrong. As far as he was concerned that was how life was supposed to work. The strong conquer the weak (makes me wonder how his home life is. Like is Mitsuki abusive or not? Idk, but that's a whole other can of worms we're not getting into).

Bakugo's an aggressive asshole who hasn't fully developed as a person. He's still got plenty of time to grow and change. He has made leaps and bounds in the right direction, and is starting to become a better person. Yes he still has plenty of room to grow, but he's doing much better, and I, for the most part, forgive him. He will be a good hero and person one day, despite his initial rocky start, and I can't wait to see that. Really the only thing in Bakugo's storyline that I still want, and am not certain I'll get, is an apology. Just one Bakugo apology to Midoriya and it'll be perfect (Although that would come at the end of the series almost certainly).

On the flip side of things is Endeavor. Endeavor who was an adult and at least 23 years old since he had his first child (off topic. This makes me believe the twin theory more. Now I may have to make a separate post on that). Well admittedly he is still not fully developed mentally, he is way way closer, and can definitely understand that what he was doing was wrong. On top of that when he had Shoto he was 31, so 35 when he started training him. By that point he is fully developed and still doing that shit. Anyways, Endeavor knew full well what he was doing during this time. He understood the gravity of his actions and he still chose to continue. Unlike Bakugo who, as a child, was almost certainly not thinking his actions through, Endeavor had time to plan and carefully construct this life.

That is where they differ really. For Bakugo everything was a heat of the moment passion and hate fueled rage, mixed with a lot of childhood selfishness on top of his already selfish nature and a definite dose of just lack of awareness of the gravity of shit, which we can attribute to his age.

Endeavor on the other hand took his critical thinking skills he's gained over the years, and instead of looking at himself and thinking maybe being number one wasn't the most important thing, went and created this whole vile plan to beat out All Might in the long run. He forced a woman into marriage (how much did she agree to their marriage? Because where she is now it would be no I believe, but also like, if you really think of the implications of her being unwilling to marry him, that also means he'd have raped her. Likely not in the usual forceful screaming way the media portrays, but still.... When I think of that I get a really gross feeling) and abused each and every one of his children. Never once over the 23 years he's been with them did he stop to think about what he was doing and how that was wrong. Never once did he take the time to look at his actions.

As a child, like Bakugo, that is somewhat excusable. The actions that followed it may not be, but the act of not looking critically at yourself is not inherently wrong in childhood, as I don't think that children really have the skill to do so. And yes, even 14 year olds, because, despite how much they want to claim otherwise, they are in the height of "the world revolves around me and nothing else matters" stage, which makes them blind to their own faults.

When you're an adult, however, the whole situation is completely different. You now definitely have the skills and tools required to take a look at yourself and realize what you're doing is wrong. The reason Endeavor didn't is because who chose not to. He chose to ignore his faults and force his wife and kids to bend under his rule. He didn't stop and think about his actions after the likely countless times he's left his kids broken and crying. He didn't stop to think after Rei poured the boiling water on Shoto's face, even after Shoto called him out. He didn't stop to think after he became estranged from Natsou. And he didn't stop to think after his first born child died! 

No, Endeavor did these horrible things, and never once stopped to look at them. When shit happened he blamed other people and other things. He never once considered he could be at fault. Even Bakugo, at the age of 15 has begun to realize that his issues lie in himself and not others. Another area where they differ greatly, because it took Endeavor getting everything he ever wanted in the worst way possible for him to see that. It took Bakugo being beaten down to learn this. Bakugo was able to, eventually, admit his losses as his own, and realize he needed to change. Endeavor was blinded by his own refusal to see his losses as his own, and thus was unwilling to change.

It also stands to note that Bakugo is still only a child, and could better admit his faults, even if only to himself, than a 45 (now 46) year old man.

Now, I should note that Endeavor has finally figured out he has been a complete and utter piece of trash his whole life, and is genuinely trying to better himself. I ripped a lot on him, but I do appreciate that, but there is the problem of "Too little too late" which Natsu definitely has taken as his stance.

This is a kind of iffy point, but basically what I'm gonna say is Bakugo had one target/victim (that we know of). Obviously that was Deku. The thing is, Bakugo has turned over a new leaf and started working on bettering himself at a time where he can maximize his potential atonement to Deku. By this I mean, Deku has started working through his deep seated issues already, and is growing in confidence, Bakugo and him have made up in such a way that Bakugo can even help him with that. It was not Bakugo's intention when deciding to change, but it is what is happening. At the point where the manga is now Bakugo respects and treats Midoriya like worthy adversary (despite what he would say) and actually is willing to give Midoriya advice. He is starting to help Deku grow into his own and better himself (in his abrasive Bakugo way that is). That is a huge step in the direction of atonement. It doesn't excuse what he did, but it does go some way in making up for it.

Most of Endeavor's victims, however, have grown on their own, and he has no way of contributing to fixing what he broke, which makes it harder to forgive him. It's like if I went over to someone's house and destroyed their stuff, denied doing so, only to come back a few years later and try and fix it. Like no. They don't need my help. (In this example Bakugo would be snide person who begrudgingly admits what he did helps a little after you and your friends have already started the process. Not the best, but at least he's helping now).

Anyways, Touya is either dead or Dabi, but either way Endeavor is not gonna be able to help him (for obvious reasons). Fuyumi is leading a happy and healthy life now, no thanks to Endeavor, and nothing he could do will really make it any better. Nastu is also pretty happy now to, again now thanks to Endeavor, and his only issues lie with seeing his father, not something I see him really thinking as an issue (And they're really not). So no fixing there. Rei is almost completely better now according to the doctors, and Endeavor has never seen her in all that time. It's true he sent her flowers, but those really didn't make a difference in her progress (I believe Shoto visiting might have though. But that's neither here nor there in this post). Really the only one he can try and help to grow and move past his abuse of is Shoto, but idk, it seems unlikely. For one Shoto has already begun the healing process because of Deku, and for two, I don't think the issues Shoto have now are something Endeavor himself can fix.

So there's also that to, as weak as that point may be.

Overall though they really are in entirely different situations. Sure the manga likes to compare them, but they barely use the actual abuse storyline as a point of comparison, just the drive to be number one, and the failure to do so. There's too many differences to really compare those parts of their individual storylines and use one to justify the other. And anyone trying to force people to forgive Endeavor just because they forgave Bakugo should really stop and think about why there situations are different. It's more than just the age thing that everyone talks about, but even if it wasn't, that alone is enough to completely change just how wrong the situations were.

And I'm not saying you can't forgive Endeavor either. Go ahead and do just that, I'm not judging, just don't go trying to force other people to do so. And I'm also not saying you have to forgive Bakugo. He was a prick, and I understand why some people wouldn't. I'm just illuminating why these two situations are so completely different from each other.

(Wow. I just wrote two thousand words on this. Yet I still struggle to write thousand word essays. Fuck man)

Sorry again for the long post

[ellynneversweet]

Ok, so I’ve finished Normal People and I have ... thoughts. Mostly about whether it succeeds or fails as a text, and what the relative metrics are by which success should be judged (it’s succeeded in getting me to think about it, for sure). This got long and a bit ranty, and does discuss the mental illness aspects of the book, so I’ve put it below the cut. Spoilers etc.

I haven’t watched the show or read any of Sally Rooney’s other books (book?) or reviews yet, because I wanted to get down what I took away from the book by itself, rather than what other people thought about it. I did see the headline of like, one review that seemed to think it was all about capitalism, which struck me as a significant stretch as a primary theme, but hey. My take was that it was primarily concerned with (many and various) degrees of mental illness and unwellness experienced by various characters, the causes and effects thereof, etc etc, and it’s really because of that that I don’t know whether or not I actually liked the book.

Ultimately I think my ambivalence comes comes down to how the narration is structured, and the way Rooney doesn’t at any point step in explicitly prompt the audience in one direction or another.

So what took me a hot minute to realise was that the book’s written in a very close third person narration, alternating between Connell and Marianne’s perspectives.The thing is, however, that this close third person isn’t immediately obvious, because Rooney subverts the whole ‘show don’t tell’ advice. There’s a lot of phrasing given as ‘she felt good’ ‘he felt anxious’ ‘then they had sex’ etc.  The most personal aspects of the plot are constantly elided with this flat, clinical, definitive language that sounds almost like a witness statement in a criminal case. That’s especially the case with Marianne, who disassociates a lot, and slightly less so with Connell, who’s anxious, but the flat description is pretty present throughout. There are moments when the narrative dips into describing sensation, but that seems to occur only with regards to things that are irrelevant and impersonal, like drinking a glass of (insert carbonated beverage here), or feeling the breeze from an air conditioner. The book is all about this very intimate, arguably co-dependant and unhealthy relationship between these two intermittently sexually involved characters, so the aforementioned flatness struck me as an odd choice initially.

However. There’s two things that this does. The first, and IMO more significant, is that is creates an illusion of the narrative voice as omniscient and impartial, rather than biased and unreliable as it actually is. The seeming authority of the definitive statements in the narrative is emphasised by the stock filler phrases that the each of the dual protagonists uses in direct dialogue, and which inevitably mean the opposite of what’s actually said — in the case of Marianne we get ‘okay’ (I disagree but I want this conversation to end) and ‘I don’t know’ (i believe this to be profoundly true but it makes me unhappy), and in the case of Connell we get ‘obviously’ (I’m not sure at all, what do you think?). So the upshot of this is that especially in the earlier parts of the novel the audience is led into thinking the description of a particular plot point is what objectively happened, rather than the biased viewpoint of one of two people who keep talking past each other (I’m thinking particularly of the part in which Connell moves home because he can’t make rent, and each of them was waiting for the other to propose his moving into her flat instead).

So it is really interesting on that level of language structure. I do feel that the section headings (‘two weeks later,’ ‘six months later,’ ‘five minutes later’) were a bit of a red herring — especially towards the climax of the book, when things became violent, I was frankly expecting it to take a schlocky turn towards one or both of the main characters being maimed or killed in a domestic violence and/or drunk driving accident, à la Jodi Piccoult.

It didn’t, which was a relief, but I didn’t subsequently find the ending satisfying, and I think that’s because the way that it ended — a breakup that’s not really a breakup, just a breather — felt like something that had occurred at least three or four times already in the text. It’s always tricky to write a satisfying ending when all the main characters are alive and young and (presumably) going to continue their lives. Why stop the narrative here, rather than there? I think for that sort of ending to work, a story does need to feel like it’s shifting into a different stage of the characters’ lives, one that can be inferred, however dimly, but is distinct enough from the part described in the text to form a natural break. This didn’t feel like a break from what had gone before. It felt like a groove in an emotional cycle that had already been repeated, that had been shown as being repeated, that gave every sign of being repeated again and again, forever and ever amen.

This leads into the part where I talk about what I didn’t like, fyi, and fair warning, mostly what I didn’t like was the characterisation of Marianne. Sorry if she’s your fave.

So Marianne gets the last word of the narrative, in which she thinks about how ‘they’ve [Marianne and Connell] been so good for each other’. And i would argue two things, which is that 1) unreliable narrator or not, this being the last part of the text gives weight to this being read as a true statement 2) this is, uh, pretty clearly not the case. Marianne’s still fundamentally the same, teetering on the edge of self-destruction, and Connell is still anxious (and being made more so by Marianne’s reaction to his small successes).

Now, neither character is perfect. They’re also not bad people -- but they are struggling people who use maladaptive coping strategies and don’t ever really appear to move past those.

At first glance, on a scale of quantifying unhappiness, Marianne gets the raw end of the stick. She’s a character who’s sympathetic and pitiable, because she starts out as the smart, bullied kid who turns out to have an abusive home life and who is brutally dumped by her first boyfriend. So far, so sad. Connell, by contrast, is much less upfront about the things that cause him trouble (although they’re very much there) and has the initial upper hand. Connell also comes off as much more self-aware than Marianne — the part where he’s lying on the floor in a post-shower depression slump reminds me of that piece that goes around tumblr occasionally, about lying on the floor sobbing about the state of the world, and simultaneously noticing that the last time you painted, you didn’t do a good job with the brushwork in the corner you’re looking at, and thinking about how you should re-do it once you finish crying.

But the thing I can’t get my head around with Marianne is how Rooney feels about her, and it boils down to this: what level of awareness and intentionality is Rooney operating at when writing about Marianne’s mental health arc? Does Rooney agree with Marianne’s self-assessment of herself as ‘better’ and ‘normal’ (ie still acting in more or less the same way as she did throughout the text, but no longer a subject of gossip) at the end of the book, or does she not?

As I mentioned, I haven’t seen the adaptation, but I’ve seen a gif or two, and what struck me as I was reading was that the way that Marianne is described as looking (and styled in the show) is reminiscent of the pop-culture caricature of Sylvia Plath — increasingly thin, indie-fashionista, bangs, statement lipstick, weird but precociously brilliant, magnetic, male muse and male victim, mentally ill in a way that is complex but always sexy and sexualised (of course she developed a cute, posh eating disorder that involved eating half an expensive sugary pastry and a sugarless black coffee every day. Of course she did).

Basically, what I want to know is, is Marianne someone Rooney wrote based on that image of Plath, or is Marianne someone cosplaying as that image of Plath, whom Rooney is consciously deconstructing?

See, I think writing Marianne as someone (possibly unintentionally) cosplaying Plath is interesting. The myth of the hot, damaged girl is pretty pervasive (Harley Quinn, the suicide girls, etc etc) and writing Marianne as a character who has legitimate issues that she has trouble facing, who then instead focuses her self-awareness into this trope of ‘acceptably damaged’ has potential. I feel like there’s an opportunity there to examine the line between struggling with a mental illness vs self-consciously performing that struggle in a way that’s socially acceptable, which is a topic that suits the period when the novel’s set.

Unfortunately though, I think Rooney is probably buying into that myth rather than  examining it, because the fact that no-one, in a book that starts in 2011 ever sits Marianne down and goes, ‘yes, I get that people have told you you’re mentally unwell as a tactic to bully you, and that was shitty, but you pretty clearly have a raging case of ptsd which is NOT YOUR FAULT, please accept some help’ — that is frankly hard to believe. Not Connell who seeks out therapy and takes some dubiously successful medication? Not Joanna, who is by all accounts well adjusted and who makes a point of caring in a friendship where she’s doing a lot the heavy lifting? Not Lorraine, parent of the decade? Not some random teacher or professor, looking out for an obviously promising student?  Really, no one?

Marianne is supposedly brilliant and a tireless researcher, but she apparently never becomes aware of the possibility that there might be ways to process her past experiences in a way that would allow her some measure of peace. Never wants it, even in the worst of times. Never ceases to wallow in her own unhappiness. And it’s relevant, I think, that in the period of the novel where Marianne is (kind of) happy, when she’s making a success of things at uni, the focus of the book is on how she’s making Connell jealous by dating an abusive man. The closes she comes to self-awareness is recognising her proclivity to seek out unhealthy relationships and decide to lean into that, in what is consistently the least unhealthy romantic relationship she has. That feels like a cop-out.

Like, I’m not suggesting that every story that features mental illness as a theme needs to show recovery. That’s, unfortunately, not always the case. Some people never get better. Some people can’t bring themselves to believe in the possibility of getting better. It’s not even the case that recovery is a straight line, when it happens. I know that. I’ve seen people I care about it struggle with a whole range of problems, I’ve struggled myself. But this felt like 13 Reasons Why for adults, like depression-porn, and I just...am a bit angry, I think, that I can’t tell if that was the intention, it that wasn’t the intention but was the outcome, or if that’s just my take and I’ve misread the thing entirely.

Obviously people can write whatever they want in fiction, but I do think that when you’re dealing with a topic that has impacted a lot of people, that’s been poorly handed in fiction in the past, you do have a responsibility to treat it sensitive and thoughtfully, and not glamorise something that is ultimately destructive under the guise of ‘this is interesting and cool, and a good way to treat yourself and others, actually.’ And I don’t know if that’s the case here.

[davidbuddbg]

Chapter 7: What if it’s worth it?

Quick note: You can find the entire fanfiction under the following link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/174400042-what-if-it%27s-worth-it

The next morning, I was in a hurry. Just like the past few nights, sleep escaped me and I had only started dozing off minutes between the alarm went off. I felt like I was both moving and thinking in slow-motion. Dave woke up as well by the sound of the alarm but I told him to stay in bed, feeling too cranky to have company during breakfast, even his.

I had to meet my thesis advisor in thirty minutes and then head to the office. I put on a fresh dress, not bothering with showering even though last night had been sweaty. When I re-entered the bedroom to pick up my bag, Dave was sitting in bed, absentmindedly rubbing his injured leg while on his phone. Most likely, he was texting Vicky, I thought. And when he raised his head to look at me, his blue eyes more beautiful than ever, it felt as if I was okay again, at least for a few seconds. But then, it passed and my inner-self was crumbling to pieces again.

“Have a good day, Dave,” I said with a sort of enthusiasm I didn’t feel before leaning down to kiss him on the cheek but he moved his face on purpose, and our lips touched instead. At least, this still felt awesome, I thought, trying to reassure myself that everything would be okay.

I pulled back quickly, running around the room, looking for my bag. “Alright, so you have a nurse coming over at 10 to check your wound and change the bandage,” I droned as I bent down to search under the bed. Nothing. “And if something’s wrong you call me. Okay?” I asked, insisting on the last word when I finally found my handbag behind the door and sighed with relief. “Okay?” I repeated myself, pointedly looking at him but Dave just seemed amused.

“Okay, love,” he chuckled, before stretching out. “Have a good day!”

---------

Professor Hartley was more understanding than I’d expected. First, he didn’t even point out I was fifteen minutes late. Second, he told me he was pleased with my pace which we both knew was a lie. I hadn’t touched a single law book since St Matthew’s and he knew that. But for whatever reason, everyone seemed to think you deserved to rest after living through something like that, even if you weren’t injured. Everyone, except my brain it seems.

All night I had spent thinking about someone having tampered with his gun. Obviously, it wasn’t the Police when they searched his house, they would just have confiscated it. Which only really left one option: Someone had broken into his place. I had desperately wanted to discuss it with him but he had fallen asleep soon after sex, and considering what an emotional rollercoaster his day had been, I couldn’t wake him up. Even if that meant I couldn’t fall asleep myself.

On our way to the Home Office HQ, I asked to stop at a pharmacy. I stood in line, rummaging through the mess inside my handbag until I found the folded piece of paper I’d been looking for and handed it to the pharmacist. She raised her eyes at the prescription, but remained silent before leaving to go look for it in the back. I was fidgeting, rhythmically tapping the tips of my fingers on the wooden counter and though I knew I was annoying everyone, I couldn’t physically stop myself. A few minutes later, she appeared again, holding a box each of Trazolan and Sonata. I quickly paid for my purchases and hurried back into the car.

Nervously, I popped out one pill of each and threw them in my mouth, not even bothering with water. I was well aware I shouldn’t take them both at the same, the doctor had repeated it a dozen times, but desperate times called for desperate measures and if I were to fall asleep on my job, then who fucking cared.

But I wasn’t lucky enough for that happen. Instead, I spent my workday ineffectively going over legal documents and aimlessly wandering the halls, but sleep never came. I took a few more pills but by the time 5 o’clock came around, I was still conscious and yet feeling dead inside.

I wasn’t sure the guards were telling in on me to my parents, giving them all the details about my whereabouts, but I didn’t really care at this point. I asked the guards to drive me to a small supermarket, or rather a limited grocery store I knew all too well. Inside, I grabbed a bottle of orange juice and some biscuits to make it look less suspicious and walked over to the cashier.

I placed the items on the counter and grabbed my purse. “I’ll also take some flour, enough for 10 muffins, please” I added and the young cashier looked me in the eyes for a couple of seconds before opening a small drawer on his side and taking out some miniscule plastic bags. I quickly paid in cash and walked over to the car.

“Do you have everything, miss?” The man bald inquired, giving me a quick look through the mirror before turning on the engine.

“Yes, thank you. I was just running out of breakfast necessities,” I replied, absentmindedly as I grabbed my phone, having heard a message notification.

“I’m having a pint with a colleague tonight. Don’t know what time I’ll be home. Love you.” David had written. Somehow, you could really notice that he wasn’t a millennial by the way he wrote his text messages and it made me chuckle. I was glad though that he had taken the time to text me and let me know everything was okay.

“Have fun!” I sent back joyously though I felt nervous and worried about his safety. The bomber was still at large. Yesterday only, there had been a false alert on the Vauxhall Bridge and you only needed to walk in the streets of London for a few minutes to notice the tension. I tried calming myself, if he was going out with a friend, it meant he was feeling better, right?

Being alone tonight would actually be good for me. I’d have time to work on my thesis and even do laundry, something in which I was running behind.

Arriving at the flat, I started boiling some water to make mac n’ cheese and then opened one of the small plastic sachets I’d just bought on the marble counter before arranging the powder in a straight thin line and snorting it with a short straw I found in one of the drawers.

At first, it burnt like hell, just like it always did. And then, it felt as if you had gotten brain freeze  by eating ice cream too fast. When I was done cooking, the positive effects had kicked in and I finally felt poised, just like I always used to be.

I had dinner in silence as I checked my twitter feed with the TV playing softly in the background. However, by the time I was done eating, my head was a whirlwind of ideas and I had to put them into paper before I forgot them.

Hippocrates of Kos, an ancient Greek philosopher, was now best known in the area of medicine. But in the Hippocratic Corpus there’s a treatise called “Air, waters, places” in which the author stated that our climate defined our physical and mental characteristics. And according to him, Europeans were brave and strong, but inconsistent just like the weather. And although, I didn’t believe a single word of that, I just didn’t care because it made the perfect introduction to explain how the law of war originated in Europe.

By the time Dave arrived, I had completed the introduction.

“Good evening!” I hollered as Dave closed the front door behind himself. I stretched out comfortably before setting down my laptop for the first time that evening. “I’m in the living room.”

“Hello, love,” Dave smiled as he approached me, still taking off his jacket. He placed a quick kiss on my cheek before lazily sitting down on the couch the next to me and I immediately took the opportunity to rest my calves on his lap. “I didn’t expect you’d still be up.”

“I had to work on my thesis,” I replied while readjusting the cushions behind my back. My parents somehow had a talent to buy expensive, beautiful and extremely uncomfortable cushions.

“You’re okay?” He asked, staring down at me, appearing somewhat puzzled as he started giving me a foot rub. “You’re talking too fast and I can hear your heart beating from where I am.” He was now eyeing me closely and I was glad for the dim light and my dark irises for hiding my dilated pupils.

“Yeah, I just had a red bull.” I replied, misleading him, brushing off his concern. Considering all that he was going through, I didn’t feel like adding another layer. “So, how was your day?” I wondered carelessly, before remembering something. “You did see nurse before going out, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Dave replied, mocking me and I struck my tongue at him. “They called me from the office. They wanted help interviewing Nadia so I went over to the station.” He was speaking lightly, as if this was just chit-chat but he did seem worried.

For a moment, I couldn’t remember who Nadia was but then I figured it must be the woman Dave had stopped from blowing up the train on 01/10. “Aren’t you supposed to be on a leave, though?”

“I cannot just lie back and do nothing,” David sighed before letting out a small groan as he leaned his head back, exposing his throat. “She didn’t identify Mahmood as the bomb-maker.”

I took a few seconds to process his words. On the one hand, I knew this was bad news because the Police most likely had no other leads. But on the other hand, I had chatted to Mahmood a couple of times, and I never really believed he could have been part of something like that. “That’s good. It means the Home Office wasn’t infiltrated.”

Dave’s Adam’s apple bobbled before he spoke. “I think she was lying. Even in custody under police protection, she’s still afraid of her husband,” Dave said with honesty, before biting lip and unintentionally squeezing my foot.

“I don’t think her being a woman immediately makes her the victim, David. Not every woman needs to be protected,” I blurted out softly, not thinking my words through before saying them out loud. “Maybe she’s not collaborating because she does believe in the cause,” I added, clarifying my previous thoughts.

David shook his head softly, as if in deep thought. “I don’t know, love,” Dave murmured, conflicted. “I believe her.”

“Yeah, forget what I said,” I muttered casually before yawning with fatigue. “You’re the cop, so you’re better at this than I am.”

As we were heading to bed, I finally remembered to ask Dave to come to Julia’s funeral the next day but he refused, and I immediately regretted asking. Everything closely relating to St Matthew’s was a touchy subject for him.

------

The next day, I woke up early after a good night’s sleep for the first time in a whole week. I took the time to take a long shower before doing up my hair in a bun and picking a black lace dress. I wasn’t sure I should even go. I had gotten my invitation at the office, but knowing she was alive turned all of this into a farce. I wondered if the coffin would be empty or if they’d put something heavy in it to give the illusion of a corpse. These thoughts made me shiver and I locked myself in the bathroom with another dose of the heavenly powder before my body could start shaking and freaking out again.

I asked the guards to drop off Dave at the Police station before driving me to the funeral. As expected, there weren’t that many people and I still I was sure Julia didn’t like half of these people. I made my way into the church, just to see Roger Penhalington greeting the guests alongside Julia’s mom and I was glad for the drugs in my blood, otherwise I’d have thrown a fit.

In what world, is the ex-husband considered to be mourning as much as the mother?! Julia and Roger didn’t even speak to each other, and when they did, it was more arguing than anything else. “Mrs Montague, Mr Penhalington, I’m so sorry for your loss,” I intoned when it was my turn. Julia’s mother nodded, but Roger seemed surprised at seeing me here. Hell, even I was surprised I showed up.

After watching Julia’s empty casket being lowered six feet under, I was ready to leave this masquerade when Roger ambushed me, showing up out of nowhere. “Mr Penhalington, is everything alright?” I asked politely, faking concern as to put up a show for the people standing around us.

“Did you happen to retrieve any of Julia’s personal belongings?” Roger asked in a low tone, seemingly agitated. When he noticed that he was fidgeting, he put his hands inside his trousers’ which made for a bizarre look on him. “Her handbag, briefcase or anything?”

“No,” I replied hesitantly, furrowing my brows as if I was thinking it through. “I remember she left them in the side entrance’s anti-chamber at St Matthews, but I don’t know who retrieved those items. Why?” And just when I asked the question out loud, I figured it out on my own. He was looking for the kompromat.

“They’re of sentimental value,” he added, obviously disappointed by my lack of help, but at the same time, not entirely convinced by my answer. And then he left just as quickly as he had appeared in the first place.

After the funeral, I decided to call Sara and meet up with her for some cocktails. She first made sure I was alright after the attack and then we began speaking about more trivial matters. “Actually, Cedric and I are getting married,” Sara announced proudly, before pointing out the new shiny ring on her finger and I felt bad for not having noticed on my own.

“Oh my god,” I blurted out, genuinely happy for her. “Congratulations!” She hugged with such excitement that she almost broke me in half. “Do you guys have a date, yet?”

“Yes,” she replied before taking a large sip of her Margarita. “In exactly one month, in Cancun.” That was soon!

The truth is I didn’t meet up with Sara just to have a fun time. Roger didn’t believe a word I said, and I’m sure he had me followed when I left the funeral. Going back home in a hurry would have looked shady and suspicious, but going out with a friend? That doesn’t sound like someone who’s hiding something.

A couple of hours in, I told Sara I needed to go home and work on my thesis. Once back at my parent’s flat, I went to retrieve my laptop and the tablet from their hiding spots, and finally found a place where to put them for safekeeping.

“I’m walking to the library to do some research,” I announced to the bodyguards on duty, leaving the flat again less than ten minutes after getting there.

For the first time, I was thankful for my father’s insistence on providing me with protection. Roger was a politician, the kind who do Politics not as a passion or as an end in itself, but as a means to access power and I knew well enough, that those were the most dangerous kind.

As soon as I arrived at the law library, I retrieved a key to a temporary locker and put my coat and in bag in there. And then I headed towards the computers, needing to make time as to not make this visit to the library appear suspicious either. Especially, because the Police believed I had lost my laptop. I made a mental note to go buy a new laptop the next morning. It was what any normal student would do if they lost theirs. I stayed there for two hours, doing random law related research on the Internet without truly paying attention before heading back to the locker and picking my empty bag and coat. Making sure no one was looking, I hid the key in my bra.

Outside the library, the guards were waiting to walk me back to the flat.

When David got home, I was already asleep. Now that Dave was working again, even if only officiously, I didn’t know when he’d be back home. In fact, I barely saw him the next couple of days apart from in the mornings when we would both get ready for work. Surprisingly, I wasn’t too concerned. He texted me often enough to let me know he was okay and truth be told, working seemed to be a welcome distraction for him though I didn’t exactly know what he was doing apart from helping interviewing Nadia. Was he still in on some dubious business, like when he was spying on Julia?

The next day, I stopped by an Apple store in the morning before going to work. At the internship, I was trying to figure out who exactly knew about the kompromat. Stephen Hunter-Dunn knew without doubt. That’s certainly what they talked about that morning at the hotel when Julia asked me to leave them alone. But did Mike also know? And what about Sampson?

Dave sent me a text message, asking me to call him back as soon as possible and I decided to take my break sooner than expected. Alone in the breakroom, I called him back and he picked up after the very first ring, as if expecting my call.

“Dave, what’s wrong?” I inquired in a hushed voice. Even though I was alone in the room, I couldn’t be sure they hadn’t bugged the entire building.

“Someone came to Vicky’s work yesterday, telling her about us,” Dave snarled quickly, almost out of breath as if he was running.

“But she already knew, so?” I was puzzled. What was David getting at?

“It’s was that man, Longcross. The one Julia with whom had a private meeting at the hotel once,” Dave explained. I remained silent and after a few seconds, I heard him sigh. “I know you were spying on me.” Yeah, that came as shock and I had definitely not been expecting that. How did he know?

“Look, Dave, I’m sorry. It’s, I don’t-” I was stammering.

“No, love, it’s okay,” Dave jabbered. “Has Longcross ambushed you as well?” I could hear the concern in his voice.

“No,” I said honestly.

“Good!” David breathed out with relief. “Stay with the guards at all times, please.”

I wanted to ask him where was and what he was even doing but he hung up before I had a chance to. Later that day, arriving at the flat after work, I realized we had been broken into. They left the apartment upside down but nothing was stolen because they obviously didn’t find what they came for.

“Miss, we need to call your parents and the Police,” the bald bodyguard announced, his cell phone already in hand.

“Don’t!” I blurted out aggressively before recomposing myself. “That would just make them worry and this doesn’t appear to be anything else than a failed robbery attempt.”

David got home all wet that night, he had probably been outside in the heavy downpour. When I asked him what he had been doing, he just avoided the question. He appeared quite secretive these past few days. It started worrying me that with all this going on, we were still keeping secrets from each other and I sensed this would come to bite us in the ass.

The next morning, Dave left early again. Something about searching Julia’s flat with DS Rayburn. So, this meant the Police knew about the kompromat but they didn’t know I had it. And considering, the secrets between David and myself, I wasn’t sure whether he knew I had it still. I texted Julia to let know the Police was closing in on the tablet business.

The day was passing and David wasn’t answering to any of my texts, and even the Cocaine wasn’t managing to keep me calm now. At 11pm, I still hadn’t heard of David. All my texts were left unanswered and he wasn’t picking up the phone either. Just as I was about to take another dose to help me destress, there was a knock on my door. The Police.

---------

“Good evening, Alma,” DS Rayburn greeted me in an awfully neutral voice as she and DCI Sharma sat down at the opposite side of the table in the interrogation room. “Thank you for meeting us so late.”

“You didn’t exactly give me in an option,” I replied sassily, a big smile on my face, but on the inside I was screaming and crying at the same time. None of them seemed to take offence from my tone of voice.

“Last time we met, you confirmed the relationship between yourself and PS Budd had gone beyond the professional boundaries,” DS Rayburn drawled, not really expecting an answer from me. “Was the relationship consensual or did PS Budd threaten you in any way?” Rayburn asked, and both police officers were now attentively staring at me.

I just stared back at them, throughout confused. Were they insinuating David had forced himself upon me?! “Of course, David didn’t threaten me!” I blurted out, offended they’d even consider that. “Our relationship has always been consensual.”

“Listen, Alma,” DCI Sharma spoke almost patronizingly, his crossed hands on the table. “You’re either his victim or his accomplice.”

“The hell are you suggesting?!” I spat out, my voice raised but neither of them were intimidated. They left me a few seconds to recompose myself before Rayburn took a photograph from her file and showed it to me.

It was a white male. I couldn’t even estimate his age because half his face was deformed with severe burn scars. “This is the shooter from Thornton Circus,” Rayburn explained. “Have you ever seen this man before?”

“Never,” I answered honestly. “I’d remember a face like that, certainly.” Sharma and Rayburn were both nodding softly, as if my answer had confirmed their theory. “Why?” I inquired, with curiosity.

“This man is Andrew Apsted,” Sharma detailed but I cocked my eyebrows. Was I supposed to know that name? “He served with PS Budd in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, for two rounds.”

I remained silent, but internally I cursed myself. Why had David hidden this from me? And more importantly, why hadn’t I figured this out on my own?

“I wasn’t aware David knew the shooter,” I admitted, my voice barely a whisper. I was frankly embarrassed at my ignorance. Sharma and Rayburn looked at each other, making sure they were on the same wavelength before one of them said anything else.

“We suspect PS Budd is involved in the St Matthew’s bombing,” Sharma put into words what we were all considering at that point and the accusation shocked me even though I had been expecting them to say it all along. Hell, for a few seconds I even wondered myself if David had anything to do with it, but I quickly brushed off that thought. There were lies and secrets between us, but I truly cared about him and I was deeply convinced it was mutual. He wouldn’t ever have deliberately put me in danger like that.

“I cannot imagine for just one second that Dave had anything to do with that,” I retorted quickly but none of them seemed to care about my opinion.

“We’ve been trying to locate him for a few hours now, but we’ve been unsuccessful so far,” Rayburn admitted with disappointment. “We never really suspected you of being involved, but we wanted to know if you knew where he was.”

“I don’t where he is,” I confessed, shaking my head in slowly. “I haven’t seen since this morning.” Technically I wasn’t lying, I simply wasn’t telling the whole truth.

DS Rayburn and DCI Sharma let me go but asked me to let them know if I heard from Dave and not to leave London until this was over but I never had any intentions of doing that. As soon as I arrived at the flat, I used my iPhone to track down David’s. When I had handed him his cell phone, I never told him I’d activated this function. After all, it was only for emergencies and considering he had tried putting a bullet through his brain, my precautions didn’t seem exaggerated.

To my disappointed and aggravation, I wasn’t able to find his current localisation. Most likely because the phone was turned off. However, the most recent one I could identify was some downtown bar two hours ago. Without giving it further thought, I made sure I still had the gun in my bag and retrieved a silencer from the freezer, before asking to be driven to that bar.