#i wish people were just fucking nicer to others! primarily!

[boydyke]

when people respond to trans women who have something to say about what they've experienced or witnessed as a trans woman with "haha what do any of these words mean. anyone in this thread smoke weed. none of these words are in the Bible. wow sometimes I stumble across a corner of the internet I never thought possible. op go touch grass" it is 100% coming from a position of privilege rather than whatever holier than thou high IQ normalperson stance they think it is. you haven't seen this shit before because you have the privilege to not be targeted by lolcow forums or called a paraphile for being into bdsm. trans women, women of color, autists & schizos etc--especially if many of these intersect--often don't have the luxury to be ignorant to transmisogyny and racism and ableism, or to not be targeted by neonazis for simply having a blog, their ""neet status"" is irrelevant to these things actually. this shit isn't exclusively online for them! many irl queer groups end up dominated by privileged white transmisogynists maybe because that's the status fucking quo. maybe be fucking nice for once and listen to things women have to say. the amount of meanspirited replies I've seen towards women talking about shit they've personally experienced recently is grating. it costs nothing to be nice and mind your own business. you don't have to act like underprivileged groups are hysterical psychotic freaks who care too much.

[mistytpednaem]

wow!!! that was a year

as I begin to write this post I'm not even sure if I'm going to post it, lmao. I guess it depends on how much of a bummer it turns into. and if it helps me sort out some thoughts, then it won't have been a complete waste of time.

waste, huh...

on one hand, I don't... reaaaally?? want to talk about what's been going on in my life? but on the other hand, there's a part of me that's like "wow, Naem, that makes it sound like you've been struggling with some serious shit, which is straight up not true, do you just want people to feel sorry for you?" and then on the third mutant hand (I have a lot of those, it turns out) there is a different part of me that does acknowledge the way this other section of my brain jumps straight to accusatory self-flagellation is something many people do not, in fact, struggle with

I've been doing remote therapy this year! it's alright. my therapist has some wild ass takes from time to time, and it is perhaps one of my most substantial monthly expenses (note: yes I still live with my parents so, you know, I don't pay rent), but she IS insightful and a good professional so like. I feel, on the whole, it's working out well for me. a-aside from the part where I still can't seem to love myself consistently but unfortunately I don't think anybody else can fix that for me. I just... have to keep working on it.

speaking of therapy, maybe I should tell her in the next session "hey, cool new year, uhhh I keep finding myself thinking it isn't worth getting excited or feeling hopeful for anything because as time goes on there will only be more and more things to be sad about, because everything is finite and loss is a constant, and it's kind of bumming me out?" maybe I should. honestly, that was the thought this post was going to center around initially, but I've found other things to talk about, thankfully.

ah man. heck. I JUST narrowed down the exact thing motivating this post. "the dread I feel when i see everyone on social media post about their Year In Review." so much of this is about the unrelenting passage of time.

not everything is a huge bummer. experienced some good-ass media this year. Hi-FI Rush was really cool, Midnight Mass was so good it got me to watch it three times in spite of how bad I am with horror, Across the Spiderverse was as good as everyone said - speaking of Spider-Man, I think I've come to terms with adopting Curt Connors as a blorbo, which has nothing to do with Spiderverse but is, perhaps, a baby step in the direction of Accepting The Trash I Like. excited for more Jojolands. Jujutsu Kaisen S2 was really fucking good, so much so that I'm afraid no future arcs will grip me the same way. oh yeah, I got really into Will Wood this year, which is a bit embarrassing because his fanbase seems to be composed primarily of teenagers, but hey. sort of circling back around to me needing to accept what I like, I guess.

I've been taking other baby steps, namely towards Drawing More Often. I... have, right?? I know I haven't posted everything I drew, but it was definitely more than, say, two years ago. which is nice. hope I can keep that up or, even better, Do It Harder.

I don't have a habit of making New Year's Resolutions. I do have a couple of wishes, but I'm frankly not sure if they're anything I can control. Financial stability? Well, there are certainly efforts I can make in that direction, as much as I hate even looking at LinkedIn. To stop finding myself trapped in the middle of interpersonal conflict that I care about too much even when it doesn't directly concern me, resulting in weeks of heightened anxiety at a minimum? I think if it were within my power to stop that, I would have already done it, but uhhhhhhhhhhhhh

ah man. I should have found a nicer note to end this on. ummm.

I deeply appreciate all of my friends, not only for being generally rad people but also for seeing nice things in me when I can't. This goes quadruple for my girlfriend, who manages to do all that while also struggling with brains that are very mean and unfair to her.

I feel like I said this last year, but I hope I can learn to depend on you all a little less going forward. Not in a "get out of my life you LOSERS" kind of way, but in a "thanks for the support, here, I can stand on my own two feet, so don't worry about lending me another one" kind of way.

[ladyyatexel]

I Went On A Manga Binge

So you don't have to

For those of you who have wisely avoided the shreds of it I've left around the blog thus-far, I had some weird notion to go re-experience Yu-Gi-Oh uuuuuh a week ago? We'll go with that. Time is meaningless.

I'd been able to read a good portion of the early manga at the end of highschool, and somewhere in my stacks and stacks of paper is fanart from this dark time, so you know I cared. I also still own a Dark Magician action figure somehow, so. I'd also watched a large portion of the anime with my brother because it had been laced with some kind of crack and we couldn't look away? I remember when we both were just like shit, wait, don't change the channel, I can't stop looking at it. And the next thing we knew we were waiting for new episodes and I was doing research on the Japanese original because I was that kid.

Anyway, unnecessary backstory out of the way, here are some... let's call them Observations and Consequences of having read somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 chapters (and growing) of a manga primarily hinged on card games from a spectrum of sources ranging from boringly lawful to sketchy as fuck.

Surprise actual character that develops in typical shounen fashion being Jounouchi. My limited experiences with the 4Kids dub and only early manga had not painted him in a particularly good light. I don't know if episodes were being aired out of order or if I had just missed the ones that established that he was making shit up as he was going along, but Wow I liked him a lot more going through the manga than I ever did watching the (dubbed, heavily edited and censored and thrown into a slurry machine) anime. I'd managed to come out with the impression that he was just as reasonably experienced with the game as Yugi back in the day. Wild.

I'm now reading every single comic-style post on Tumblr backwards.

Striking inverse to first point, wow, I don't like Seto Kaiba. Though he gets points for his general philosophy of the future, and the line I read in my sketchy online combo of scans and scanlations in which he said, "If God is in your way, you run him down," was Metal As Fuck. I somewhat shame-facedly admit to enjoying him a lot more as an Abridged Series character. (I watched Abridged as it came out back in the day! The experience of watching the anime with my brother had been so fresh that I got all the in jokes about the way things were edited and dubbed, it was great. Series remains influential part of my life to this day, which is hella weird.)

I almost understand how Duel Monsters works now. I don't want this.

That said, wow a lot of the decisions made in the anime made everything a lot more ridiculous than the admittedly already ridiculous original. I got the distinct feeling in the manga that the Duelist Kingdom stuff we were seeing was designed to be used and exploited in ways that don't make sense in an actual cardgame just played on a table like a normal person and this was part of testing everyone to think higher, differently. Maybe this is obvious to everyone already, I don't know. I had always liked that it was very, 'Not so fast, I'm going to blow up the moon to change the tides,' but I'm not really sure the anime gave enough explanation that this was an extra layer added to things for that event? You can see people actively getting used to it in the books, and people who aren't considering the real or 3D nature of it getting owned, but my memory of anime version is everyone just like, 'oh, shucks, fuck me, I forgot to consider the phase of the moon before i played this card, can't believe I forgot.' No one calls Yugi on any of this stuff because it's valid play in that situation. Plus Yami Yugi had mad trickster energy in the beginning and it suited him to think of ways to do things inside these little simulation boxes the way it suited him to set perverts on fire. I imagine the real card game trying to emulate this element as something that would be to its detriment, but I neither know nor particular care haha

Ryou Bakura.

Really, though. I think he became kind of casualty of 'wow, we have a lot of characters who really aren't able to do anything in this story anymore,' despite the fact that his whole inner life could have been as interesting as Yugi's. I always like thinking about the possibilities of stories in which main character falls into magical world and is given magical item and told they're the hero and then they find out they've been the bad guy the whole time. The first several volumes of manga were about the quiet weirdo kid that no one talked to who was always blacking out and turning into a fucked up version of himsef because he was so attached to his ancient Egyptian jewelry, so like, Bakura could have much the same shit going on. I want to know what's happening with him so much. He clearly doesn't love being possessed, but he's also so drawn to the ring. Despite it having stabbed him at least twice and him knowing it's a danger to him and his friends, he keeps being pulled back into it. You see so much more of him being like, 'Oooh, a creepy thing, I love that! :D' in the manga than ever in the anime, which I'm all about. Also more blood. I'm very about that as well. Though my memory of the anime also made it look very much like normal regular daily Bakura was just a weird facade in places before he ever would have been. I think that was it trying to compensate for what people didn't see from the Toei anime, but okay whatever, that I love everything about this guy is not news, I don't need to talk about Bakura excessively here, I'm pretty sure that's gonna show up on my blog by itself

On a related note though, damn, more of these people need to talk to each other. Can we have some existential crisis support clubs or something. Can we get like some apologies or something? "I respect you as a duelist." "Cool, but you literally built a tower designed to specifically assassinate me and my friends? You were supposed to get Better after I retaliated by putting you in a coma, but you kinda didn't." "Why would the coma have made it better" "I just told you it didn't" ---- "Sorry I went along with the plan of your evil parasite stabbing you, misled you, and then also jumped in and took up some real estate in your head too." "I understand, I also have an evil thing inside me that does things while I'm blacked out." "...no, I was conscious for all of that." "Oh." "..." "..." "..." "Do you like Ouija Boards?" "sure okay" ETC. Like damn we are reading shounen manga because no one is talking extensively about their feelings here and I'm tapping my foot angrily.

Holy shit there are so many mythologies happening at once. The ancient family guarding the Egyptian Pharaoh has a surname that's a Mesopotamian goddess. None of the god cards make any Egyptian sense except Ra, and just like. Baaarrrrely. Somewhere either Evil Ring Bakura or Mar/lik makes a reference to cremation and spirits being taken to heaven with smoke which several things, but definitely not Ancient Egyptian. Marik/Malik meanwhile is clearly trying to head Arabic, along with Rishid, but then, hey, our sister is just Isis. Goddess McGoddess. Sometimes they're the same goddess! Her name could be Isis Isis or Ishtar Ishtar. Meanwhile, all the obviously 'occult because Christians think it is freaky' stuff. ~ancient egyptian pentagrams~~~This isn't a complaint, I guess so much as a 'Wow, I can kind of see the cultural spot the author was coming from and where he was aiming' kind of thing.

Wonder where things would have gone if the card games had not been latched onto the way they were.

Managed to forget how gross the pre-cardgames stuff was on the sexual harassment front. I'm glad there was a sort of explanation of everyone drifting away from being dick heads and that that decision was made. It got way more comfortable to read after no one was bringing Yugi p*rn on VHS.

Yugi looks better with a nose, glad we got that upgrade.

Interesting to watch the series style shift as it goes away from being horror to being over the top cardgames and friendship (with blood!). The first picture of Mokuba is fucking Jarring. Also noticed that the nicer a character is, the less their teeth are defined.

Glad manga did not go as completely off the fucking the rails about Marik's face. I never got as far as seeing him back in the day because college occurred, but I remember seeing pictures and stuff and being like, "what in the Fuck happened to that dude, I think the house style has collapsed in on itself"

Things the author Really Likes: motorcycles, belts, SHOES, holy shit the shoes. These are some of the most lovingly rendered sneakers I've ever seen. All the detail on his characters goes straight to their feet and then it's stretched upward until it forms stiff peaks. Gently fold in 3000 years of trauma and bake face down in a crumb coat of scattered mythology. Remove when you roll two zeros.

Where the fuck am I going to put the extremely large omnibus volumes of this comic I purchased in order to balance out how much I would be reading for free on the internet. I should have grasped that a three in one edition would be Thick and yet somehow I was still :O when it arrived. Have I strategically purchased volumes that contain my favorite parts, maybe, what's it to you will i eventually get the whole thing because incomplete book series gnaw on my soul? yes

Wish the transition from "I've murdered several people in delightfully karmic ways" to "all you need is friendship in your heart and cards in your hand" Yami Yugi/Pharaoh had been discussed more/transitioned better. Buddy, where did you get this approved for television high horse? Please go back to strangling people with yo-yos or at least tell me why you stopped.

I still can't tell anything that looks like a big robotic monster apart from any other big robotic monster. My dude, I can't tell cars apart, all these monsters look the same.

Yami Yugi fascinated me way more in highschool? Maybe because it was still super early and the anime was like 'we need to torture you about his origins WeEkLy. Now I'm just like 'wait hold on, can we go back to Bakura and Marik for a minute, there's some extreme unpacking to do here?' Those two are paying so much more in baggage fees here my guy wow

Violently uninterested in any of the spinoff media

[thelightofthingshopedfor]

there’s a distinct irony in the fact that some parts of the Loki fandom are mad at other parts of the Loki fandom for being unnecessarily negative about Ragnarok and/or the upcoming show...and then primarily expressing this by posting loads of unnecessary negativity about those fans, or really any fan who disagrees with them on anything at all

which, like, making your own posts is certainly better than reblogging other people’s posts just to yell at them

but as somebody who seems to be pretty solidly in the middle on a lot of this stuff, I do find a lot of the Ragnarok/show negativity pretty demoralizing but frankly I find the posts mocking other fans to be even more demoralizing, in part because a) now you’re going out of your way to make fun of real people instead of just being critical of a piece of fiction and b) that shit doesn’t get tagged, unlike a lot of specific negativity posts, which means it’s fucking impossible to avoid if you’re following somebody who mostly posts good stuff but occasionally goes off on rants about the stupid fans who like Loki in all the wrong ways or something

and obviously I don’t have a platform here to get people to knock it off but holy shit I wish people would knock it off and just, like, try to be a little nicer maybe??

(I’m not totally sure if it makes this better or worse that a lot of what I’ve seen has boiled down to “I didn’t understand, or refuse to believe, that Those Loki Fans might be making a joke and therefore I’m going to make fun of them as if they were 100% serious,” but it’s uhhh...well it’s something)

[spicysoftsweet]

Chapter 2

Masterlist

To Kaksi’s dismay, Kumi truly meant it when she said she was staying away from Kazutora and his friends. It hadn’t completely been intentional - Kumi had started a cram school for two afternoons a week and joined a science afterschool club, two things that Kaksi had no interest in joining her in doing. On weekends, Kaksi spent time between Kazutora and Kumi, convincing the latter that things would be easier if they were all willing to play nice together as she hung around with the gang, but she was resistant.

Their friendship strained briefly, but remained stable.

Kumi did give in once, on a day Kaksi promised Kumi that Baji and Pah-chin would not be around for various reasons, to hang out with Kazutora, Mikey, Draken and Mitsuya.

At that time, she was shocked to learn Draken was in fact not Mikey’s older brother but about their age, that Mikey was as terrifying as he was tiny (but not terrible) and confirmed that Mitsuya was actually as kind (at least relative to the others) as he looked.

This time they were at an ice cream parlor, and Kumi found herself sitting by Mitsuya, engaged in conversation about his younger sisters over a vanilla sundae.

“I can come help cook sometimes if you want! I’m free Mondays and Thursdays,” she offered enthusiastically. Mitsuya offered a small smile at her suggestion.

She also found that Draken was much easier to talk to than she imagined, even if Mikey still made her somewhat uncomfortable with the way he looked at her impassively as if he was boring through her very soul every so often, still not saying anything. Kumi noticed that his gaze did linger quite a while on Kaksi, as she pouted at Kazutora who had contented himself with flicking ice cream at her face with his spoon.

It felt somewhere in between a forced integration of friends and advanced third wheeling, but at least this time she found pleasant company in Mitsuya.

She didn’t exactly keep her promise to him - instead of taking the time to cook with him, she brought over food her mother had made, and he taught her a little bit about his own hobby, fashion. He was designing uniforms and Kumi got to take a look at the black uniforms with yellow lettering, impressed by his skill and particularly the sparkle in his eye as he sewed.

She insisted on being there when the uniforms were introduced out of admiration, staying close to Mitsuya and not meeting eyes with either Baji or Pah-chin who, again, could just barely forgive Kaksi’s intrusion and absolutely did not accept Kumi’s. Thankfully, the unveiling of the uniforms did distract the two enough that Kumi and Kaksi eventually left without incident.

Months passed and Kumi, as Kaksi had desired, did end up developing some fondness for the gang’s antics, both witnessed in person or relayed to her by her friend (as long as she wasn’t told about any fights). Even Pah-chin seemed to tolerate her, as long as she made herself rare and quiet. Only Baji continued to scarcely acknowledge her, if not to glare or ask her if she didn’t have shit to do rather than hang around her friend’s friends and distract from gang business.

“Baji, we’re friends, leave her alone,” Mitsuya, tired of both the unnecessary antagonism and the fact that Kumi had gone from standing beside him to hiding behind him as they walked from the park to their respective homes.

Just the three of them were left at this point, and Baji scoffed in response, storming off ahead.

Kumi paused walking and Mitsuya gave her a cursory once-over before restarting his steps. He knew the direction to her house, having walked her back before and dusk was falling. She had the type of parents who were quick to be concerned, so he wasn’t sure why she was hesitating.

“I-is there something about me in particular he doesn’t like?” She finally spoke up.

Mitsuya wasn’t exactly sure either. The more plausible theory was the most illogical one - Baji had just decided he didn’t like her presence and was in no mood to budge on that perception. The second would be much more comprehensible in the grand scheme of things, but ridiculous when considering a person like him. He shrugged instead.

“Ignore him.”

Kumi frowned.

“Even Pah is nicer and I don’t even come around that often. Why is he so mad every time he sees me?”

Mitsuya considered her feelings but also the fact that his sisters were waiting for him.

“If you spend time worrying about what Baji is thinking, you’ll be wasting a lot of time, unfortunately,” he said, lightening the atmosphere with a laugh.

Kumi smiled in response to his laugh and resumed walking with him. The rest of the walk was quiet and on his way back, Mitsuya wondered briefly if Kumi’s obvious comfort with him above the others meant anything more than friendship.

He didn’t think so, and he also didn’t think he felt that way either, but it occurred to him that it might look that way. After all, despite the fact that Baji was the last one to leave the two of them, Baji’s house was very obviously in the opposite direction.

---

Seeing Kumi warm up to the boys was endearing. While they weren’t exactly all best friends, Kaksi was grateful to Mitsuya for welcoming her best friend so nicely. Especially knowing he was one of the few people that managed to somewhat keep Baji in line.

The girl didn’t have an easy integration back in herself when Kazutora’s friend circle started to grow due to her reserved nature. But having spent most of her time around Baji primarily because of his close ties to her childhood friend, she had no other choice than to learn to speak up for herself.

While she had suffered from his brutal way of speaking and wild behaviour, Kazutora had always been there to defend her, sometimes even starting to speak with his fists to her dismay. She quickly found out that the way these boys communicated their affection for each other was different from the way she would.

Still, it was never really a problem between the girl and her now boyfriend, and by extension, she managed to make herself a little place among the founding members of Toman. So she was happy to see that with some more time spent together along with Kumi, her best friend would soon be able to call all of them her friends.    

Nonetheless, it seemed like she would have to work a little harder to make sure the curly-haired girl felt a little more at ease around Baji.

Kaksi let herself get pushed gently by Kazutora sitting on one of the swings in the deserted playground where she had first met him. Baji kept them company, planning on spending some more time with his best friend after the girl would have left the two of them as dusk approached. Sometimes it really felt like she was actually the one third-wheeling but she didn’t mind at all.  

“What’s your problem with Kumi?” the girl asked, going straight to the point, brown eyes looking into Baji’s ones.

He rolled her eyes at her question as if the name of Kaksi’s friend was enough to put him in a bad mood. Kazutora meanwhile couldn’t help chuckling.

“She annoys me,” he answered matter-of-factly.

“Right.”

But Kaksi already had her explanation about the boy’s behaviour. So she laughed instead, exchanging knowing looks with Kazutora. Baji frowned, annoyed by not being able to understand the implications between their smiles and looks.      

“What?” he asked, voice already displaying his irritation.

Kazutora avoided his eyes, preferring to stay quiet for once.

“It’s okay to have a crush, Baji,” the girl teased with a smile.

Her boyfriend erupted in laughter at the sight of his best friend’s widening brown eyes.

“Shut the fuck up,” he barked at Kaksi. “As if I would like her!”

The baring of his fang-like canines and the reddening of his face didn’t exactly help his case.

“You certainly could if you tried to get to know her,” Kaksi insisted.

“I’m pretty sure Kumi doesn’t bite, Baji,” Kazutora encouraged, a teasing smile on his lips.

“I would rather die.”

Kaksi laughed, surprised that the boy didn’t try to push her off her seat. In all honesty, she was unsure about what was going on in Baji’s mind, he was unpredictable after all. But if her assumptions happened to be true then the boy would have to face those feelings eventually because Kumi wasn’t going anywhere and Kaksi was ready to tie them up together if it meant they would get along.

She had annoyed Baji enough for today, however, Kaksi decided, leaving the two boys by themselves. But not without giving a quick kiss on the cheek to Kazutora, making him blush and waving at Baji, making him stick out his tongue at her.

On the way home, alone with her thoughts as she walked down the sidewalks, the colors of the sky quickly changing, she was reminded of Mikey’s birthday approaching. She let out a little gasp, realizing she hadn’t bought him anything yet and she should write the date down as soon as she got home or she would be forgetting soon.

Kaksi wondered what type of surprise his friends were preparing for him. Kazutora hadn’t dared to tell her what he was thinking about, scared that she wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut and ruin the surprise. But the truth was that he didn’t want to deal with her disapproval and he figured only talking about it with his partner in crime would be his best option.  

He did however mention something about a bike and Kaksi was well aware of Mikey’s wish to drive a CB250T, something he had openly talked to her about in the few moments he felt especially talkative. Hopefully, his friends could find him a good secondhand one. That would be quite amazing.

---

The summer holidays just beginning, and without school or Kumi around, Kaksi had way more free time than she had originally anticipated. But confident about her upcoming tests results she figured she deserved a break. Like her best friend who would be off to America for most of the summer holidays, she wished she was able to travel too like she typically did this time of year. Alas, this summer she would be staying in Tokyo, which wasn’t half-bad.

In fact, it was quite pleasant now that her boyfriend and the gang kept her company, and when she wasn’t busy with her family and friends, she would dedicate her time to her latest hobby, bracelet making. It wasn’t something overly difficult to do and kept her well occupied, and plus, she enjoyed picking the prettiest shades of the many embroidery flosses she owned and trying new patterns whenever she could.

She was currently working on Mikey’s birthday gift, choosing four different shades of blue for his bracelet. Kaksi had gotten the idea finding a Taiyaki shaped charm while she had been out shopping with her mother, remembering Mikey’s fondness for those snacks. She was almost done, having prepared a small box she had decorated for him.

She was planning on filling it with other snacks the boy enjoyed, along with some pictures of himself with his friends that she had printed out. It wasn’t much but unsure about what else to offer, she thought it would be a simple but sweet gift for her friend.

Kaksi had known Mikey for quite a little while now, Kazutora having introduced them before the gang had even been formed. Yet she always felt some kind of distance between the two of them. While he had always been friendly to her, it felt like their relationship barely advanced as time passed. Regardless, polite smiles had turned into actual conversations over the years and the girl now felt close enough to him to get invested in his birthday preparations.

“Stop asking me what I’m going to gift Mikey!” the girl complained, over the phone, as she finalized her gift, her boyfriend on the other line.

“But I want to know!” Kazutora protested.

“Tell me what you’ll give him, then. It was only fair for Kaksi to ask after all.

“No,” her boyfriend replied, smiling at the other end of the line.

“Then I won’t tell you!”

The boy chuckled which had his girlfriend rolling her eyes, in annoyance.

“I can give you a hint though,” he said. “But you’ll have to give me one too.”

Kaksi stayed silent for a moment, thinking about her boyfriend’s proposition. She quickly came up with a simple hint that would be just enough to keep the mystery around her present.

“Alright,” she agreed. “Taiyaki.”

“Taiyaki?” the boy repeated, a little confused. “You are just going to gift him Taiyaki?”

“No, dumbass!”

He smiled, clearly picturing the look on Kaksi’s face by the irritation in her voice.

“But that’s my hint. Your turn now,” she urged him.

Kazutora stayed quiet, wanting to avoid giving away what he had planned while still giving enough information to make Kaksi envious.

“Whatever your gift is, mine is the best,” he said, proudly, a satisfied smile on his lips. “That’s my hint.”

The best? How could Kazutora be that sure? Judging by his behaviour each time Mikey’s birthday had been mentioned, he clearly had put a lot of thought into his gift and was convinced his friend was going to love it. That much Kaksi knew already.

“Unless it’s a CB250T, I doubt it,” she replied, confidently.

Kazutora’s eyes widened a little bit. He had said too much already. He stayed silent, a little too long, perhaps.

“Wait,” Kaksi spoke again, eyes widening and voice getting louder, in excitement. “You got Mikey a CB250T!”

“No,” he answered, honestly, well not yet. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you until his birthday.”

Kaksi sighed, a pout on her face.

“I can keep a secret, you know?”

Kazutora knew that, but he had to disagree, smoothly and unintentionally deviating the conversation to some regular bickering between the two of them. Little did Kaksi know, however, that she had in fact uncovered the mystery.

---

Kumi’s parents were on the stricter end of the spectrum, but the one thing she always appreciated from them was their willingness to indulge her very few wants.

She was blessed with exactly 1 hour to call her friend all the way in Tokyo, and did so at 8:30 pm, where she was almost tired out from a day of sightseeing and her friend would be just starting her morning. When Kaksi picked up after the second ring, she could hear the crunch of her friend’s favorite cereal and the local news her father constantly kept on 24/7 in the background.

It didn’t take long for the two girls to catch up on the few things she had missed.

“A bracelet?” Kumi asked in surprise once Kaksi told her about her new hobby and how she’d make a taiyaki-themed bracelet for Mikey’s birthday.

Kaksi nodded as though Kumi could see her while Kumi hummed, weighing the pros and cons as she was prone to do.

“Do you think he’ll wear it?”

The question seemed to annoy Kaksi. “Of course he will! It’s a gift!”

“I know, but Mikey seems to have that tough guy thing going on, even though he looks like a baby,” Kumi brought up. She considered her words for a moment once she heard Kaksi pause on the other line then backtracked. “Actually, I know he’ll definitely like it!” She said, laughing nervously. She then pivoted.

“I might try to get him a souvenir! Like a keychain or something, but it’ll be late… Is it weird for me to get him something? I’m not as close as you guys are, after all…” Kumi’s voice trailed off, noting something was wrong on the other end of the line.

Kaksi seemed to be holding her breath.

Kumi immediately worried that she had offended her.

“Kaksi?”

Kaksi let out a loud gasp and then a loud, strained cry.

“Kaksi!”

She could almost hear the sudden panic on the other end of the line, and confused, her heart started to pound. What was happening?

“I-I have to go, I’m sorry, bye Kumi,” Kaksi choked out in rapid, pressured speech, her voice breaking as she spoke.

“Wait, why?!”

Kumi heard the sudden dial tone betraying the loss of the line, redialed and redialed repeatedly to no avail.

[wistfulcynic]

Osaka-shi Serenade 2 / 4

IN WHICH there is Christmas dinner and intense bonding, drunken shenanigans, and smut!

SUMMARY: When Emma Swan’s high school sweetheart betrays her she runs away, as far as she can get… all the way to Japan. She tells herself it’s not running, it’s an adventure, but when she meets a handsome Englishman as broken as she is, will she be brave enough to embark on a new adventure with him?

A//N: THANK YOU ALL for the lovely response to this story! As I said it’s a very personal one, and slower and sweeter than the kinds of things I usually write. I loved living in Japan and writing this has been a trip down memory lane that I’ve very much enjoyed. I’m so pleased you’re enjoying it too!

RATING: M (for this chapter!!)

On AO3

TAGGING: @captainsjedi @teamhook @kmomof4 @winterbaby89 @searchingwardrobes @shireness-says @thejollyroger-writer @darkcolinodonorgasm @resident-of-storybrooke and of course @katie-dub and THANKING @distant-rose and @thisonesatellite for being brilliant betas. 

(please let me know if you would like a tag!!)

PART2:

Christmas was, of course, not a holiday celebrated in Japan. 

Of course it wasn’t, thought Emma, as she got ready for work on the 25th of December, five weeks after she’d moved to Osaka. Japan was a primarily Buddhist and Shinto country, and also, as Belle had explained to them in their last team meeting, the New Year was huge, and they would have a full week off for that. Emma understood.

But still, going to work on Christmas felt weird. 

She’d already Skyped with Ingrid and Ruby and wished them Merry Christmas. There was snow in Storybrooke and her adoptive mom had carried the laptop outside to show her the snowman she and Leo had built, and all the presents under the tree, and even though Emma knew it was really just another day on the calendar, although she’d already lived through missing Thanksgiving, although Christmas carols played everywhere in Osaka all. the. time. since she’d arrived, she still couldn’t help feeling sad. 

Adventure, she reminded herself as she grabbed her bag and headed for the door. Trying new things. There would be other Christmases.  

The expat pubs in Osaka, of which there were very, very many, seemed to understand her melancholy, or at least found a way to profit off it. Every one of them offered “Christmas dinner:” a choice of roast turkey or beef with potatoes and vegetables, smothered in gravy and accompanied by a pint of Guinness. 

“I like a good roast dinner as much as anyone,” remarked Killian as they stood in a hugely crowded pub, looking for a seat and observing as those already seated ate their food, “But that is not a good roast dinner.” 

“It suits me, mate,” said Will. “I intend to get pissed tonight, all I need is somethin’ to cushion the alcohol.” 

“Well, I’m going to find a less… popular place to celebrate the Yuletide,” said Killian. “If anyone would care to join me?”

“I will.” Emma didn’t like the look of the roast meats or the thin gravy, plus it was too loud in the pub and far too hot. She felt claustrophobic and very un-Christmassy.

“And me.” Anna had been subdued all day, for the past few days actually, and the prospect of a Christmas dinner had cheered her almost back to her usual self. But now she looked down again. “Let’s get out of here.” 

The three of them headed out into the streets, still busy and bustling though it was nearly midnight, and decided to walk towards Shinsaibashi. 

“There must be someplace there that’s nicer than that bloody pub,” said Killian. “I don’t know why we go to that place so often, if I wanted a piss-up in a run-down local I’d’ve fucking stayed at home.” 

Everyone was grumpy tonight, thought Emma. They could all use some Christmas spirit. 

“We could always go to KFC,” she attempted to joke. “A student told me today that’s a Japanese Christmas tradition. A bucket of KFC and a strawberry cake.” 

“No,” said Killian firmly. “I want a decent meal. I’ve been looking forward to it all day.” 

“So have I,” Anna agreed. 

They pushed forward through the thickening crowds, but when they reached the entrance to the covered part of Shinsaibashi-suji, where the lights were so bright it almost rivalled daytime and where shops, restaurants, pachinko parlours, and karaoke bars were all jumbled together in a bright mess of noise and energy, Anna held back. 

“I don’t know if I’m really feeling this,” she said. 

“What’s wrong?” Emma asked her. “You seem down.” 

“Yeah, I just— I don’t want a lot of noise. Can we maybe try someplace else? What about down here?”

They turned down a quieter side street, still bright and bustling but far less crowded. After a few minutes Anna stopped. 

“How about this place?” she asked, indicating a red-fronted building with a dark-painted wooden door and a sign outside proclaiming it Osaka’s best steakhouse in almost correct English. 

“Charley Brown’s?” said Emma, reading the sign. “Yeah, okay. Fine with me.” 

Killian opened the door and they went in, indicated with hand gestures to the smiling and bowing hostess that they wanted a table for three, then followed her up the stairs to a small candlelit table in a quiet corner of the spacious room. 

“This is nice,” said Emma, determinedly cheerful. 

“Aye, it really is,” agreed Killian. His earlier mood seemed to have lifted, but Anna was still frowning. 

She hovered next to the table as Emma and Killian sat down. “I don’t think I can do this,” she said. 

“Do what?” said Emma, trying not to be annoyed. “I wish you’d tell us what’s wrong.”

“It’s— it’s Kristoff,” she said, looking sideways at Killian. “My ex. I— he— I talked to him last night and I’m just— I’m not feeling great.”  

“Do you want to talk about it?” offered Emma.

“No. Thanks. I think I just want to be alone.” She tried to smile, though the strain in her face was evident. “You guys stay though, please. Have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Okay. See you.” Emma watched her go, then turned to Killian. “What was that about?”

He scratched behind his ear. “I think she’s just having some troubles with people from home,” he said. “She and her ex ended in a weird place.” 

Emma could tell that wasn’t the whole story but she wasn’t going to try to pry someone else’s secrets from Killian. He and Anna were close and had been friends before she’d met either of them, and it really wasn’t her business. 

Yet Anna’s departure left her and Killian alone together in an atmosphere that was undeniably and inescapably romantic. Their table was small and felt secluded in its little corner, lit with tea lights in decorative holders and by the soft glow of the shaded wall sconces above them. It was intimate and elegant, and the nicest restaurant Emma had ever been in. 

“Well,” said Killian brightly. “What looks good?”

The menu was extensive and a bit confusing, but Emma’s attention was caught by a small card tucked between the salt and pepper shakers on the table, advertising a Christmas meal that looked delicious, far better than what the pub had been offering. Five courses plus wine for 4,000 yen. It was expensive, but it was also Christmas, and Emma felt like she’d earned it. 

“I think I might just try this,” she said. 

Killian picked up the card and nodded. “Sounds great,” he agreed. “I’ll do the same.” 

The waiter appeared and they gave their order, and once he had taken it and bowed himself away, silence fell between Killian and Emma, alone with each other for the first time and for the first time feeling awkward. 

Emma was determined not to be. 

“So are you ever going to tell me the story of your notebook?” she asked him, a hint of challenge in her tone. 

“Do I look like Nicholas Sparks?” quipped Killian, and she chuckled politely but she knew deflection when she saw it, and she was not about to let it slide. 

“I have no idea,” she retorted, “But I suspect your notebook would be a heck of a lot more interesting than his.” 

“Not a Sparks fan then Swan?”

“Stop trying to change the subject.” 

Killian sighed, and rubbed behind his ear again. Emma made a mental note to play poker with him someday; with a tell that obvious he’d be an easy mark. 

“Well if you must know I was taking notes because… because I’m thinking I might write a book. Someday. And when I have ideas I think could possibly go in it, I write them down.” His ears had gone pink, and the tops of his cheeks. Emma could not have been more charmed. 

“Why would you feel like you needed to hide that?” she asked. “I think it’s amazing.” 

He shrugged. “It’s just theoretical at this point, I haven’t actually written anything. But I used to write short stories when I was younger and my brother always said—” he broke off. 

“What did he say?” she prompted.

“He said I had a gift.” Killian replied in a low voice. 

“Sounds like a good brother.” 

“He was.” 

“Was? What happened?” The words were out before she could think better of them, and she tensed, hoping she hadn’t pushed too far.

“He died.”  

She remembered what he’d said during their first meeting, on the subway. “Was that the funeral you wore the tie to?” she asked.  “The tie you threw away?”

He nodded, looking down at his hands where they rested on the table. “Yes.” 

“I’m so sorry, Killian.” 

“It was a long time ago.” He looked away again. 

“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.” She knew this, of course. Firsthand.

“No.” 

She also knew how important it was to talk about things that hurt. “Will you tell me about him?”

Killian looked up at her and she sensed apprehension but also relief, that he actually badly wanted to talk about this with someone who would understand. That he was hoping she would understand.

He had no idea just how much she did understand. 

“Liam was my hero. That might sound foolish—” 

“It doesn’t.” 

“—but he was. He was eight years older than me but he always used to let me tag along with him and his friends. I didn’t realise what a big deal that was until I got older myself. In the summer he would take me to the library and help me find books to read and then sometimes we would get the train to Weymouth and go to the beach. He made me play rugby even though I do not have the build for it because he thought it would make me tougher than football would, and when our father went into drunken rages he would take the brunt of it to protect me.” 

These last words came out all in a rush and his expression was almost defiant, expecting pity or judgement. 

She offered neither, just took his hand and squeezed it hard. 

“How did he die?” she asked. “If you don’t mind telling me.” 

“I don’t like to talk about it, but… I think I’d like for you to know.” He took a deep breath and his fingers tightened on hers. “It was a car accident. Just a stupid, pointless accident, only I was driving. I was seventeen and practicing for my driving test, and I turned onto a busy road and some arsehole wasn’t watching where he was going and plowed into the passenger side, and killed my brother. Instantly. Just like that and he was gone. The police said there was nothing I did wrong, but I can’t help feeling like—” 

“Like you should have been able to do something to prevent it.” 

Relief flashed in his eyes, and gratitude. “Yeah.” 

“I get it. My parents died in a car accident too.”

Relief turned to empathy. “Oh, love.” 

“Yeah. I was twelve, and my brother Leo was two. So we have that in common too, that big gap between siblings. My dad was killed instantly, like your brother, but my mom died pulling me and Leo out of the wreckage.” She paused, blinking tears back, breathing deeply, pushing down the panic this memory still incited, even after more than a decade. “She pulled me out first, I was easier to reach, then told me to wait while she went back for Leo. She got him free but she had internal bleeding and strained herself too much.”

Her voice broke, and Killian held her hand even tighter. “Fucking hell,” he whispered. 

“Yeah.” She swallowed hard, focused on her breathing. “It was pretty awful. My mom— she put Leo in my arms and then she collapsed and never got up again, and I— I have spent the past eleven years thinking if only I had stayed with her maybe I could have saved them both.” Her confession came in a rush, as his had done. 

“Or maybe you’d have been killed too.” Killian’s voice was hoarse. “You were a child, Emma, there is nothing you could have done. 

“Maybe. As it was all I had was a few bruises and Leo barely a scratch.” 

“But that’s good, love. You had your brother, and he had you. I’m sure knowing that would have made your parents happy.” 

It was the kindest thing anyone had ever said to her about the accident, much less someone who had lost his own brother so cruelly. Emma felt the tears she’d been fighting back spill over, and wiped her eyes with an embarrassed laugh. 

“So that’s why you don’t like wearing ties,” she tried to joke. “At least that mystery is solved.” 

“Aye. My father made me wear one to the funeral and cuffed me on the side of the head when I protested, said I was being disrespectful to Liam’s memory.” Fury flashed in his eyes, barely leashed, offering a glimpse of how terrifying he would be if he ever let it loose. Showing that his memories were as fresh as hers were. “Like he hadn’t spent Liam’s entire fucking life being disrespectful, like it’s so respectful to take out your drunken bitterness on your own bloody child.”

“So what did you do?”

“I put on the tie and I went to the funeral. Then when my brother was in the ground I burned the tie, and the suit, punched my father in his fucking face and left. I haven’t seen him since.” 

Emma could imagine him, young and lost and drowning in pain and fury. She wanted to hug him, but instead she gently rubbed her thumb across his fingers. “Where did you go?”

“I’ve always loved the sea so I went down to Weymouth, where I used to go to the beach with Liam. I went to the harbour there and found myself a job as a labourer on a fishing boat, backbreaking work but I was lucky to get it. I worked there for just over a year, until I had enough money saved to pay for university. What about you? What happened after your parents passed?”

“It was pretty confusing for a while. We stayed with my friend Ruby and her grandmother since my parents didn’t have any close family to take us in, but then the state wanted to put us into the foster system. They said they’d keep us together, but I didn’t trust them, so when the social worker came to talk to us I wouldn’t let her in. I held the door shut and then I kicked and scratched and bit her, and eventually she gave up and left. She was furious. She shouted at me that Leo could be adopted into a nice family and if I was good they’d take me too. She said I was going to ruin his life, but I knew my parents would have wanted him to grow up with his own family. Even if that was only me.” She gave a self-deprecating shrug. 

“Eventually my mother’s distant cousin, Ingrid, heard about what happened. She came and found us and took custody of us. Three years later she adopted us. She even moved to the little town where we lived so that we wouldn’t have to be separated from our friends and familiar surroundings.” She sniffed as tears prickled behind her eyes again. “I don’t know what we’d have done without her.”

Killian smiled, though he looked teary himself. “So a happy ending, then, of a sort.” 

“As happy as it could be I suppose. Leo’s thirteen now and he’s a normal, happy kid. He loves Ingrid and doesn’t remember our parents, which—” she paused and took a deep breath before speaking, words she had never uttered to another person, words she had barely even managed to think. But she’d already told him so much, what was one more painful revelation? She could analyse her seemingly irresistible urge to spill all her secrets to him sometime later. “—I almost envy him for that,” she whispered. “I miss them so much. Even after all this time. I cry every day on the anniversary of their deaths.” 

Killian’s hand shifted in hers, and she felt the soft brush of his thumb across her knuckles. “I cry on the anniversary of Liam’s,” he said, in a voice that held sadness and pain and profound empathy. He understood, of course. She’d known he would. 

The waiter arrived with their first courses, shattering the intimate mood, and abruptly they were self-conscious, pulling their hands apart and smiling with forced cheerfulness as plates were set before them. Emma could still feel the imprint of Killian’s fingers in hers as she picked up her fork. 

“This looks good!” she said brightly. 

“Aye. Far better than that slop from the pub.” 

They ate in silence for a minute and Emma, desperate for the ease of understanding between them not to grow strained searched for some topic of conversation less heavy than dead families. 

“So why did you—” she began.

“What brings you to—” started Killian, and they laughed. 

“I was just going to ask why you came to Japan,” said Emma. 

“Funny, that’s what I was going to ask you.” 

She grinned at him. “You first.” 

“Well it’s not that interesting a story, really. After uni I took an awful boring job, in public relations. I’ve no idea why I even took it, my degree is in Modern Languages, but they needed someone who spoke French so they offered it to me. The salary was better than any other offers I’d had and they said they were a ‘cool young’ firm and I wouldn’t have to wear a suit, so I thought why the fuck not for a year or two. But then before I knew it, it was five years later and I was bloody miserable. I hated every morning I had to wake up and go to work, but I stayed in the job because I didn’t really have any idea what else I even wanted to do. Then one day out of nowhere I ran into Graham in London. We’d been at uni together and hadn’t seen each other since, so we went for a drink to catch up and he told me he was there for an interview to teach in Japan. He made it sound like an amazing opportunity, said I should come too since they were still recruiting, and I had always wanted to go to Asia so I said I’d give it some thought. And then the next day my boss told me they were cutting the staff and offered me voluntary redundancy and I said hell yes, took the money, and before I was even out the door was on the phone with Graham for the details of that job.” 

“Wow, it’s lucky you ran into him.” 

“Indeed. We weren’t ever that close and I hadn’t spoken to him in years. It was just a weird coincidence that we happened to be in the same place at the same time. What?” he asked, seeing her face. 

“Nothing, really, it’s just I’m kinda here by weird coincidence too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I— I wanted to get away. From my life, and from my ex.” She glanced up at him, hoping he wouldn’t ask for details. She really didn’t want to talk about Neal, not with Killian. But he just nodded for her to continue. “So I just randomly googled ‘jobs in other countries’ and this came up. I’d never even considered going to Japan or even leaving the US, but it was like once the idea got into my head I couldn’t get rid of it. I felt like I had to go. Ruby thought I was nuts.” She laughed. “Maybe I was. But also, like, the interviews were being held in Boston, which is a three hour drive and a longer train ride and I wouldn’t normally have ben able to manage it, but the day they wanted to interview me I happened to have plans to be in Boston anyway, with Ruby actually. It was just all so easy, like it just fell into place. I don’t normally believe in signs, but that sure as hell felt like one.”

Killian shook his head, an odd, small smile on his face. 

“What?” she asked him. 

“I was just thinking of all the little things that had to come together in order for us to meet,” he said. “The odds against it were staggering.” 

“And yet here we are,” she said softly, matching his smile with her own. 

“Here we are,” he agreed. 

—

They left the restaurant feeling content, full of wine and good food and the excitement humming softly beneath their skin at this hazy, undefined, unspoken-but-still-very-real thing that was blossoming between them, the attraction and the understanding and the sense of kinship that was unlike anything either had experienced before. Killian held the door for her and then when they fell into step his hand brushed against hers and Emma thought the spark might actually set her on fire. She edged closer and let her knuckles brush his in a way that was unmistakably deliberate, then his fingertips were tracing across her palm and— 

“Oi, Jones! Emma!” 

Will’s voice rang out from across the street and Killian and Emma all but leapt apart. 

She didn’t know why, Emma thought crossly. They hadn’t been doing anything, yet the nothing they’d been doing was new and fragile and intensely personal, and she imagined Killian didn’t want their friends interfering in it any more than she did. 

She glanced at him and he shot her a wry grin, and they crossed the street to join the group. Will was with Graham and Smee and all three were very much the worse for alcohol. 

“We are goin’,” said Will, with the painstaking enunciation of the very intoxicated, “to sing karaoke. An’ you two,” he poked Killian’s chest with his finger. “Are comin’ along.”

“Mate—” began Killian, glancing again at Emma. 

“Come on!” Will grabbed Killian’s arm and took a step forward, stumbling over the curb into the street and almost sending both himself and Killian flying headfirst into the gutter. 

Killian steadied them both. “I’m not sure you’re in any state for karaoke, mate,” he said. “Maybe we should all just go home.” 

“The night is young!” declared Will. 

“It’s almost four a.m.” 

“And we don’t ‘ave to be at work until three p.m.!” 

Killian looked imploringly at Smee and Graham. 

“Killian’s right, Scarlet,” said Graham. “You’re plastered and the rest of us are knackered, let’s get a taxi and go home. We’ll do karaoke another time.” 

“Fine if you lot don’t wanna sing. But I am not goin’ home yet,” retorted Will, pulling his arm away from Killian and stalking off, as best he could stalk when he could barely keep his own feet under him. They watched him stagger for a minute, and finally Graham sighed. 

“I’ll go after him,” he said. “Get him home safe. You guys don’t have to wait.” 

“You sure?” said Smee. “I can go with—” 

“No, you get a taxi with Emma and Killian, you all live in the same direction so it makes sense.” 

Emma and Killian exchanged looks. It did make sense, but Smee lived at the same subway stop as Killian, which meant…

“Okay.” Smee grinned at Emma. “I’ll be h— happy to escort you home, my lady.” She felt Killian tense up beside her, and when she glanced at him his jaw was clenched tight. He caught her eye and shrugged. What could they do? Ditch Smee because they wanted to be alone in the taxi, maybe go back to one or the other’s apartment together? 

Was that what they wanted? 

It was definitely what Emma wanted, and she thought Killian did too, but they could hardly discuss that here. 

Graham said goodbye and hurried after Will, chasing him deeper into the noise and crowds of Shinsaibashi, while Emma, Killian, and Smee turned in the other direction and headed for the taxi ranks on the quieter street of Midosuji. 

“Imazato chikatetsu eki, kudasai,” said Emma to the driver as she got into the taxi between Smee and Killian. Her stop was closest.  

“Imazato, hai!” he replied, and swerved the taxi in a sharp u-turn out into the street, tilting Emma almost into Killian’s lap. She braced herself against him and his hand came to rest on her knee, and when the taxi evened out along the wide avenue he didn’t move it. 

Emma shifted, as subtly as she could, leaning into Killian’s side and pressing her leg against his. She could tell he was looking at her but she didn’t turn her head, didn’t dare risk seeing his face. He moved his fingers against her knee, almost imperceptibly, and when she merely pressed her leg harder against his he slid his hand slowly up her thigh, just to the middle of it. Casually, she let her hand come to rest next to his, looping their little fingers together. She heard him exhale slowly, as if trying to control his breathing, and he shifted himself, pressing his body all along the length of hers and twining their fingers more tightly together. Emma glanced over at Smee, but he was leaning his head against the window, oblivious. 

All too soon they arrived at Imazato. Killian got out of the taxi to let Emma out. As she brushed past him he caught her waist and gave it a light squeeze. She looked up at his eyes, so blue in the bright lights from the subway station, brimming with emotions that made her heart race. Another time, his eyes said, and she nodded. 

Emma ran across the street to her building and up the stairs two at a time, all five flights of them. She was feeling exhilarated and jumpy and humming with energy. She flung open the apartment door and kicked off her shoes, almost dancing into the living room. 

“Do you mind,” said Aurora’s voice from the sofa. “We are watching a movie.” 

“Oh.” Emma turned to see Aurora and Mulan sprawled out with a laptop on the table in front of them, sharing a set of headphones. “Sorry. I thought you guys would be at work.” 

“We did a half day today,” said Mulan. 

“We finished about an hour ago,” added Aurora. “You’re back really late.” 

“Oh, I just went out to dinner with a friend. For Christmas. Um, Merry Christmas, by the way.” 

“About that,” said Aurora. “Just so you know, next week we’re having a party. For the New Year. With some friends from our shift. Just so you can make your own plans.” 

Mulan shot her an apologetic look, but Emma just shrugged. She was used to Aurora’s passive aggression by now. “That’s fine,” she said. “I’m, um, gonna go to bed now. See you guys later.” She could hear Aurora whispering as she slid her bedroom’s thin doors shut but she tuned it out. 

Her mind and heart were still racing as she got into her pajamas and flopped down on her futon. Just one more week, she thought, four more days of work and then they had nine days off for the New Year. Nine days of vacation, surely, surely she and Killian could find some time to be alone with each other again. 

She closed her eyes with a smile and fell asleep thinking about him. 

— 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 — 🇯🇵 

The following week passed much as the ones before it had. She saw Killian at work and he still flirted and shared his lunch with her and outwardly everything was almost the same. And yet… whenever the group was together they made sure to stand next to each other, closer than they would have stood before. They sat closer too, at lunch, and shared little private smiles, and now and then when she was laughing or talking animatedly she looked up to catch him watching her with an intensity that made her heart pound.

After their shift on December 29th the group headed out, back to Shinsaibashi to a new bar Will wanted to try. 

“I hear they make some fuckin’ killer drinks, mates,” he said. “There’s this blue shite, right, that has five different shots of liquor.” 

“Five, really?” said Graham. “You’d be dead.” 

“Nah, mate, not after one. It’d take at least three to end me,” chortled Will. 

He held the door open for them with a flourish, and rubbed his hands together as it closed behind him. The room was brightly lit, done in shades of electric blue and glaring white and the bar was made of glass and decorated to look like a fish tank. Emma frowned at it, watching carefully until she was certain that the realistic-looking fish were not actually swimming. 

“I think they’re just… part of the glass?” said Anna. 

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Weird.” 

The bar’s glass top was scattered with laminated menus, featuring pictures of vibrantly hued drinks. 

“That’s it!” crowed Will, pointing at a drink the same blue shade as the neon sign above the bar. “That’s the one. I’ll ‘ave one a those, kudasai.” He pointed at the menu and the bartender nodded. 

“Make it six,” said Will, holding up his left hand with the five fingers splayed wide and his right index finger held vertically across its palm. “My treat, mates.” 

“Roku, hai,” acknowledged the bartender. 

The bar was staffed by three terrifyingly efficient men, and their drinks arrived quickly. Emma took a sip of hers and grimaced. It was good, but it was strong. 

“What the hell is in this?” she demanded. 

“Not sure,” said Will. “I think one is absinthe.” 

“Isn’t that illegal?” queried Anna.

“Maybe not in Japan,” suggested Graham. 

“Absinthe is green,” Killian informed them, holding his drink up to the light. “Famously so. I don’t think there’s anything green in here, this is likely the bluest substance known to man.” 

They all laughed and kept sipping, and the more they sipped the louder their laughter grew until the blue beverages were all consumed and Will was asking the bartender for more. 

“I don’ think I could drink more,” said Emma, leaning heavily against Killian as the room spun gently around her, not even caring about the sharp look Anna shot her as she clutched the sleeve of his suit jacket. She liked Anna, very much, and whenever they were alone the other woman was friendliness itself but as far as very-pleasantly-buzzed Emma was concerned, she needed either to say she wanted Killian or not say it, but all these little wordless glares whenever Emma was close to him were starting to get tiresome. 

Especially as Emma had every intention of getting much closer to him before the night was done. 

Will was arguing with the bartender who refused to make them more blue drinks, offering them every other colour on the menu, and Graham was trying to intervene. Smee was watching them with his habitual slightly vague expression and Anna was pretending to watch while actually keeping her eyes on Emma as she laid her head on Killian’s shoulder and his arm snuck around her waist. 

“All right, Swan?” he murmured. 

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I feel good.” 

It was one of the nicest buzzes she’d ever had, in fact. She felt light and loose and carefree, but not confused or out of control. Like she was floating on a marshmallow or rolling on a cloud of cotton candy. 

She giggled, which was not like her, nor was the whimsy. But maybe both were what she needed tonight, she thought. 

Will clapped his hands triumphantly as he won his argument with the bartender, who agreed to make them one more blue drink. 

“Have at it, lads,” Will said, offering the drink around the group. Emma took a large swig then passed it to Killian, who did the same. She swayed as the added alcohol hit her, and now the cotton candy was in her brain, clouding her thoughts and sweetening them. She tugged on the lapels of Killian’s jacket. 

“Let’s go somewhere,” she said, hoping the words didn’t sound as slurred as they did in her head. 

He looked down at her, his eyes glassy but intensely focused. 

“Where?” he asked.  

“Somewhere. Anywhere. Just— take me somewhere.” 

His eyes widened as he caught her meaning, then dropped to her lips and he swallowed hard. She swayed towards him but the room was far too bright and too full of their friends for what they both wanted. 

He cleared his throat. “Are you sure, love?” he asked. “We’ve had a lot to drink—” 

“I’m sure.” 

He nodded, eyes still on her lips. “Yours?”

Emma struggled to think. Did Mulan and Aurora still work tonight, or— but it really didn’t matter because she wasn’t about to bring Killian to her place if there was any chance of Aurora being present. “No, my roommates are home,” she said.  

“Is that a problem?”

“We have shoji doors, they are literally made of paper.” 

“Ah. Well mine has normal doors but my flatmate is having a party.” 

Emma wanted to snarl in frustration. How did other people do this when there was no privacy in this country?

Then she remembered how, from the whispers of other teachers and the blasé tales of her students. 

“What about a love hotel?”

Killian’s eyes finally left her lips and he stared at her. “Really?”

“Oh, come on, like you haven’t wondered what they were like,” she teased. 

“I have definitely wondered, but—” 

“There’s one just down the street isn’t there?” 

“Emma, let’s think about this.” 

“I don’t want to think.” She clutched his lapels again, pressing her body as close to his as it could get, close enough that their breaths mingled, that she could feel the catch in his against her cheek. So close that half an inch was all that stood between them and the kiss they had both been craving for a week. For longer. 

Well, that half inch and four very rowdy drunken English teachers and a glaringly bright Japanese bar. 

“I just want to be alone with you,” whispered Emma. “Just you and me somewhere with a door that locks and where no one cares what we do.” She released him abruptly and stepped back, towards the door, grabbing his hand from around her waist and giving it a tug. “I don’t care if it’s tacky, that’ll be part of the fun. C’mon. I’ll pay.” 

“You absolutely will not,” said Killian, and she knew she had him. He glanced around them and seeing no one was looking wrapped his arm around her waist again and steered her to the door. “Let’s go.” 

They stumbled out into the bustling night, just drunk enough to make the flashing neon seem softly romantic. Killian held her close against his side, his arm firm around her waist, and she slid her hand into the back pocket of his trousers. A wild giggle rose in her throat as she realised they must look like the sort of couple people shouted at to get a room. 

And that was exactly what they were going to do. 

The lobby of the love hotel was surprisingly elegant, with soft lighting and dark-wood panelling along the clean lines and sharp angles of the room. A smiling woman stood behind a large wooden desk in the far corner. She said something in rapid Japanese and Emma struggled to pick out any of the words she knew. 

Killian replied, also in Japanese. 

What the fuck, thought Emma, gaping at him, wondering if she were drunker than she’d thought. 

He shot her a slightly sheepish look as the woman began to tap on her computer. “I’ve been taking lessons,” he said. 

So had Emma, but she wasn’t anywhere near that good. 

Though her body was still thrumming with excitement she began to feel a bit awkward as Killian and the still-smiling woman arranged their room. There was only one reason people went to love hotels, the clue was quite literally in the name, and despite the fact that this was the woman’s job it felt weird to think that she knew what Emma and Killian were there to do. 

Killian caught the look on her face and squeezed her hand. “You can back out any time, love,” he said. “No hard feelings.” 

She shook her head, and returned his squeeze. “No. I want to do this.” 

He smiled and the look in his eyes made her belly quiver. 

The smiling woman handed Killian a key and a pamphlet and pointed them in the direction of the elevator with an elegant hand wave and a series of bows. 

“Come on, then, Swan,” he said, flipping through the pamphlet. “We’re on the twelfth floor.” 

“There are twelve floors to this place?”

“More, even, I think.”

They got in the elevator, which was as dimly lit as the lobby. The darkness made it easier to slide close to him again and press her cheek against his chest as he kissed her hair. 

She supposed that was the point. 

After the tasteful elegance of the hotel’s entrance and elevator, the sight of their room had them stopping dead in the doorway, gaping in shock. This, thought Emma. This is what I was expecting. The commitment to the theme was impressive. 

The room was large, with gently curving walls and tall, blacked-out windows, but what really drew the eye were the hearts. Heart shaped pillows of varying sizes and hues of pink and red cluttered the heart-shaped bed with its heart shaped headboard, over which hung a heart-shaped mirror framed in sparkly red hearts. The walls were striped with lines of fuchsia hearts and in the corner sat a small table, square but lacquered in black with bright red hearts and accompanied by two matching chairs, with heart-shaped backs. 

Emma tried to swallow her hysterical giggles but then she caught Killian’s eye. He was biting the inside of his cheek and when she widened her eyes at him they both burst into laughter. 

“This is brilliant,” said Killian, after they had caught their breath again. “It’s everything I hoped it would be.” 

“Exactly what I was thinking,” she agreed, and they both knew they weren’t just talking about the room. 

Their laughter had dissipated the awkwardness leaving only the insistent pull of sexual tension, and when Emma hooked her fingers under the waistband of his trousers and pulled him closer she could feel the pounding of his heart and the heat of his gaze burning into her as she slid her hand into his hair. 

“I’m feeling more sober now,” she whispered. 

“Is that bad?”

“Exactly the opposite. I want to remember this.” 

“So do I.” 

She pulled his mouth down to hers and stood on her toes to meet it halfway as his arms wrapped tightly around her. Their lips met softly at first and then harder, and Emma’s head began to spin again as she opened her mouth and his tongue stroked hers, soft and wet and warm and tasting faintly of alcohol. He kissed her firmly and with obvious skill but let her take the lead, responding to her cues and adapting to her pace, and for the first time ever she felt like kissing was something being done with her rather than to her, and for Emma this was a revelation. 

Soon she was breathless and barely able to stay standing on her shaky legs. She leaned against Killian, wrapping her arms around his neck as he lifted her just off her feet and walked them over to the bed, lowering her gently onto the pile of heart pillows and following her down without breaking their kiss. He unbuttoned her shirt slowly, letting his fingertips trail along each newly revealed inch of skin until every last button was undone and she practically ripped the shirt away, desperate for more of his hands on her.   

They pulled apart just long enough for her to yank off her bra and toss it away and for him to remove his own shirt, heedless of its buttons, and when they came back together she moaned at the rough sensation of his chest hair against her nipples. It felt amazing, his skin against hers felt amazing, and the hard press of his cock between her legs made her heart race and her fingers tremble in anticipation. She bucked her hips against him and he groaned into her mouth. 

He tugged at the waistband of her trousers. “Get these off,” he growled, as with his other hand he began to undo his belt. Emma shimmied out of her pants and underwear, too eager to feel all of him against her to be anything like self-conscious. When they were both naked he paused, taking her in, then reached out a trembling hand to trace the contours of her breast and waist and hip with the tips of his fingers. 

“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, almost in a whisper. “I can’t believe—” 

“What?” she whispered back. 

“I can’t believe I’m here with you. This is like a dream.” 

She knew exactly how he felt. 

“You’re beautiful too,” she said, trailing her own fingertips over his chest and down his abs, stopping just shy of his cock. He caught his breath, the blue of his eyes almost lost to black, but managed a smirk. 

“Devilishly handsome, I think you’ll find, Swan.” 

She laughed. “That too.” 

He pulled her back into his arms, running his hand down her back to press her as close as he could, curving it around her ass to pull her hips into his. She gasped, rocking against the hard swell of cock, desperate to feel it inside her, when she was struck by a terrible thought. “Wait,” she panted, pushing against his shoulders. “Do you have a condom?”

Killian pulled back, panting himself. “No. But the love hotel provides.” He leaned across her and pressed a button on the side of the headboard. A small drawer popped open, from which he withdrew a strip of six condoms, smirking at her as he brandished them.

“Ambitious,” remarked Emma. 

“Aye, perhaps, but I do love a challenge.” 

He waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed. “How did you know those were there?”

“It’s in the brochure.” 

“When did you—” she began, but he cut her off with his mouth on hers and his hand sliding up the inside of her thigh, making her gasp against his lips. 

“Hush, now, love, remember we have six condoms to use before two o’clock this afternoon, we need to stay focused.” 

Her chuckle became a strangled moan as his fingers stroked through her slick flesh, finding her clit with impressive speed and accuracy. He pressed it lightly with his thumb and then began to rub gentle circles around it. 

“Oh my God,” she gasped, half expecting him to reply with some quip about how just Killian would do, but he was too intent on watching her reactions to his touch. She could almost see him cataloguing what she liked, thinking vaguely that she should feel uncomfortable being the centre of such focused attention, but then he increased the pressure of his thumb and slipped a finger inside her and she forgot to think at all. 

She arched her back, pressing her core against his hand and her head back against the pillows as her hands clutched at them. She wanted to watch him as he watched her; the intensity of his focus and determination to please her turned her on as much as anything about him did, but her eyes refused to stay open, fluttering closed as the heady sensations built and intensified and then her orgasm burst over her and she actually screamed. 

Killian continued to stroke her until she opened her eyes then withdrew his hand, resting it on her hip as he propped his head on the other one, watching her with an expression that managed to be both soft and smug. 

“You,” she panted, “are looking awfully pleased with yourself.”

His smirk deepened. “Well, darling, I did just make you scream.”

She gave his shoulder a sharp shove, toppling him onto his back and quickly swinging her leg over to straddle him. “Let’s see who screams next,” she said. 

He cupped her breast, thumbnail flicking across her nipple and she tried to stifle her gasp, without success. He licked his lower lip, slowly. “You’re on, love,” he growled.  

Damn it, thought Emma, she was fully turned on again, ready to go. 

“Where’s the damn condoms?” she snarled, snatching them from his hand when he held them up. Ripping the first one from its packet she quickly rolled it down his length, following it with her body as he pulled her close to take her nipple in his mouth. 

“Fuck,” she moaned as twin bolts of pleasure shot through her from her breast and her core. “Fuck.” 

“That’s the idea,” murmured Killian against her skin. He gave her ass a light slap. “Get on with it, then. I thought you were going to make me scream.” 

Emma resisted the urge to smack him, instead lifting her hips and slamming them down, taking him deep, triumphant when he groaned and the hand on her ass gripped her hard. She braced her hands on either side of his head and concentrated on finding a rhythm, taking him as deep as she could and watching him as closely as he had her, trying to memorise what he liked best. 

There seemed to be nothing he didn’t like, and soon he was thrusting up to meet her, fingers digging bruises into her flesh as she leaned on one hand and dragged her fingernails down his chest. When she flicked his nipple as he had done hers, he made a noise she’d never heard before and flipped them over, lifting her knee up to to her chest and plunging back into her deeper than before. 

Emma no longer cared about the noises she herself was making; she was lost to everything but him, to the delicious friction of his cock inside her and his chest hair against her nipples, the softness of his lips on her neck. She’d had no idea sex could feel like this, like she was coming apart but also more whole than she’d ever been, her body incandescent with sensations that were almost more than she could bear. When she came it caught her by surprise, bursting from her core and flooding her with pleasure to the very tips of her fingers and toes. She gripped Killian’s forearm, nails digging into his skin as she clenched around him and he moaned her name as he came.

He collapsed and tried to roll away but she held on, wanting his weight on her for a few moments longer. He let his head fall against her neck and she could feel his breath ruffling the fine hairs on her nape as she sank her fingers into his own hair, damp with sweat, and as her senses slowly returned she tried not to worry about how not awkward this whole thing felt. 

Even with Neal she’d always been awkward after sex, and she’d known him for years before sleeping with him. The whole business of being naked with someone once the urge to fuck had gone made her feel far too vulnerable, to say nothing of the messy cleanup and the general damp stickiness of it all. She generally escaped as quickly as she could and went to take a shower. 

But with Killian not only didn’t she want to run she actually wanted to cuddle. His hand was moving up and down her hip in a touch more soothing than sensual, in time with her fingers sifting through his silky hair and it was… nice. Comfortable and sweet and lovely and she had no idea why this didn’t scare her. 

Eventually he turned his head and nuzzled her cheek, kissing it lightly before pulling out of her, careful not to lose the condom. He went to dispose of it and she stretched luxuriantly, ogling his ass as he went. 

“I could really use a shower,” she remarked. 

“There’s a tub in here,” Killian called from the bathroom. “A big one.” 

He poked his head out of the doorway, his expression at once challenging and shyly hopeful. “We could both fit,” he said. 

What the hell, thought Emma. She’d already blown up all her old rules and boundaries with him, and she wasn’t about to run off until they’d had at least one more round, so why not take a bath together? She pictured him flushed and damp and looking at her in that way he had that made her feel cherished. 

“Is it heart shaped?” she joked. 

He laughed. “No. A missed opportunity there, really.” 

“Oh well. Let’s use it anyway.” 

His face lit up before disappearing back around the doorframe, and a moment later she heard the sound of water running. 

“There are some bubbles though,” he called out. “In a heart shaped bottle.” 

“Good enough,” laughed Emma. “Put ‘em in!”

She rolled off the bed and sauntered into the bathroom. Maybe it was the residual effect of the blue drink, maybe the fact that she was still buzzing from the best sex of her life, or maybe it was just the way Killian looked at her, but Emma was feeling bold and sexy, and when she appeared in the bathroom doorway and his eyes darkened as they travelled slowly down her naked form that feeling only intensified. 

“You’re stunning,” he said. 

She grinned. “So are you. Are we gonna do this again?”

“I know by ‘this’ you mean ‘trade compliments,’ but I’m going to ignore that and say hell yes we are but let’s have a bath first.” 

“Good call,” she said, and stepped into the warm water. The bubbles smelled like roses and she sighed in bliss, and when Killian got in behind her and pulled her against him she snuggled into him with a sigh of a different sort, feeling happier than she could remember being since that dark, tragic night when she was twelve years old. 

NOTES: For anyone unfamiliar with love hotels, they are basically just hotels that are designed to be places for people to go to have sex. They are not specifically for prostitution, though they can be used that way, but more for couples who just need some privacy in a very densely populated country with thin walls. In many traditional Japanese homes the sleeping space and the living space is the same space, and people just roll up their futons and put them in closets during the day, plus extended families often live together, so you can imagine it's hard even for married couples to find any space to be alone. They're not all heart-themed, but many have other themes like anime or S&M, and increasingly they are getting rid of the themes entirely. 

You can read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_hotel 

[foofygoldfish]

All for Willow

🍍  :    how comfortable is my muse in their body? how do they feel about their height,  weight,  strength,  and body type?  how important is being attractive to them?  

somewhat? being attractive isn’t important to her at all (except sometimes, when she’s alone with thomas - that’s a different situation, in her mind). 

🍅  :    how does my muse feel about plastic  /  cosmetic surgeries   &   procedures?  is it something they have done or would do?  do they mind if others do it?  

she doesn’t really have an opinion - i doubt they’re really an option in the world she lives in, outside of maybe the bigger cities. even if it was, she wouldn’t actively consider it - if she was in an accident? yeah. otherwise? she doesn’t care if someone else does, but yeah, it’s not for her.

🍏  :    how stable is my muse’s physical health?  do they go for regular or semi-regular checkups by a physician?  do they have any diagnosed illnesses and / or take any medication?  how often do they get sick?

she’s (somehow) in fairly stable health - she does get regular checkups, particularly when she’s in hope county, but that’s mostly to check on her prosthetic and to fix that, not her. as for her immune system - she doesn’t get sick often, but when she does, she’s whiny.

🍎  :    how stable is my muse’s mental health?  have they been diagnosed with any mental illnesses and  /  or conditions?  do they have any undiagnosed mental illnesses and  /  or conditions?  do they or should they attend therapy?  

officially, she hasn’t been diagnosed with anything, but she does have a decent amount of anxiety stemming from her years in the bunker and the years immediately after.

🍑  :    how meticulously does my muse look after their physical appearance?  do they spend a lot of time on their hair,  makeup,  grooming,  and clothing?  is there a particular reason why they do or don’t?  

she keeps herself looking tidy, but with her job? it’s usually not practical to care too much. when she’s safe in prosperity or back in portland, though, she will take extra time on her hair and wear nicer clothes. 

🍒  :    how much does my muse value companionship?  do they constantly keep people around them,  or do they prefer to be alone often?  do they have or desire to have many friends?  do they see every meeting as an opportunity to make a new friend?  

she hates being alone, honestly - it’s too quiet. she always has someone with her, be it thomas, leah, one of the residents of prosperity... there’s always someone. she doesn’t necessarily want friends - just a companion. if they get along well enough to be friends? that’s great, but it’s work. 

🍇  :    how would my muse describe their childhood?  how much has it impacted the person they are now,  or will become as an adult?  around what age did they or will they start to mature,  and why?  do they wish to go back to their days as a child,  or have they embraced adulthood?  

from birth till age 10? amazing. aaaand then the bombs dropped and her brother died, and that kinda fucked with everything. her teenage years were rough, between coping with finn’s death and the whole “nuclear apocalypse” thing. overall, she’s adapted pretty well to this new world, but there are definitely days when she wishes she could go back to how things were before and spend time on her parents farm or go swimming in the big lake in town again.

🍐  :    how intelligent is my muse overall?  are they smarter than the average person,  or less than?  are they primarily self-taught,  or did they acquire most of their knowledge in school?  are they more street smart or book smart?  

technically, her formal schooling if she had chance, she’d be excellent at jeopardy - her dad was a high school teacher and her mom a vet, so they were able to (pretty much) keep her and leah’s education going while they were in the bunker. 

🍉  :    which of the four seasons suits my muse best,  and why?  

aesthetically? she likes the winter. she thinks it’s pretty, and she loves watching mila and rush playing in the snow together. practically? summer, probably - it’s easier to move around lol

🍌  :    is my muse inclined to help others,  or will they only do it when it benefits them,  if at all?  what makes them this way?  has it ever gotten them into trouble,  or inconvenienced them? 

she’ll help people, but only to a point - her team comes first, the people she’s protecting come first, but as long as someone isn’t an active threat? she’ll do her best to help them too. it’s something she learned to do very early on - things were rough in the years after the bombs, and she learned that no matter how much she wants to help someone, it’s not always practical.

🍊  :    does my muse desire romance?  is it something they would actively seek out,  or prefer to happen more  ‘  naturally?  ’  what is their love life like?  do they have any exes or past flings,  or crushes?  

she’s the one who initiated things with thomas lol - their relationship is more subdued, due to the nature of their jobs, but behind closed doors they’re very affectionate. 

🍓  :    how is my muse typically seen by others?  does it ring true to who they really are?  does their reputation matter to them? 

she’s seen as someone that’s tough - she is, but when she’s not working? she’s a total softie.

🥝  :    does my muse have any  ‘  unusual  ’  habits, interests,  and  /  or talents?  do they hide it,  or are they proud of it?  

so many people are surprised that she enjoys sewing and knitting - she thinks it’s calming (and practical) but... nobody expects it.

🍋  :    what kind of diet does my muse have?  do they eat regularly,  or the standard 2-3 meals a day?  do they have to be reminded to eat,  or are they likely to remind others?  do they cook,  or have others cook for them?  do they eat healthily,  or not so much?  

she’ll pretty much eat whatever, but if she isn’t on the train, she frequently has to be reminded to eat lol

🥭  :    how important to my muse is their hometown,  or where they’re from?  are they proud of it,  or considered a hometown hero? did they move away,  or do they wish to?

she hasn’t been back to michigan since she first left, and she misses it - someday she wants to get back out there with mila and baby leah, to see if her old farm is still there, or if any parts of her hometown have survived, and if any of her old friends are still around. she doesn’t expect much, but she just needs to know.

[thepersephonecabin]

Legacy and Bullshit Mindfuckery (fic)

Summary: Luvander has two things for the Adamo’s first child: a gift and a wish.

Please see full tags and warnings AO3

Note: So... How did we get here? Well, basically, when I was writing A Very Adamo Christmas for @foxesonstilts for the @festivebastion exchange I meant to put in a short bit about a Luvander giving Laure and Adamo’s first child a very special gift, but forgot until after finishing FestiveBastion. So I told myself I was gonna write a small addition, and then my latent need to see the airmen recover after the war took over and suddenly I had a 4k+ luvander character study on my hands. And also about halfway through my if-i-dont-write-this-right-now-i-will-never-sleep craze a tiny part of my brain was like “you should make luvander a trans man for absolutely no reason” and I did and actually really liked the way it fit into the story.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy!

-

A day and a half following the birth of Rory Adamo, Luvander found himself on the doorstep of the Greylace Estate once again. Wrapped in one arm, he cradles a soft drawstring bag, cream in color with a light pink ribbon around the top.

He didn’t bother knocking as he shouldered his way through the doorway. Even though he still primarily lived out of the apartment above the hat shop, this place was dragon territory, and therefore as far as he was concerned, it was his home as well.

“Hello?” he called out, slipping his shoes off at the door. Maybe if he was really lucky, Rook would come in and pitch a fit about like he would in the good old days.

Balfour emerged from the lounge with a book cracked open in his hands and questioning eyes. “Oh, Luvander. It’s you.”

“It’s me,” Luvander confirmed. “Where’s the chief and his young lady love? I had something I wanted to bring to them.”

“They’re in their bedroom, I think,” Balfour said before quickly amending, “Oh, no, not like that! I think it was just time to change her.”

“Ah,” Luvander said. “How is the not-so-little tyke anyway?”

Balfour smiled and began leading him up the stairs to Laure and Owen’s room as if Luvander hadn’t been there not two days ago. “Oh, you know. She sleeps and eats and poops and cries. Lucky the three of us don’t room up in the same area of the house as Chief Sergeant and Airlady Adamo or I’m sure we’d all be knackered already.

The three of us. Luvander knew he meant the three Second Wavers outside of Laure of course. Luvander felt a sick little spark of jealousy flare up in his stomach and not for the first time at their mention before he stamped it out with the guilt of it all.

Balfour continued, “Mom and Dad are still smitten with her though. I wager that by the sixth week in they might be out of the honeymoon stage.”

“Sixth? I don’t know if I could make it to the second,” Luvander said. Of course, he was happy to have a little niece to dote on, but Luvander had never seen much draw in the idea of having a baby you couldn’t return to its rightful owners when it began to shit itself.

Balfour laughed good-naturedly, “I think Adamo’s a bit more levelheaded than you, however.”

Luvander shrugged. “Maybe so, but I’ll stick to my instinct and take you up on that bet.”

They’d reached the Adamo bedroom now, and throught the door Luvander thought he could hear the baby’s wordless vocalization (Did most newborns make this much noise when they weren’t crying or was this one just especially talkative, he wondered) paired with Laure’s laugh and the low tenor of Adamo’s voice.

Balfour turned to him, touching Luvander’s elbow softly through his coat. Balfour wasn’t wearing his gloves today, Luvander observed. Good, he thought, he shouldn’t feel like he needed to hide them, especially not here, not with family.

“Before you go in…” Balfour began, “I wanted to ask how you were doing. I know Ghislain sailed out.”

Luvander resisted the urge to grimace. He liked to tell himself he did an okay job of deflecting everyone else’s attention away from his persistent problems with loneliness. On the good days he cracked enough jokes and sarcastic witticisms to keep the people around him too entertained to notice. On the bad days he threw himself into overworking, holed up in his workroom with little sleep and becoming overly perfectionistic about whatever he was working on until he felt like tearing it all apart again. But on the best days Ghislain was home, in this place Ghislain didn’t even think of as his home, but the place Luvander was, which in Luvander’s mind designated it as Ghislain’s home nonetheless.

Balfour, however had always been the one he couldn’t fool, and it was a fact that needled at him constantly. He didn’t enjoy it when others looked past the mask he’d so carefully crafted for himself like one of his custom hats.

Not that Luvander had anyone but himself to blame for that. Balfour always suspected Luvander’s yearning for affection and attention and approval had been more than the average loneliness, but then Luvander just had to go and fuck it up even further.

It had been at least a year and a half or maybe even two when it happened. He, Raphael, Balfour, and Rook had been drinking (because of course they had) in Balfour’s room at the Greylace Estate. These rooms were a damn sight bigger and nicer than the ones in the Old Airman, a fact that Luvander could never parse out about whether he appreciated or was annoyed by. As such, Balfour had set up a couch and a few chairs to fill the space between his bed and the opposite wall. Ever since Raphael turned up again, they’d started having little get togethers one or twice a month, alternating whose place hosted.

Then Thom’d been offered a job as a professor (a real one this time) at the ‘Versity and Rook had come back to Thremedon bitching and complaining the whole way back from whatever adventure they’d been on when they received the letter. Apparently Thom had already begun writing a letter back declining the offer when Rook found out and through some well-intentioned bullying and ripping of half-finished correspondence got Thom to accept. From Luvander’s understanding, Thom had decided immediately to pass on the job in order to continue looking after his older brother, knowing that Rook had very important reasons for staying away from Thremedon. He couldn’t ask Rook to go back there, and he didn’t feel comfortable letting Rook travel alone without eventually winding up dead in a ditch from asphyxiating from his own vomit either. According to him, Rook’s mental health had markedly approved once the Dragonsoul was destroyed and th’Esar’s plans thwarted. He’d finally been able to properly grieve, Thom said, but that didn’t mean he was ready to part ways and risk Rook relapsing without him to drag him out of it.

Rook found all this out and stubbornly refused to go along with that “bullshit mindfuckery” Thom was always practicing on account of the fact that teaching at the University had always been Thom’s dream job, and he would be damned if his little brother threw it away for his sorry ass. After all, while the ‘Versity had improved in regards to letting in more students from poorer walks of life since Thom had been awarded for his work with the Airmen, the same improvement hadn’t come in regards to hiring choices. For all any of them knew, this might be the last time a mollyrat was offered a job at the Empire’s highest learning institution in a long, long time. So, back to Thremedon they came, and Luvander, Balfour and Raphael’s little survivor’s club had expanded from three to four members. (There had always been an open invitation to Adamo as well, but he only rarely took them up on it.)

So, anyway, they’d been drinking thoroughly and Luvander more thoroughly than the rest. It’d been months since Ghislain had come to port- not his fault, some jobs simply took longer than expected- and Luvander was in the pits. That said, he’d been holding it together pretty admirably that night, and it had all been fine until Rook and Raphael left. Raphael said he had Royal Guard duty the next day- it was a job offer Luvander, Ghislain and Raphael had all received from the Esarina herself after she’d almost died by her own guards that night when they’d had to rescue the Adamos. Raphael had been the only one to accept.

But so when Raphael stood up to leave and appropriate one of the Estate’s carriages Rook also decided to leave “before the Professor starts hyperventilating over me” and figured it would just be easier to go back in one carriage. It was, in sober retrospect, a suspiciously sensical thing to come out of Rook Molly’s mouth, but who knew anymore. Luvander didn’t know what kind of bullshit mindfuckery Thom had exposed that man too while they were travelling, but Rook’d been all kinds of weird since they’d come back and by “weird” Luvander meant “vaguely decent.”

The two of them took their leave and after that the details grew fuzzy, but he did remember drunkenly confessing his depression about missing Ghislain to Balfour and Balfour being nothing but supportive as understanding.

“You’re so sweet,” Luvander had told him, slurring his words and cupping the other man’s cheek. “You know that? You’ve always been so sweet, Balfour. Sometimes I wonder how someone as sweet as you got mixed up with all of us selfish ingrates. You always deserved so much better than us. Hell, if you’d never met us assholes, you’d still have your hands.”

Balfour blushed and looked away. “My hands weren’t your guys fault, and even if I don’t have them, I have my girl and all of you. Besides, I’m not so inno-“

And that had been as far as he’d gotten before Luvander launched himself into Balfour’s lap and shoved their mouths together.

Now, it’s important to note that Luvander had always been a touchy drunk. He’s sure he’d made passes at all thirteen of the other airmen more times than he could count while trashed out of his mind. He even had one absolutely disastrous incident with Adamo that had gotten a very stern talking to about appropriate relationships between a superior officer and his subordinates the next morning. Luvander had deeply respected the things Adamo said to him at the time despite the massive hangover he was fighting his way through as he said it and the urge he had to hang himself rather than have this conversation at all. That didn’t mean he hadn’t brought up the irony of it in his speech at Laure and Adamo’s wedding, though.

Which was all to say that Luvander was no stranger to make-out sessions with his friends after a few too many drinks. In fact, drunken fooling around had been the bedrock upon which his entire relationship with Ghislain was founded. Even after Luvander and Ghislain were “official” they’d kept the relationship fairly open because Luvander wasn’t the sort to abstain from sex for months at a time while his lover was at sea. It had simply come with the condition that if anything that strayed from the “casual sex” territory and into the “feelings” territory had be to discussed- Ghislain wasn’t jealous about Luvander being with other people physically, but he was jealous about having to share Luvander’s heart and overprotective at times about the idea of someone taking advantage of Luvander’s emotions.

This had been different though. This kiss with Balfour hadn’t been borne of happy delirium or playfulness like most of his less-than-sober escapades were. This had been borne of deep, deep sorrow. A desperate effort to patch a leak in a dam ready to burst. The other reason it was different was because Balfour had only had had two drinks that night, and Luvander had had at least five times that.

On the bright side, if one had to have such a mortifying experience in their lives, Luvander could think of very few people better to have it with than Balfour Vallet.

The epitome of gentlemanly behavior, Balfour had gently broken off the kiss and softly and without malice told him that they couldn’t do this, not when Luvander was so intoxicated. Luvander had nodded and understood, but then broken into wracking sobs as he blubbered about how fucking alone he felt all the time. Balfour let him cling to him like a security blanket even though Luvander was still straddling him and repeatedly assured him that he didn’t care if Luvander covered his shirt with snot and tears.

Then Luvander woke up the next morning on Balfour’s couch with a blanket draped over him. His clothes were all intact with the exception of his shoes and his binder which he had a bad habit of sleeping in and Balfour knew it. Balfour must have peeled it off once Luvander had passed out along with the boots and then buttoned Luvander’s shirt back up and even replaced his signature scarf. Both binder and boots were now neatly laid out on the coffee table with care.

There were still a few bottles of alcohol too, and ordinarily he might have been tempted to drink them. This time though, he reckoned he’d done enough damage under the influence for one day.

That was about when Balfour appeared, already dressed for the day and carrying a tray of water and coffee. “Oh, you’re awake,” he’d said, kicking the door shut behind him. He sat next to Luvander on the couch and set the tray on the table. “I hope you don’t mind that I took off your…” he said awkwardly, wringing his hands like he always did.

It took Luvander a moment to understand he was talking about the binder. “Oh. Oh no, it’s- Balfour, I know you’d never do anything to me or go further than protecting my ribs from some rather tragic pain in the morning. And it’s not anything you haven’t seen in the showers before. If anything I think when it comes to invasions of peoples’ personal boundaries, I should be the one apologizing to you right now. What happened last night… the way I just went after like that was unconscionable and I promise it will never happen again. In fact, I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest if you never wanted to see me again.”

Balfour looked shocked. “Of course, I don’t want that. What happened last night wasn’t ideal, obviously, but you were plastered and having a rough day. I get it.”

Luvander could’ve both laughed and cry at that. “But it wasn’t just a bad day. It was… Bal, I think I have a problem.” He could practically feel the bile coming up just from saying those words out loud, but he told himself that if there was ever the time to admit it to anyone, this was it so he continued: “I think maybe I always had. Even before Xi’an it was like this, just not as intense or constant. I don’t know how to be alone. I don’t know how to feel unimportant or like I’m not the center of attention without letting it control me. When there were fourteen of us I could ignore it, right? Because there was always someone around, but now…” He wiped away tears with his scarf and adjusted it anxiously. “And, like, the way this place just fucking tossed all of us out like yesterday’s trash the second they didn’t need us anymore and that blasted medal ceremony was over didn’t exactly help.”

Balfour nodded slowly. “I think I know the feeling or at least a fraction of it. I felt so isolated and broken at the end of the war, but even before that I… well, I suppose I always felt like I was second to Amery.”

Luvander felt another pang of guilt. None of them had been sure how to react when Balfour replaced his brother in the Corps, but Rook more than anyone. Before Amery died he’d been the one of them that Rook was closest to, so Balfour’s presence was anything but welcome to him. So, whenever Rook had a problem, Balfour was usually who he took it out on. And Luvander had always just let him. Because sometimes crossing Rook was like crossing god in that house, but it didn’t excuse how cowardly he’d been.

 “Got feminine parts between his legs, airman’s honor.”

That’s what Rook had said about Balfour when he’d tried to be kind to Thom that first day when the Professor had them do introductions. Even then, Luvander, the real one with “feminine parts” among them was sitting right there, and he hadn’t said shit to stop Rook.

(Luvander had always felt Rook didn’t mind trans men as much as he minded trans women. Something about the way trying to be more masculine was seen as noble, while trying to be more feminine made you a Mary in a world where women were always seen as lesser. But he also felt like Rook’s somewhat backwards and begrudging acceptance of Luvander’s presence was conditional, like it was something that he was able to revoke at the barest hint of insubordination. Luvander was tolerated as long as he fought well and shut up and was cruel like him, but that didn’t mean it was real. At least Thom had seemed to have trained some of that out of Rook over the years, but it was still a nagging fear for Luvander.)

Luvander didn’t say any of that. He just said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix it.” I don’t know how to fix me.

Balfour escorted him to the ‘Versity after that and made him talk to Thom about it. Thom being Thom, of course, looked at it as the academic he was. He talked about all kinds of fancy words like ‘schizoid’ and ‘histrionic’ and ‘dependent personality’. Basically, Thom said he couldn’t be sure exactly what the problem was without examining further. But he assured Luvander that there were coping mechanism they could try and that he had colleagues from the ‘Versity that he could ask for more medically focused advice as compared to Thom’s social theory perspectives.

Bullshit mindfuckery, Luvander remembered. As much as he wasn’t thrilled at the idea of Thom “examining” his psyche, he was significantly less thrilled about a perfect stranger doing it. At least he could trust Thom. At least Thom knew jackshit about how the airmen worked beyond the court gossip and bards’ song and those fucking statues that made them war heroes and not real people anymore. At least Thom was there when he woke up on an infirmary bed unable to talk for how deep his throat had been slit only to find out that four out of fourteen of them had come back. Even if Thom had been beside himself with grief, unaware that number five, Rook, was still breathing somewhere out there, at least Thom had borne witness for himself what they’d gone through, and Luvander wasn’t about to have to hash all of that to someone new.

But he couldn’t sit on his hands and not accept help when it was offered. Because he’d made Balfour a promise. He’d promised that he would never kiss Balfour again without fair and honest consent, plastered or not, and he’d meant it. He had so few friends left in this world. He wasn’t about to lose another due to his own selfishness and stupidity.

And so, he gave himself into the bullshit mindfuckery. He’d been meeting with Thom once every one or two weeks (or more than that if something set him off and crisis called for it). It was helping, Luvander thought. Slowly but surely.

Back in the present, Luvander shrugged at Balfour noncommittally. “It sucks, but I’m seeing the Professor tomorrow. And I guess now if I need someone to keep me company I could come and let the baby keep me busy so Mom and Dad can have some alone time.”

Balfour smiled at him. “You could have come over anyway. Well, I won’t push for specifics, but if you want to talk later…”

“I know where to find you,” Luvander confirmed.

Balfour gave him a bigger smile now. “Okay. I’ll let you talk to them then,” he said, and began descending the stairs, leaving Luvander at the at the door to the Adamo’s room.

He knocked briskly on the door and heard the Chief say, “Come in,” from the other side.

When Luvander opened the door, he found Laure on the bed over the covers cradling not-so-little Rory and making faces at her. Adamo was over by the radiator holding a bottle over the heat.

“Ah, I thought I heard someone out there talking to Balfour,” Laure said. “I didn’t know you were coming over today, but then again, I don’t think the pregnancy brain is totally out of my system yet.”

Laved waved moved to sit on the bed at her feet and waved her off with a hand. “It was unannounced. I had a gift for the baby and thought I’d bring it over.”

“Oh, that was thoughtful of you,” Adamo remarked walking over. To his credit, he only let a sliver of the wariness of a man who put up with thirteen uncontrollable ever-pranking monsters with dubious respect for authority for Regina even knows how long it’s been slip into his voice.

Luvander took the drawstring bag from the crook of his elbow and held it in his lap. “Well, I started working on this once you announced she was on her way. I guess I could have given it to you earlier, but it just felt like I should wait to give it to Rory in person. And of course, I didn’t exactly know you would choose to go into labor in a blizzard, so I didn’t have it on me the other night.”

He had a million things to say, a million possible preambles he could make, but he figured it was best to just show them. So, he pulled open the drawstrings, reached in, and pulled the carefully constructed figure of silver-grey fabric and held it up for inspection.

Adamo looked too shocked to say anything. Laure’s mouth had dropped into a soft “o” shape. But Rory had caught sight of her new toy and vocalized with one hand in her mouth and the other reaching out toward him with demanding hands. Bossy, he thought, Like her dad.

“I’m not sure I got all the details right since I was working off memory, plus she never really let me get that close to her anyway, but… Here she is,” Luvander said, because in his hands was a very small plush dragon.

“Is that…” Laure began.

“Proudmouth,” Adamo breathed. “Can I see her?”

“Of course,” Luvander said.

Adamo took it from him as if squeezing too hard would make it turn to nothing in his hands, turning it from side to side to see all the craftsmanship Luvander had put into it. Embroidered patterns where Proudmouth’s metal had been engraved, carefully cut and stabilized fabric made to take the shape of gears, a brass-colored ribbon where brass-colored brass reigns would’ve been. Every detail down to the shape of her claws had taken hours to craft and even more hours of meditating and sifting through bittersweet memories to recover. And here were the fruits of his labor all pieced together. Finally, Adamo let out a breath and said, “Looks just like her.”

“Well when you two starting talking about having kids, I wanted think of something special I could pass down to them, and eventually thought, well, every Adamo needs a dragon, right?” Luvander said. “So, I settled myself of making a different for each of your kids, if you have more that is. And it felt important that Rory got Proudmouth as your firstborn. I think… I think if things had turned out differently than they did Proudmouth could have been her birthright what with the way Anastasia picked two Vallets in a row to ride her.”

Adamo’s face as always was had to read, but somehow with a dragon in his hands, he looked years younger, and Luvander could tell whatever he was feeling he was feeling a lot of it.

Then Adamo smiled and said, “Thank you. It’s perfect, Luvander, really. I guess we should give Rory her girl and see if they choose each other.”

He passed the dragon to his daughter’s grasping hands, and they all watched as Rory immediately pulled Proudmouth to her chest.

“I think that’s your answer,” Laure laughed, dabbing at her eyes.

And in that moment, it seemed to Luvander that the world shone brighter. Welcoming a new generation was always hard, especially when the old one had lost so much, but it felt nice to be able to give the Airmen a proper legacy- one that wasn’t bronzed in statues, written in theses, or whispered behind hands at palace balls. But one that was simple- from father to daughter. And wrapped up in that gifted legacy was a wish, the most powerful wish Luvander had ever made, sewn into every stitch and seam: I wish that the ones who come after us won’t need our bullshit mindfuckery in the first place.

And then, Rook ruined the moment when they all heard a loud bang of the front door opened way too forcefully, followed by “BASTION FUCKING DAMNIT, WHO LEFT THEIR BOOTS IN THE DAMNED DOORWAY, I THOUGHT I DIDN’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT ANYMORE!”

Laure, Owen, and Luvander all looked at each other, and all at once they burst into laughter.

[fleetofshippyships-archive]

Pants

XD another word that’s in so many of my wips

This is a Dreville wip with no name =) (also, I totally found a non-smutty mention of pants, WOOOOO)

Warning for terrible comma usage, kind of a blanket warning on all my wips really. Once I finish a fic and start editing, the majority of it is removing a fuck tonne of terrible commas. Doesn’t seem to stop me from putting them in as I go though. So weird. I must pause a hell of a lot in my head while writing and not even notice.

Excerpt below the cut.

As they retrieved their coats, and Neville buttoned his jacket, hiding those pretty buttons from view, they stepped outside, and Draco drew his wand. “Three Broomsticks?”

“Sounds much nicer.”

The moment they landed in Hogsmeade, Neville continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

“You can pretend otherwise all you want, but I know you’re using that old potions classroom beneath the west tower for experiments.”

“You nosey sod,” Draco said with a scowl, as they pushed into the Three Broomsticks, and were met with the usual warmth and cheery music. They’d met and eaten there many times, but only when one showed up and the other invited him to sit down. Never together as a plan.

Still quite clearly a date, Draco mused, half afraid he’d ruined that by trying to avoid those nasty ladies and their horrid comments about Neville.

“At least I didn’t go bothering your friends with invasive and nosey questions about your lovelife,” Neville said, giving him a cheeky grin as they settled at a table near the back. Neville threw his coat over a nearby stool, and unbuttoned his jacket again.

“Weren’t you off to London for dinner tonight?”

Draco bit back his retort, and smiled awkwardly at Madam Rosmerta. “Turned out to be an utter sham of an eatery. We saw the error of our ways, and here we are.”

She shook her head. “Still insisting on that flattery? The usual then?”

“That’d be lovely,” Draco said, wishing he could put the past behind him as well as she could.

“Something nicer to drink though,” Neville added, cocking his head towards Draco. “The daft sod finally asked me on a date.”

Turning her gaze back to Draco, she grinned, and he cringed. “About time you two got your act together,” she exclaimed. “Watching you make eyes at each other every time you were both in here was getting downright sickening. You were scaring away my customers!”

Before Draco could retort, she’d returned to the bar, and he settled a glare at Neville instead. In response, Neville only sat a little straighter, and fiddled with the daffodil button on his waistcoat again.

“What is your obsessions with those peonies anyway?” Draco asked, relaxing more in the familiar setting. “They’re a pretty flower, but you could grow anything. Why insist on them?”

Neville shrugged. “I like them. And, as I keep trying to tell you, their roots have medicinal qualities, if you’d only give them a try!”

Draco scoffed. “What even makes you think I’m experimenting with medicinal potions?”

Neville nodded at Madam Rosmerta as she came over with a bottle of wine, and some glasses. Her waiter followed with their food. As much as Draco enjoyed classier establishments, even he couldn’t fault Rosmerta’s food. He had yet to prove it, but he was sure at least one of the Hogwarts house elves helped in her kitchen.

“I may have been utter pants at potions, but I know the qualities of the plants I grow,” Neville said. “I’d be a poor Herbology professor if I didn’t. Those plants you keep hounding me for are all used in medicinal potions. Primarily at least.”

Draco gave an acquiescing nod of his head, as Neville took a bite of his shepards pie, followed by a sip of the wine Rosmerta had served them. He winced slightly. They did not go together at all, but Neville hardly seemed to care, so he took a sip of his own glass, and said nothing about it.

After almost ending the date before it had begun, he didn’t want to risk ruining it again.

As embarrassing as it was, Draco had been entirely besotted with him the moment he’d returned to teach at Hogwarts. It was hard not to be. Neville was just one of those genuinely lovable people.

(Send me an ask with one word, any word. If any of my unpublished wips for this account have that word in them, I’ll post a snippet containing that word! And if not, I may try and write a wee drabble/headcanon with it?)

[wxldchxld]

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Unpopular Opinions as Told by Mary

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Ummmm Daenerys’ dragons look really fuckin stupid. Yeah. Sorry. This one isn’t going to be super in depth or really even justified by any arguments. I respect the Game of Thrones developers for going for it, and like the execution of it graphics wise is actually really impressive given its a TV show and all, but the model is so bad. Did GRRM make it? I really fucking hope not. From a distance when I see them in shots I’m like “yo cool” and then I see their faces and they look so stupid to me and it just ruins it. I’m really picky about dragons so this probably doesn’t come as a surprise. 

Also side rant, why is it so popular to give dragons a weird bottom jaw where it like, protrudes. They did it with Smaug and to a lesser extent they do it with Dany’s dragons. What the fuck is that modeled after? It’s not a snake. It’s not crocodilians. The only thing I can think is maybe some species of monitor lizards? And I’m only granting that bc I really don’t know due to the fact that there are a lot of monitor lizard species. Including this dope one that I’ve modeled dragons after on my dragon blog. 

I guess what drives me nuts is like I feel like there’s no originality in the design. I haven’t read Dany’s parts in the books but from what I have been told at least the coloration is more intense. There are so many species of reptiles, real and extinct, that they could have pulled from to make something that looked really cool…but they didn’t.

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The words “alpha wolf” need to die in a fire. And I’m not trying to come at some of the people I know follow me that use that term. It’s just become this really huge thing that infects so much of lore that has to do with modern day werewolves (such as in The Originals) and even bleeds over into things like the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire fandom and just about anywhere you see wolves you eventually hear the term alpha.

The term in and of itself is annoying because it’s not a thing that exists. Wolves don’t live in a pack where they just automatically submit to the strongest wolf, nor do they live in social structures that cause them to battle with one another to see who is on top. Wolves live in family groups usually run by the breeding pair and the offspring of the last few years. The only reason we ever really thought that “alpha wolf” was a thing was because a couple of researchers massively popularized its usage after studying primarily (in fact I think it was exclusively) captive wolf packs where individuals were brought in from various places in the world and forced to live together. And while I’m not saying that all studies should be thrown out if they’re done on captive bred wolves, I think it’s poor practice to say “this is how all wolves are” when you haven’t taken into consideration what natural family groups do. 

So it’s annoying, because it’s not a thing, but it’s also—-really boring to me. We miss the fact that these incredible animals have evolved to have things like a sense of fairness and the ability to cooperate, but the thing that we focus on is that “this is the alpha and its very important to them.” Family is important to them. I’d love to see more media that involved wolves that represented not only how their family groups actually work, but also didn’t make that such a central point for their plots. 

I’m not going to go into uses of the term outside of fiction or address the A/B/O fanfiction. My point is that I personally as a reader find it overused and boring. I understand that since its fiction, there will be inaccuracies in order to fit your narrative. Hell, I have some with Beck and the animals that pop up on this blog. My problem isn’t the inaccuracy alone, it’s the inaccuracy being used to beat a long dead horse (and occasionally as a method of god modding but—I won’t go further into that either). 

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And since I’m just going all in on the GoT shit tonight (sorry guys) Also this is going to make an already very long post massive, and I’m sorry.

… Yara Greyjoy is actually a good character and her book counterpart isn’t nicer nor is she just “better” for some vague undefined reason. She’s not a perfect character, she’s not a necessarily nice person, but Yara Greyjoy is arguably one of the better characters on the show IMO and I wish that she would have gotten way more screen time than she really did.

The worst part of this weird like #notmyAsha argument (and I’ve seen that tag used before it was hilarious) is that people complain that she’s not nice to Theon and that because she either doesn’t have or cannot convey compassion and empathy regarding his trauma, that it’s somehow a valid plot point for her to be tortured so they can bond over mutual trauma. This is gross and I hate it.

Full disclosure Theon Greyjoy is one of my favorite characters in show and book canon, but he is kind of a garbage human being and I love him in spite and often because of that. Now onto our feature presentation: 

Yara Greyjoy doesn’t owe her brother shit. Not even a little. She has zero reason to do anything other than perceive him as unstable and a threat to the position she hopes to claim. Don’t complain to me about how mean Yara is to Theon while simultaneously ignoring the fact that he only stopped treating her like garbage once he’d been horribly traumatized. He was TEN when he was taken from the Iron Islands, and she was older than him and he—didn’t recognize her. So yeah she manipulates him, but he could have very easily put a stop to it if he remembered her or if he just wasn’t such a horny prick in general. He tries to demean her in front of their father, insults her, and shouts at her. Not saying she didn’t deserve it, but you can’t exactly paint him as the saint in the situation either.

I could go on with a million reasons Yara is actually a lot nicer to Theon in the show than the books, and why she’s not obligated to do anything for him at all, but I’d be here for hours. 

What bothers me is the conclusion that because Yara has been mean to him that she somehow deserves to be punished by being tortured or that she needs to be tortured in order to ever like understand her brother. Both of those things are like the craziest logic in the world to me. 

First off: no. Yara tried to save Theon. It’s not Yara’s fault he got in that situation, it’s his own, and she tried to rescue him. Then she allowed him back into her home at a critical time, and rather than being ashamed of him for being “weak” she brings him with her to political meetings and presents him as what is essentially her version of a “hand.”

Second: y’all that’s not how mental health works. Theon’s not ok, and if they write him as ok they’re bad writers. You don’t get over trauma that fast. Especially not because of like one conversation you had with your sister while she made out with a topless hooker in a brothel, and a fight on the beech where you got kneed in the balls you don’t have. Theon is still traumatized and he deserves a plot where his sister learns to see that, acknowledge it, and try to understand him. You don’t throw two traumatized people together and just say “well they have both been horrifically abused… they understand one another.” and then things get better. If anything those people are more likely to be self destructive and dangerous because neither of them are in a good place mentally to make sound and rational decisions. 

So yeah, the point I was trying to make but got really distracted from because I’m very salty about all the Yara hate I see is that she’s actually a good character in comparison to the others in the show and it’s not ok to wish she would be tortured just for the sake of making Theon ok bc a) that won’t work and b) for the millions time: it’s gross.

[mojavescr1pt]

can i be obnoxious and ask what in fuck is happening? (pls feel free to ignore me heavily if you are overloaded!!) i have always found shelby to be one of the nicer people to me in my old neotag age, and hearing all this stuff is really, idk jarring? and i guess i'm confused with all the screencaps and (is that a discord server?? omg i am ancient). i just want to make sure everyone is okay and that i understand what is happening /: sorry to be a bother ahh

hey there, you ain’t bein obnoxious. believe you me its rough to be in a drama situation and have nowhere to turn.

before i get into my side of shit, the best place ive been following for this stuff is neotag-dogma. they’re apparently new?? as in tonight new?? and r reblogging the receipts and making posts abt what’s happening. more explanation under the cut. 

for a quick tldr re: the discord situation: Gil and Tor, among the other major mods, ducked out from the Discord to handle irl stuff (i think, this was before my time). Shelby was promoted to mod and shortly thereafter started making major changes to the discord. i myself had found the atmosphere hyper controlling and i didn’t feel welcome in there, mostly bc i was on the Blacklist and could tell (more on this in a moment).anyway, skip forward several months, and Tor and Gil return. Tor makes a joke about another mod of the server, Jack sneezing into their mouth (a neotag meme at the time). Shelby swooped in and started rep reprimanding Tor. now what’s important to remember is that Tor was the owner of the server at the time. and Shelby was a low-level mod, talking about how Tor needed to behave in the server, talking about how she was making the server “better” and that Tor was “ruining” how good she was making it. it’s important to note the server was nigh dead at this point. and then what ensues is what’s in that imgur album of the server meltdown, where it’s revealed that instead of making a private channel, Shelby made an entirely new server for the mods, didn’t communicate to said mods, make 12 additional unnecessary chat channels---some of which were barely used, and overall made the environment hostile. 

now as for what’s going on tonight; ppl are starting to post abt shelby’s behavior. i’ve mostly been posting abt what’s happening to me bc im a lil conceited when it comes to people lying about me; primarily something that’s a huge revelation is that there actually IS a Blacklist ran by Shelby; a ton of artists ive spoken to noticed that shelby never reblogged their art, which at first was fine, everyone has their own tastes. but then they started mapping it back and we slowly started to realize she was intentionally walling people out bc she didn’t like them. this theory was dubbed the Blacklist, and a ton of people pushed back against it and claimed there was no Blacklist. but surprise! there is/was one. this was revealed in one screenshot on neotag-dogma’s blog where she goes out of her way to message a new member to the tag, completely unprompted, telling them to avoid me, and my friends, and that i was a bully/enabler. 

now not to sound cliche but; i dont think i rightfully fit that bill.

i think what stung most of all abt that revelation is that i was recently trying to re-befriend her. i was forgiving her for shutting me out, isolating me, making me self-conscious and anxious about my own art. and yet she was doin’ this shit. i sorta wish i had the self restraint to not go Hog Wild and scream on my main bc i would’ve loved to see how long she would’ve been able to pretend that nothing was wrong.

and this isn’t even touching on what happened to Em (gelertassassin). i reckon you’ve read that post already, and if not it’s probs the one directly below this post. 

and this isn’t even touching on the people still compiling receipts. there’s so much shit that’s been hidden under the surface, that’s now coming up; i dont blame you for feeling like its jarring. maybe less than a day ago i had positive feelings towards her. but now? man its mixed as hell but i can’t say any of ‘em are positive. 

shelby may have been a nice person at one point, but she’s turned sour and it’s sorta terrifying at how good she is at hiding this dark side of herself.

oh! and its never a bother to explain stuff like this

[one-more-for-the-sky]

[01/12/18, Friday]

its day 11 it started out rocky again due alarm problems. what the hell! it's been ringing at 850! im supposed to be out the door by 850 or sooner but 850 is definitely the latest i can leave the house that i could speed into work. but mom needed me to come home anyway (yeah i work for my mom. its good work and i take it seriously and anyone who wants to look down on me for it can suck it; i'm doing the best i can right now with all the coliding mental stuff. i'll talk about later on in this entry) John left some of his notes on a certain issue one of our clients is having at the house and i picked them up. kind of lucky there. we loligagged a little. i took out our new pet bunny. she's surprisingly very cuddly for a bunny. i have no prior bunny experiences mind you but still. not what i expected from a large rodent. or any rodent or smaller than a cat like animal. my gliders are certainly not that well behaved though i don't expect it either, energetic and lithe creatures that they are. still she is more endearing than i anticipated. i still am not very fond of rabbits but this one is okay. we chatted for a minute about my baby sister's room. and i was off with the notes and to grab john some water and get gas (not in that order). fridays are my favorite because its a slow day and people generally dont bother me much.

the last bits of yesterday where kind of exhausting and i find myself really challenged by the excuitive function disorder i have. i kept thinking about where i want to put this or that and thought to myself, just do it! but ultimately didn't. i rewarded myself too early. to my credit, i was exhausted. but still. today i will try to work first THEN reward myself. it is a habit of mine and it enables my EFD (excuitive function disorder). so basicly i just played a lot of video games yesterday.

i just feel jittery and unfocused for right now. hopefully it will change.

the house is a mess of laundry. i am sensing a much needed "20 minutes of cleaning" (read: 120 minutes of cleaning) from mom which is a chance for attitude from everyone. not excited. so when i get home, i'll definitly clean first. i think i'll start with tiding up the dinning room because that's really how you can tell if the house is in dire straits. If the dinning room is messy then it is time for a family cleaning session. i didn't even make the mess. i would agree to cleaning the kitchen or do the laundry but nothing else, but that's not going to fly, really. i should either start in the music room or the dinning room... Probably the dinning because you see it when you walk in and its the most visible eye sore, and then the dinning and move to the kitcheny part the den, the den i'll leave to vannah and mom. savannah's stuff is littered across the floor and even for me, its agrovating to look at. but i have to remind myself that my baby sister is probably worse of than me when it comes to EFD and adhd. there is definitly going to be a fight about that, i can feel it. i hope im wrong though.

mom suggested i log what i end up eating. at the time, i was offended by the suggestion. sounds silly but you have to keep in mind the historical obsession about my weight and food intake my mother has expressed over the years, sense i was small and still very impressionable. i still don't really know what to make of it, all the dietary routine changes i was mad to go though and shamed for. i was 13! 14! 15! I was young and still growing. i was in an important part of my developing as a person and myself worth, and what did i learn? that im too thick. i didn't really think i was at the time, but how can i say no to the person driving me around and im not in charge of my destination? it was wholy unfair... im not really saying that this is the root of all my self-esteam issues but it didn't help. not only did my peers see me as imperfect and flawed, so did my family. its hard to think about. i try to forget. so therefore the suggestion of working out, of listing what i eat or anything else by mom is offensive initially. in hindsight, yeah it a good idea. i just hate to admit it because of the implications.

speaking of my peers, my social/educational/school experience in childhood? fucking. awful. about the time i was in 3rd grade i really started to notice people didn't like me much. i can't remember much else than that. i know i wasn't a popular person in 1st or 2nd grade and i'm not even going to count kindergarden, but 3rd grade is where most of my memory begins. my teacher didn't even like me then. said i was a trouble maker and a bad person. not to me, but she made the mistake of saying that to my mother. why did she say that? because i decided i was going to clean up the class room. she said i was a manipulitive little trouble maker for cleaning her class room. this is were my earliest descriminations against me and my adhd and learning disablities really begins and i remember it. forget about my peers for a moment; my teacher hated me for reasons i didn't even know or understand. i wasn't even that hyperactive like some with adhd, but i did have an issue with attention and being a little disruptive with my best friend. at the time, pokemon was the new wild thing and i was utterly obsessed my friend was too, but that was my doing. instead of paying attention, we were playing. i was just a kid being a kid. when it came to start doing the standardized state testing, no one explicitly stated how important these tests were. i seem to remember someone saying that they were just practice and didn't count towards a grade and i thought oh okay, so its okay to mess up. so much so, i chrismas treed the whole thing. the whole goddamn thing, i just put in random bubbles just because i wanted it done and out of the way of whatever. well. that was the catalyst to a lot of issues i had from then on. without the consent of my mother or any discussion to anyone, they placed me and my friend in a "special ed" class, where you basically just colored stuff and glued stuff together and what not. i was in this class for half of a year before our parents found out and were enraged. upon finding out, they rained hot fiery war upon the school, they tried to cover it by saying how worried they were, that weren't sure i could even read. they didn't do any testing. they didn't ask me or my mother anything. long story short, that's a lot of school i missed. it put me behind in reading for years until i was in 7th grade. from there i struggled because of the things i missed out on because a teacher didn't like the disabled child they were responcible for. i think about that a lot. i think about all the late nights being screamed at because i wasn't doing well and struggled in elementry school things. i remember certain things my mom did that i dont really wish to describe, but while school was a battle sometimes going home was worse. it wasn't always like that, but if mom was in a mood, it went there.

my peers were really no better. a throughout, i was very much picked on because i really liked certain things, and they were my hyperfixations. and i was weird and my teeth were wrong. some of my favorite things ive been called when in elementry school: a cockroach, r-slur, someone said they humped me (they didn't but it was still humiliating), called me useless, made fun of my teeth, made fun of me because i made eye contact with people by saying i had a crush on anyone i looked in the eye (it mortified me as a kid because i definitely did not like any of those assholes, i still struggle with this), i was told that 9/11 was my fault, people tried to cut my hair, people stole from me, spat on me.... it was rough. i'm going to stop talking about it for now.

mom, if you're reading this, then you're probably thinking wow, is this really all i think about? or wow i guess im just a terrible awful mom (or some reverse guilt trippin thing you tend to do to try and make me feel bad for validating myself and addressing what you do that hurts me, even though you're the adult and primarily in control of our relationship) or also wondering why i never talk like this about my father. my father doesn't know me. i am my dad's only child and all he knows about me is that im gay, what i went to college for, and basic likes and dislikes. beyond that, my dad doesn't know me. maybe its the same for my sisters and everyone else but im my dad's only child. i have no competition with him for attention.

i've also have been thinking about myself growing up and my relationship with my sisters. full disclosure: i was not as nice to my sister sabrina as i am today. i was mean. i acknowledge it and think about it all the time. i mean, i was no more a kid myself, but i wasn't nice at all. i didn't even think nicely of her. and worse, i was nicer to savannah than i was her, and im sure that killed her a bit. mom would talk, beg, for me to be nicer. i wasn't like her abusive sister, but it felt like i was taking notes. in part, i blame society and media for what learned about being a sibling. most media i saw and consumed growing up, siblings hated each other, were mean to each other and competed against one another for attention, even in cartoons, that's what i picked up on, and internalized, obviously. my parents obviously didn't do anything to reassure me of that not happening, but i can shoulder some of the responsibility. i have to keep reminding myself, and others that i was just only 8 or 9 or 10 when my sister was born and i already had all these thoughts in my head but by the time i was 13-14-15, it starts to  be a combined effort of me and my parents and upon 16-17-18, i made little to no move to change my ways. i sincerely regret it now. after college and being apart from my family for so long and learning powerful lessons on what stands against the grains of time the strongest, family - particularly my sisters - became the centerpiece of my life. in college i met some interesting people, but the most notable thing i remember hearing from some of them, was how much they hated their siblings, younger or older or otherwise. just hated them for whatever reason. im not sure what exactly i thought, except that i was tired of listening to people act like this and that i had sounded like this too. and after failing some classes and being abandoned by friends, i realized the most important connection i could make was to my siblings. from the moment i decided to stop bad-mouthing them, i embraced them, their quirks, and loved them with everything i had. i still get aggravated with them ofc bc yaknow, nothings perfect, but they were perfect as they were. all i wanted and still want to do is spend time with them. i constantly think on how i was when i was growing up, especially for my little sister sabrina. i wasn't kind, as if the i didn't even know the word. i apologize a lot for it. every so often, i take her aside to talk to her about it. im still afraid to full acknowledge just how much damage i might've caused, but its still my responsibility to make it right and to mend it. sabrina, bless her, tells me not to worry, that she understands, that she doesn't remember a lot, except for a few things that make me cringe at myself. i apologize a lot. even now i am still sorry. i hope i am making up for it. i hope she doesn't grow to resent me, as i likely deserve. i love her so much i just want her to be happy and fulfilled and safe. i hate myself for how i was.

and i worry. a lot. its not exactly the same, theres a lot of different aspects to their dynamics, but i sometimes see myself in how sabrina acts towards savannah and it worries me. savannah is a lot less forgiving. a lot closer to bina's age and therefore harder to impress later on should sabrina change her tune. they both go at it though. savannah gives as much sabrina does, and especially so that she's 13 and moody as 13 year old typically are. all the same, i feel like the example i led has won out to the example i try to lead now and it frightens me. i want all 3 of us to be close. for all we've suffered together, to be alone in the world once our parents are gone frightens the shit out of me. more than anything, i want us to remain close. all three of us. i worry a lot about our relationship with each other...

anyway, so yeah i'm currently living with and working for my parents. i do take the work seriously even if doesn't look it and im proud of my (few) acomplishments. and living with them has its ups and downs. it feels good on hand to start from the ground up on how to like. live. how to be a person. or something. sorry i know i was going to go into this, but the previous topic got me down a little. i'm changing the subject.

my desk came in early, and im excited to put it together. can't wait really.

eh. i'm bumbed. will consider the listing of foods i eat.

peace.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Ok, I finished Tiger King. Time for some thoughts. A brief note, I will be referring to Joe Exotic’s “zoo” as a facility, rather than a zoo, because I refuse to participate in any possible confusion between roadside “zoos” and legitimate zoos. 

I do think Joe Exotic started out caring about animals, but deeply misguided, but he was not caring for his animals. He abused them. Watch how quickly he gets angry when the tiger starts grabbing his shoes. He also became much more motivated by “I can do what I want and no one can tell me no” than by actual love for his animals. He definitely dabbled in some nasty right-wing ideologies. 

He was also pretty clearly abusing Travis and probably John and Dillon. 

Rick seems like an underrated contender for worst person in this documentary until the last five minutes or so when he gains self-awareness and acknowledges his role. 

Jeff Lowe’s role in Joe’s arrest is sketchy as hell but Joe wasn’t framed and deserved to go down. Jeff Lowe should also go down. Jeff Lowe is absolutely a con artist, but he didn’t con Joe out of his facility. Joe frequently put things in other people’s names to dodge legal issues. He willingly signed the zoo over to Jeff to keep it out of his legal issues and expected Jeff to still let him have complete control. 

Joe Exotic’s behavior toward Carole Baskin is really deplorable. The harassment, threats, and violence (the music video, everything with the blow-up doll...). 

I’ve seen some hot takes saying this documentary exploits mental illness and that is absolute nonsense. There is no mental illness that excuses Joe Exotic’s behavior toward Carole or many of the other people who appear and to suggest that further stigmatizes people who are mentally ill and do not behave that way.

I think Doc Antle might be the worst person featured. Fuck that guy. 

I’m 100% certain Joe Exotic blew up his own studio. He was angry with Rick and aware that the only copy of Rick’s footage was in there, plus there was the possibility of that footage being damaging, plus there were things in there he was expected to produce for the lawsuit. Add that it allowed him to play the victim and suggest Carole was the culprit and his absolute obsession with explosives... yeah. 

That one article is nonsense because Saff is not the only non-horrible person featured in the series. There are plenty of others, like Carole and Barbara, the former member of Doc’s cult. Saff is also not innocent. He’s not awful but I don’t condone any of the employees continuing to be involved in Joe’s operation and not reporting the many crimes that were going on. 

Let’s talk about Carole....

Carole Baskin did nothing wrong. One of my big criticisms is the documentary not challenging the Joe Exotic narrative that this was a simple, mutual rivalry. The scene that shows Carole and Howard’s filing cabinets on Joe Exotic, in my opinion, frames it like she was unduly obsessed with him. She had all those files because she was suing him and he filed various counterclaims which generates a ton of paperwork. He was also threatening her. HIS obsession was the reason for all of that. 

I do have some questions about Carole’s sanctuary. I think it’s probably legit, but I would do some research before visiting. I’m concerned about her comment that her sanctuary is just a comfortable place for the tigers to live until they die, but I do think it’s innocent and simply referring to the harm that was done to them by not allowing them to be wild. My main concerns are with how much she has the public inside. Obviously zoos do this, but many sanctuaries have extremely limited visiting, if they’re open to the public at all, which is often because it’s stressful for the abused rescue animals. That being said, it’s possible Carole’s animals are fine with it and it is a good source of funds. 

My biggest issue is that she seems to rely primarily if not entirely on volunteer labor and her volunteers were working some crazy hours. If she has the money to be in court for years she has the money to pay a few employees, which she should do even if people are willing to do it for free. Having volunteers is excellent but I think she relies on them too much. 

Carole absolutely, for certain, did not kill Don Lewis. Don Lewis was involved in organized crime. He was smuggling animals and almost certainly other things as well, drugs and who knows what else. Don got himself whacked by his business partners or customers or suppliers in organized crime. His kids and ex-wife are just mad that they didn’t get his crime money. If there was any evidence against the much-younger wife the cops would have been all over that. She may have altered the power-of-attorney documents, but I’m not convinced of that either. The only evidence we really have is the secretary’s word and I see no reason to trust her. Why would she be power-of-attorney for Carole? Why wouldn’t Don’s wife be power-of-attorney? The “or disappearance” language is weird until you remember Don made a lot of weird comments alluding to the possibility and the “if I pull this off...” I find it perfectly believable he may have included that because he knew his lifestyle might lead to that outcome. 

I do have one criticism of the documentary itself. I understand that it is primarily about this story, not the debate of captive animals, but by focusing on who it focuses on it inevitably gets into that topic. I wish there had been some mention of legitimate zoos. The discussion of “tigers in captivity” does not break down whether any of those are living in AZA accredited zoos like Toledo, Bronx, Brookfield, San Diego, etc. Animal rights activists are often opposed to all zoos. Everyone, including the general public, is often confused about the different between facilities like Joe Exotic’s and legitimate zoos. Zoo is not a regulated term in any way, so anything can call itself a zoo. 

Legitimate zoos do not allow cub petting or any contact with most animals outside veterinary care. Tigers in legitimate zoos live in enclosures as nice as or nicer than Carole’s sanctuary. They are encouraged to continue natural behaviors. Their cubs are not interfered with unless the mother is unwilling or unable to care for them (this did not used to be standard practice but it is now, hand-rearing deprives an animal of much of its natural development). I would have loved to see a little more representation to tiger breeding through legitimate means for the purpose conversation, like the Species Survival Plan. Zoos have not yet been able to release animals like big cats into the wild, but have participate in repopulation efforts by releasing insects and some reptiles like the Kihansi Spray Toad. People like Doc Antle appropriate the language of conservation while actively harming endangered species. 

This topic could honestly be its own post so I’m going to wrap up, but feel free to discuss any of this. #CaroleDidNothingWrong

[quietthingsthatnooneeverknows]

hate is the fire's actions that allow it being kindled to such an abled source of warmth and it's sadness that was found by lacking any importance within itself, or furthering the same amounts of all likeness to be a representation of silenced dilutes alone in as good for an oklahoman in mid summers heart of August at highnoon, campfires in daylights keep on flickering until the moons lights bring you some kind of distant slight tug brings the contents of all sorts of resurfacing and addictions of all sorts and it's been a long time since we can try to get more life through ups and downs of vibes and attitudes toward the world we want to get back to so i stop. Someone's been around you or your access to the contentment found in a minute of rough time peeping to make sure that the company will come to be very known to me I have not bought a pacl of cugarettes all week. Because i cant afford my habit.still nice to be able to breathe real good today and surprising that I'm able, when otherwise I'm still very unhealthy :) thin, need to locate scale and weigh because confidences, aches, and pains all point to me being less than one hundred pounds Ceasing smoke of primarily cigs and later on stopping the use of all nicotine products that way dependence on it would no longer be a representation of me and now that is settled on the way we can try again later on me making all around angelic moves , the most reality to check up on me and my hometown is good for an hour maybe even if you don't care about it I'm taking it you don't have to get a handle on minutes i spend with it so much better I'm littler and more than one of those fingers are in her mouthiness and they couldn't spread what the love was to me instead we are unsteady on the ground cuz I'm all small and youre much too much desperate for an accident to commence on all the anorexic flaws i haven't been around since my life was all the rage and I found easiness when in the world while I would have the option of a costume that was understood that I couldn't find but wouldn't find something in the way to get your dick over my mouth you'll love it as a result of the time in your life added to get a view of the same urge in touch with a homie but it's not reasonably well valued that i think about how to be a nicer being in over my heads been a long time since we were in the crew and it's not hard confusing me to be a good screw it isn't new but I'm sure it'll work out true you'll be done with me soon unless I don't have a lot of other things to do in that case I'll tell you to come back thru come with the look so loosely I give the meaning to fucking you while ducking the terms I'm in town on the conditions im never back around not coming around for a reason other than to be as influential in the now I'm not shit after all new set of sins perfect excuse tp fall already start to get more life through ups and downs from my prime I love being decided by one of these days in advance and it's not hard for me to go with her ways in pouring everything's going planned for the savage was adding that first layers end up my cores it took my values but I valued highly what was stolen in looks and making way too easy for a little while using the streets and it's not hard to confide in the worst people for a few moments i realize the garbage I'm so mad I could cry I'm sick and sad onwards to not doing shit ever like a reservation I meet up with the desperation for an hour or so I can tell and it builds and then back to wishing and wanting impossibly shaped nothing's to give me energies to be thankful u gotta see that somethings are acknowledged your own personal satan disguises the vessel and I'm over here like I could use for sure more blessings to end all sadness felt I'm feelin myself it's in the black and white house in my head and it's help at the same time opening your self esteem issues that cause the way to get your money wasted I'm a waste of anything my lips cannot comply with any other kinds of daily life this is the notion that the wrong got pushed into my thought my mind and body in connection I see no others manifesting it to be a representation of the makings of a reality dreams streaming to life and in order for me to go out and it's always or never wasted decisions awaited by hunger forgiven until you forgetting about feeding yourself again this is so embarrassing to get more in senses of feeling and loving and wanting a praying that the wrong got home from being out and started taking care of your life in general I don't have any pills for a good time with the dark and it's not a lot of time for realization or reflection that could be able to burst chocolate milky tear into existence the way I validate and wait to come shown in the future I'm down but I've written all things presented in my mind as to my standards remaining absolutes that may be perfectly fine but i steal anything find no reason to stop getting my things for free because it's trash of my kinda state of mind to be about my life and not to shout totally in disagreements over the morals of many being all wrong I'll just give mention the definitions of any corporation in my head and it's inability to be a fucking helpless bum 100 percent of my time ikm opening your own self sell it i still get to stand with Ana for bit moreover you know bout it all since what I was in Tulsa and along with less pathetic but I was unaware of my numbness in a day off every thing you have a lot more than one for me a pack of cigs on my and it's warmth is delivery to see in America's hyperbolic lantern's symbolism of