#i wish time just stopped so i can re evaluate my life

[wrylu]

idk why i'm so moody these days but i find my despair funny

aka my average day as of now

[loneberry]

For a certain kind of person — the person who, usually, strives to be a responsible parent, a sensitive friend, an upright citizen, a person who tries to care about their community — it can be impossible not to succumb to the incessant urge to mimic someone else’s supposed balance and feeling of wellness in life. What do we even know about them really?

I’m increasingly seeing this in my work as a therapist in New York City. So are my colleagues. One said to me recently that he was tired of listening to his patients talk about the impossible advice inhaled on Instagram and TikTok — to say nothing of the self-help industry. “Doesn’t anyone come asking to be more free?” he exclaimed. “They don’t,” I said pessimistically. “Everyone wants to make the right decisions.” The problem is it’s very hard to tell someone that pursuing the abstract question of “right and wrong” ways to live will lead you into a cul-de-sac. It avoids the deeper question of desire, and desire is a compass.

The promised image of goodness skirts pleasures that — for obscure reasons — you aren’t sure you can want. I see patients grow fearful when they can’t tell if what they desire is compulsive — just another rote, maybe addictive, behavior, or a real attempt to test the boundaries they live under. How do you locate free will in a world this compulsory? Unsettling desires challenge our perception of who we are and what life might look like. ...

My patients have spent time on the couch struggling with the joys and pains that come with their wish to take drugs, not to expand consciousness but just because; quit their job, not to re-evaluate life but simply to stop working (along with the bonus pleasure of thumbing their nose at their employers); or give in to an irksome captivation with the wrong person at the absolutely wrong time. ...

These pursuits certainly aren’t what you ought to do — much less post about — and yet I find that it’s when we dwell on our secret enjoyments that we learn the most about ourselves. Sexual and aggressive feelings, veering self-destructive, are finally confronted without the veneer of rationalization.

--Jamieson Webster, "I Don’t Need to Be a ‘Good Person.’ Neither Do You."

[janus-cadet]

Back with more tarot cards! Last weeks had been a bit more busy, but, finally, some timeto draw. We're continuing the Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss series, with none other than hell's greatest boss- Blitzø, as the Four of Pentacles!

(spend so long on the background to have his stupid ass in front of it)

Some explanations for the choice of card under the cut!

Now, the meaning you'll see associated to this card are usually linked to discussion of money and wealth; but while those would still, in my opinion, fit Blitzø's relation with money, I'll focusing far more on the association with feelings, and relations with others.

Upright, and in its most positive state, the Four of Pentacles suggests that you've created something (a business, perhaps!) that secures you financial stability; you can now provide better for those around you, and feel much more independent, when you were struggling with finances before. But the card typically accompanies a scarcity mindset- with money and material possessions, but also toward others. Instead of enjoying your current lifestyle, you are choosing to guard tightly what you have gain, in fear you might lose it all at any time. That fear of loosing what you have stops you from taking a shot at happiness, and from finding fulfilment in your life. You place too much values on material things, as you feel that your self-worth is based on how much you have- which, in turn, might lead you to feel inadequate next to others (like a whole ass prince of hell, who knows).

Beyond all that, the card appears when you are seeking out more control in your life. You're convinced you can do things alone, that you don't need other people to support you: at work, you might, for example, not let others (Moxxie) mess with your area of expertise. In relationship, you may be protective, even possessive, in fear that it would slip between your fingers, to the point of shutting yourself down to not let a crack be visible.

Reversed, the Four of Pentacles can appear when you're starting to re-evaluate what's important to you. You may be starting to loose the tight grip you have on yourself and the things you care about, in order to seek more openly love and happiness. Perhaps you're starting to forgive yourself, mend relations broken in the past?

If that re-evaluation has not come, however, the card warns you that you should start looking for it. You may not realise it, but what you have is slipping through your fingers, because of how you treat it; or maybe you know just to well, and just tighten your hold even more, despite the harm it's doing... just like the Blitzø on the card, holding that pentacle coin tightly to his chest. You are entering the self-protection mode: you wish for stability, security, and certainty, but find yourself unable to accept it as long as you do not deem yourself worthy enough, wealthy enough, to receive it. But that attitude is what threaten the most of what you've built: you have to learn to open yourself. Stability can only be found once you started building it in yourself.

And that's it for today! I hope you like it, I certainly do. I have to admit I wasn't big on Blitzø at first, but that feral imp quickly grew on me.

Now, all the cards I've done so far for this fandom...

Next time, if there's no change of plan, we'll have Charlie and Vaggie, and the Ten of Cups!

[jacobwren]

"For a certain kind of person — the person who, usually, strives to be a responsible parent, a sensitive friend, an upright citizen, a person who tries to care about their community — it can be impossible not to succumb to the incessant urge to mimic someone else’s supposed balance and feeling of wellness in life. What do we even know about them really? I’m increasingly seeing this in my work as a therapist in New York City. So are my colleagues. One said to me recently that he was tired of listening to his patients talk about the impossible advice inhaled on Instagram and TikTok — to say nothing of the self-help industry. “Doesn’t anyone come asking to be more free?” he exclaimed. “They don’t,” I said pessimistically. “Everyone wants to make the right decisions.” The problem is it’s very hard to tell someone that pursuing the abstract question of “right and wrong” ways to live will lead you into a cul-de-sac. It avoids the deeper question of desire, and desire is a compass. The promised image of goodness skirts pleasures that — for obscure reasons — you aren’t sure you can want. I see patients grow fearful when they can’t tell if what they desire is compulsive — just another rote, maybe addictive, behavior, or a real attempt to test the boundaries they live under. How do you locate free will in a world this compulsory? Unsettling desires challenge our perception of who we are and what life might look like. … My patients have spent time on the couch struggling with the joys and pains that come with their wish to take drugs, not to expand consciousness but just because; quit their job, not to re-evaluate life but simply to stop working (along with the bonus pleasure of thumbing their nose at their employers); or give in to an irksome captivation with the wrong person at the absolutely wrong time. … These pursuits certainly aren’t what you ought to do — much less post about — and yet I find that it’s when we dwell on our secret enjoyments that we learn the most about ourselves. Sexual and aggressive feelings, veering self-destructive, are finally confronted without the veneer of rationalization." – Jamieson Webster, “I Don’t Need to Be a ‘Good Person.’ Neither Do You.”

[mythicalshipping]

*deep breath* 

Y’ALL.

Okay, so I’d seen the cuddling videos and wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one...

...excuse me, their WHAT now?

This feels like a fic prompt. Like the writers just...browsed Rhink Tumblr for an idea that Wouldn’t Go Too Far. 

Rhett was just demonstrating, but Link couldn’t help himself and was like “ME FIRST!” 

Dude, you’re not covering your a** at all with this, but nice try. 

WHY DOES LINK HAVE THIS DREAMY-EYED ~*MY HEART STOPS WHEN HE SAYS MY NAME~* LOOK IN HIS EYES LIKE??!? WE ARE BARELY INTO THE EP.

Is Link like, unable to hug people (or maybe just Rhett?) with his eyes open? If so, that is so adorable and I can’t deal with it, excuse me while I walk into the sea. 

Not Link’s hand pressing and Rhett’s chin pressing fOr ScIeNcE.

LINK’S ~*FACE~* IS JUST PURE BLISS (and I’m sure he wasn’t low-key thinking that if Rhett just tilted his head down a lil’ further, it’d be a forehead kiss). 

LINK LOCKING HIS HANDS LIKE THIS LIKE IT WAS THE 1800S AND HE WAS WONDERING WHEN RHETT WOULD RETURN FROM THE WAR.

Link couldn’t let go. ;-; PLS. HALP.

DAYUM just calling Link out; I wouldn’t have noticed, but now I cannot unthink about the locked hands ;-;

Link patted Noah because only Rhett has a key to his lock... ;-;

Charles Lincoln “Who’s jealous? I’m not jealous” Neal III

...

I watched this clip back and it DEFINITELY wasn’t...am I alone in this? 

Either way...someone is jelllyyyyyyy.

Maybe Link just wanted an excuse to talk about his Rick Rubin dream...science is still out on what exactly dreams meme but THIS is kinda telling, just sayin’... ;) 

RHETT’S FACE AFTERWARD, BY THE WAY

Not the mirrored stances ;-;

Link’s facial expressions through this entire episode look positively o*gasmic whenever he’s hugging Rhett. 

CHASE’S LIL FACE IS SO FREAKING ADORABLE HERE (and hey, I’d ship this ;) )

“You want to envelope me?” ;-; (And also, fun fact, if you are shorter than your partner, and they wanna be little spoon, just shift so that your head is resting slightly above theirs and wrap an arm around their waist). 

THIS IS SO TENDER I JUST ;-; And Rhett’s face is pressed up right against Link’s nealples. 

“DON’T WORRY” SHUT UP I AM CRYING ;-;

*UGLY SOBBING* OH MY FREAKING GOD

...Uh, okay...not where I was expecting this ep. to go but...

Stevie giving 11/10 commentary, and also can I just point out RHETT’S. FACE.

JEALOUSY, TURNING SAINTS INTO THE SEA

SWIMMING THROUGH SICK LULLABIES, CHOKING ON YOUR ALIBIS 

Yeah, real coherent response there Rhett. 

Rhett suggesting they just *actually* make out. As if he could handle the FEELS. I wish someone would have called his bluff. XD

Rhett is the Princess of Genovia, I don’t make the rules. (peach-worthy and I were totally on the same page with this one ;) ). 

So...what exactly do you want to feel from these hugs, Rhett?

HE JUST SAYS IT. WE’RE ALL THINKING IT AND HE JUST GOES AND SAYS IT. 

Rhett low-key panicking.

:O WAIT

...You...YOU’RE GOING TO DEMONSTRATE THIS?!?!?

This screencap is unedited. Noah is all of us. (And okay okay, so they didn’t REALLY kiss obviously, but a girl can dream right?)

And so, it’s time for Stevie to reveal if leaning to the left when you hug someone is more romantic or platonic. And Link is just like “I’m just gonna put in a Superman pose and pretend that everything here is for science.” 

Link is fidgeting SO MUCH here.

Finally, a man of truth. ;) 

But is his guess correct?

Rhett and Link standing there just re-evaluating their entire lives.

CLEARLY THE SCIENE IS WRONG.

Rhett grasping onto this for dear life. 

Stevie...that is fanfic writing ma’am. 

Oh no. WhatEVER will they do? ;) 

He’s not wrong, but it’ll come back to haunt him a bit later. ;) 

Jessie is such a real one <3

Rhett beckoning Link for them to try the five second hug before pedaling tf BACK, in fear that he seems too eager. 

...for what? In case it goes on too long? XD

Link fighting the urge to lock his hands ;-;

Link truly is unable to hug Rhett without looking entirely blissful. Rhett patting Link’s back and counting out the pats to take away some of his own worry, but Link, even still, looks happy anyway. 

Noah is all of us looking on. 

NOT LINK ON HIS TIPPY TOES ;-; 

Link Neal and his PROJECTION.

...you guys good there? lol

LINK SHUT UP THAT IS SO SWEET I CANNOT. ;-;

YEAH WE’LL DO THE 10 SECOND HUG. BUT UH, OBVIOUSLY, FOR SCIENCE, AND IT IS GONNA BE JUST *TERRIBLE.* SURE RHETT.

RHETT YOU CANT JUST SAY THAT AFTERWARDS. ;-;

Not this mirroring...

YEAH WE’LL DO THE 10 SECOND HUG. BUT UH, OBVIOUSLY, FOR SCIENCE, AND IT IS GONNA BE JUST *TERRIBLE*, SO LESS SPICE IT UP WITH OUR OWN FANFIC?!?! HELLO?!?! EXCUSE ME?!?! (Omfg my stream of consciousness screenshotting self named this “you mean like your mission trip?” D:)

I think I’ve read this fic before...

IM SCREAMING?!!?!?!? THIS CANON DIVERGENCE?!?! RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD?!?!

OH GOD AND LINK TOOK THIS SO SERIOUSLY. NOT ONLY DID HE UNDERSTAND THE ASSIGNMENT, HE WENT FOR THE EXTRA CREDIT. OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD. Noah’s face once again being all of ours. 

*UGLY SOBBING* LINK PLS.

RHETT AND NOW YOU SAY THIS?!? LINK AT LEAST TRIED TO “DEFEND” Y’ALL, WITH THE MENTION OF “THE CONVERSATION” HELPING. 

STEVIE HAS BEEN TRYING TO MAKE SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPEN SINCE DAY 1, I GUARANTEE IT. 

This is their suggestion and I JUST...pls I need (another?) Mythical OT4 beach ep. 

Link just SINKING into the hug. 

...WTF auto-generated closed captions?

THE EFFING NUZZLE I IRL SQUEAKED!!!!

Me trying to recover from this ep. 

Idk what part of the ep this was in, but I need a GMM London trip because of reasons. 

[coccyodynia]

things:

i went home the other weekend and didn’t steal any pills, as much as i thought about it, so thats kind of cool i guess

i got a very fun and cool tattoo yesterday, its a woman swinging an axe with that line i wrote a few years ago - “i swing and i dont miss”

i am seeing a The Plot In You tonight with justin

we’re planning on hanging out before the show too but the weather is gonna be shitty so who knows, he’ll probably flake out at this point

we’re also planning on going to chicago in a month but im concerned i wont be able to afford it idk. i just stashed away $250 for it but i wouldn’t be surprised if i had to dip into that before then

we’re on okay terms right now. its been a huge rollercoaster as usual but he still wants to keep me around in some type of way i guess bc he’ll respond or say shit like ‘i’m always here for you’

ive been dissociating a lot still but im practicing the skills to get a handle on it

ive officially stopped caring about anything at my job, i just dont give a fuck at all anymore

if i start caring again it will probably kill me, at least considering the rate we were going before 

i had a friend OD twice in the last week or so and im literally just bracing myself to lose another person to fent

its been almost a year without michael now and im still really heartbroken about

i can tell ive started letting my apartment/kitchen get bad again and it’s upsetting me but i feel paralyzed about it

one of my best friends is having a really tough time too and we keep messaging each other little check-ins even though neither of us have the capacity to really support or help the other person in any meaningful way

ive just been way too tapped out lately, and it has been affecting my health for quite awhile

my weight seems to be stable now or at least kinda, i lost 50 lbs and last week for the first time in awhile it didn’t go down when i got on the scale

my parents and grandma all made comments about how they can tell ive lost a lot of weight since i saw them last (6 weeks or so ago?)

my mom has been telling me “youre not eating enough calories” which i think gave me whiplash considering up until now my entire life shes been insistent that i eat too much

my financial situation is really about to get fucked up since im not teaching this summer, so i will lose that income for a few months ($800/month)

im pretty nervous they wont ask me back to teach in the fall bc the head of the department doesnt really like me

i got great evaluations from my students tho! at the end of the semester, two of my students asked if i would be comfortable with giving them a hug and i got emotional

i helped one of my students get into their first gallery show in NY and im just so fucking proud and excited for them

another student had made me a little embroidered camera patch for my bag 

im still very much thinking about applying to graduate/phd programs in the fall

there’s about 5 programs im interested in, but none of them are local so i’d have to move pretty far if i were accepted

im going to re-apply to university of denver for the MA emergent digital practices program

i applied to there in 2021 and was accepted but i wasn’t offered enough financial aid since i applied after the priority deadline so i’ll try it this fall and see what happens

im still dreaming about going to Brown for their digital writing/cross-disciplinary writing and art MFA but it's such a pipe dream

i also found a fascinating phd program at duke but they're not accepting applications this year?

i want to write and photograph more but by the end of the day i am so incredibly burnt out that it seems more like a chore than an outlet

i really wish there was a way for me to just quit my job and take some time off before going into another job

anyway therapy is back to once a week and sometimes 2x a week just depending on how well i handle things

my mom is still being the worst person ive ever met and im really trying to disconnect from her/the family as much as i can

she just spent $500 on a plane ticket so she can go spend a week with the guy she was engaged to in college

she sucks so much and i hate her 

anyway that’s all

[garymower]

Today has been really hard. I’m losing weight like crazy I weigh like 113 last time I weighed myself.

I met with Adam and cleared the air there. Guilty feeling for not telling Jake and that some day he might find out the truth that we slept together even though at the time I didn’t think it mattered and would add something else to our pile.

I’m glad I am on this new journey but it’s hard as fuck and idk if I’m even doing it right. I don’t know what is right. It keeps coming to me thinking that we need to separate for a while and do our work and come back together or divorce with clarity.

My codependent nature wants to stay and be what I need to be to stay but my desires and wants and issues with our connection, my own healing communication and understanding in our relationship keep me from my own personal healing.

We will keep hurting each other unless i seek out and fully fulfill my own personal healing.

He is who I want because of how much he loves and cares for me. His goodness. Willingness. Resilience.

Struggle: his obsessive nature, stubborn perspective, farther behind than me in terms of exploration and insight, emotional reactivity, lacking friendship and a connected mutual foundation. Acts of service and doing isn’t his nature so I don’t get my needs met.

The moment I start to feel comfortable it feels like it gets blown up but I can’t access my tools and become so emotionally disregulated.

I wish we could start all the way over clean and fresh.

When a voice is raised, tone changes, etc, it invalidates and sends me into fight flight or freeze. I am so deeply affected by irregularity.

Today was hard. And I did it.

I am so grateful for Jake and his new ability to communicate his feelings, how aware and how articulate he is about them. That’s amazing.

Weirdly enough, night time might be more my jam to talk about things because my body knows it’s time to chill so mind kinda slows down and I have more space and clarity and calm. Morning and day is for getting stuff done and am more preoccupied mentally and physically.

I am grateful for Jake even though things are hard. I am grateful that I am changing even though it’s all very overwhelming and harder than I ever imagined but it’s rewarding and it’s beautiful. I am grateful that I am able to go to therapy. I am thankful that I am healthy. I am grateful to be given chance after chance after chance. I am not bad. I am not perfect. I am living.

I don’t want to feel heartbroken. I also don’t want that to stop me from being honest about what’s really here and advocating for myself in the midst of this fucking painful and confusing and overwhelming and seemingly strong but the most fragile thing I’ve ever been a part of in adulthood.

If the connection I am looking for is there then please let me find it. Please help me find it within myself to be transparent, kind in my approach and response, honest and true about my experience and the hard truth must come out.

Idk if we are going to make it but I am grateful as hell to know someone as incredible as Jake. I wish I didn’t have all these resentments about who he isn’t, who he was and even is or has transitioned into.

Share my experience without question or shame if it’s how I actually feel.

Grateful for my life. It’s rull rocky right now but my boat, my life, has one giant hole that keeps getting patched but the water keeps trickling or pouring in depending on the tides, which change constantly. Just like with everything - moderation and re-evaluating how I can better patch these holes. Idk if it’s a one giant hole or many holes I think it’s one giant hole and other small ones containing less density and mass making them easier to deal with and patch up. This one is so dense and deep that it will eventually swallow me whole. I let myself sink for so long and now that I’m taking care of my boat and taking risks and challenging the sea and all its demons, it is sure that mistakes will be made, wrong directions taken, loneliness, victories, confusion, starvation, empowerment, helplessness…….that all exists even now but I am more alive than ever and just have to stay afloat no matter what.

I am grateful for my resiliency and my awareness. I am trying to trust myself.

Tomorrows mantra: trusting myself

[agapi-kalyptei]

Today brought one of those unintentionally funny things you can get only when you look back at your life and see things in a wholly new light. I was looking at my "doing legal drugs" pinned instagram story and my introduction in the story said that admitting that I'm depressed is not oversharing, it's just a normal thing that's a part of my life, "like whether I dye my hair or wear glasses".

Which, as many of you know, I stopped wearing glasses and I stopped dying my hair, and you know what? I think I'll also stop being depressed. I've decided.

(...and yes that is a joke as a riff on the toxic positivity crowd and other mental health deniers, just in case someone's new here)

And I know the hubris will get me nowhere. Or if anything, it will take me places and then it will violently jerk me back into a deeper pit. (Just today was incredibly warm when I was so so ready for the autumn to start.) But it will be different. Depression doesn't have to win.

I've realized one thing that I've underestimated all my life the the value of human life. Of my own.

And again - this isn't a judgment of those who are depressed, suicidal or have a passive death wish. But only after seeing people be resigned to it, to actually accept it as a morally correct thing to do was just so off-putting it made me re-evaluate my life. I might feel hopeless at times, but I couldn't possibly leave my friends behind with the knowledge they weren't good enough for me. I will live on for my friends. Nobody deserves to have their friends die on them.

So a little bit late, I've realized - survival is a prerogative of the living. Unless you're a genocidal maniac, you staying alive (I didn't say "at all costs") is a moral value. And so life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, the same way that suicidal ideation can become that too.

It doesn't matter anymore if I feel happy or not, if it's a good day or not, if I'm achieving my life goals in the time that I thought I would or not. It doesn't matter if I didn't finish my composition yet and that I won't ever be a full time musician. I am alive, I am alive, I am alive. You are, too. Keep doing that. Just please, keep doing that for a while longer. The sun will rise again, I promise.

[caxycreations]

*Sigh* Just gonna put this out there...

Vent under the cut, topics of suicide, murder, death. strong language at times.

If you're the kind of blog that regularly says any of the following:

"All X should just kill themselves" "Reblog to make X kill themselves" "If you're an X you should off yourself" "All X should die" "X deserves to be killed" "If I could murder X in broad daylight I'd do it in a heartbeat" or any other variation of sincerely wishing death on any individual or any group...

Block me, if I follow you without realizing you're like that, and expect me to block you the minute I realize you're like that.

Why?

Because if you'd ever fucking lost someone to it you wouldn't throw that shit out so freely.

If you'd ever sincerely gotten right up to that edge yourself and taken half a step off and stopped yourself at the last second, you wouldn't wish it on anyone else for ANY reason.

There are horrible, awful, worthless people in this world that deserve punishment for what they do, what they've done.

But nobody, NOBODY

Deserves to feel like that.

Nobody deserves to be pushed to that brink, to that point of no return.

And even horrible people have families. And those families may have good people that love them and want to see them improve.

Wishing death sincerely on someone is the ultimate sign of non-empathy, non-humanity.

Humans are change. The worst of us can learn, adapt, and stand by the best of us after one life-changing day, and the best of us can shatter and break, becoming the worst of us after one life-changing day.

To sincerely wish death on someone, regardless of reason, is to rob them of the chance to change and rob them of their humanity, their capacity to learn.

And I'm sorry, but if you truly, honestly believe ANYONE is incapable of change, incapable of learning, and you jump straight to "they should just fucking die" as your solution, then you need to sit down and re-evaluate why you think death is preferable to improvement.

Death is NEVER preferable to improvement, and I'm tired of seeing these fucking extremists on my dash screaming out for the suicide or murder of people they disagree with rather than working to invite them to learn, to grow, to change for the better.

You want the world to be a better place?

Start by wishing for change and learning, not murder and suicide.

[yuu-tsuki]

A real, final goodbye

Author notes: Alright so this is my first fanfic on tumblr and it was inspired by @alekspected ‘s story. I would also like to thank them for allowing me to use their concept and ideas 🫣 I hope you guys enjoy. Also please forgive me for my subpar vocabulary and grammar since English is not my first language.

Warnings: Implied suicide, death

Here’s a song to set the mood :3

————————————————————————

(о´∀`о)(*^ω^*)(●´ω｀●)(๑╹ω╹๑ )(*^ω^*)(о´∀`о)

Mammon…

He turned around and smiled brightly “Hey thirteen! How are ya?”

Mammon… you’re not supposed to be here… but why are you?

Mammon pretends to not hear her question whilst turning his back towards her to look at the sea of candles all around the room. “Are ya busy these days? Must be hard having to guard and look over so many souls”

Mammon…stop. Answer the question! Why?! Why are you here?! I know very well that you weren’t supposed to be here…and yet here you are.

“Have ya eat-“ MAMMON.

He flinches at the voice raised against him, his smile falters slightly.

“I got into an acci-“

Don’t lie to me. Do not take me for a fool. My job is to oversee souls and know how EVERY soul dies. This also applies to demon lords such as yourself…I want to hear it directly from you. S-so why?

Thirteen could be heard sniffling behind mammon. He felt guilty that thirteen had to deal with him as a result of his decision.

“I felt that it was time for me to go. I saw that my job was completed and have served my purpose, if…I had any in the first place hehehe…I cannot burden them any longer, so I decided to be selfish one final time”

Mammon. Look at me.

He turned to face thirteen. A slight smile adorning his face.

Thirteen saw and understood why. The once bright shining blue eyes were dull and tired. His face was sunken and it was evident how thin mammon had become with the way his clothes hung loosely on him.

“Please don’t cry…I’m very sorry that you had to deal with me“ NO…don’t… please don’t apologize. Don’t degrade yourself that way…

Thirteen could no longer repress her tears and started sobbing harder. Mammon walked over and hugged her. She stayed in his embrace for a few minutes before pulling away and wiping her tears away.

What..what would you like to be reborn as? I could at least assign you an easier next li-

“That won’t be necessary.”

Wh..what do you mean

“I do not wish to be reincarnated.” His said with an unwavering smile.

“I have lived long enough and had seen what I wanted to see in life. Experienced many things, both good and bad. The memories I have made thus far is my greatest asset. All I can say is that I am at peace. I would like to part with just that”

Thirteen couldn’t help but feel sadder and depressed than she already was. Her heart clenched painfully as mammon said that.

But what about your brothers?

“What about them?”

They’ll-

“Manage…they’ll manage. They will be fine. I have raised them to be capable. So you needn’t worry”

No they won’t!!! How are you so sure?! You’re their brother! How will they manage when you’re gone. FOREVER. Even when a thousand or million years pass, the pain they’ll feel wi-

“You know thirteen…if they really cared as you have said…would I feel so worthless? So useless and pathetic? For so many years, since our fall, I tried my best to be of use to them. To care for them and make sure they’re happy. But no matter what I do… I never got a single thank you. I think you’re aware that I am a relatively simple demon with a very simple way of thinking. I’m not as mentally bright as my brothers but what I do pride myself is my ability to live and care no matter what happens to me. But look where that got me….”

She stood there re-evaluating and processing all the things that mammon has confessed. The the type of treatment mammon received from his brothers. Oh, how ignorant she has been especially when she was one of the key witnesses.

“So, can you let me go?”

Thirteen stared straight into mammon’s eyes and saw the continuing pain and lifelessness resulting from their conversation. Although, his face still bears his signature smile. She really couldn’t fathom how could someone so broken and tortured, continue to smile whilst saying all those things.

Mammon…

“Hmm?” Mammon hummed.

Are you sure that you don’t want to give it a more thorough thought?

“….”

Like I said, you don’t have to disappear completely. I can reincarnate you into an animal or better yet a human! With a wonderful family who would care and give you all the love that you could ever ask for!

“Like I said. I’m sure of it. A wonderful life like that shouldn’t be wasted on someone like me and my decision still stands”

IT IS NOT WASTED ON YOU! Please… please don’t say anymore horrible stuff about yourself. STOP CURSING YOURSELF.

FINE! YOUR BROTHERS TREATED YOU HORRIBLY AND POSSIBLY HATED YOU ENOUGH TO CURSE YOU but have you though about the others? Have you thought about Luke? Simeon? Mephistopheles? Me?

Have you ever thought about the impact of your death and decision to disappear forever would have on us? Don’t you think it’s selfish of you to think so when you have us by your side?

We care… so please don’t…

Thirteen then saw a tear sliding down from mammon’s eye.

“Thank you for all your love and care. I am sorry for causing all of you this pain and I’m grateful that you guys care but… I couldn’t any longer. The pain is too much. If you truly care, you’d let me go. So let me be selfish this one last time?”

“Please?”

Thirteen clenched her fists tightly and tried to stifle her tears. She felt frustrated.

Frustrated that she couldn’t do anything to change mammon’s mind. Saddened that the reason he was here in the first place was the result of him losing his fight with his own demons for so many centuries.

She knows that mammon never asked for anything prior to this. Instead, she is well aware that mammon was always the only one complying to everyone’s requests. Maybe it’s for the best.

Before I let you go…won’t you give it another thought?

“……”

Rubbing her tears away and swallowing the lump in her throat…she walks towards mammon’s already unlit candle and holds it in her hand.

“Thank you, thirteen. You have my gratitude.” Mammon bows as he slowly disappears into nothingness.

The candle has disintegrated. Not a single piece of the candle remain. However, what was left in place of the candle was a shiny piece of Grimm in her hand.

Don’t thank me you idiot….and happy final birthday, Mammon

She clenches her hands as the tears keep flowing nonstop.

How…am I suppose to inform the others?

[xiaq]

Hi, I have a question re:sex and Christianity. Small background: I still go to church, and I still live with my parents even though I'm not much younger than you, because housing is very very expensive where I live (pretty common here, I would say about 2/3 of my friends live with their parents and we are decently privileged kids)

Anyway. How does one get over purity culture? To be clear, I've never been told in church not to have sex, I've never gotten the gendered lessons that you got. But I am terrified of having sex. My first real, multi-year relationship just ended and while there was hand stuff etc, there was never any p in v sex (lol I feel 12). But I still had insane anxiety about being pregnant despite being on bc. And I think its because I know my parents would be so disappointed if I had sex. And if I was pregnant I could imagine all the gossip. And honestly I think im from a pretty open church, b/c one of our previous ministers kids recently got married at 8 months pregnant and lots of church people were at the wedding and supportive and her parents were there and everything.

I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???

(Asking because it seems like you've been pretty open about purity culture/removing yourself from it)

CW for sex talk (again)

How does one get over purity culture?

Oh man. That really is the million-dollar question, huh? Obviously, I can only answer re my personal experiences, and this is something you should talk to a therapist about, but I can tell you how I’ve tackled it with my therapist at least.

Purity culture is, at its core, an ideology that is perpetuated by shame. If you’re indoctrinated into purity culture when you’re a kid, the concepts become baked into the way you construct your identity, your perception of self, and your perception of your sexuality. It’s practically intrinsic, by the time you’re an adult, to feel shame any time you’re reminded you have a body, much less a sexuality.

According to the chapels I sat through every week as a kid, a girl's body could be 3 things: an intentional stumbling block for men, an accidental stumbling block for men, or unnoticeable. Women were to strive for the third option so as to keep their (and their male friends/authority figures) purity intact. After all, if a boy, or even your male teacher, had impure thoughts about you, it was your fault for tempting them (which, holy shit. I still can’t believe that was a thing I bought into for so long. If my 45 yr old grown-ass teacher had impure thoughts because he could see my 12 yr old collarbone, that sure as hell wasn’t my fault. But I digress.) The Only time a woman’s body can be something else, is when she gives it to her husband, at which point she must suddenly flip the switch in her brain that she is now allowed to be a Sexual Being and she must perform Sexual Duties despite living in outright fear of her own body and sexuality for years (decades?) up until this point. Jesus take the wheel.

Purity culture isn’t a thing you can just decide to walk away from if you’ve grown up in it. Because its ideology is insidious and internalized. So first you need to submit to the fact that you’re going to be fucked up about sex. It sounds like you’re there. Second, you need to interrogate what you believe. If you’re leaving religion behind entirely, you’ll approach removing yourself from purity culture differently than if you still identify as a Christian. It sounds like you might be the latter, which meant, for me, separating what’s actually biblical and what’s shitty, contrived, doctrine that I was told is biblical but is actually more political than spiritual. This helps you address the shame issue.

You need to throw away I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Lady in Waiting and all those ridiculous books you read and reread in the hopes of somehow obtaining impossible marriage perfection and look into actual scripture interpreted within its historical context. I could write a book on this, but the TL;DR is that the text of the Bible was written, translated, curated, and changed multiple times over thousands of years by human beings with human biases and, often, personal and/or political agendas. It contradicts itself! Reading it as it is—a flawed historical document—rather than some sort of God-breathed perfect document—is incredibly freeing. When you do, you’ll probably realize that purity culture is bullshit on a spiritual level. Which is a good start, if that matters to you. Because any time you start to feel shame or guilt you can ask yourself: does God actually care if I wear a bikini or touch a dick I’m not married to? Probably not. Wear the bikini. Touch the dick.

The most important therapy session for me was when my therapist asked what I would do if I got to heaven and God was actually the God I’d been raised to fear. What would I do if he condemned me for being bisexual and having premarital sex and becoming educated, for arguing with men, and failing to isolate while menstruating, and wearing mixed fabrics? If Montero had come out at the point, I probably would have said I’d pole dance down to hell. Instead, I said I would spit on heaven’s gates. If a god that cruel and that pointlessly demeaning really exists—a god who would create in me condemned desire—I won't worship him. The good news is, I’m 99% sure he doesn’t exist. At the very least, he isn’t supported by scripture.

Okay. The final thing you need to do is figure out what you actually want, sexually speaking. This bit is probably the hardest. I’m still in the early stages of this myself. You say: “I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???” Bro, I wish I had an easy answer for you. For me, whenever I’m feeling anxious about Sex Things, I tell myself: 1. My God does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 2. My partner does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 3. I do not equate my worth to my sexual habits. It seems silly, but reminding myself of those three things is massively helpful. If, after I’ve sorted through those, I’m still anxious or uncomfortable, I stop doing the thing. I evaluate. Am I overwhelmed and I need to try again some other time? Do I just not like the thing? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes you change your mind. Sometimes you just don’t know. That’s why having a partner who you trust and who’s willing to patiently explore your interests (and respect your disinterests) is so important. Half the battle, for me, was having a partner who told me they’d be ok with no sex at all. Because that took the pressure off me. If the bare minimum they need is nothing, then anything more than that is a bonus! Hooray! This is maybe TMI, but let me tell you. I thought I was asexual* right up until I was able to have moderately non-anxious sex. Never in my life did I think I would initiate a sexual situation but… I do now. It’s a fun thing to do with a person I love and, holy shit. I am furious that I nearly missed out on it.

Finally, re birth control: I don’t know how you can approach that fear in a way that works for you. If you don’t want to ever have penetrative sex, that’s fine! If that’s a point of anxiety you can’t get rid of, then don't push yourself to do it. If you find out you like other sex things, do the other sex things! If you don't like doing any sex things, don't do any sex things! Also, have you considered sleeping with people who can’t get you pregnant? Always an option if it’s an option you want to consider. ;)

Okay. I hope this was even a little bit helpful. Sorry if it’s a little convoluted, I typed it up in bursts during my work breaks.

*This is not at all to say that asexuality can be “fixed." Rather, it’s to say that things like purity culture can drastically confuse your sexuality in general. If you’re asexual, then this process is still important to discover what you like/dislike. Then you can be explicit about those necesities and find a partner who’s a good fit (if you want a partner at all, that is).

[canonicallysoulmates]

Hi y'all, how is everyone holding up?

It's been an.....eventful and painful couple of hours. And I want to talk about some of it....

Let's talk about j2, fan expectations, perfect relationships, disillusionment and where we go from here:

I think there's one thing that this situation really brought to the forefront and that is how much over the years we have idolized Jared and Jensen's relationship. We have put it on this pedestal and hailed it as "perfect", because we had only ever seen the highs; we knew and acknowledged that they have had rough patches but they've always seemed distant because by the time we learn about them things have already been resolved. This situation was the first time we've witnessed first hand a low point in the relationship- we had seen the good now we were seeing the other side of the coin.

For some this shattered the idealized perfect image we had of j2's relationship, I think over the years we'd forgotten one very important thing: perfect relationships don't exist. Not the way we commonly think of them with no fighting, always happy and in agreement, and no misunderstandings. The closest thing you're gonna find in real life to a perfect relationship is one that manages to work things out after a fight, one that forgives and understands.

Because real relationships are complicated. Fights happen, mistakes are made, sometimes you hurt the ones you love, misunderstandings and miscommunication occur. But these things don't always signify the end of a relationship.

Do I think things between the boys are perfect right now? No. I think they still have a lot to talk about and work through, and it's gonna take them time but they're gonna put in the effort and the work because they love and care deeply about one another. Like Jared said in his tweet sometimes the road has bumps but that doesn't stop them.

Earlier this morning on twitter I expressed myself as feeling like a child worried that their parents might get divorced. I'm gonna continue with this surprisingly fitting metaphor to say something important; I know not all of you are happy with the way that things wrapped up, I understand that many of us wanted an explanation and an apology but the only one Jensen owed those things to was Jared. We got caught up in an unfortunate situation and ended up hurt but this was never about us.

While a lot of this took place over public platform we are not entitled to their private conversations or to how they decide to solve this matter. And I know there's still a lot of anger and some can't imagine just forgiving something like this but it's like when parents have a fight and the kids get caught in the middle, the kids might end up feeling hurt and betrayed and pick sides between the two but at the end of the day the problem is between the parents and it is up to them how they choose to solve it and we have to respect it and accept it because it's their relationship not ours, how they solve things is not up to us. And there's a lot of confusion and things we're never gonna get the answers to.

I know that for some the magic of j2 is now gone and I'm so sorry about that, I know how much joy these men have brought us and I wish I had some words of comfort to offer you. But all I can think to say is that Jared and Jensen decided that their relationship is worth fighting for and if one stops to think about that...isn't that more meaningful than idealized perfection? Isn't that evidence of how much they love each other? That they're not giving up on one another.

Things after this may not be the same, but that's necessarily a bad thing: sometimes, when things are tested they come out stronger. And who's to say that won't be the case?

So, where do we go from here? Simple, we heal. That's gonna mean something different for everyone, maybe you've already moved on and feel like there's nothing more to talk about, maybe you need a break from the fandom or from the boys, or from social media, maybe you're still angry and disappointed at Jensen, maybe the magic for you is gone or you need to re-evaluate your feelings and opinions, maybe you just need a little more time to process things. That's valid. This situation put us all on edge and left us feeling vulnerable and scared and hurt. It takes time to heal. Take as long as you need.

One final thing before I wrap up, take notice of those who will use this situation to spread rumors and sow seeds of discord, it's so easy to fall prey to them after situations like this and they know it.

Tomorrow is a brand new day, I don't know what it holds. But I know in my heart that Jared and Jensen are going to be okay.

And so are we 💙

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

[autisticandroids]

I appreciate you being Dean concerned and not Dean critical. I’m sure you’ve already answered this before but what do you genuinely like about him? A lot of his good traits get twisted in your meta (and in the show) which is really interesting! But like. What about him do you just think is neat?

Also, you don’t talk about Sam a lot but I’m rewatching season 8 and it really feels like both a continuation of preseason one -> season one (Sam has a normal life, Dean is gone -> Sam wants to return to his normal life but Dean coming back gets him back in the game) which also gives it finale vibes :(

Besides the fact that the stuff with Amelia is really boring, it all just feels ooc and like a step back for Sam. Not to go on a rant but Sam seemed to finally make peace with his life back in season 7.

The stuff with Amelia also has both the same and the exact opposite energy as the stuff with Lisa. During his time with Lisa, it was always like Dean had one foot out the door back to hunting. During his time when he goes back to hunting with Dean in season 8, it feels like Sam always has one foot out the door back to Amelia.

That and I just can’t bring myself to give a shit about Amelia (maybe because she’s boring and inconsistent, maybe because info about her is drop fed instead of presented mostly all at once like with Lisa in season 6, maybe because she’s just shoved in for something for Sam to be up to and it feels ooc to me idk)

I thought I’d like season 8 (and I do really like a lot of Cas’ stuff but he’s always my favorite anyway so that was basically gaurenteed) but a lot of the stuff just makes my brain feel like a white noise machine. I’m only on episode 10 so I’m sure it’ll get better for me once the Sam stuff gets resolved but for now it’s very.... eh.

Thoughts?

okay so, what i like about dean. hm. that's hard! i love dean, for all sorts of reasons, and i know i'll miss stuff, but: - he charms me, on a sort of pure, animal level. he's very charming, that's true within the show but it's true for the audience, or at least me, as well. he's funny, he's affectionate, he's sweet, and he tries so hard. and it makes me love him - he's compellingly tragic. like dean is a fucked up guy, he hurts both himself and everyone around him because of patterns of trauma an neurosis he can't break out of. no one wants to be a bad guy, no one wants to hurt the ones they love, least of all dean, but he can't stop doing both those things. like his self-made cage of ideology, emotional repression, and control is killing him, and it's killing everyone who doesn't get away from him, and that's sad! it's awful! no one is winning except dean's self-image. he will sacrifice everyone and everything he loves on the altar of never having to re-evaluate himself. or, i hope he won't. but he might! and that's sad! it's the perfect tragedy! - second hand deangirlism due to cas kinnie disease. men will be the first person who was ever nice to castiel and then me and castiel will love them forever about it. - he is my little puzzle box and i will solve him - straightmarried gf i liked that sam ran off and tried to escape The Life in s8, that makes sense to me. i think sam really fundamentally doesn't want to be a hunter and the only reason he gives up on trying to leave post s8 is that it is impressed upon him that he's completely trapped. he can never be free. dean will always drag him back, kicking and screaming. i actually feel like sam's equivalent to lisa isn't amelia, it's jess. i talked some about that here but like. both jess and lisa were kind of synecdoches for a false ideal of the american dream, each in their own way. they're both images of suburban perfection, and what draws the winchesters to them is the desire to fit into that image.

but comparing lisa and amelia..... like, dean promises sam that he will go try to make a normal life with lisa, and then he does, because that obligation is all he has left to cling to. like dean is nothing but a miserable little pile of duties and tasks, he doesn't know who he is without a chore (see: demon!dean's total directionlessness) and lisa is the last promise he made to his brother, so he fulfills that. she's an idea to him, not a real woman. the thing he's clinging to, in sam's absence, is not lisa, but the idea of a normative suburban lifestyle. but then the moment sam shows up and voids his own last wishes, dean is like okay bye i don't need to fulfill this obligation anymore. like he was never all that interested in lisa. he didn't love her and his relationship with her was built on obligations, normative images, and anxiety over her safety, which finally resolves itself in dean horrifically violating her by asking cas to wipe her memories.

whereas sam is with amelia because he like, meets her and they form a connection. they hit it off. and sam has a pattern of like. when he wants to get away from something, especially if dean isn't around, he jumps into bed with the nearest girl who smiles at him and then forms a super intense with her. his early season one-off love interests, ruby, and now amelia. (amelia is actually kind of the last time he does that, because after season eight he gives up trying to escape for real). but what he's clinging to there isn't an image that he's trying to fit into. it's the girl herself. like he likes amelia and he wants to be around her and he dives into like. spending time with her and building a relationship with her. and like amelia is a real woman and sam sees her as a real woman. like she's a fucked up mess and so is he and they connect. like she's a bitch and she clogs her drain with limes. also #MyGirlfriendsHusbandFightsForYourFreedom. like samelia is a little boring but i don't begrudge sam that. it's almost compelling because it's boring.

i'm actually not a huge season eight guy myself but my issue with it isn't samelia.

actually, and this is a complete tangent, can i bitch about season ten for a second? like. okay. seasons eight and nine are about sam learning that dean will never let him go. that he's trapped forever in the hunting life and trapped forever with his brother, that dean will do horrific things to him in order to keep them together. and slowly just... giving up. deciding to relinquish his dreams of getting out once and for all.

and then season ten rolls around and suddenly sam makes a hypocrite of himself? suddenly sam is the one who will go to any lengths to save dean, even against dean's own wishes? NOT believable. like sam should be like. sad and fucked up about it, but letting dean go his own way. if anything, cas should be the one trying to save dean against his will, that's way more cas' move. like there's definitely a certain level of cas -> dean :: dean -> sam that exists in the show, at least in terms of protective fixation. cas is somewhat more respectful of dean's boundaries and autonomy, but he's the one with a pattern of blowing up at dean for being self-destructive etc etc.

like, sam should have been way different in s10. i don't know exactly what i would do with him, maybe give him his own distinct plot? or maybe have demon dean last somewhat longer and make "demon dean tries to kill sam" a whole multi-episode arc, i think that would slap. and then the relationship fallout from that can be many more episodes.

like imo this happened because jeremy carver got his start in season three, when sam legitimately was trying to save dean against dean's wishes, but in s3 that made sense. like, one, the brothers were much closer then, dean wasn't quite as much of a prison guard for sam, but two, much more importantly, dean's deal was sam's fault. he blamed himself. he wasn't just trying to save dean from dying, he was trying to save dean from going to hell because of him. like girl, it made sense in mystery spot. but this is not the energy you should be bringing to the table with sam in s10. ooc!

[emdeedot45]

I’ve been thinking about the Dawsey/Brettsey journey...

Dawsey had chemistry, they had a good friendship in the early days, they loved each other.

But ultimately, by the end of season 6 they did not have a healthy relationship. They were in a horrible place. Dawson was constantly leaving him out of big decisions and Casey was constantly bottling things and wasn’t asking for what he wanted. They needed time to re-evaluate and decide how they could fix this.

Except that isn’t what Dawson chose to do. She chose to leave rather than fix it. I’m sure she didn’t expect her time in PR to turn into what it did – but it did. As sad as it was for Casey, the fact that she found something she loved and something she was devoted to is great. As Casey said, she was born to do work like this.

Life is constantly full of choices and she chose the thing that, at that point of her life, made her the happiest. In doing so, she chose to walk away from her marriage and her relationships in Chicago. That loss was a consequence she was evidently willing to bear.

“But she asked Casey to go with her”

Her bags were packed, she was going without him, she asked quickly, she didn’t push it, she knew it wasn’t something that would come into fruition. She also knows Casey – he’s a Chicago guy. He wasn’t going anywhere, and Gabby was so independent that there was nothing he could do to stop her. He also didn’t want to stop her – he wanted her to do something that was right for her, but that didn’t mean he should have sacrificed what was right for him. The right thing for him being staying in the city he loves, in the job he loves with the people he loves.

Dawsey ending and both parties moving on does not take away from what they had. It doesn’t erase the good, it doesn’t erase the important impact they had on each other, it doesn’t erase that they’ll always care for each other. How could they not?

Just because their journey ended does not mean that they shouldn’t be allowed to find happiness and love again.

“But they left the door open, she could come back”

It’s a huge disservice to Casey to let him remain in ‘Gabby limbo’, just waiting for the *possibility* - not at ALL a certainty – that she will come back and they’ll just get back together. It’s also a disservice to want him to be in a relationship with someone who chose to walk away from him rather than fix what was broken. It’s a disservice to want him to be in a relationship with someone he was no longer in a healthy relationship with. It’s a disservice to GABBY to want her to go back to that too – because it clearly was not working or making them happy. They just couldn’t give each other what they wanted.

If it was me, I wouldn’t want to live the rest of my life wishing for a broken relationship to come back to me. I would want to be able to evolve, to build new relationships, to be happy – and that’s exactly what the writers are doing for Casey. They’ve been very honest about it, they’ve shown that he can get a bit stuck in everything, that moving on from someone isn’t an easy process, that sometimes it can be a real grey area.

As for the Brettsey of it all… from a dramatic TV perspective, having your main character fall for his ex-wife’s ex-best friend and partner is a juicy story that is full of opportunity based on a rich history of content. But MORE than that – having your main character fall for someone who has been in front of him this whole time, who is meeting him with the same generous, giving spirit that he gives people is the stuff of romantic dreams. Casey has lost so much, so allowing him to finally have his slice of stable, constant happiness is beautiful storytelling – and Brett and Casey have been on a stunningly written journey together.

“But she’s second choice!”

Is she? Because by that logic, Casey thought he and Hallie would be together forever, but she died – so wouldn’t that make Dawson his second choice (she wasn’t)? Life doesn’t work like that, we make choices that suit the place we’re at in our lives. Casey chose to move on from Hallie, Dawson chose to take a break from the relationship in season 3, they both chose to sign the divorce papers. There is no reason why Casey couldn’t willingly and completely choose Brett, a woman he admires and respects and loves as her own person, to be in his life at the point he is at right now. There’s no reason why he can’t have a third great love.

You don’t have to like Brettsey or Dawsey or Dawson or Brett or Casey – equally you have every right in the world to love these relationships and people - but the story that the writers are telling fits with writers who care and respect the characters they have built for the past ten years. It fits with a story that wants their characters to flourish and to just LIVE.

It’s time for Casey to be happy and the story they’re telling suggests that his happiness is in Brett.

And that’s pretty darn wonderful.

[mrs-hyperfixed-writes]

Are You Single - 2

Tag List: @becomeunsolved @ambiguous-g @favorite-slytherin-weirdo @a-weirdperson @artist-bby

The reader makes their way through Castle Dimitrescu, encountering the Lady and her daughters. Heisenberg might just have to re-evaluate his opinion of you when you're the unexpected victor of the battles with them.

You had ran through the glorified saw trap, avoiding Lycans and giants alike as you listened to Heisenberg’s taunting. Evidently he was an asshole, but that didn’t seem to be stopping the butterflies in your stomach going mad at the way he spoke to you. Fear had briefly crawled up your spine when he had dropped the spinning log of spikes, blocking your exit and apparently sealing your fate. Thankfully there had been a crevice in the wall, big enough to drop your backpack down by your side and protect yourself. The only thing that took damage was the handcuffs. It had briefly occurred to you that it seemed a very convenient hiding space in an otherwise foolproof killing room.

You ended up back at the gate that you had been captured at, looking over your shoulder this time as you pulled the lever up. Not that you could do anything if Heisenberg or his overgrown sister decided to double check. It seemed unlikely that either of them would treat you to a meal, but you could hope. If you were being honest with yourself though, Heisenberg hardly screamed refined dining.

No, he seemed more like a man who would order a McDonalds or a Burgerking after he’d been working tirelessly all day on a machine in a tank top. All sweaty. . . you smacked yourself in the face, snapping yourself out of your fantasy. You needed to get a grip. Preferably around his throat or his-

You slapped yourself again.

You left through the gate, coming out to an unpleasant looking vineyard. Of course, Dimitrescu was far too high and mighty to get her hands dirty doing manual labour, and any staff that she may of had to maintain the vineyard were probably dead. You shuddered at the thought of so many deaths. You didn’t know any of those people, didn’t know anyone in this godforsaken village that had been put in the middle of nowhere except for the few that had just survived long enough to be brutally killed in front of you. No one would remember any of the dead. It was as if they never existed. And if you died here - which you likely would - you would likely not be remembered. Not with fondness anyway.

You were brought out of your dark thoughts by the sound of a man groaning and wood creaking. You looked up, and to your surprise found an old-fashioned wagon settled in front of the entrance to Castle Dimitrescu. The doors swung open, and someone all but rolled out. The man was massive, both in height and weight.

“I’ve been waiting for you, my friend,” he said with the attitude of someone who was excited to get down to business.

You stopped a couple of metres away, taking it all in. How was this man even alive? Then again, Dimitrescu was nine feet tall and she seemed like she was functioning better than most people. Especially given that the tallest man in history was nearly nine foot and died super young. You could come to terms with this mans existence in no time.

“Who are you? How do you know me?” You let the uncertainty show in your voice.

“Me? I am but a humble merchant,” he said as he rubbed his hands together. “And you’ve been the talk of the town recently! An unknown human outsider making their way through hordes of creatures with nothing but an axe and some second hand guns? Remarkable.”

You hated yourself for the light blush that crept up your neck at the compliment. You never blushed.

“What can I call you?”

“Ah, forgive my manners. You can call me the Duke. Your name please?”

You raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, I already know it, but some people prefer to tell others their name rather than have the introduction stolen from them.”

You chuckled, deciding to bridge the few metres of distance. “(Y/n).”

“Pleasure. Now, would you like to purchase anything for the journey ahead? Medicine? Ammunition?”

“Can you tell me what’s happened here?”

“Ah, information. All I can tell you now is that Mother Miranda has seemingly abandoned the village she has spent a century ruling. Slaughtered the villagers.” He took a long drag of a cigar he had lit before releasing the smoke into the air. “It seems she’s done it for her daughter.”

“Her daughter? Dimitrescu? Or the woman in the veil?”

“Ah, Lady Donna. But no, neither of those are her real daughters. It’s doubtful she even considers them such. The same for her sons.”

Your thoughts drifted back to Heisenberg. Did he hate her for that? For not considering him her child? Questions for later.

“Then who?”

The Duke regarded you for a second. “Sell me those crystal skulls you’ve collected, make a purchase and find me in the castle, and perhaps I’ll know more.”

You blinked in surprise, briefly wondering how he knew that you had been collecting the crystallised remains of those Lycans. Truthfully you just thought they were pretty.

After selling the remains and buying yourself some extra ammo, as well as some of the strange medicine the Duke advertised that was supposed to encourage cell division, you nodded to him in thanks and turned to face the castle.

“Although I must say,��� The Duke called out before you could make much progress, “why do you wish to go into that castle? You are a stranger. There is no stake in this for you.”

You took a deep breath. Why were you doing this? That beast under your skin wanted to answer. To find and tear them apart. For revenge for all the dead. To satisfy my own need for blood and pain.

Instead you said, “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

You walked towards the doors.

***

The inside of the castle was. . . beautiful. Definitely a place a lady would live. Perhaps a place you would live in another life. It seemed as though everything was trimmed with gold, including the beautiful waist high vases decorated with beautiful women. The furniture was of the highest quality, the rugs and carpets plush enough to sleep comfortably on. They looked expensive enough to cost more money than you’d ever had in your entire life. You wiped your muddy boot on the rug you were standing on, leaving a dark smear.

The thing that drew your attention most of all was the portrait that dominated the opposite wall. Three women, admittedly indistinguishable from one another, sat in big dresses. The plaque identified them as the three daughters. Three daughters that loved entertaining foreigners.

A bad feeling overcame you, and you decided to tuck your handgun into your boot, regardless of the discomfort. You covered it with your jeans.

You pressed on until you came to a main chamber that had another set of double doors decorating the walls. A scream rang out, clear as day and stopping you in your tracks. The scream of a woman in terrible pain. Part of you thought that maybe you should try to find her, but something in you knew that it had been a death scream. The agonised scream of someone who wanted to live and was denied.

You swallowed, instead making your way to the double doors, wondering where they lead.

“Well, who’s this then?” an upbeat female voice asked.

You turned to look, and only found three swarms of flies buzzing closer. And right before your eyes, they materialised into three beautiful young women. The daughters. The first thought in your head was how the painting didn’t do any of them justice.

You didn’t even have time to take your gun out of your backpack before the woman on the left - a tall blonde with blood on her mouth - grabbed you by the throat and lifted you clean off the floor, slamming you against the door. She pressed her face closer to your shoulder and took a deep sniff. You shuddered against the feeling of her nose tickling your neck.

“Fresh blood,” she said, voice dripping with a desire that put you on edge.

“Mother says you have to share, sister,” said the redhead with a childish delight, the brunette nodding in agreement with a sadistic grin on her face.

That scream echoed through your head again. The blonde stared into your face, looking for the traces of fear that likely coated their usual victims. She was going to come up empty. You cleared your throat, looking down into beautiful but evil eyes that had probably been the last thing that so many had seen, and spit right in her face.

The grin on her face froze as the glob made contact with her cheek, and then dropped off altogether when her sisters roared in laughter, one of them doubling at the waist and clutching her stomach.

She threw you to the floor, tossing your backpack aside and growling at her sisters to silence them. You leaped towards it with the intention of pulling your shotgun out, deciding to keep the handgun a secret. But she grabbed a fistful of your hair, most of her materialising back into that swarm as she did so. She dragged you through the halls, her sisters flanking you. You clawed at her hand, but to no avail.

Another swarm got too close, a face materialising. The brunette. She ripped one of your arms off of where it was clawing at the hand that felt as if it was going to rip your scalp off. She held it up to her mouth and grinned. You didn’t even have the chance to scream as she sank her teeth into the side of your forearm, digging in deep. Then she pulled back, laughing. She hadn’t done it to feed, only to hurt you. The other sister came forward, her face materialising as well to lick up the blood that was leaking down your arm. She left little bites of her own up your arm. But these were more like love bites.

Suddenly they stopped, and the oldest released the grip on your hair, using her momentum to throw you into a wall.

“Mother,” she started, “I bring you fresh prey.”

Oh no.

You turned, out of breath from the hurt your body had suffered.

“You are so kind to me, daughters.” She took a deep drink of wine and rose from her chair. “Now, let's take a look at them.”

You didn’t get up from the floor, not having the energy or the stupidity to make a scene right now. Not as she fully turned and looked down at you.

“Well, well. A nobody with no name worth knowing or manners to speak of makes their way to my castle do they? Well, you escaped my little brother's idiot games did you? Let’s see how special you are.”

She beckoned to the blonde and the redhead. They each grabbed an arm, forcefully hoisting you to your feet. You squirmed a little, but their grip was like iron as they held up the arm with the bleeding bite mark. Lady Dimitrescu raised a brow and looked back at the remaining daughter.

“Cassandra? What did I say about waiting?”

Cassandra looked down at her feet, almost seeming to be ashamed. “Apologies Mother.”

Dimitrescu gripped you by the wrist and lifted you off the ground. You gritted your teeth. She closed her mouth over the wound and sucked. If you were being honest with yourself most of your blood at this point had either transferred to your face or. . .

It wasn’t important. But apparently you needed therapy.

She dropped you suddenly, and you couldn’t help the shout that escaped your lips when your knees made impact with the floor.

“Just as I thought, nothing special.”

“May we devour their flesh now Mother-”

“But I am the one who captured them-”

“Now, now girls. First I must inform Mother Miranda of Heisenberg’s failure. But soon there will be enough for everyone.” She turned to the blonde daughter. “Bela, take them to the dungeons and shove them in a cell.”

Bela grinned at you, seizing your hair again as she dragged you along, leaving the laughter of her mother and her sisters behind.

***

Heisenberg was fuming. Not that you had escaped his trap. To be perfectly honest there were several design flaws that he wasn’t going to admit to and he really couldn’t have cared less if you had exploited them to get away. If you were running through the village, then something was bound to get you eventually. That was what he had figured anyway.

No, Heisenberg was angry because that overgrown, egocentric, glorified vampire bitch had ratted him out to Mother Miranda. He could just imagine the smug way she had said it over the phone. That grin she would have. He wished he could have buried his hammer into her face.

Miranda had expressed her disappointment in him, not that he gave a shit. But it would likely mean that she would watch him for a while, at least while she had time to spare. Preparing that stupid ceremony would take her a few days at the very least. And in that time she could do anything.

He slammed his fist down on the table. With you in Castle Dimitrescu he couldn’t even entertain himself watching you scramble around the village. Couldn’t taunt you. And he didn’t want to risk working on his army, just on the off chance that Miranda caught wind.

He hadn’t even seen you before that confrontation in front of the castle gate, and he just assumed it was blind luck you’d made it that far.

He’d probably never know how you got on in the Castle, because there was no way you were leaving that place alive.

He looked at the yellow jar on his desk, tempted to just throw it and it’s contents into a pit of molten metal. It would be kinder to the kid than whatever Miranda had planned.

***

You had been shoved in the most stereotypical dungeon in the world. It was something straight out of some Frankenstein-ish novel. Bela had left, promising that she would come back soon to retrieve you for dinner. You had given her your most hate filled look, your eyes promising nothing but violence.

That must have been ten minutes ago, and you were furiously searching the cell. You had found a gap in the wall, and in it a crumpled sheet of paper. You straightened it out, beginning to read.

To whomever is trying to escape this place,

I hope this note will be of some assistance. You don’t know me but you will have to trust me if you want to survive.

First, you need to get out of this cell. Look around for the way, get on your hands and knees if you must.

Then, search for the thing you’ll need to

escape. It will be hidden where they’ll

least suspect, soaked in blood.

The rest of the note was illegible, at some point being soaked with dry blood. You hoped that whoever had written it had gotten out.

You took the notes' advice, getting on your hands and knees. There! Under the wooden board attached to the wall there was a hole that you could crawl through. You got on your belly and went through, ending up in the next cell. You tried the door, and to your relief it opened.

You took your gun out of your boot, preparing to go into the dungeon deeper for your way out.

***

Monsters had patrolled the dungeon. Horrible emaciated monsters that held swords. The first one you had encountered held a sword, and you shot it with glee, picking the sword up. A perfect chance to conserve ammo. It was in good condition too. You sliced and hacked your way through, making it to the second part of the dungeon. You could see the stairwell at the end. Your heart soared. At least until you had to wave a fly out of your face.

“I can’t believe Cassandra caused all this mess.”

Bela. Part of you wanted to turn around and fight her, but you were sadistic not stupid. Bullets against a swarm would be pointless. Instead you ran for the stairs, shooting up them until you came to an entrance that was boarded up. Because of course it was. You attempted to hack at the boards with the sword, but it was already too late.

“Where are you going little one?”

“Oh for fucks-”

You turned to be confronted by Bela, her white teeth stark against the drying blood coating the lower half of her face. She picked you up by the neck again, throwing you through the wooden boards. You lost the sword to the far wall, instead bringing out your handgun as she mounted you, desperately trying to inflict some damage on her even when you knew the bullets would be useless. She just laughed at you.

“Bullets cannot harm-”

CRACK.

You both looked off to the side, just in time to see a window shatter and let in all the cold air. She jumped off and you skittered back, getting to your feet. She was. . . solidifying, only a few lone flies breaking away from her before the cold killed them.

And she was angry.

“You stupid-”

You shot her.

She reeled back in pain, screeching. You smiled, and shot her again.

She charged at you, raising her sickle over her head to slice at you. You ducked away from her and grabbed your sword, swinging it to block her next swing. You kicked her in the stomach, putting some distance between the two of you. Then you shot her again. And again. You could tell that she was almost done. One more bullet or swing of the sword and she’d probably shatter.

You put your gun down on a table, the sword following it.

She was doubled over in agony for the moment, but she still managed to look at you with eyes filled with hatred. The perfect mirror of the look you had given her when she had tossed you in a cell. You laughed at her again, the sound ringing right through the room. You didn’t care if it could even be heard throughout the castle. The daughters had a weakness, and if they wanted to fuck around and find out how you could exploit it then that was their problem.

“It’s funny how things just switch around isn’t it?” You asked her between manic bursts of laughter.

You charged at her suddenly, tackling her to the ground. She wasn’t nearly as strong as she had been. She clawed desperately at your thighs, screaming again as the force she was using caused them to begin to crumble. It was childish, but you got a grip on her hair and pulled as hard as you could, laughing at the screams she made as cracks spiderwebbed down from her hairline down to her eyes. Then you reeled your fist back, gave her one final smirk, and punched her in the face. Her head practically exploded into pieces. You felt yourself drop to the floor as most of her crumbled. Except for one thing. The upper half of her torso had crystallized into something beautiful. You picked it up, wondering if the Duke would buy it.

***

As it turned out, the Duke had his own special room in the castle, and he did buy the torso and the sword. You also managed to retrieve your backpack. It turned out that that medicine was bordering on magical, as the only thing left of the horrible bite Cassandra had left was a scar. Even Daniela’s hickeys were gone.

To your chagrin, if you wanted to open those double doors in the hall you were going to need four masks. The Duke provided the first one, The Mask of Sorrow. He had winked at you, telling you that this would avoid another encounter with the Lady. But when you had asked for his explanation about the events in the village, he simply told you he didn’t have it all yet, but he would at your next encounter. You thought that was bullshit. But you gave him the benefit of the doubt.

And now here you were, reaching for the animal's skull off the wall, hoping that maybe it would have the solution to opening that grate without having to replace the mask.

“I was worried my sisters had gotten to you first.”

Fuck. You froze. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She was by the door. You looked around the room, desperate to find a solution. You had only narrowly escaped her getting into the room. Trying to get past her while stuck in here would be impossible. Then you felt it. A draft. There was a gap in the wall being concealed by a bookshelf. You moved it, looking around for Cassandra. She was still by the door, taking her sweet time getting to you. You examined the gap. There was no way this was going to be enough to petrify Cassandra. Then you remembered the weight in your pocket. You had picked it up in the dungeon. A pipe bomb.

You felt the air shift, and had just enough time to duck as Cassandra swung at you. Taking cover on the other side of the room, you threw the bomb and covered your ears. Cassandra screamed at the bite of the cold air, somehow being louder than the initial boom the bomb had made.

“You’ve ruined the hunt!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” you said happily. “I’m having tons of fun.”

You pointed the shotgun at her as she charged, unloading it into her face. She stumbled back. And you did it again, not giving her time to recover. The shotgun was much more powerful than the pistol had been taking care of Bela, so it wasn’t long before Cassandra was at the same stage Bela had been before you had killed her.

“I take it back. That was kind of disappointing. I thought you’d have more in ya.”

And you don’t know if she just realised she was dying, or if she just wanted to kill you so bad that she threw common sense out of the window, but she charged at you with her weapon raised. You didn’t even move out of the way, just caught he raised wrist and squeezed. It crumbled beneath your hands. She tried to hit you with her other wrist only for you to do the same thing.

“Mother!” She cried out with all the emotion of a scared little girl. “Mother!”

You grabbed her by the front of her dress, letting her see into your eyes. Letting her see the toothy grin you were giving her that was more like a snarl. The irony of the situation struck you. Whereas it would have been her eyes brimming with cruelty and madness before, now it was yours. But you had never been afraid. Not for one second. But she was. And it made you grin even wider.

She called out for her mother again as you dragged her to the wall. You kissed her on the nose, giving her a smile that someone might give a lover, and used all your innate anger and cruelty to shove the bitch against the wall.

She shattered, leaving behind only that crystallised torso.

***

His sister had said she would call Miranda when the outsider had been killed. Well, her words were dealt with properly. Emphasis on the properly apparently. Miranda was supposed to let the rest of them know when the outsider had decided to stop being a nuisance and finally bit the dust.

But no call came. From either of them. Hell, Heisenberg hadn’t heard a goddamn thing from anyone. So. . . was the outsider still alive?

He had to admit, he didn’t expect that.

Maybe he needed to change up his expectations.

***

“So you finally came to see me?”

The final daughter. Daniela. You would have preferred not to deal with her right now, given that her mother had just surprised you and evading her through her music hall had been no small task. She had been angry and seething with bloodlust. You supposed she had learned about the deaths of her older daughters. The fact that she had sent Daniela up against you after you had proved that they were practically useless against you wasn’t scoring Dimitrescu any good mother points.

You shot at the window above. But it refused to break, and the swarms had blocked the doors. You looked around, noting that on the other side, on one of the pillars was a handle.

“Everyone always falls for me.”

You ran around her, gripping the handle and swinging it down with all your might. She screamed in agony, running to get out of the direct frozen wind. To your dismay the handle slowly turned up. Who designed this?

She was running through the bookshelves, trying to hide from you. So deranged, but slightly smarter than her sisters it seemed.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why am I- Why are you doing this?!” you retorted.

You pumped the handle down again before chasing her, shooting her in the back. She darted around a bookcase, circling around you and trying to get the jump on you. But you were ready, giving her another one. You were beginning to get bored of these sisters.

“You three don’t really put up much of a fight do you?”

“I thought you loved me,” she snarled.

“What the fuck has that got to do with anything I just said?”

You shot her again. Then once more for good measure. You got up close and used the butt of your shotgun wo hit her in the stomach, forcing her back.

“I don’t wanna die,” she cried out, almost begging you not to go any further with the tone she was using.

“Well you know, neither did anyone in this village or this castle but shit happens I guess.”

You threw the gun down and got a grip on her throat, dragging her to the handle where you pumped it down again. Her attempts to get away from you and out of the cold were desperate, but you maintained that grip on her neck. Slowly, your grip tightened, and you thought you could see the beginning of tears in her eyes as cracks started to multiply on her throat. You did it slowly, savouring the way her throat gave under your hand. The window was nearly shut now. You blew her a kiss, then you balled your fist, crushing her throat completely.

The window shut.

***

“The entire bloodline of House Dimitrescu is done in by the likes of you?”

You smiled at her, even as she stalked you with her claws out. She had caught you while you were figuring out which mask went where. Luckily, being so big meant she was slow.

“Damn right it is.”

“Have much blood and sweat do you think it took to raise those daughter?” She swiped. “You have incurred an impossible debt!”

The genuine sadness and pain in her voice was something that might have swayed someone else, but not you. Not after the Duke had explained what those monsters in the dungeon had really been. Not when you knew the secret ingredient of that wine. Not when that scream rattled around inside your skull.

“What? You want me to feel sorry for you? Want me to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness while you slice me apart? How many daughters have you murdered and turned to slaves?” You slotted the third mask in before darting just out of her reach. “You didn’t consider how many fathers and husbands you bled dry in your dungeons. Your daughters deserved to die! You deserve to die! None of you get a free pass just because I’d have sex with you!”

She made a noise of disgust and sliced downwards, narrowly missing you. You darted to the last statue, putting the mask in. The door opened and you bolted.

***

You pushed open the coffin, finding an old corpse clutching a beautiful knife. You picked it up, testing the weight. That is, before you were spun around and lifted by the neck again. Evidently this family had a choking kink.

“You ruined everything!” She screamed.

She got ready to plunge her claws deep into your stomach, but you were faster, instead driving the knife into her chest. She screamed, throwing you through the window behind you. You accidentally let go of the knife, and it tumbled off the side of the building.

You looked back at Dimitrescu. She was in pain, and obviously weakening. But large, fleshy wings sprouted out from her back, a tail soon following.

And then she was crashing through the wall, nothing but a female torso and head on the back of what looked like a dragon straight out of one of your nightmares.

“Flesh! Bones! I will devour all of you!”

“Bring it on, bitch!”

***

“Curse you.”

And those were her last words. It hadn’t been easy, but you had done it. And you smiled at her as you did so. Given that same demented smile you’d given her daughters. You still wore it.

You looked around, still half mad from the bloodlust. The only thing of note was a yellow flask, so you snatched it up, grinning even wider as the wall opened into the outside.

***

Dimitrescu was dead. Heisenberg grinned. Well, he certainly didn’t expect to watch you walk out of the castle through the camera he’d placed in the area. He hadn’t even expected you to have lasted five minutes, but evidently you were made of sterner stuff. He was impressed.

You were covered in the dust of her dead daughters, as well as Dimitrescu's own blood. It made your damaged clothes cling to your form, and as you got closer he could see the grin you were wearing, could see that deranged look in your eye. And then you looked up at him. Not just at his camera, but at him. As if you knew he was watching. Your grin turned into something else, and you brought your palm to your mouth, kissed it, and then blew the kiss at him.

He didn’t expect that to get his blood pumping. Didn’t expect watching you walk away coated in blood get it pumping even harder. What was this feeling? It wasn’t fear. It was almost like adrenaline. Almost like-

He looked down at his lap. “Fuck.”

He needed to talk to you. He would talk to you.

Hopefully he could lick the blood off of you after.