#i would like to escape the psychological pressure of being alive

[feex]

So I made a really simple AU of mouthwashing

( does have spelling errors in the actual drawing )

My page: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSjTNuGfN/

With this AU, it’s very direct from the title but only THREE of them survive ( Swansea, Anya and Daisuke. ) meanwhile Curly and Jimmy are the unfortunate ones who don’t make it back on earth alive atleast.

[ THE ALTERED VERSION OF IT ]

Pony express didn’t go bankrupt IMMEDIATELY in this universe, instead they were just lowering pay for each member except Curly.

They were all found 3 years later after everything had transpired, due to legal action it was a whole case causing major action in response, it was only a miracle how they managed to escape this ordeal.

SWANSEA - he managed to survive being shot in the eye and head, the bullet barely reaching his brain but leaving a fracture in his skull. losing an eye in the process and left with poor vision with the other. After he went back home he was already put into proper medical care and his wife takes care of him now due to his retirement but he has managed to recover swiftly but he still struggles with mobility, Swansea was a little stubborn to retire and let his wife take care but eventually he gave in. the whole incident does have him shaken up and he feels very conflicted about everything.

ANYA - The baby was immediately terminated by the OD and there would’ve been no chance of it surviving either way by the stress of everything happening on board, Anya is still left with the repercussions of the overdose and leaves her occasionally with chronic pain. Anya has completely avoided contact with Daisuke and Swansea due to not wanting to be reminded of anything that happened on Tulpar. Anya is studying psychology as a new field rather than becoming a nurse at the moment, she is in art therapy courses and she has created things to help her express internal turmoil as she slowly recovers physically and mentally.

DAISUKE - He had managed to survive somehow with a string of luck though having surgery for his face and nose causing a slight curve on the bridge of it. he has no eye on the right ( left if we’re being realistic) with the amount of blood he had lost he has anaemia and lost some of his colour in skin, he appears a bit lighter than he usually is. Daisuke is still trying to grow his hair out, having the side of his head shaved for surgery so now his hair is even more layered and choppy. Daisuke has huge gaps in memory and doesn’t have good memory anymore, he struggles with speech and is now in constant care by his mother who now never leaves his side, Daisuke by this point has halfway recovered but he’ll never be able to work on his own and have a proper job.

Meanwhile with Jimmy and Curly.

CURLY - because of his horrific injuries it was only cruel to keep him in constant agony, Anya couldn’t handle the pressure nor the sight of him in so much pain as he was barely surviving off painkillers. she was aware of the fact he would most likely die eventually, nobody killed Curly of course but he had succumbed to the injuries he faced, the exposed skin and the trauma his body faced couldn’t handle it.

JIMMY - He was spiralling, already he knew that if he ever went back home he’d face extreme consequences and with a cowardly move he’d resort to ending his own life. believing everyone on board was already dead which he wouldn’t know what to do, this was his own way of taking responsibility.

[ann-atar]

Another observation re Sauron and Celebrimbor in ep. 7. (Yes, more. Op is a teacher and is posting while grading today.)

While Celebrimbor slowly, painfully made his way back to the tower, what did Sauron do? He stayed there.

He was tearing the place apart, pacing and fuming, but he stayed put for some time, almost as if he was waiting for Celebrimbor.

As if the fact that Celebrimbor escaped, even for a short time, was momentarily beyond his comprehension.

Like, where is he, where are the nine, I left him right here!?!

He was panicked and enraged, but when Celebrimbor returns, there is still this sense that Sauron expects him.

And then instead of killing everyone immediately and dragging Celebrimbor out to take him to the nine he pauses, makes a show of killing the guards, continues their back-and-forth, says, "you will place them in my hands."

It's showy and theatrical, such a performance of intimidation, is what I'm saying.

Now, maybe there is something essential to the creation of the rings that requires Celebrimbor to surrender them in their finished form to Sauron willingly, because even though the rings incorporate Sauron's blood they are still Celebrimbor's creation and until he gives them away, he remains their master, at least while he's alive. (Which is cool if true and I approve!)

But I think there's something psychological at work too. For months and weeks Sauron and Celebrimbor have been cohabitating in that tower. It's their enclosure, their habitat, their little dysfunctional home. And by leaving (and then returning as expected), from Sauron's perspective Celebrimbor is still playing by most of the rules that govern their relationship.

They're even at the stage where the abuser starts scrambling to justify their choices and tries to win over their victim again ("this too shall pass"). Sauron feels solidly in control of Celebrimbor and now that he knows his identity, Sauron is basking in the heady feeling of being known.

So their codependence is still very much a thing and even though Celebrimbor won this round the game is still very much on, and Sauron expects him to come back, to continue the battle of wills until the next round is settled, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Sauron expects to win, to have Celebrimbor place the finished rings in his hands, because the nine belong to him and so does Celebrimbor.

What Sauron doesn't quite get is that Celebrimbor understands all of this because he can see the pattern now. He went back to that tower not because, as Sauron might have thought, he was compelled by the guards or by fear or by his own complicity, but because he understands the clockwork horror of Sauron's mind.

Despite his show of emotion about their time together ending, Sauron still expects to be in control because he's fighting with might, but now that the veil has been lifted Celebrimbor is fighting with light.

We know that Celebrimbor doesn't have long to live, but if I had to make a prediction about how, exactly, he meets his end it would be this: after drawing out their game by provoking Sauron and slowly "breaking" under torture, he finds a way to end his own life. (Yeah.)

At which point Sauron's rage will be enormous, and destructive, and his version of grief might cause him to display Celebrimbor's body in the way we're all dreading.

Sauron is super powerful and like Celebrimbor told Galadriel there might be no one in Middle-earth who could resist him, but Sauron is not all-powerful. There are flaws in his design, weak points in his facade and Celebrimbor can see them now, he knows where to apply pressure so that cracks form, little by little. He might not deliver the killing blow but I believe he will weaken the form of Sauron's mind, so Sauron will not be in the right headspace to kill Galadriel during their inevitable confrontation.

[furiousgoldfish]

personal post (tw: suicidal ideation, detailed descriptions of psychological and emotional abuse, osdd, alters, theories about alters splitting)

I have a child alter who is wildly suicidal, to the point where they'll push me to commit suicide with every opportunity, and try to do psychological damage to me as an attempt to make me suicidal. I've been trying to figure out for years what was it that made them so determined to die, with no luck because this alter does not give any information away, and seems to hate me and my attempts.

Recently I've had a flashback where I remembered what it was like to be their age. It felt like I had to die. There was constant pressure, almost like a duty, that I have to be thinking about ending my life at all times. I needed to make sure I wasn't alive for long. And I felt this at all times, that continuing to be alive is a failure and I need to do whats right. It was bizarre to remember. But there had to be a reason I felt this.

I attempted again to probe at the alter, to try and figure out whats the reason for all this, what was done to us to make us so determined to die? And this time I managed to get a little bit of information – the the alter lashed out at me saying 'well there's no other way! remember this!' and I got some interesting flashbacks of psychological abuse. I knew vaguely this was going on, but forgot for the most part, that it had any effect on me. (tw for the next part)

When I was about 8 or 9, I got my own room, and one of my caretakers, my grandmother, had an issue with that. Until then, she was able to lock me in her own room and beat me, because I slept in there, but now it was a bit more difficult to catch me. So, she would often stand in my doorway, and scream at me, for hours, in bouts of intense rage. I thought this was normal at the time, just because it was so common, and nobody did anything to stop it.

She would start by calling me animal names, and demonic names, telling me that I'm the most selfish brat to ever exist who only ever thinks of themselves, and I will burn in hell for it – she would describe it in detail how I would be boiled eternally, there was no escape from it. Then she would go on to tell me how everything that is wrong in the world is directly my fault – my parents fighting, other people being upset, her entire life and misery, that was all on me, I was the direct cause of it. And then, she would go on to describe in detail, how she was going to kill me, usually suffocating me with her bare hands. And she would swear and promise that she would do it, she'd challenge me to not even think that it wouldn't happen. And then she'd go on to describe how much I deserved that, how everything I do in life is done directly to ruin her life, to cause her misery, how I'm a demon who is only happy when she suffers, how I satisfy myself by torturing her, how I am the most twisted, cruel, despicable, demonic, monstrous, unforgivable, horrendous ugly creature that ever existed, worst person in the entire world, and how I should be deeply ashamed of myself and everything I've ever done. She would state very clearly how everything in the entire world would be better if I didn't exist.

Now, me being age 9 or something like that, I thought, well, maybe she's right, maybe I am a bad person, maybe I am selfish by not forfeiting every second of my life to others, maybe I really am the reason everyone is fighting all the time, maybe I could have stopped it. Maybe I need to think about others more often, maybe I need to be more critical of myself. But, no matter how much I changed my behaviour, her rage wouldn't stop, until I was faced with the inescapable feeling of just being so intrinsically wrong and defected that I shouldn't exist. I remember wanting to disappear, wanting to fall trough the floor and into the earth and cease and desist. I would have to spend hours and hours listening to her scream, telling me I should have been murdered the second I was born.

And at this point my father had tried to/almost killed me a few times so death felt like a very inevitable and natural thing to happen to me. I wasn't even scared of upset about it because it just seemed like one of the normal things you know? If you're small and you see things are bad you easily accept your fate. If everyone around you thinks you should die, then you will die soon and thats that.

So by the age of 13 I was full on suicidal, I saw no value in myself, I felt violence and pain was all I deserved because everyone agreed upon it, and it was what I was experiencing at all times. I couldn't stop listening to the screaming and at the end of it, I just agreed with it, it felt true, why would anyone say it so many times, with such intense rage, if it was made up? And by the person who knew me since I was born? I had no arguments against it.

And then one day I was like, wait, this will kill me. Her screaming at me will force me into suicide. I can't have that. I need to cut her off if I want to live. This person doesn't love me, she's trying to kill me. I can't keep listening to her or I'll die. And then I did the funniest thing – I stopped talking to her even though we lived at the same house. And she did even funnier thing and DIDN'T NOTICE for a FULL YEAR. Which sounds wild on the surface, but here's how it played out: She would say something to me, I would stay quiet. She would assume my answer, and say what she wanted me to say, and add 'right?' at the end. I would stay quiet. She would continue the conversation as if I had said what she imagined. And this went on for a year.

With this new situation unfolding, I became certain that she didn't love me, even though she would cry and swear how she sacrificed everything for me and was the only person who loved me and so on – I literally caught her not noticing that she's cut off for a whole year. That was some heavy evidence and I had it.

The screaming however, continued, but now I decided, hey, I don't need to listen to this shit. I would put my hands on my ears (didn't have earphones in that era) and make whatever noises to shut her out. And it worked, I became unaffected by the screaming because I was no longer listening, she eventually stopped because it became obvious that I was oblivious to it and had no reaction, and I guess that was just not fun for her. I went on to not be severely affected by whatever she said because I understood by then that she's a liar and after my life and didn't care for her antics anymore.

Now you might be noticing a lack of consistency here – just how would a child who is completely broken and suicial just snap out of it, decide to cut off the cause of suicidality and then live on to be unaffected by the same abuse that almost cost them their life until then? I originally thought it was some survival instinct kicking in, letting me know that I'm too close to death and need to be putting some boundaries in my life, but that wasn't the case. I went on to think that I was no longer affected by the years of this abuse, I never thought about it, never felt like I needed to process that, I was convinced I dealt with this as a child.

What actually happened is that I became too close to suicide and I split. My osdd figured I was  close to death and something needed to be done. An alter formed who was able to contain all of that trauma inside themselves, the memories of how it felt to listen to that screaming for hours and hours until all hope was lost, until I could no longer see myself as anything but deserving of death and eternal hell. That was wrapped up and put inside a child version of myself who couldn't grow, couldn't see trough any of it, and had to stay trapped in that world, where they're always a minute away from being psychologically tortured and having their integrity assaulted in every way possible, and forced to listen how much their family members wanted to brutally murder them.

Once this alter split off, I was left in control of the body. I was able to evaluate the situation without the emotional effects of being brainwashed or tortured and decided to cut of grandmother immediately and to live my life without listening to her nonsense.

What is interesting to me is that this was the third time an alter split off in order for our life to be saved, one before was split due to my father, and another due to my grandmother, because of other nasty stuff she was doing to me. I'm trying to figure out just how neglected a child needs to be that a complete overhaul of attitude, sudden non-reactiveness to brainwashing and sudden complete apathy to screaming interactions, is just not noticed. Like this kid was close to death seconds before and now they're just fine and going on about their day ignoring everyone, and nobody noticed.

And this is not me being strong or resilient or anything like that. It was my brain tearing my memories and emotions in pieces and containing them into alters so that I would be able to live on without comitting suicide. If this hadn't happened I'd be dead. This also meant that all of that trauma would come back and make me sick for the rest of my life, or until I resolve it. That was me sacrificing my future in order to be able to survive the present. Developing trauma disorders that meant I would have to live while the pressure to commit suicide is always present in my brain, but I can resist it because I don't remember how it came to be there.

*

So, back to the main plot, after I finally extracted this information from my trapped, tortured alter, who just wanted to end it all, I said 'okay, well give the trauma to me, I'm older so it makes sense for me to handle it.'

I didn't handle it well. It was instant pain, dread, horror, I wanted to be dead. I was bedridden for days, kept re-experiencing the screaming, remembered  how many times I listened to descriptions of myself getting murdered, felt very horrified about it, and couldn't see how I thought this wouldn't affect me. What even needs to be wrong with a person to go tell a child in detail how they're going to murder them, how is this giving anyone pleasure. Feeling very icky about that. How hard would it be not to speak out loud your children-murdering fantasies. Get a secret diary or something for heavens sake.

It's a few days later and I am feeling, kinda weak, kinda close to passing out at all times, a bit shaken, bit scared. Very betrayed. Thankfully my sense of self is enough well established that I never doubt if anything that was said to me back then was true, because I'm so disgusted with the person who said it, I'm just feeling grossed out with it. I don't think I've managed to take in all of the trauma from the child alter, it wouldn't be something I could experience in a few days, it's been years of that stuff. But I'm glad to make progress, I'm pleased that something originally nonsensical makes sense, I'm glad I can make connections to why this alter is so suicidal, and I can at least try to make it easier on them. I'm hopeful that one day this part of me won't need to be trapped in an eternal state of a child being told to die.

[kolyasupremanxy]

𝐅𝐲𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐬𝐢𝐬!𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 p.2

𝐅𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 : 𝐍𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐣𝐢𝐦𝐚 𝐀𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢

𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Angst

𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 : Dark themes , Violence, Psychological manipulation , Emotional manipulation , Surgery , Trauma , Mind control , Mental breakdown

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 0.7k

𝐀/𝐧: Thank you anon bcoz of you i managed to do smth here hh

As you woke up from the surgery, you felt an emptiness inside of you. Your once bright and vivid emotions were now gone, leaving you feeling like a shell of your former self. You tried to remember the feeling of love you had for Atsushi, but it was like trying to grasp at smoke. You couldn't feel anything anymore, not even the fear that was creeping up inside of you.

You were alone in a dark room, the only light coming from a single lamp above you. You tried to move, but found that you were tied down to the table, your limbs restrained. You tried to scream, but your voice was hoarse and barely audible.

And then you heard a voice, a voice that sent shivers down your spine. It was Fyodor's voice, cold and menacing. "Now, now, my dear sister," he said, his voice echoing in the room. "Look what you made me do."

You felt a hand on your forehead, and then everything went black.

When you woke up again, you were in a different room, this time with Fyodor standing in front of you. He looked different, almost like he was glowing, but his eyes were as cold as ever. "You're mine now," he said, his voice filled with malice. "You belong to me, and I will do with you as I please."

You tried to fight back, to tell him that he couldn't do this to you, but your voice wouldn't cooperate. You were nothing more than a puppet, controlled by Fyodor's every whim.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. You were kept locked away, hidden from the world and from Atsushi. You could feel nothing, not even the pain that came with the torture that Fyodor subjected you to.

And then one day, Fyodor appeared in front of you again, a cruel smirk on his face. "You think you can escape from your dear brother?" he taunted, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. "You belong to me, and there's nothing you or anyone else can do about it."

You tried to protest, to tell him that you weren't his property, but the words died on your lips. You were trapped, trapped in a world of darkness and pain, with no hope of escape.

As Fyodor walked away, leaving you alone once again, you couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the love you once felt for Atsushi. Had it been all for nothing? Had Fyodor really taken everything away from you?

You were left with nothing but the hollow emptiness inside of you, and the knowledge that Fyodor would always be watching, always waiting for the chance to strike.

Atsushi's POV

Atsushi felt like his world had been shattered into a million pieces. He couldn't believe what had happened to you, the girl he had grown to love so deeply. It was like a nightmare that he couldn't wake up from, and he felt powerless to do anything about it.

He spent his days at the agency in a daze, barely able to focus on anything. He kept replaying the memory of the last time he saw you over and over in his mind, trying to make sense of what had happened. He couldn't understand how Fyodor could do something so cruel to his own sister, and he couldn't understand how he had let it happen.

Atsushi felt lost and alone without you, and the pain of not being able to help you was eating him alive. He questioned everything he had ever known, wondering if there was anything he could have done differently to prevent this from happening. He felt like he had failed you, failed himself, and failed the agency.

The pressure and the guilt started to weigh heavily on Atsushi, and he began to have trouble sleeping and eating. He couldn't focus on his work, and he felt like he was going insane. He wondered if he would ever be able to move on from this, or if he would be haunted by the memory of you forever.

Atsushi's mental state was deteriorating rapidly, and he knew he needed to do something to pull himself out of the abyss he had fallen into. But he didn't know how. He felt like he was drowning in his own thoughts and emotions, and he didn't know how to escape.

The only thing that kept Atsushi going was the hope that one day, somehow, he might be able to save you from Fyodor's grasp. He clung to this hope like a lifeline, praying that one day he would be able to make things right and rescue you from the darkness that had consumed you.

Do Not Copy or Plagiarize Any of My Works. Reblogs Are Very Appreciated.

[angelosearch]

Hooray Tumblr is letting me post this now!!

The following is a super intense, probably too personal essay about trying to process the overwhelmingly GOOD news that I got into grad school.

I wasn't sure about posting this, but ultimately, it is a story about never giving up, because you never know where you will be in a couple of years. So maybe this will help someone who is struggling with feelings of being trapped in their own lives.

It can get better, and it will.

I look at my life right now and I am so overwhelmed and grateful. I get to be creative every day. I am writing again. I am always learning new things about art and psychology. I have a lovely home and amazing husband and great dog that I cherish. I have met some incredible people that, now that they are in my life, I never want them to leave.

And now I have gotten into grad school.

It all seems impossibly fantastic and I wonder what I did to deserve this. There is also a part of me that is curious when I will mess it up, but in this big tangle of emotions I am feeling, I am trying not to dwell on those.

There is a cord of sentiment that is thicker and wrapped around the rest. Something that I can't put a name to, but it has a color the shade of something thankful. Every time I twirl it around my mind I start to tear up.

It is the feeling that I am living a life I never could have imagined in my darkest days and I am just... so so so happy I am still here for them.

In the winter of 2020, after a life-long battle with mental illness, I gave up. I didn't try to give up, I actually gave up. It is only by some kindness of the universe that I am still here to type this post.

Suicide is a permanent answer to a temporary question--but the problem is, when you spend a good portion of your life haunted by depression and trauma and a voice that tells you that you have nothing to offer the world, the question does not seem temporary. When I became unable to imagine an escape from a job that made me feel worthless, a chronic illness that put me in pain and left me in isolation, a blanket of guilt I could not shake, and a global tragedy with no end in sight, I took my own emergency exit. It was like jumping out of the window of a burning building on the 32 floor. I believed I would die either way, but the fall to the ground would require less suffering.

I was lucky enough to be caught on the way down - but I didn't feel lucky. They wanted to put me back in the building, and now the fire was hotter and had consumed my furniture.

I woke up in a very poorly run psych ward. So poorly run, my husband did not know where I had been taken for 18 hours after he called 911. I was given a roommate who was way too much like my mother, and I slowly became manic without the knowledge of the staff. They discharged me a few days before Christmas.

I had been hypomanic before, but I never had a word for it. When I was crying at the sunset that night and feeling so energetic and happy (and telling the funniest jokes I had ever told, from my skewed perspective), I just thought I was happy to be alive. But I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. My pressured speech and grandiose ideas scared my husband and I ended up in psych ward #2 (a much nicer one). I had to spend one night in the ER screaming and hallucinating, believing my heart would give out before I'd fall asleep, before I got there, though.

They called it "manic psychosis." I called it "the darkest timeline."

On Christmas eve, I was given the gift of a new diagnosis: bipolar disorder. I was too unstable to know what that meant or to conceptualize that the burning building was crumbling in some parts.

On the day I was discharged, I slept very little and was extremely lethargic. I had trouble moving and my assigned counselor had to prop me up to help me to his office. I don't know why they discharged me when I had to be taken downstairs in a wheelchair, but they did.

I was in urgent care not 24 hours later when I could no longer walk or sit up, and I even had trouble speaking. A nice EMT, who I remember had a name that included two US presidents, though I don't recall which, took me to my third hospital in two weeks. By time I made it to my room, I had trouble swallowing and was put on a liquid diet.

It is hard to say what the worst part of this terrifying saga was. However, laying in that hospital bed with no ability to regulate my body temperature, stuck awake and unable to move with relentless, restless, manic energy, without so much as the relief of distraction from the picture on the tiny hospital TV because I didn't have my glasses, was excruciating in ways I still have trouble coming to terms with. I watched a lot of basketball, I think, by the squeaky sounds of the shoes.

After being assaulted by a frustrated nurse on New Year's Eve, I laid in my hospital bed wishing for the release of sleep while hospital staff hooted and hollered distantly for the ball drop. 2021 had begun and I was in the darkest place I had ever been.

When I could eat by myself again and manageably push around a walker, I was discharged on a rainy January day. No one could say for sure why my strange, temporary paralysis happened. Could have been the benzos I had taken too many of. Could have been the adjustment to the Lithium that would chase away the mania. Most likely, it was the sloppy transition off of Effexor at the first psych ward.

I was finally back in my burning building. I was fired from my job as soon as I had the strength to hold a phone. I had to explain and apologize to friends and family who were stunned and afraid of my actions. And then January 6th happened. In a few days, I would have to start physical therapy and a Partial Hospitalization Program (group therapy school).

I looked at my disintegrating surroundings and thought they expect me to fight for this? Why? I wished I had been successful in my attempt but I had only succeeded in making my life harder.

I guess those who cheered me on could see the possibility of my happiness and success, but I had a lot of trouble catching a glimpse. I went to another psych ward at the beginning of 2022 and ended up in a residential care facility for Halloween and Thanksgiving that year. I had two different jobs, both I ended up quitting for treatment. I tried group therapy and different therapists. I switched medications countless times and even tried Ketamine therapy for a while. Up until April of 2023 (when I started EMDR) or so, it really all felt hopeless, but for some reason, I fought for the unknowable just beyond the horizon. I kept asking for help.

And now I am here, and I can't believe all of this almost didn't happen.

I look around my office and see pieces of art I would have never created. I would have missed concerts and weddings and road trips. There is so much music I would have never listened to! I would have never rediscovered my childhood passions and learned how to be myself. I would never have met some very important people in my life.

It almost never happened, but I was given a second chance.

I have so many feelings right now, some good, some bad. I am excited. I am anxious. I wonder if I can handle the challenge and I fear my bragging or arrogance. But the biggest feeling is my desire to go back in time and hold a version of myself that couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and kept walking anyway.

Now we get to chase our dreams, and teach other people to hold on like you did.

[rivnedell]

Tolkien saved me

Just some thoughts I need to write down / Mental health issues mentioned

Not the usual tone of my blog but I just felt a urge to write, sorry

Parental death tw

I'm marked with parental alienation. I was 6 when my mom took us three, her, my sister and I far away to escape. She saved us. But I couldn't understand the bravery and the strength she needed to do that, taking us, a few clothes and driving as fast as she could while he was at work, 900km back to her parents and sisters. We lived a while with one of my aunts then my mom met step-dad. My Dad in heart actually. Fortunately it's a tremendously amazing and caring person, and he helped us to go through the hell.

I was asked to choose between my (bioligical) father and my mom, well my father asked me so. He manipulated me to choose him if I was asked by social workers who do I wanted to live with. He kept insulting my mom in front of me, degrading her, and mocking her when I was with him. Then I was menaced, insulted, degraded, violated, forced to feel guilty about about everything, being under massive and constant psychological control.

And I still feel like I betrayed my mom when I was 7.

The hell lasted until I was 17 and half. I stopped going at his, and I could finally breath, make my studies away and my life from him. In 2018, I was 21, I reconnected with him, I tried to put the negative aside, but it became impossible. It grew as 'it's him or me' and I chose myself, for survival again. It just lasted a year. And for 4 years before he died in nov 22 I could live far away from all of this, far from him, no contact and that felt like a relief.

In reality, I just put everything under the rug and locked it secured.

His death brought back everything, even stronger than it already was.

It felt weird, because I guess I still had a tiny hope that he would change at some point, and that I could someday, be ready to face him and to tell him how much he hurt me, how much he frightened me.

But that will never happen. And all the traumatic memories resurfaced like I was living them in my present. And it's hard. What do I do ? Put it under the rug again and try to survive like nothing ?

No, I don't feel I wanna do this anymore. I'm tired of struggling in the dark. I'm exhausted. Exhausted of being on a constant level of survival mode, while I don't need it.

-

All of this causes me to deal with CPTSD and its consequences. And it's tough to hang on.

I'm currently at a upper max level of procrastination where I am now feeling so numbed in and like a cocoon I am freaked out to leave. I'm freaked out to make actions, to make things happen.

Impostor syndrome, rejection fear, not feeling legit at anything in life, struggling with the simple will of existing. I do want not to stop existing, but I am afraid of fully existing, because of all the above wounds and fears.

But still, I'm avoiding life, while his death awaken in me the fear of not existing anymore.

Paradox.

And, almost, nothing is helping me hanging on, helping me wanting to bring myself back in life.

-

All my life I've been hanging tight on Tolkien's work and Peter Jackson's vision to abandon myself into this fantasy land that is Middle Earth, to escape reality. The reality at home that was made of mental insecurity, psychological violence, control and manipulation. In my childhood I used to imagine myself fighting with legolas with a bow and going home in Rivendell after chasing some orcs with Aragorn, meeting Gandalf and Galadriel occasionally. All those characters are so engraved in me and dear to my heart. All this imagination, this entire world, mythological world, and languages seized me when I was 5. And I never let go, and never will.

Middle Earth saved me and helped me wanting to stay alive in a time I was crushed by violence and psychological pressure and control.

-

But my child self is still rulling me, and I'm trrying to take my actual own conscious power back.

She (little me) used to be afraid, to be frightened, to be insulted, to be violated, to constantly be on survival mode. And she still is, rulling me according her methods for survival.

While.. I, the 26 woman I am now, does no longer need.

So it's a battle between me and me. Because I no longer need to protect myself from a menace that no longer exist, literally.

It's really hard to let go, I think it's the hardest thing I would have ever havr to do in my life. Just let it go and leave the past to the past.

-

I feel alone and lonely sometimes. Feeling like I would annoy everybody with my whining..

I'm just sharing this with hope that it could awake something in someone and.. Though I'm feeling alone, I don't want anyone to feel like I feel so, I'm saying this to you, you're not alone, we're together, we're fighting.

It's not you're fault.

And to be honest.. I'm not gonna lie, it feels good to write it down.

Thanks if you red til here ❤️

[selectivechaos]

different ways people describe sm

“feels like a coma that you’re fully conscious for. You know what you want to do and how to do it, but you just can’t make yourself do it. It’s like you just freeze in time, while still being aware of your surroundings/what’s going on, but you have no response to it at all.”

“I know right then and there what might happen if I don’t respond, but I still can’t. I’d say it’s worse in the moment I can’t speak with a feeling of frustration about not being able to speak.”

“feels like there’s a gun to my head and if I say a word I die. Like I want to say whatever it is, and I can comprehend what is being said around me but physically I’m frozen. It’s like I can’t move or even look around, but I can hear and I’m replying in my head.” this, but other times my mind goes Blank; like really fucking blank. like the thoughts don’t connect together or to anything real (dissociation). othertimes it’s midway between blank and ‘replying in head’: im telling myself in my head the process of speaking, such as what it would sound like, what are the risks, will the sound actually come out, or im telling myself to find something to say but my mind is not communicating with me.

“If I move I’m afraid it’ll be some sort of communication to them, so I just stay perfectly still” sometimes i can’t move because im frozen and don’t know why; other times i can’t move because my mind is terrified they’ll judge any movement as abrasive or stuck-up. especially when you can’t speak, the fear that people will judge any communication you do make is amplified. in such cases for me it’s fear of confrontation or conflict.

“The feeling of detachment I felt from everyone around me was suffocating. Looking back to when I had SM,(recovered), specifically when someone asked me a question and my voice couldnt escape, its terrifying. Strangely.. it almost feels like I was in a coffin, buried alive. Trying to talk but no one can hear you. Trying to tell them whats wrong with you but they dont see it.” like im invisible or like ive literally Lost my voice, i’ve never felt trapped but i have felt like im on another plane, like a hollogram and so there’s no point speaking because i have no voice that they would hear.

“It feels like theres a psychological barrier in mind that I cannot cross, no matter what and I don't know why.” for me it’s like i go to speak and my body goes ‘we don’t do that’, like turning a tap and no water comes out.

“is fear the unknown and due to my speech and language disability. I stopped talking when I was 3, then started talking again at 10. It's the feeling of panic when I was put under pressure and struggling to say something. Also, if I don't understand what was said, I get mute and having an anxiety attack. I'm still scared to ask of what things I don't understand.”

“It feels like the nerves and discomfort of asking someone a serious important question or breaking bad news but amplified and all the time” for me, talking feels like a big thing All the time; like public speaking but even when it’s to someone next to me. 🌹🌹

source

[fallen-in-dreams]

CHAPTER THREE on AO3.

Chapters on Tumblr: One. Two.

Pairing: Gaara/Sakura.

Summary: Her descent into madness came after her friends were all dead and before she was sold off like livestock. To him. He knew a thing or two about madness. And there was peace to be found in the violence of that madness. Even if only for a time. Canon divergence AU.

Rated: Mature.

Chapter word count: 4,812.

Status: Ongoing.

Reminder: the tags/warnings are important.

Enjoy. :)

Warnings: dark themes. Arranged marriage (not what you think). Eventual smut (level and degree of that warning being necessary is subjective). Death. Suicide talk. Self-harm. PTSD – expect some well-known symptoms and some not well-known ones. Please don’t read if you’re triggered by psychological &/or emotional-related trauma and effects.

For reference: Menbā: a derogatory term for someone who is considered a criminal. Uragirimono: traitor, turncoat, etc.:

Tumblr version:

Oh God, I'm thrown. I am only happy on my own. My heart grows harder, it wants to perform. And I only ever feel it when I wanted to be torn. To be torn.

-- To Be Torn, by Kyla La Grange

.:.

I can’t do this.

This thought was immediate and harsh in her mind. But after a long shower in which she’d taken full advantage of the supplied body cleaning products as well as an experimental bout of relief from the removable shower head, Sakura was feeling a little better about her situation. A bit of touching here and a lot of extra water pressure there, and she was refreshed, tingly, relaxed, and something akin to happy. Her sensitive nerves drawn out and heightened, even if for a short while. Her building headache had simmered down, and she had a plan of sorts in mind. Well, more like mental images and a bullet-point list of things to do.

Acting like a normal human being had not been on that itinerary, but it should have been expected. She didn’t want any more suspicion to be cast on her. She scoffed at herself for her stupidity. Sakura needed a clean escape for when the time came.

If it comes at all.

She scoffed again. Her new housemates were clearly expecting her to be normal.

“Clean up,” Kankuro had told her (while she was panicking and ignoring him). “Join us for dinner later.”

Might as well get ready for that.

Standing in her room, holding a towel to her damp body, and rifling carelessly through the boring choices in the almost bare closet, Sakura sighed and grunted at each and every lame item of clothing inside. She didn’t have this in her. Not anymore. The old Sakura would’ve just politely followed direction and smiled in all the right places while she secretly basked in the selection of free clothes at her disposal. That Sakura would be tossing out all the simple items and scrounging around for the prettiest and most lavish looking clothes. Because she always had someone to impress, even after she stopped acting like a cliché fangirl and finally grew up. It used to be Sasuke then close friends…

Ugh.

Sakura shuddered, angry at her regressive thoughts.

No Sasuke. No friends. Not anymore.

She hadn’t had down time for twelve months and it was messing with her head. Now that she had time to dwell on everything and everyone that had happened and disappeared from her life, her intrusive thoughts didn’t know when to stop. In that moment, she missed the cold comfort of working too much. It had kept her alive, warm, and hot and cold all over. But now? Now, she couldn’t distract herself from the pain that came with having nothing else to do.

She shook slightly and pushed her emotions down as much as she could, her fist clenching a particularly top that reminded her of a bland looking version of her old qipao dress, just in shirt form. Just remembering the ghastly outfits that she used to wear made the clanging in her head echo louder. Sakura closed her eyes desperately.

Not out of the woods yet.

She was still in that tree stump, bleeding, broken, and surrounded by foreign ninja. Blood did not dry quickly in the warm, forest climates, so she was still sticky and wet. Her body shuddered with the phantom sensations. But she couldn’t let her guard down now. Not even here.

I can do this.

She had to. Sakura had no idea what was waiting her during this dinner with Gaara and Kankuro, but if she couldn’t do this one simple thing, then what hope did she have for the rest of her stay here? She nodded to herself as her body trembled; pins and needles preceding a rush of exhaustion.

But it was with renewed determination that Sakura sorted through the closet, putting aside anything that reminded her of the old days. There were no knickers or bras (she wasn’t well-built, so to speak, anyway), but she found a formal-looking top and a pair of trousers that matched. The pockets made her think they were men’s trousers, but she didn’t care. Black sandals at the bottom of the closet were an easy choice to go with the grey, black, and red colour palette of the clothes and she slipped into them, running a distracted hand over herself, like she was trying to smooth down wrinkles. She found a brush and quickly ran it through her hair, wincing at the slightly painful tugs. It had been too long since she’d taken care of herself.

Sakura surveyed the stranger in the full-length mirror behind the large closet door and sighed. It would have to do. She wouldn’t be winning any beauty pageants but that hardly mattered anyway. She checked the time. Kankuro said that dinner would be served at six. She sat on the edge of the bed and twiddled her thumbs, trying not to think of anything in particular and just keeping her eye on the slow-moving hand of the clock on her wall. Idleness was going to be the death of her.

When it was time, she narrowed her eyes at it for a moment before reluctantly standing.

Here goes.

Before leaving the room, Sakura took out the stick of charcoal she kept in her travel bag. She didn’t have the right type of sharp implements for this job, funnily enough, so this would have to do for now.

I’ll cut it open when I find one.

Taking a deep breath, she used the charcoal to draw the kanji for “one” on the back of her bedroom door, nice and clear and in the upper corner, so she’d have plenty of space to write more. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to cover the entire door, but the anal part of her wanted it to look neat and tidy anyway. Satisfied with her handiwork, Sakura tossed the charcoal back in her bag. Dark, obsidian eyes flashed in her mind, and she hesitated, staring at the compressed carbon residue masquerading as a drawing implement. She swallowed heavily. Memories pushed at the edge of her mind of the artist this had belonged to. Her friend.

Sakura closed the bag to shut out those thoughts and took another deep breath to steel herself.

Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. Happy place. Happy place.

“No such place.”

Sakura swivelled at the sound of the voice but saw nothing.

I’m talking to myself again.

She hadn’t forgotten that mirage with her face. And it hadn’t forgotten her either, it seemed.

Sakura opened the door and quietly closed it behind herself. The smell of food hit her, making her stomach rumble painfully, and she could hear voices in the dining room downstairs. She froze up, hand against the wall to steady herself.

Not now, she told her anxiety. What the fuck? Calm down.

After a moment she was able to plaster something that looked like a smile to her face and make her way down the internal staircase. Her palms sweating, she stepped into the light of the dining room. Kankuro and Gaara ceased their conversation and Sakura swallowed her smile. Her face slackened as Kankuro pulled out a chair for her and the heavy eyes of the Kazekage watched her closely as she settled herself into it.

The smell of the food hit her nostrils once more, like a physical force and (once again) her stomach growled. Though far less painfully this time. She waited for the pleasantries to pass and gave the brothers a nod before digging into her rice and vegetables. She felt almost human. The food was so good that Sakura wondered who had cooked it. Neither of them struck her as the chef type. But then, appearances were often deceiving.

Kankuro explained that Temari was on a mission and Sakura nodded again. Gaara said a few things about some kind of renovations and his brother engaged him in conversation over idle topics. It was a casual setting, and nobody seemed interested in any of the heavier issues they were all thinking about. The elephant in the room, as it were. Well, maybe they were, but Sakura didn’t care one bit. If they wanted to take this engagement thing seriously, that was their problem.

But she did find herself curious how opinions in Suna had formed on the current ninja climate. What those in this room thought about everything. If they even knew the extent of Danzo’s reach. Or if they just saw him, and the rest of the ninja, as simply another leader and their hidden village.

Not that she had the courage to ask.

This engagement is mindboggling enough.

She wasn’t going to go along with it. She had a plan. It was simple, really: pretend to be normal, play at being the demure bride-to-be, scope out her options, and then think of how to evade her Root shadow long enough to get the fuck out of the village. They were very good points to consider, in her opinion. She’d done so much more crazy things on assassination missions. Of course, those were months ago, and she’d been running from one fight to the next ever since then.

All that blood does a good job of distracting me. Sticky, thick, ugly substance that is surprisingly easy to wash out.

From her clothes, at least.

Still, she was getting out of here, regardless of the methodology. And the idea that she might have to kill that shadowed, masked freak on her way out brought a small smirk to the corner of her mouth.

“Dessert?” Kankuro asked when they were all finished.

Sakura nodded and he left the room for a minute. A minute of Gaara’s curious, silent stares. Then she was feeding the hungry animal inside of her again. The one without the ability to snap back at her. She had no idea what this confectionary was called, but it tasted like a mix between ice-cream and salted caramel. She remembered suddenly that the Kazekage wasn’t a fan of sweets.

Where did I learn that from?

She wasn’t sure, but the redhead was eating his dessert, so it was clearly sugar-free. Sakura smiled slightly at that. Some things never changed. She swallowed the last mouthful and placed her spoon down, licking her lips greedily. Sakura hadn’t tasted anything this good in a long time. In between mission locations her food was either standard, dry ninja rations or involved caught meat that she either did or did not have time to cook first as well as whatever fruits and nuts she could scavenge. Sometimes she could steal food off her targets or sneak something out of a vendor, the ninja way, on her way wherever she was going. She always ate and ran.

A home cooked meal had been off the menu for almost two years.

Since Danzo took office.

She scowled lightly.

Stop fucking regressing.

She fiddled with the cutlery for a few moments before remembering she wasn’t alone in the room.

“I realise this is unorthodox and I apologise.” Gaara’s deep voice interrupted her errant thoughts.

Sakura blinked heavily and stared owlishly at him, her skin warming with the shame of embarrassment. What had he been talking about? He continued talking as though she had heard every word.

“Relations between our villages has been strained.”

No shit.

“But maybe this new agreement can help.”

Not likely.

Either Gaara was incredibly naïve, or he was just placating her. She didn’t know which was worse. She knew Danzo. This arrangement was nothing more than a distraction. That Root shadow was the one he should be more concerned with. The dark, ugly man whose only purpose here was likely to look for a way past the seals of the Kazekage mansion for no reason other than to fuck with everyone inside of it.

He can fuck himself for all I care.

Sakura leant back in her chair, returning Gaara’s intense stare. A bubble of confidence suddenly welled up inside her and she managed to keep her face straight as they held each other’s gaze. The pale green of his irises danced in the light of the candelabra in the middle of the table, and she was reminded of a green sapphire her mother had gifted her when she became chunin; a pale hue that she liked despite being lacklustre in any form of bright or ostentatious colours. It burned in her heart as a distant, longing memory. Gaara’s eyes suddenly reminded her of home.

And I kind of find it hot. Wacko.

Sakura swallowed heavily and splayed her hands over the tabletop, shifting her eyes away from Gaara.

You win that round.

“Please feel free to ask for anything you may want or need,” he continued, as though they hadn’t just been staring avidly into each other’s eyes.

Like star-crossed lovers too stupid to realise it.

She nodded her head, not sure her voice would come out as strong as she’d want it to. Gaara didn’t seem to mind but Kankuro was clearly becoming at least mildly curious regarding her silence. He cleared his throat, but she ignored him. She had no idea what to say to Gaara’s idea of hospitality, anyway.

Gaara cocked his head to the side in much the way that Sakura had seen former Hokage when they sensed nearby Anbu. She forced herself not to mirror his movement as she tried to detect the subtle chakra they would be giving off and sighed when she ultimately failed.

Suna Anbu must use a different subtle method to gain their Kage’s attention.

“Temari might not get back for a while,” Kankuro said to his brother.

Had Gaara said something? No. There seemed to be some kind of intensity in the way he was looking at his older brother. Sakura had heard that sometimes siblings were close enough to simply understand each other that well. Much like two people who’d spent way too much time together. And it could have something to do with the Anbu that Sakura just knew was there.

She clenched her fists to hide the trembling.

“Temari is not the only kunoichi absent from the village.”

“True.” Kankuro sat back in his chair and smiled genially at Gaara before turning to Sakura. “Gaara and I might be stuffy and useless–” Gaara huffed slightly. “–but we know when we’re out of our depth with women.” He chuckled.

“Speak for yourself.”

“I am,” Kankuro said. “And for you too.”

“Hm.”

“You should be glad I’m including you. Wouldn’t want to feel left out, right?” The older brother laughed as Gaara sighed and leant back in his chair.

Sakura relaxed her hands and splayed them over the table, staring down at her empty plate.

The brothers exchanged a few more words before Gaara cocked his head to the side again.

Anbu getting busy tonight.

At least someone was, she supposed.

“You’re not better with women than I am,” Kankuro said, almost as though he’d forgotten there was an actual woman in the room with them. He puffed out his chest. “They’re lining up to date me.”

Gaara scoffed softly, eliciting a soliloquy about the perks of being the Kazekage’s brother from Kankuro.

A heavy weight settled on Sakura’s chest, and she felt a slight sting, biting her lip to swallow a light gasp. She shifted in her chair.

“Well, I guess you don’t have to be good with women,” Kankuro mumbled once he cottoned onto the fact that no-one in the room was impressed.

They both glanced at Sakura as she fiddled with her thumbs, crossing, and uncrossing her feet self-consciously. She had nothing to add to their weird, sibling dynamic. She’d never had any brothers and sisters and these two were acting very strange. Sakura tuned them out as her vision blurred slightly and she closed her eyes. She was feeling light-headed and just wanted to head back to her room. When she opened her eyes again, the brothers were back to exchanging barbs with each other.

Do they always talk this long after dinner?

She had to leave the room. Sakura tried to think of an excuse to get away. In the meantime, she just needed to act normal.

“You’re not normal.”

Her head snapped up and she glared at the fourth person in the room, even as her heart raced, ignoring that conversation around her had suddenly gone quiet.

Not even a person.

It hit her with startling clarity, and she almost let out a rasp of laughter.

I can’t pretend to be normal.

.:.

Pity.

That was the dull light in their eyes. Even in Gaara’s.

She didn’t want it.

Sakura excused herself with a quick, mumbled apology and no explanation, but remembered to bow in respect at the last second before fleeing the room and half-running up the staircase. Silence followed her until she slammed the door behind herself, and she let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

Sakura gasped and stretched her fingers outward as she trembled. What Gaara and Kankuro must’ve thought meant very little to her other than the inevitable embarrassment for their next encounter. At least, that was what she told herself. It seemed that even after two years of thinking she’d grown numb to it, the old Sakura who was easily embarrassed and cared what other people thought of her wasn’t long dead after all. But she wanted it to be. She wanted to take a kunai to the throat of her old self and be done with it.

She was an idiot.

And a loser. And weak. And pathetic. And all the other things Danzo told her she was now. He was an arsehole but very right about her. Why else was she still here and not half-way to the North Sea? She could be almost anywhere right now.

I am an idiot.

But she was��better off now. In many ways. Who she’d been before, that silly girl hadn’t been able to save Lady Tsunade from the coup. From Danzo’s kunai. She hadn’t been able to follow Shizune out of the village. She’d been less than useless as fires and smoke and the cries of battle raged around her. She hadn’t been able to find any of her friends before it was finally over. Not even in the ashes. She’d been too weak to kill the Root following her as she tried. Broken earth and broken ribs; she fallen so hard.

Sakura let out another gasp that sounded suspiciously like a sob.

And now she couldn’t even pretend to be normal for a few hours to keep anyone from asking questions she didn’t want to answer. Maybe she was still that idiotic, weak child after all. Gaara and Kankuro probably thought so too. Were they laughing at her? Or only sighing in disappointment? She was a major disappointment.

“They think we’re insane.”

We?

Sakura chose to ignore that train of thought. She had made a fool of herself enough for one night. Her first night in Suna and she was barely holding it together. Gaara and Kankuro didn’t know her well enough to realise just how far off the rails she was, which was a point in her favour. But that wasn’t going to last forever. She needed to get a grip. She really didn’t want to hear their questions if they thought to ask them.

Sakura settled her nerves as she moved toward the bed, only now realising there was something on her dresser. A package. She stopped suddenly, narrowing her eyes at it from the middle of the room.

How did that get there?

Her brain flitted back and forth between weird genjutsu ideas and those times Gaara sensed Anbu nearby. Hm. She wondered if there were any animal summons in the village that were difficult to detect. The package looked like a normal one, with her name written across the small card on top. There was even a bow knot on it, like one would tie to a present.

Weird.

Sakura walked slowly over to it and performed the few detection jutsu she knew from her Root commander’s training. A series of quick, simple hand signs later and there was no chakra reaction from the wrapped package. Not a chakra bomb, or anything of the sort, at least. She wished she had an actual kunai as she tentatively tapped the parcel with her forefinger. She hadn’t sensed any chakra signatures in the mansion during the dinner, so she decided those Anbu had to have delivered it. Or someone else who deliberately suppressed their chakra inside their own, friendly village.

Even weirder.

She fingered the card gently, reading the short message silently. It was from two people called Matsuri & Yukata. Sakura vaguely remembered the names like a distant memory from a past life come back to haunt her. She had a visual a few minutes later as she rolled their names over her tongue. Right. Gaara’s very emphatic fangirls. She smiled at that.

What do they want?

Throwing caution to the wind, Sakura roughly undid the bow and opened the package, tossing the ribbon and now broken box aside carelessly. She held her gift up to the lightbulb on the ceiling. It was a cactus. She frowned, then reread the card. They didn’t mention what kind of cactus it was, and she’d never seen it’s like before.

“No doubt Lord Kazekage didn’t have much prepared for your arrival. We’ll fix that, don’t worry. We decided to get you a ‘Welcome to Suna, Lady Sakura!’ present, so WELCOME!”

The note ended in several smiley faces after their names, clearly added for dramatic effect. Emphatic seemed to be their default setting. This didn’t bode well. And what did they mean by fixing that? Were they going to buy her better clothes? Some feminine products? Or maybe some entertainment, like reading material. She smiled lightly at that. As long as they didn’t expect her to go to the store with them.

Nobody is ready to see my anxiety react to that.

Sakura put the cactus on her bedside table, pushing it to the edge furthest from her, then sat on the bed and sighed. She looked around the room. Really looked. Aside from the barest of furniture and no personal touches, which was to be expected, it did well as a temporary guest room. Nothing glamorous, just functional.

Almost like she was in a low-budget hotel.

She glanced at the cactus before turning away, kicking off her shoes and climbing under the bed covers, fully dressed. Sakura stared up at the ceiling.

Okay, I’m fine.

There was no threat here. She rolled over on her side, facing away from the bedside table, and closed her eyes. But the night was a cruel bitch and as she drifted off to sleep, that familiar pull into the dark, broken recesses of her mind was her only warning before everything went black.

.:.

She was back in the forest, stumbling as she tried to find a hiding spot to avoid her pursuers. The mission had gone wrong, on an epic scale, and now she was the only one still standing. The captain had died first, the other Anbu shortly after. Their screams followed her as Sakura moved between the trees, blundering along as she tried to rush her tired legs. She kept falling against the wide oaks and tripping over exposed roots. The cries in the distance were no longer her Anbu escorts. They were her hunters.

Sakura pushed herself off a thick tree trunk but instead of barrelling her way through the brush, she toppled forward, and face planted. She wasn’t cognizant enough to feel embarrassed, merely laying there, breathing in the musk of forest floor, then gasping when something started crawling over back and an insect decided to go for her mouth. With effort, she pushed herself onto her knees, spat the bug out, and then looked around anxiously.

What to do, where to go… she did her best to hide her tracks as she stood shakily, then gasped at the renewed pain in her side. She had no idea where to go and any minute now, they were going to zero in on her position.

“Where are you, little menbā? My little uragirimono”

No time to debate it. The hollowed-out tree trunk she’d fallen next to was large enough, she supposed. Dragging her pitiful arse along and gripping her travel bag like it was a lifeline, Sakura hauled herself into the relative safety of the trunk; the overgrown shrubbery hiding her from sight. Her vision blurred. Her feet were suddenly numb. Darkness crept in around her. And she was gone.

.

A dull thud. Her eyes snapped open. A distant soft light illuminated the ceiling above her as it blinked into existence. Her conscious mind was fuzzy as she blinked heavily, registering that she’d just been asleep. But something felt… wrong. Her body tingled as heavy breathing caught her attention and she stiffened. She turned her head to the side. Sakura let out an ear-piercing scream. Two beady eyes stared back at her as she tensed. When the breath from her short-lived scream finally left her, she gasped and then pushed away from the mirage. A maniacal grin on its face, it stood as she managed to back into the middle of the bed, just watching her. Nothing about it had changed: the same wounds that made no sense, the same torn and bloodied clothes.

My dream… no, my nightmare.

She was fully awake now.

Sakura grasped her chest, unable to break eye contact with it and unable to calm herself down.

“You’re going to die here,” it said, its mouth moving out of synch with the words. “And nobody will care.”

Sakura scrambled further away, gasping, and toppling over the edge of the bed. She stayed on the floor for a few minutes, shaking and trying to remember the breathing exercises she’d learned during her work at the Konoha hospital.

Breath in. Breathe out. In. Deeply. Out. Deeply. Rinse and repeat.

When it finally started to work, she turned around and continued the mantra in her head as she peered over the bed. The mirage was still there. Her race started racing but it didn’t give her time to resuscitate her courage. The mirage cocked its head then flickered and disappeared.

“Fuck.”

Sakura let out a loud groan. She slammed her hand down on the mattress, screaming silently at herself for letting this get her so worked up. She hated this moment of peace. She hated being idle and weak and forced to remember. Tears burned her skin and she sobbed. She wished she was back in the forest. Everything in there made sense. She was running for her life but at least she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. It was better. It was pure.

Sakura groaned again. She was self-aware enough to know how fucked up that thought was. She pulled herself up onto the bed and returned to her breathing exercises.

Breath in. Breathe out. In. Deeply. Out. Deeply. Rinse and repeat.

Her skin was moist as she hugged herself tightly. She’d gone to bed in the outfit she’d worn to dinner, and they were currently sticking to her like the sticky, sweaty sparring clothes did after a heavy workout. She laughed softly. Of all the things. But hopefully this incident was just the exhaust pipe of her emotions, and it wouldn’t be like this every night. She’d gone without sleep for large periods before, so if this happened again, she knew what to do.

Sakura pulled her legs up to her chin. Her first night in the Kazekage mansion and she was out of control. She listened for sounds of her housemates. If they weren’t heavy sleepers, they could’ve heard her initial scream. Her own eardrums hadn’t managed to absorb the sound, due to her distress, but she was pretty sure it had been loud.

Her heart hammered in her chest as the minutes ticked by, but nobody came. Relief flooded through her. Nobody was coming to check on her. That was both insulting and soothing. The last thing she needed was more pitying looks as she tried to explain away her scream.

Her body shuddered as she curled into a foetal position, on top of the bed covers and closed her eyes, hoping for a swift end to it all.

Please let the darkness take me.

She didn’t notice the eye made of sand watching her in the corner of the room as exhaustion finally took her. Nor the concerned frown from its owner.

.:.

[hifi-walkman]

Do you want the most exhaustive analysis of The Black Parade anyone could ever write? well here it is.

I was sixteen. Despite having no reason to, I felt like shit sometimes… many times.

In my endless search to find something that was… me, that was real. That could last more than a three month obsession inevitably ending in emptiness, failure, and moving on to the next, I had found a band.

My Chemical Romance.

I can say today, my obsession has lasted well over three months. I drank from the cup of their music, as if it was filled not with sound, but sweet ambrosia. It drowned me, and gave me life. It made me feel alive, and energized, and like a person… even when I would have been otherwise empty, and miserable.

In the album, “The Black Parade.” the common interpretation is that it covers the ups and downs of a young man who is dying of some terminal disease. Probably cancer, but its specifics aren’t actually that important.

That is the wrong interpretation. Or at least an incomplete one. The Black Parade, is a story of three people, told across just as many releases.

1.

Gerard way was a nerd as a kid, and then became a rockstar. He also was super unhealthy, from a period of 2002 to 2008, possibly longer. Frankly, it’s not my place to pry. The black parade is a story about gerard way feeling burnt out and crushed under the pressure of fame.

An important note is that Gerard way, unlike the other two people this album is about… is a real person, not a fictional character. So my analysis here is going to be the weakest, and shakiest of the three, and though I personally think it speaks true in the music, I make no claims to have accurate guesses to the psychology of someone I have never met. Take this criticism with at least two and a half tablespoons of salt.

He opens by mocking his fans and audience, he mocks their ridiculous adherence to an asthetic best described as… “half-assed goth” (dw, I half ass the emo look itself, I’m like a quarter of a gothic ass… which you think would make me more popular romantically, considering current trends… it doesn’t). He mocks the melodrama they seem to embody and at the end, the song splits into track II… which isn’t much about his internal struggles, we’ll get back to it. From there, in “The Sharpest Lives” he dives into his self destructive behavior, Welcome to the Black Parade… is something we’ll get back to. And the final four songs, Sleep, Teenagers, Disenchanted, and Famous Last words cover his troubles sleeping in the old house the band was in during the writing of the black parade, teenagers the sheer terror of at once commanding an army of fans with his music, while being just as much a subject to their whims. And Disenchanted and famous last words covering the personal struggles that came from being in My Chemical Romance… and Famous Last Words being… well there are one and a half (hopefully two and a half) MCR albums after this one, but at the time Black Parade was written, it was intended to be the end of My Chemical Romance. Take that as you will.

2.

The Patient is talked to death.. Heh.

There’s a guy, he’s sick, it fucks with him. Existentialism, et cetera. Go consume any other criticism or analysis of this album if you care that much. His place in the album is pretty easy to understand if you just listen to the album, and watch the music videos, and I think it’s kinda boring to talk about… so I’m not going to!

3.

The runaway is the smallest plot in The black parade. Basically just hinted at.

The basic story of the runaway is that she is a young woman (we’ll get to why I think this specifically later) who feels she cannot have a home, and deals with her own story of grief and self discovery.

Her story starts in “This is How I Dissapear”. Just as the patient feels he’s already dead in this track, the runaway feels hers is quickly ending. She feels outcast, and unforgivable. A monster who doesn’t belong… anywhere. As the patient seeks himself in a seance, the runaway escapes herself in a drowning torrent of dread.

The runaway engages in horrible extacy and extravagance in The Sharpest Lives, just like the patient… 

I’ll talk about track five later

I don’t love you, and house of wolves, from the perspective of the runaway, are the story of being pushed away, and just exactly how she came to feel that she can never find a home. They’re tragic, and the core of her character, if you listen to them with her in mind, the songs gain a whole new layer of depth.

Cancer is almost entirely about the patient, I’m not going to cover it in this section.

Mama hits all three perspectives, but is strongest with the runaway, so I’m gonna cover all of them here.

Gerard way feels overwhelmed by his fame, and like it’s killing him, and worries about who it will effect (remember that helping of salt, damnit!)

The patient is losing everything, and everyone around them as the disease gets worse. His mother, who is not particularly pleasant, is just about the only one left in his life.

The Runaway left because of her mother. She is the horrible destructive force overwhelming in her life, and the letter-like format of Mama directly covers the distance in their relationship.

The dread of the song is the patient’s, the apology gerard’s, and the mother the runaway’s.

Next song!

Actually, the runaway doesn’t come up again in a significant way (at least I think so) until famous last words, where next to the conclusion of gerard and the patient’s stories, she too takes hold of her life, and accepts that she can make a new home.

Did you know the black parade has a lot of cut content? Like, shitloads. An entire album, and an EP’s worth, actually.

The B sides, and Living With Ghosts are the second half of the black parade (though… not chronologically), and matter just as much as the main album. Let’s start on the B-Sides, because it’s short.

My Way Home Is Through You is a song about the runaway, and gerard. The runaway’s horrible intense life, just after leaving home, making it a song which happens just after This is How I Dissapear for her story, and a lead-in to Teenagers for Gerard’s story, as it deals with his reaction to all the pressure of being the frontman of My Chemical Romance in 2006.

Kill all your friends is mostly about Gerard. It’s just got the whole damn vibe of gerard’s experience shown early in the album, and is basically just “The End 2”. The death mentioned is highly metaphorical, the tone is satirical.

Honestly… I’m not sure what to make of Heaven Help Us. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Now… the real shit.

Living With ghosts is a collection of songs cut from the black parade, and early versions of songs that made their way onto the album, it was released in 2016 as a tenth anniversary thing. It is (to my knowledge) always sold alongside the black parade. Most of its content is shared with The Black Parade and the B-Sides in some way. But some of it is either original, or detached enough from what the final song would become to be basically original, and is as a result, worth talking about.

The Five of Us Are dying is… Track five!?

Welcome to the Black Parade is the face of a coin, The Five of Us are Dying is the building on its back.

Welcome to The Black Parade is a track almost entirely about the patient, with a brief touch on gerard’s relationship with fame, and its weight. The Five of Us are Dying is a song about feeling desperately lost in your own life, and brashly pursuing a confidence you aren’t quite sure you have. It openly spits in the face of analysis (“Here’s a clue, it’s all just in your head”), and is a brilliant expression of gerard’s thoughts at that moment… it’s also incomplete, as evidenced by the black parade existing. In regards to the Runaway’s story, The Five of Us are Dying is very clearly about the recklessness of just exactly what’s going on with her life, and her desperate grasps at self determination and control as her life becomes more and more chaotic and uncontrollable.

Not that Kind of Girl is the reason I think the runaway is female. It’s a song that happens… before(?) her story in the album. The runaway is desperately uninterested in the clique-ish bullshit around her, and being interrogated (flirted with?) by some guy… she fucking snaps at him. Her life is stressful, and its too much. The song basically acts as a soft intro to her character, and were I re-organizing The Black Parade around her, I’d put it at about the 2/3rds mark.

House of Wolves - Version 1; Live Demo is another song about the runaway! (also… an installment in the decade long story of the demolition lovers during its dry period. But that’s an essay for another time). It covers her loneliness, and the feelings of dread and emptiness that enveloped her before and after she left home. Go listen to it, it’s one of my favorite MCR songs.

House of Wolves - Version 2; Live Demo (yes, I’m using the full title! It’s my essay, I can be as pointlessly verbose as I want!). This song is… did I mention there’s another, hidden story in Living With Ghosts? We’ll get back to it, don’t worry. House of wolves V2 Demo is basically the same song as in the album, but references to the patient’s story are swapped with references to the Runaway’s story… and there’s something about angels?

Emily… is a weird one. But in the context of the runaway, it’s basically about the lack of direction in her life leading her down dark paths. And a possible hint at the sort of… addictive strain running through The Black Parade (and company) that I think applies equally to all of its stories. Oh also the weight on the Runaway from her old home, which further deepens her feeling that she can’t have any home, because the one she left was so horrible, and feels throughout her story like the only option she has.

She got the call, and then she threw her jacket on-

There is a hidden story, almost entirely limited to Living With Ghosts, that appears only as shadows in The Black Parade. This is the most insane, theorycrafting bullshit thing I’m going to say in this entire essay, so get your salt shakers ready.

They got the call, and picked him up at four AM-

Before the stories of the runaway, and the patient were split, and before the patient was made the core of the story, there was a single character, who left home, had a life full of misadventure, and pain, and died tragically, leaving behind his mourning mother. Before the clinicality, and plague of the patient was seperated from the outcast and fear of the runaway… there was The Punk.

And if she said she was sorry now… would you still complain?

The Punk is a (formerly?) religious young man, who represents a sort of, fictionalized version of Gerard Way in his life leading up to the release of The Black Parade. A sort of halfway point between gerard himself, or the more grounded character of the patient, and the Demoliton lovers, or the Killjoys. The Punk rides the line in his story between fantastical fiction, and realistic drama.

And if you’d maybe figure it out… would you still explain?

The Punk leaves home, after living as an outcast in his teenage years, and gets himself into trouble. Violence, crime, the shadowy vague idea of vampires, all of them plague him throughout his life, and as the world weighs more and more upon him, he becomes both more and more desperate for salvation, and more and more desperate for escape… He dies in a car crash, and is survived by his mother, who is forever scarred by the guilt of her failure in helping him through his life.

All the angels say… You are all the same.

All the angels say… You are all to blame.

Okay then… that’s it, literally everything I think about the black parade. However, that’s not all I have for you! Attached are a set of spotify playlists, with the story of each character in order, and songs from all three releases.

The Patient:

The Runaway:

Gerard Way:

The Punk:

(also, I didn’t forget party at the end of the world, I just don’t have anything interesting to say about it in this context)

[apollocomplexx]

What if we got married at a donut shop in downtown Portland?

And we didn't know each other really but you agreed to go on a road trip with me.

And we talked about our childhood trauma on the hood of the car at 3am, looking up at the sunset as we're running entirely on slices of fucked up pie from some convenience store in the middle of nowhere and it's really shitty coffee?

And I busted out a ring. A ring pop(blue raspberry obviously 🙄), and didn't kneel on the proper knee because my proper knee is banged up and I think I might need to go to the doctor about it but I don't have any health care because my parental figure is a BARBARIAN.

And like,,,, you said yes? And I slide the blue raspberry ring pop? And as I do, I hum the Neon Genesis Evangelion theme song even if I don't know it(I can hum the first Code Geass opening if you want and I already watched it, im not a BARBARIAN).

Haha, just kidding.....

Unless? 😳👉👈

[devilfic]

❝boogeyman❞

parts: next plot: he is your shadow as much as you are his. one person, one reflection. you made a deal with the devil and this is the price you pay for redemption. pairing: edward nashton x gn!reader. cw: detective!reader, dark, religious themes, mentioned stalking, creepy edward, obsession, psychological conditioning, blackmail. words: 2.6k.

a/n: this is a reimagining of the events of the batman where edward manages to escape arkham in the end and has a change of heart... so to speak. a fun concept I wanted to try!

You've got a stamp of approval from Chief Bock, declared a wunderkind of exposing dark underbellies, so the GCPD tosses cases at you like homework, expecting it done by the end of the week with work shown. It wasn’t that you were incapable of doing the work (no, you could handle most of these cases with your eyes closed), it was that you were drowning in all of it. The numbers, the victims, the days. They all rolled together while you lived off enough caffeine to put you in cardiac arrest. If it was just you, you might’ve caved under the pressure by now, but it’s never been just you.

You’ve acquired a shadow. He had stomped out the one you were born with and fit himself into its place. He was an inefficient shadow; he never followed you, but rather you him, and when you and your shadow stood together, your bodies never quite fit. Nothing of his fit except for the breathing. It was brown noise to you, a constant even when he wasn’t physically there. You time your own breathing with his until you can think straight enough to make your claim, watching the shadow disappear when your hand falls away from the crucified corpse, “He was nailed to the cross alive.” You look to the side for approval.

The Batman had to be onto you.

On the surface, there isn’t much difference between the way he treats you and every other detective. He nods when you nod, stays out of your way when you’re comparing observations, and defers to you when appropriate. Lieutenant Gordon chalked up any awkwardness between the two of you to your respective, reserved personalities. You’d had the same opinion up until a week ago.

Perhaps it was your paranoia, or maybe the increased, dominating presence in your life, but you’d begun to feel transparent. You’d startle yourself when speaking, swearing that a different voice was coming out of you. Even when you chose the words yourself, it was as if you were picking from someone else’s vocabulary. You’d step into a room with someone else’s legs. If you moved past a mirror too quickly, you wouldn’t see you at all. Your lack of sleep surely wasn’t helping. 

“Is it... all biblically accurate?” Gordon steps between your line of sight of the Batman, forcing you to zero in on him instead. Gordon was always cordial with you, even if it was obvious that he saw your presence as a ploy to undermine his belief in the Bat. Knowing Bock, he probably wasn’t far off.

If you had it your way, you’d gladly leave this up to the Bat and Gordon, but that wasn’t your choice. It hadn’t been for a long time. “No, sir. The... uh, the fire poker down the throat is new.”

Both you and Gordon grimace. “And everything else?”

“No identifying marks that I can recognize. Would you like to take a look, Batman?” Your question hangs heavily in the air as Gordon moves out of the way. 

The Batman always had a habit of looming in corners, skirting the edges of the investigation for details that often went unseen by even the best trained on the force. If anyone were to pick up something you missed, it’d be him.

He steps forward, military-grade boots announcing each severe step toward you. You swallow down your fear and imagine that your shadow is there, looming just as menacingly behind you. You weren’t sure he would liked that, being face to face with the Bat again.

The Batman moves at a much slower pace than yourself when he works. He had no qualms about touching everything, a bold trait of his that often left your co-workers grumbling under their breaths as if he couldn’t hear them. The Bat stands straight after a thorough examination, “Nothing.” He declares.

Gordon nods to the two of you, then motions for his partner to follow him out of the office, leaving you to make your own less brilliant exit. You don’t mind not having all eyes on you like the Bat has to endure. You’re just glad to get away from the scene altogether. A single glance back has you regretting, your eyes meeting the empty sockets of the now former council member. That would be a hard image to repress later.

You whisper your goodbyes to the remaining cops outside and begin to make your way back home.

“Need a ride?”

The Batman is straddling his bike, watching you from the curb. His tone isn’t expectant. He’s seen you walk home plenty of times from a scene, never taking anyone else’s offer before. Surely, he knew he wasn’t any more special. “No, thank you. The walk clears my head.”

“Are you sure? Killers linger near their crime scenes sometimes.” The way he says that makes you shiver, nothing to do with the mid-winter cold.

His second offer gives you a moment’s pause as you consider it. Truthfully, no criminal in Gotham could put much more than a little spook in you given your situation these days. You openly welcomed anyone to try and take your life when it had already been promised to another. You’d never felt more free in this city in your entire life. You’d never felt more captive, too. 

“Not everyday you get a chance to ride around the city with a guy dressed as a bat,” one of the cops jokes lightheartedly, nodding to you, “if you don’t take the offer, I will.”

Batman turns his head slowly to said cop. He looks unamused.

The walk would help you clear your head (and it would give you more time away from him). There were no pros to accepting the ride. “Okay.” You accept anyway.

The Batman straightens up as you approach his bike, making sure you climb on carefully. You steady your hands on the Batman’s waist, feeling the armor shift very little against your hands. Batman pulls one of your arms further around his middle to hug him, “I drive fast.” He explains, when you make a noise. “Where to?”

Batman definitely wasn’t lying.

The ride to your apartment felt more like a rollercoaster ride, his bike weaving through bloated Gotham traffic with ease. You wanted to scream over the battering wind about whether or not he got a pass on obeying traffic laws, though your voice wasn’t strong enough to reach his ears. Even with how wildly he drove, you never once felt like you were about to fall off, and that was all you could really ask for.

When he pulls up right outside your complex, you feel all your organs arrange themselves back into their proper places once again. You wobble a little as you step onto the sidewalk. “Thank you,” you tell him, winded, “if vigilantism doesn’t work out, you should consider racing for a living.” 

Though you can’t actually see them, you can tell from the shift of his cowl that he’s raising his brow at the thought, “Am I that bad?”

You smile apologetically, “Just a little.”

The Batman takes no offense—or if he does, he’s excellent at pretending he doesn’t—and nods to you politely, “Stay safe.” And then he’s pulling off, noticeably at a much slower speed this time. You’re hopeful that you’ve saved a poor pedestrian from a heart attack somewhere in the city tonight, and begin your ascent to your apartment.

You’re used to going through the motions when you get home.

The elevator hasn’t worked in your complex since the 90′s, so you often hike it up a few floors to your apartment and let the workout get some good pumps out of your heart, though it was hardly needed anymore these days. Your unlocked front door does the job just fine.

One of these days, you’d get him to leave the lights on at the very least. You know why he doesn’t, you just really wished he wouldn’t.

The first light you flick on is the lamp by your doorway. Its warmth glimmers on the crystal bowl beneath it where you drop your keys, a warning that he could come out at any time. You look as far as the light reaches in anticipation, but nothing stands out to you. Had he gotten tired of waiting? That wasn’t like him.

You let the front door close behind you and take a step forward. His breathing becomes apparent all at once.

“He drove you home.”

You never could get used to that voice. It had been unsettling enough to hear on TV, what with the distortion, but in person? It was raw and low with the diction of a well-read man. You imagined what it would have been like to be Commissioner Savage in that rat trap, the agony of a thousand teeth tearing into the veins of your throat, all while this voice read you your sins. It was the voice of your own personal boogeyman. You still hadn’t gotten out of reacting bodily to it.

The Riddler stands behind your front door, unmoving. Your heart hammers wildly at the thought that he could snip your strings at any moment, calling to an end this dance between puppet and puppeteer. You cover up the way you recoil by making a big motion out of disrobing, “Didn’t feel like walking.”

You don’t know why you bother to lie. He’d followed you home often enough to know that was never true.

It’s hard not to stiffen up when he starts moving; you use the detective skills at your disposal to predict what he’ll do next, but it was like your signals were scrambled in his presence. The closer he was, the more disorienting. It had grown too tedious of a task to think, let alone talk, when he was on the prowl.

Perhaps it was because you expected him to bludgeon you to death at any second. 

“Maybe he’s onto you,” Riddler muses, “you’ve been sloppy lately.”

The insult doesn’t sting your ego like it should have. No, how could you have an ego when your life was on the line? You hang your coat next to the door, keeping your body at an angle to see him (as if it would make a difference, as if keeping him within your line of sight would make him any less dangerous). “A lot on my plate, that’s all.”

You hate how it sounds like an excuse. You were supposed to be one of GCPD’s best and brightest, a shining star in the midnight of Gotham City guiding the way to sunrise. You should be able to handle all of this... that’s what had been beaten into you, at least. 

“What if he catches on?”

You grit your teeth, yanking open your fridge door with more force than intended, “Then I guess it’s Arkham for you and me.”

Your perusing of your meager food supply comes to an abrupt stop when Riddler takes your shoulder and spins you, propelling your body off its axis and slamming you into the heavy fridge side. Before you can defend yourself, his elbow is pressing against your windpipe. He’s not applying enough pressure to break it (not even enough to cause you pain), but he could.

Edward Nashton, they’d said his name was. You’d tuned into the news the morning after the flood walls broke, a rapture outside your apartment, and thought he looked incredibly ordinary. In a city of demented clowns, he wasn’t supposed to be there. He looked too soft. There were no hard edges to his body even as it loomed well over the crowds of Gotham... except for his eyes, those omniscient eyes. 

You’re held in place by them more than his body. “Have you given up on salvation already, detective? And after all our progress! Why, it’d be a shame if you accepted defeat so soon.” 

The mocking lilt to his voice does irk you a bit. “What do you expect me to do, exactly?”

“Lie.”

“He’s too smart for that.”

“Lie better. Isn’t that what your precious Lieutenant taught you to do before I dropped him in the harbor?”

There weren’t a lot of things that could make you flinch. You prided yourself on that much. Your ironclad stomach was tested but rarely stirred, a product of growing up in Gotham. What the Riddler had done to the man who took you under his wing and made you the detective you were today was hardly any crueler than his other “punishments”. Still, finding his body suspended just above water, upper half still submerged from the drowning, had not been an easy image to digest. Had you been any less hardened, you might’ve emptied your stomach all over his Gone Fishin’! calling card.

You could still do so now just thinking about it. “Maybe I should give up, then.”

“You wouldn’t make it to prison. I’d kill you first.”

Good, you thought, put me out of my misery. If you said anything like that out loud though, you feared you’d give him better ideas. You could already think of one. “He’s too smart to beat. You of all people should know that.”

Riddler stares at you, long and hard. He’s so silent that you can’t even perceive the sound of his breathing, only the puffs of air warming your nose give away that he’s still alive. You’d meant to strike a nerve with that, maybe get him to rough you up so you could feel something again. 

To your shock, he has the opposite reaction.

Riddler grins and there’s no other way to describe it but a grin. It’s practically from ear to ear, stretched across his face until that soft, unremarkable quality of his turns sinister. “You got me there. But I got pretty close, didn’t I? I hate to admit when I’m shorthanded in a battle of wits but... I’ve really done some thinking since then. I was too narrow-minded. I put the Bat on a pedestal thinking that he and I were one and the same. In reality, he never had the gumption to do what you and I can do.”

“So what, I’m his replacement?”

“No, no, no, no, no. No. You are so much more that. I mean, you’re not perfect, but that’s what I’m here for. To refine you. You have the brains,” Riddler taps your temple with two fingers, featherlight in pressure, though you flinch all the same, “and the nerve to carry out our judgment. Because you’d like to make up for your sins. Right, detective? Wash all that blood from your hands?”

His last statement is emphasized by him releasing your throat and taking your wrists prisoner, his fingers wrapping so tightly around the bones that his touch could be imprinted into them. He takes them up to his mouth and breathes over your knuckles... the hot, wetness of his mouth makes you wriggle away, though his grip never relents. 

Riddler doesn’t often touch you, but when he does, you’re never prepared. A gentle touch or a threat? It makes you woozy trying to predict it. Exhausts you further.

You’re so exhausted that you go limp in his hold and he smiles again, letting your wrists go once you submit. It’s not about a show of physical strength with him. He tests your boundaries like this—the psychological ones—because one day, you think he’ll need you pliable enough to let him all the way in. You resisted much more fervently in the beginning... back when you thought you had a way out of this. Back when you used to only see yourself in your reflection.

Now, you know better. The fire isn’t out in you, but you worry the light grows dimmer everyday. “Are you planning to stay the night again?”

He looks up to the side and shrugs, walking out of the kitchen and into your living room. The lamp highlights how long his hair had gotten since Arkham, almost unrecognizable to the man you’d seen on TV. You note, annoyed, finally recognizing, that it’s damp too. The fucker had used your shower again. The more of himself he left around your apartment, the more entangled you became.

“Not all night. Just long enough to share the takeout I ordered for us. You really need to go grocery shopping, by the way.”

As if it wasn’t enough for him to leave pieces of himself on you, inside you. He’d consume you from everywhere and leave nothing left to be identified with except his imprint.

[syn0vial]

weird things about the sarlacc and boba fett’s time therein, according to the expanded universe

i was talking about this in a mandalorian groupchat and felt it deserved to be shared on tumblr, so without further ado, here’s a bunch of fucked up shit that happens in the sarlacc according to star wars legends:

first weird thing about the sarlacc in the great pit of carkoon: it's.... questionably sentient? basically, sarlaccs absorb bits and pieces of their victims until they achieve a kind of weird melded consciousness. and, perhaps due to the fact that it had absorbed jedi in the past, the carkoon sarlacc was like, prolific in this regard,  to the point where it had a fairly well developed personality and identity that it basically ripped from its first victim, a young boy named susejo.

as "susejo," the sarlacc would not only physically digest its victims alive, but psychologically torture them. this was discovered by an anthropologist who studied the video captured by boba's helmet while he was in the sarlacc, which showed him reacting to stimulus that wasn't there. it caused said anthropologist to speculate that the sarlacc not only fed on its victims physical bodies but also their fear and pain.

in fact, in "a barve like that," a story written by moran under a pseudonym, we get entire conversations between boba and "susejo," in which this man gets LITERALLY GASLIGHTED BY THE FUCKING SARLACC

susejo/the sarlacc basically tries to convince boba that none of this is really happening and that it's all in his head.

it is entirely unsuccessful in this regard

that said, it also tortures boba by making him live through the dying memories of its other victims, so. that's fun.

after pilfering through his mind for awhile, susejo/the sarlacc tells boba: “It’s been a long time since I had one like you, all bright and sharp around the edges. You are nearly a work of art, Fett; there is a clarity to you that is quite wonderful. A purity to your intent.”

(i read this description of boba fett more than a decade ago and it has lived rent-free in my head ever since.)

(also the sarlacc does this while hanging boba from a wall in a mockery of what he had done with han in jabba’s palace, which isn’t super relevant but is just cool thematically)

but not to worry! boba eventually escapes in very spectacular fashion

y’see, boba’s jetpack has an emergency panel that can activate the jetpack when switched. problem is, he can’t reach it with his hands bc the sarlacc has his arms pinned to the wall. 

but one day, boba reaches his breaking point. susejo/the sarlacc is gearing up for another round of psychologically torturing its victims via memory share and boba just fucking snaps. 

"You're an ingrate, you pathetic excuse for a sentient being. You got taken down here as a child and everything that you know and everything that you are you owe to the people you let get eaten" - - and the Sarlacc's tentacles spasmed around Fett, digging into him, hauling him back into the wall behind him--"and your feelings are hurt because I've told you so? You could have helped that Jedi, she'd have come back for you. Instead you spent the next four thousand years playing at philosophy, abusing the people who taught you to be what you are, never even dreaming that you had options, and why?" he screamed at Susejo, building up to it, blasting him with the rage and hatred he had spent a lifetime growing, the Sarlacc's straining tentacles shaking against his body. "Because you're stupid, a miserable mean wretch of an excuse for a sentient being without the imagination or the courage--" The tentacles slashed around him, a sound like a thousand whips cracking, drowning out Fett's voice.

you may have noticed that, throughout the course of this excerpt, the sarlacc presses boba progressively harder against the wall–which just so happens to provide the pressure necessary to switch that emergency panel i mentioned earlier.

trapped between boba and the wall of the sarlacc, the jetpack explodes, badly wounding the sarlacc and throwing boba to the ground, arms free.

“Standing in the fire, burning alive, Boba Fett fired a concussion grenade into the ceiling thirty centimeters above his head, and threw himself down to the surface of the tunnel, into the flaming mixture of acid and fuel-The explosion tore apart the world. The concussion slammed Fett down into the flames, and his left arm, trapped beneath him at the wrong angle, snapped as he was smashed down atop it. A pain so great it was like a white light surrounded Boba Fett, and he knew that he was dying, that he had failed, like all the others before him, that he had traded a slow death by acid for a fast death by fire–Sand rained down upon him. A long time later, Boba Fett became aware that he was still alive.”

upon regaining consciousness, boba throws even more grenades, blasting a hole in the sarlacc until he’s able to claw his way out.

basically, it’s a good thing that boba fett does not regularly open up about all the rage and hatred inside of him on either a verbal or psychic level bc it’s apparently enough to overpower a fucking sarlacc.

even decades after escaping, boba remains haunted by not just his own memories of the sarlacc, but the memories of its other victims and their lives, forever mingled inextricably with his own. bc shitty traumatic memories are definitely something boba fett needed more of.

[claraclette]

𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘄𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀 | Simon Riley x Reader

𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝟯 | 𝖠 𝗌𝗂𝗅𝗄𝗒 𝗐𝗂𝗇𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖺 𝗐𝗈𝗈𝖽𝗒 𝗐𝗁𝗂𝗌𝗄𝖾𝗒

𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 ↬ 𝖥𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝖺 𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗋𝗈𝗋𝗂𝗌𝗍 𝖺𝗍𝗍𝖺𝖼𝗄 𝗂𝗇 𝖫𝗈𝗇𝖽𝗈𝗇 𝗍𝗈 𝗌𝗎𝗋𝗏𝗂���𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗇 𝖺 𝖼𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗐𝖺𝗇𝗍𝗌 𝗁𝖾𝗋 𝖽𝖾𝖺𝖽 𝗂𝗇 𝖴𝗋𝗓𝗂𝗄𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗇, 𝗈𝗋 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝖺 𝗁𝗈𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗀𝖾 𝗌𝗂𝗍𝗎𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇 𝗂𝗇 𝖺 𝗐𝖺𝗋 𝗓𝗈𝗇𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝖾𝗌𝖼𝖺𝗉𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝖺𝗇 𝖾𝗅𝗂𝗍𝖾 𝗌𝖾𝖼𝗋𝖾𝗍 𝗆𝗂𝗅𝗂𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗒 𝗎𝗇𝗂𝗍 𝖺𝗍 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗁𝖾𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝖺 𝗐𝖺𝗋 𝖼𝗋𝗂𝗆𝖾 𝗂𝗇 𝖬𝖾𝗑𝗂𝖼𝗈, (𝗒/𝗇) (𝗒/𝗅/𝗇)'𝗌 𝗅𝗂𝖿𝖾 𝖼𝖺𝗇 𝖻𝖾 𝗌𝗎𝗆𝗆𝖾𝖽 𝗎𝗉 𝗂𝗇 𝗈𝗇𝖾 𝗉𝗁𝗋𝖺𝗌𝖾: 𝖨𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗐𝗋𝗈𝗇𝗀 𝗉𝗅𝖺𝖼𝖾 𝖺𝗍 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗐𝗋𝗈𝗇𝗀 𝗍𝗂𝗆𝖾. 𝖳𝗁𝖾 𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗒 𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗇 𝖼𝗈𝗆𝗆𝗈𝗇 𝗂𝗇 𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗌𝖾 𝗎𝗇𝖿𝗈𝗋𝗍𝗎𝗇𝖺𝗍𝖾 𝗌𝗂𝗍𝗎𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝗌? 𝖲𝗂𝗆𝗈𝗇 "𝖦𝗁𝗈𝗌𝗍" 𝖱𝗂𝗅𝖾𝗒.

𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 ↬ 𝖠𝗍𝗍𝖾𝗆𝗉𝗍 𝖺𝗍 𝖧𝗎𝗆𝗈𝗋 | | 𝖦𝗋𝖺𝗉𝗁𝗂𝖼 𝖣𝖾𝗌𝖼𝗋𝗂𝗉𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇 | 𝖯𝖳𝖲𝖣 | 𝖢𝗁𝗂𝗅𝖽𝗁𝗈𝗈𝖽 𝖳𝗋𝖺𝗎𝗆𝖺 | 𝖥𝗅𝗎𝖿𝖿 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖠𝗇𝗀𝗌𝗍 | 𝖠𝖼𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖠𝖽𝗏𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖾 | 𝖤𝗏𝖾𝗇𝗍𝗎𝖺𝗅 𝖲𝗆𝗎𝗍 | 𝖲𝗅𝗈𝗐 𝖡𝗎𝗋𝗇 | 𝖥𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗇𝖽𝗌 𝗍𝗈 𝖫𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗌 |

𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀 ↬ 𝖠𝗅𝗐𝖺𝗒𝗌 𝖼𝗈𝗇𝗍𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝖼𝖺𝗇 𝗍𝗈𝗎𝖼𝗁 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝖾𝗇𝗌𝗂𝗍𝗂𝗏𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝗈𝖿 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗆𝗈𝗌𝗍 𝗂𝗆𝗉𝗋𝖾𝗌𝗌𝗂𝗈𝗇𝖺𝖻𝗅𝖾. 𝖲𝗈𝗋𝗋𝗒 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝖺𝗇𝗒 𝗌𝗉𝖾𝗅𝗅𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗆𝗂𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗄𝖾𝗌. 𝖣𝗈 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝗁𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗍𝖺𝗍𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝖼𝗈𝗋𝗋𝖾𝖼𝗍 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗀𝗂𝗏𝖾 𝖺 𝖼𝗋𝗂𝗍𝗂𝗊𝗎𝖾!  

𝗢𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 ↬ 𝖠𝖮𝟥 𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗌𝗂𝗈𝗇 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 | 𝖶𝖺𝗍𝗍𝗉𝖺𝖽 𝗏𝖾𝗋𝗌𝗂𝗈𝗇 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 | 𝖯𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗅𝖾𝗌 𝗅𝖾𝖼𝗍𝖾𝗎𝗋𝗌 𝖿𝗋𝖺𝗇𝖼̧𝖺𝗂𝗌, 𝗏𝗈𝗎𝗌 𝗉𝗈𝗎𝗏𝖾𝗓 𝗋𝖾𝗍𝗋𝗈𝗎𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗅'𝗁𝗂𝗌𝗍𝗈𝗂𝗋𝖾 𝖾𝗇 𝖿𝗋𝖺𝗇𝖼̧𝖺𝗂𝗌 𝗌𝗎𝗋 𝖠𝖮𝟥 𝗈𝗎 𝖶𝖺𝗍𝗍𝗉𝖺𝖽

𝖬𝖺𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍 | 𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟣 | 𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟤 | 𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟥 | 𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗂𝗍𝗋𝖾 𝟦 | 𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟧 | 𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟨 | 𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟩 | ... |  

───────────────────────────────────

145 dead and 322 injured.  

A distressed sigh escaped me as I closed the lid of my pressure cooker, ready to simmer the stew inside. I wiped my hands as I walked out of my small kitchen, which opens onto my dining room adjoining my living room, and reached for my remote to turn off the television, where a continuous news channel was running, making my quiet flat a little more lively while I cooked.

Three weeks had passed since the series of attacks in London, which had rightly monopolised media attention. My family returned to France as soon as possible, after I refused to follow them. I couldn’t be the support they asked for and they couldn’t be mine. I had always preferred to walk on my own after such events, pretending like nothing happened, or with such detachment that it became distressing for others. ButI was like that, and to do otherwise would be far too difficult for me to handle and mentally impactful. 

I slumped on my green Mario Bellini, contrasting with the Georgian architecture of my flat and the building itself, immersed in calm. Coming home was always one of the strangest moments. Going from absolute chaos, to the most familiar calm. For the past few days, I felt drained, physically and psychologically, but always with the sentiment of having done the best I could.

There was always a before and after anyway. And we had to accept it, get used to it. That was how life goes after all. Everyone lived with their ups and downs. And the beautiful and less beautiful things. But after such traumatic events, I needed, I felt, to keep a positive perspective. And to try to escape in vain from pessimism and the idea that the darkest part of the human being will come out at some time or other. 

But today was my day off. These hospital shifts and series of surgeries had exhausted me. With no idea what to do, I decided to watch a boring movie and fall asleep to it, but my phone vibrated. Thinking a medical emergency at first, I was surprised to read an unknown number. I hesitated to answer, suspecting a scam. 

"Hello?" I said, finally picking up the phone. 

"Hello (y/n)?"

That accent, that voice...

I suddenly stood up on my couch, awakened by this call that I hadn't expected for a long time.

"Simon?" I asked, still unsure of who I was talking to. "Is that you?"

"Yes, it's me. It's been a long time." 

"Long time? Is the remorse of being stood up on Halloween too much to bear?" I teased.

I heard him clear his throat, probably embarrassed. 

"I'm kidding." I added. "I don't really care. How are you doing?" 

"I guess that's more like my job to ask. I heard about London, are you okay?" 

"Oh... Uh..." I started to stammer, taken aback.

He only called to see if I was alive after the attacks? Strange. Even after our first meeting a few months ago, he didn't even bother to contact me. And I couldn’t on my own, without his number. 

"As much as it can be." I say, before hastily inquiring. "What about you ? I hope your family is fine and that no one close to you has been hurt or killed."

"Don't worry about that." He assured me.

He didn't pursue the conversation, and not knowing what to say, I asked the first thing that popped into my head.

"How is the weather in Manchester? Does it snow? We had our first snow yesterday in London."

I slapped myself in the face. Rain or shine. What kind of uninteresting conversation was this? I came across as a conversationless goof and made the exchange all the more uncomfortable.

"I'm not in Manchester right now. I'm in London for work." 

"You're in London?" I exclaimed, pleasantly surprised. "Well, why don't we meet this afternoon? I know a lovely tearoom near the British Museum! They make delicious cakes and their teas are very good.”

I felt my heart racing slightly, apprehensive about his refusal. But as I liked saying to myself : nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

"Near the British Museum?" 

"If that's too far for you, I can find a more convenient one. Where do you stay?"

"No, no. The museum suits me."

"So you accept?" 

"Yes, but I'm only free after 4pm."

"Then we'll meet at 4.30 or 5pm in the tearoom! I'll send you the address by phone. See you later!"

"See you."

I hung up, more than delighted. My watch indicated 2pm, leaving me two solid hours to wash and get ready. Clearly, this was not a date. Or... maybe it was? But at the same time, did I really want to? 

After William... This was so recent. And this whole story had made me really question myself. I was not ready and even less made to commit me in an umpteenth relationship. And all these failures in love had made me realise one thing: my work came first. With each break-up, the subject came up like a landslide: I didn't invest enough in the relationship, I didn't offer enough affection, and when I went out into the field, I barely made a call. But as the expression went: no news is good news, right? 

More seriously, despite my desire to laugh, it was painful. Painful to know that no matter how hard I tried and how much I loved someone, that person will feel lonely and neglected enough to be forced to commit infidelity. But what could I do about it? My work meant everything to me. This was my life, my identity. It pushed me beyond my limits, stimulated me, and gave meaning to what I did. To lose him would be to lose a part of myself. 

So no, I didn't want another relationship while I continued to mourn the last one, understanding that this problem which all my partners blamed me for, will never find a solution. 

════════════════════════════════════════════════

How I adored this sweet tearoom nestled between two London streets. It was tiny and cosy, run by a welcoming family. I had arrived first and so had taken the initiative to wait inside, booking a table for two of us. The best for my taste. Near the frosted window that let you see the few passers-by wrapped up in their coats and hats, under the light snowflakes getting lost in the city. I had settled into the low wicker chair, leaving the pretty Victorian sofa for Simon if he came. It was a bit crowded, and I regularly checked the entrance behind me, and my messages, hoping for a sign of life from him. 

"(y/n)?"

I jumped at Simon's voice, not having heard him move quietly near me, too focused on my phone. My eyes went up to him. And my memories didn't fail me. Except for his stubble, better trimmed, he looked exactly the same as that night, contrary to me who, I hoped, was much more presentable. I pointed to the settee, which he accepted after taking off his coat and cap, letting his short brown hair breathe.  

"Did you find it easy?" I asked, trying to get the conversation going as quickly as possible.

"Yes, and you're right. The place is sound, must-see their tea now."

"Oh! I promise they're excellent! I always drink their black smoked vanilla tea, it's just so good. That, along with their lemon cakes. Lemon pies are my favourite. But I also recommend their banoffee." I jabbered, handing him the card that our waiter came to bring us.

He finally took an orange-flavoured Ceylon black tea, without sweets, and we could give the waiter our order.

"You look fine." He finally said, after a few seconds of silence while I fidget with my napkin.

Perhaps he realised my slight embarrassment. At least, I took this chance to talk about the latest events in my life, without confiding all the woes that weighed on my heart either. I never talked about myself, or more precisely, about my feelings, about something so intimate. I myself found it hard sometimes to put my finger on what I felt. I struggled with vulnerability, and I just didn’t understand how people could feel so comfortable sharing their pain, their uncertainties, their problems with others. This was so personal. Nevertheless, Simon was clearly intrigued by the series of attacks in London, and what better way to share my experience with him. 

"I'm actually a bit worried about my family." I confessed, glancing up at him. "I was with them in Leicester market the day of the attack and... they're deeply affected by it. Of course, I was advising them to go to a wartime psychologist, a normal psychologist would be useless, they've been through something that a normal French or British person can't experience. But I realise that it will be difficult for them to get past this event, and it kills me not to know and be able to help them as I would like."

"And you? Won't it be difficult to live with that?" He asked, clearly intrigued.

I let out a small sigh. The last thing I wanted was to come across as insensitive or mentally deranged. I needed to find the right words, and not speak without thinking as I was so good at doing. 

"I've been to war zones before, where I've been confronted with difficult things. The London attacks have... surprisingly not affected me in the way I thought they would. I don't have nightmares, I don't have post-traumatic stress disorder. But it could have."

"It's the kind o'thing you can't anticipate, after all." He added. "Ever been to a war zone?" 

"I'm a humanitarian doctor." I informed him, just as our orders arrived.

I thanked the waiter before continuing.

"I worked in the Sahel and Afghanistan with the Red Cross. Then I went to other countries, in short-term missions, especially during natural disasters." 

"And now?"

"Now I'm taking a break for a year. I'm a trauma surgeon at the St. Thomas Hospital. In spring, I'll go to Urzikstan, for six months. At one of Basat's hospitals."

"The second largest city after Sakhra." He noted. 

"Hmm..." I approved, pouring myself a cup of tea. "You know your geography well.”

"And isn't hard? Humanitarian doctor. Going from the comfort of St. Thomas to a Basat hospital."

"Of course, it's always a bit of a shock and takes time to adjust. But humanitarian medicine is such an exciting profession that requires so much commitment. Once you taste the world of humanitarianism, it's pretty hard to return to a quieter life. So this tea?" I queried as he dipped his lips into his cup.

He nodded with contentment to my great pleasure. A little more talkative than when we first met, he was interested in my job, then our conversation drifted to my life. I invited him to taste my delicious lemon pie, but he refused, claiming not to have a sweet tooth. In spite of this tête-à-tête which presents quite well, of the few jokes he was slipping here and there, a typically British humour which made me roar with laughter, something bothered me. In his behaviour, his look. 

"You know, if I ever bother you, just tell me and... we'll stop now. I don't want you to feel obligated, or to force yourself out of pity." I suddenly declared without warning.

I took him visibly by surprise at his astonished expression. Perplexed, he swallowed his steaming sip of tea as best he could and immediately asked. 

"Well, I'm enjoying myself. What makes you think not?"

Now it was my turn to feel flabbergasted, but mostly stupid. It had always been hard for me to grasp people, and more importantly to understand them by their body language. That was partly why I had always had a deep respect for these charlatan mediums, who knew how to read non-verbal language well, passing off this cold reading as clairvoyance. 

Oh God, how I lacked this, as at that precise moment when I misinterpreted Simon's behaviour, which was clear after all.

"Uh... ugh... For nothing. Never mind." I stammered before I managed to make up for it. "I just felt like I'd forced your hand on this meeting, and didn't want to ruin your day on top of that."

"Your company is more pleasant to me than mine." He joked. "Don't worry."

"You're harsh with yourself. You're a man of few words but of pleasant company." I bugged him. "I swear." 

"I get that a lot."

"Of what? That you're pleasant company?

"Hell, no. That I'm a man o' few words."

I laughed heartily and we continued joking until we finished our drinks. I insisted on paying, to his displeasure, but clearly I was much more stubborn than him. I had my way with him, and he proposed to take me home. As a gesture of gratitude, he said. I accepted without hesitation.

The first thing that greeted us as soon as we left the small tearoom was a glacial breeze winding through the city streets, slowly covered by a thin layer of snow. With a contented sigh, I completely closed my long vicuna Harlan coat, in an attempt to prevent the sudden wind from sneaking through the few openings my warm outfit could leave.

I then looked up at Simon, to see him wrapping his blushing face in the thick grey scarf he was wearing, leaving almost no skin exposed. The poor guy seemed to be enduring these winter temperatures rather badly. I let out an amused chuckle, causing him to tilt his head in my direction.

"What's so funny?" He queried in a gruff voice, muffled by the thick layer of wool covering his mouth.

"Nothing, nothing..." I reassured him as I set off.

In spite of the wintery temperatures, we preferred to walk all the way. It was a crepuscular promenade in the snowy alleys of London, still illuminated by Christmas decorations, despite the new year having started a few days ago. The two of us strolled peacefully through the quiet streets, and I had no hesitation in enlivening our conversation with anecdotes that are as far-fetched and comical as each other. My cheerful voice rose in this night as dark as ebony, shamelessly disturbing the lull of the district in which we were walking.

"Yer wot?" He exclaimed. "Did you really put a fucking whoopee in the confessional?" Simon scoffed. 

"But I was sick of it! My parents forced me to attend catechism even if I didn't want to!" I protested, faced with these events perceived as real injustices in my childhood. "After a while, my rebellious side got the better of me, and too bad if I would never be at one with God again according to my parish priest or my family." I sneered.

"I vaguely remember my childhood, but in my family, it was rather as one with whisky."

I tried to hold back my inappropriate laughter, but the strange sound that came out of my mouth didn’t go unheard.

"Sorry, I shouldn't laugh about it, it sounds awful." I said, still chuckling. "My grandpa was also more at one with wine than God."

Without further ado, I took one of my usual paths. It was a pleasant, seldom used alley. Simon began to reflect on the umpteenth conversation about a misadventure experienced during his adolescence. But he was immediately interrupted by an unexpected and disconcerting collision, shaking the back of his head. 

"Bloody fu..."

He froze, probably feeling the instant afterwards, a cold, disturbing fluid flowing down his neck, inevitably penetrating his coat. He let out a disgusted grunt as he tried in vain to prevent the snow from doing more damage. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who caused this sudden snowball attack. My contagious laughter as always shaking the serenity of the place was a perfect clue to unmask the culprit. He turned to me, who contemplated him mischievously. Although far from irritated, he was clearly baffled by my juvenile action.

"Are you serious?" He declared, bewildered as my hilarity intensified, giving him a clear answer.

I bent down, gathering enough snow in my two gloved hands, and formed a new ball which I threw with no hesitation. But this time prepared, he easily dodged it. He ran to hide behind a parked car.

"You know that's a war declaration you just made?" He exclaimed as I giggled.

"And I'm willing to feed you some snow, Brit!"

He took the opportunity to create a snowball and immediately to throw it in my direction. Far from being as skilful as him, I barely avoided it, but almost tumbled to the ground. Nevertheless, I managed to regain my balance. This moment of distraction earned me a second snowball, in the face this time. However, a satisfied smile appeared on my lips when I saw that he was playing the game, despite his apparent seriousness. I immediately resumed our fierce bloody fight which ended in a bitter defeat on my part. But I accepted it in good faith. I managed to touch him and to push snow into the collar of his jumper, and that was priceless. 

"Are we almost there?" Simon asked, after we started our way again.

And I could only understand his impatience. After our childish interlude, the snow had covered my poor coat so well that its once beige colour was barely noticeable, and my scarf had just frozen solid. I preferred not to mention the clothes under my coat, as they were both soaked and frozen. A very bad combination. The same was probably true for Simon.

"Just two streets away”, I assured him.

"You live in Mayfair?" He wondered, and rightly so. 

"Yeah... But the flat belonged to my great grandfather, and I took it over when I moved to London for William a few years ago. I know, it still sounds very bombastic, and I hate that, considering that I have no credit for acquiring it."

"Don't need to justify yourself." He reassured me, and I thanked him for that.

We soon arrived at the door of my building. And with all my gratitude for this most pleasant day and afternoon, I offered him a warm goodbye while an idea arose in my mind. But I still had to summon up the courage to do it. 

"Wait, Simon!" I shouted abruptly as I stepped outside, greeted by a gust of wind that made my scarf flutter.

He turned towards me, to see myself running after my goddamn scarf spinning away from him. It fell into the gully next to the road, and in this double misfortune, I slipped on an icy surface, falling firmly to the pavement. I hissed as I felt pain shoot through my coxal bone. 

"You're ok?" Simon worried, hurrying to my side.

He picked up my soaked scarf, and helped me up. 

"More scared than hurt," I informed him. "Shit, I just wanted to ask you for dinner with me. I've prepared a bit too much daube, which I can accompany with mashed squash and an excellent Châteauneuf-du-Pape of 2005…" I drift in a whisper.   

"And in English? How would that sound?" He scoffed, walking me back to the entrance of the building. 

"How about a nice French dish with marinated beef and fine wine?" 

"I thought you're a terrible cook."

"Well, I've got a reputation to uphold as a French woman. I'm not a great head chef, but I have some basics."

I opened the door, then turned to him. He seemed conflicted about this last-minute offer. 

"Take it or leave it, Simon. But know that you'll never taste a better daube than this. It's an ancestral recipe."  

"You know how to sell it, but I decline. I'm busy tonight." He admitted.

I puckered my lips in a resigned smile, wishing to disguise my disappointment. But I accepted his choice, and let him go with a final goodbye. My building door closed behind me, bringing an end to the most delightful day I had lived in weeks. I started to walk up the wooden staircase, my flat being only on the first floor, but three knocks against the door resonated in the hallway and stopped me. I turned towards the entrance and recognised the large and high figure of Simon. I hurriedly opened the door for him. 

"You forgot something?" 

"Even if I've always preferred whisky, I felt a good wine from time to time seems fit." He confessed. "Un Châteauneuf-du-Pape." He tried to repeat in his adorable English accent.

My eyes immediately sparkled, understanding what he meant. I willingly let him into the hall, and didn’t hesitate to tease him about his changeable, fickle persona, versatile in his opinions or views.

"I didn't know you were such a weathervane, but it's a great pleasure Simon. Always."

───────────────────────────────────

𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀 ↬ 𝖠𝗇𝖽 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝗂𝗌 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝟥 ! 𝖧𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖾𝗇𝗃𝗈𝗒𝖾𝖽 𝗂𝗍 :) 𝖣𝗈𝗇'𝗍 𝗁𝖾𝗌𝗂𝗍𝖺𝗍𝖾 𝗍𝗈 𝗉𝗈𝗌𝗍 𝖺 𝗅𝗂𝗍𝗍𝗅𝖾 𝗋𝖾𝗏𝗂𝖾𝗐 𝗌𝗈 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝖨 𝖼𝖺𝗇 𝗂𝗆𝗉𝗋𝗈𝗏𝖾! 𝖠𝗇𝗒𝗐𝖺𝗒, 𝖨 𝗁𝗈𝗉𝖾 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝗈𝗋𝗒 ! 𝖳𝗁𝖾 𝗇𝖾𝗑𝗍 𝖿𝖾𝗐 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗉𝗍𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝖻𝖾 𝖺𝖼𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇-𝗉𝖺𝖼𝗄𝖾𝖽 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝖿𝗂𝗇𝖺𝗅𝗅𝗒 𝗌𝖾𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖽𝗒𝗇𝖺𝗆𝗂𝖼 𝖻𝖾𝗍𝗐𝖾𝖾𝗇 (𝗒/𝗇) 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖦𝗁𝗈𝗌𝗍, 𝗌𝗂𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗆𝗈𝗆𝖾𝗇𝗍 𝗐𝖾'𝗏𝖾 𝗆𝗈𝗌𝗍𝗅𝗒 𝗌𝖾𝖾𝗇 𝗁𝖾𝗋 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖲𝗂𝗆𝗈𝗇.

[furiousgoldfish]

Any person I talked to who suffered abuse by financially stable or wealthy parents was not treated as a part of this family; they were treated as a servant, or even less. Even if your parents have money, they don't give it to you; but use it to manipulate you instead. Even so, you're disposed to feel 'lucky' that you get to live in a nice house, possibly not realizing you're only being kept there as a servant. You feel indebted for everything you've been given, even if it's less than what any other family member has.

In normal situations, parents will want the child to have the best of everything, and give to themselves last; in abusive situations, parents will give only to themselves, drop leftovers to the kid, and tell the child to be grateful and pay it back. For instance, parent will feel comfortable going on vacations, buying new clothes weekly, having new expensive gadgets, while the child will panic if they need to buy a toothpaste. Still, they will call the child a financial burden and hold every tiny bit of money spent against them.

I was surprised to discover that children with good parents in poverty often had more money and resources spent on them than abused kids with wealthy caretakers.

Another problem with parents like these is that they'll often be filthy snobs and pass judgment and humiliation to everyone 'below' their financial status; you will have to listen about how people in poverty are stupid and worthless and feel very threatened with conditions of poverty to be something shameful and humiliating. All while being painfully aware that if you run away, you will immediately find yourself in poverty, and these people will sneer at you too, for being stupid, for being poor, for trying to rescue yourself from abuse.

They are of course, wrong, and it will become obvious as capitalism converts the vast majority of society into poverty; it is not about the intelligence of the people, this is done deliberately, and is unavoidable in the current economy. There is nothing shameful about it except that we as a society have allowed it to happen.

A lot of wealthy abusive parents are so money-greedy they won't see you as a person, but only as a way to make more money; they will force you to work for them for free if you want to keep being alive in their house. You will be reduced to a resource without having a say, and they will make sure to spend a least possible amount to keep you alive, and still very much hold it against you, even if you earn them more than you cost. They're living out their dreams of being a capitalist pig and you get to play an exploited child worker who apparenty has no parents to stop this.

You are also, despite being treated as a family servant, pressured to keep up appearances, to act as if you are a part of the family in front of others, pretend you have all resources they do. If you don't look the part, you will be hidden from view, not allowed to socialize, because 'what would people think if they see you like this'. You can even be shamed for looking shabby and poor when they don't buy you decent clothes; they pressure you to use up your tiny allowance to buy clothes they would approve of. They might even count on you to spend your own money on basic necessities so you can't save up to run away.

There is, of course, another possibility, of abusive parents offering you expensive gifts and some privileges money can buy, as a compensation for abuse. Whatever they give, it's not worth your psychological health, but you will cling to it as a proof that you need to stay, and it makes running from them very difficult. Giving up a lifestyle and inheritance is much more scary if you feel like you depend on it to survive. Skills of surviving in poverty might also be completely out of your reach, and you will get ridiculed if you try to learn.

Still, escape if you can. It's not worth any amount of money to stay living in abuse. You will stand on your two feet, and no money will ever replace freedom. They might take the inheritance away for any reason anyway. It's not safety. It's a lure and a scam. You will only be safe independent from them. You will gain all the skills faster than you might think, and every new skill learned will feel like a big win.

[reginaaxxwrites]

Walls Could Talk • Todoroki Shoto

Pro Hero! Shoto x Villain! Reader

warning: mentions of blood, gore, killing, problems in psychological thinking

° • ° • ° •

"I'm asking you again. Why did you kill those people?" Tsukauchi asked the 20-year-old woman.

They were both sitting at a chair, a table between them as they were facing each other. He couldn't believe that the girl who's sitting in front of him, used to dream about being a hero someday.

But instead, she became a wanted villain. A woman who would kill innocent people, enjoying every stab she makes at a lifeless body. Her hands were used to be gentle and pure. Now, it's tainted in blood and hatred.

Tsukauchi didn't understand why she would do such a thing and why did she become what she is.

Y/N looked at him. Instead of answering his question. Her lips form a grin and started to laugh. It frightened him.

"Of course, you would ask that question." She stopped laughing and remained her body composed.

She leans forward even though chains surround her body, keeping her from escaping under their hands.

"I can see how sad and frightened you are, Mr. Tsukauchi. But you see... You can't change the fact that I killed people. I can see it in your eyes that you couldn't believe what I had become. A girl who you once thought a pure and innocent—you probably still think of me that. But I'm sorry to tell you that L/N Y/N is no longer here." She laughed again.

Tsukauchi wanted to save her. Maybe there's another way that could bring herself. He believes that there's still hope to bring back into your senses.

"No one can save me... Not even All Might himself." She looked at him, this time her eyes glowed in red like Aizawa's.

He stood up in his chair, leaving her behind. He took out his phone dialed his number. Maybe he can make her talk. Maybe he can bring her senses back.

Maybe he can bring her back.

He can't let her become like this.

Tsukauchi waited for him to pick up his phone. He balled his fist, his knuckles turning white. He's becoming impatient. He knows that he's busy due to his hero works but if he could just answer the phone.

He's the only person he thought could save her.

"Hello?"

"Shoto! I know that this might not be in a good time. But could you lend me some of yours? I need you here. ASAP." He said in frustration.

Todoroki could hear his frustration and panic through the phone. In fact, Tsukauchi called at a good time since he was about to talk to him about his recent investigation.

"I'll be there in 10 minutes." Todoroki hanged up and went to his car.

Δ Δ Δ

"I don't why Mount Lady said that girls would die if I smiled. Is my smile, deadly? Does my smile kill you?" Todoroki said, sitting beside the girl who tried her best to stop herself from laughing.

"Pfft—Sho, no. You're helpless." She laughed.

Todoroki stared at her. He felt warm in his chest, hearing her laugh, seeing her smile. Everything about her just makes him feel warm and happy.

"Okay—Pfft—I'm done laughing." She giggled, removing her small tears from her eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes." She smiled and let her head lay at Todoroki's broad shoulder. "It's just a way of telling that they love how you smile. Because you know... You're handsome, seeing you smile makes them like you even more. It's making me kinda jealous, though." She giggled as she intertwined her fingers to his.

Todoroki caressed her hand and kissed it, making Y/N flustered from his sudden actions.

"Then, should I only smile whenever I'm around you?"

"Oh, stop. That's making me sound a little selfish."

"I don't mind."

"You're literally taking every word seriously, aren't you?"

"Is that bad?"

Y/N once laughed again. Todoroki never fails to make her laugh. But he didn't mind. Her laughs were music to his ears. He loved them. Everything. He loved everything about her.

Days like these... He wishes to stay like these forever. He never wants to let go of her hand. Without her feels empty and cold.

She brings him happiness. A love that once was taken away from him was brought back because of her.

Δ Δ Δ

Todoroki arrived at the police station where Tsukauchi is. Tsukauchi went to Todoroki after seeing him enter inside the building.

"About the investigation—"

"We have some important serious matter besides that mission." He cuts him off. "Follow me." He turned around and walks off.

Todoroki followed him, yet he is confused. What is that important serious matter is he talking about? He hopes that it isn't dangerous because if it is Tsukauchi would not just have called him but also Midoriya and Bakugo.

After entering a room. Todoroki stood there in shock to see a familiar woman sitting inside the custody suite. Chains were surrounded her body as she looks emotionless.

She's breathing, alive. But at the same time, the aura she's giving was cold. There was no warm feeling he used to feel whenever he sees her.

Todoroki could feel his body weakened. How could possibly that the girl he thought died a few years ago was alive and is sitting inside the room? Not knowing that he's outside. He could've sworn he saw her took her last breathe.

"I'm sure you know why I called you."

"H-How? She died in my arms." His voice was shaking.

"Remember the wanted villain? Phantom Scarlet. Who kills innocent people. Whether it's a child or an elder. She kills them without mercy." Tsukauchi feels sick of how brutal her ways of killing are. She likes to kill them in a creative way. She's a psychopath. A serial killer. Sure, saving her is not a solution to this case. But he wanted to know why and how did this happen.

All of her classmates knew that she had died. They were there during her funeral. So how could a dead L/N Y/N is still here, killing people as the way of her fun time, a hobby?

"Maybe you could bring herself back to senses. Or ask the questions that could get answered. I know this is a sensitive favor. But I know that you also, have some questions to ask her." Tsukauchi started to talk. He gave Todoroki a glance that he should enter inside the custody suite.

Todoroki nodded at him as he held the doorknob tightly, taking a deep breath before entering.

He sat down at the chair that faces her and kept himself calm. He took one last glance at the large window where he could see Tsukauchi looking at them.

"Y/N."

The E/C-haired girl looked at the man she once knew. She stared at him, plainly. Not really surprised that he was sitting in front of her.

"Who would've thought that he would call you."

"You died. We were at your funeral. You died during the war between Midoriya and Tomura Shigaraki. How—"

"You know nothing, Todoroki. The man we fought killed my parents, my family. I seek revenge. I wanted to avenge my parents that's why I fought him together with Midoriya even if it caused my life."

Todoroki gripped his pants. He remembered how Shigaraki stabbed her deep. He stabbed the critical parts of her body. She coughed blood, she was losing all of her blood. Todoroki trying to keep the pressure. He was desperate to close your wounds so she would stop bleeding.

"H-How did you survived?"

"I didn't die. Everyone thought I did. But I didn't." She chuckled. "No one dared to open my casket because I wasn't the one who's inside of it."

Todoroki widens his eyes as Tsukauchi heard the words she said. If she isn't the person inside... Then who?

"Surprising, isn't it?" She smiled, her voice in excitement as she was about to reveal something important. "You're wondering who's inside? Honestly, I don't even who's inside. Probably another person's dead body that I killed." She giggled.

Todoroki was in shock to see the girl he loved. Up until now. He couldn't even go out on dates and love another girl because he still loves her.

"Disappointed to see the girl you once fell in love with is a psychopath? I killed people because I wanted to. I woke up and felt an urge to kill. The first time I killed after the war... I felt alive. It's like it was the missing piece in a puzzle. It completed me. I let all of you knew that I died because being with all of you doesn't feel like home anymore."

"What about you told me that you wanted to be a hero? To save people and bring them into justice?" Todoroki asked. He was still looking for her.

Y/N...

"Aww... Can't you see, Shoto? I'm not in the right mindset. I said those words to fit in. When clearly what I wanted was to avenge my family and kill villains. It's a cruel reality, Sho. Accept it."

Bring her back...

"Did you... Did you really loved me?" He looked directly at her eyes. He could've sworn she saw her eyes widen by the sudden question he asked.

He's hoping that even if she lied about becoming a hero and her true intentions. At least the love that she gave to him was enough to make him believe that deep inside she was honest about herself. That she really, truly loved him.

"Our love made me crazy, Shoto. I wanted to kill those girls who come and flirt with you. But I stopped myself because I knew you would leave me. Though, I did hurt Camie once. She kept texting you so I gave her a little warning." She giggled. "You made me a maniac, Shoto. And you didn't even know."

Everything was clear. The days they spent together, he didn't even notice that she was a psychopath. That she has a longing for killing people. But how would he know when you were the girl that kept him warm and loved?

All of it was a lie.

"I did love you. That's why I am willing to kill for you. But seeing your face right now, makes me wanna burst into a laugh. Did I disappoint you? I hope I did."

"STOP! BRING HER BACK. I KNOW SHE'S STILL IN THERE. WHOEVER ARE YOU—JUST FUCKING BRING HER BACK!" Todoroki couldn't hold it any longer and shouted at her.

He refused to believe, but how can he tell that this wasn't happening when she told him everything.

Everything is twisted.

"Give up, Shoto. You can't save everyone. That includes me. Let me go and move on." Y/N said in a gentle voice. Todoroki calmed himself but he already knew.

She has a split personality.

"Y/N?"

"There's nothing you can do. I let myself do this. I chose this path." She looked at him the way she looked at him during their high school days. "No one can stop me from killing." Then a split second, she was no longer there, again.

"That's enough, Shoto," Tsukauchi called to get their attention. "We've got the answers we wanted. It's enough."

It was truly terrifying. Tsukauchi looked at her. She was still there but it feels like she isn't.

Todoroki went out of the room, feeling sick about what happened. She had a split personality all this time. He couldn't save her... He can't save her. Not anymore. In order for her to stop killing, is by locking her inside a psychiatric ward or by putting her on a death sentence.

"Thank you for your help, Shoto. And I'm sorry." He followed Todoroki as sat down in frustration. His right hand on his face, still shocked about everything.

"It's all my fault."

[wonderful-prompts]

Just curious if you could make some prompts of hero x villain? Kind of like a 'forbidden love', can't let the other heroes and villains know. Maybe one or two were the other characters are like suspicious

Depends on whether you want ‘em now or in October. But considering the fact that no one except me knew that the prompt queue runs up to October first, I’m guessing you want them in a timely manner.

I’m more prone to writing hero and villain prompts than hero x villain relationship prompts, so these may not be as good as… gingerly-writing’s or someone else who regularly writes hero x villain prompts.

Pre-emptive warnings for violence and wounds obtained from them.

1) The one that keeps getting away:

“Again?” asked their handler, looking up from a monitor playing a recording of the fight.

The hero’s suit was torn and their face was covered in soot. They also tracked sticky footprints from the melted soles of their boots. “Hey, at least I’m alive!”

“That’s what? Five getaways?” [Handler] asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not being dead is more than I can say for my predecessor.” [Hero] leans over the desk, taking a moment to get a glimpse of the recording.

“Did [Villain] say anything to you?” the handler asked almost abruptly.

“No. Were they supposed to?”

[Handler] looked troubled. “They’re one of the most talkative villains out there… Maybe they’re trying out psychological warfare or something.”

“Maybe.”

2) Experienced Villain x Up-and-Coming Hero:

“You know I could have retired months ago,” the villain said, a smile clear in their voice. “But I had to see why everyone else was so afraid of a simple strength-based hero.”

The hero gave a vicious grin. “Did you find what you were looking for, then?”

“No, actually.” The villain relented, allowing the hero to struggle against the bonds they had so graciously provided. “But we can’t have someone like you striking the fear into cowards’ hearts, can we?”

3) Experienced Hero x Less Experienced Villain

“You’re close enough!” shouted [Villain] from the other side of the rooftop.

They’d been backed into a corner again, half-certain the hero was going to put them away for good this time. But considering the last few fights, it was almost like [Hero] was just letting them get away. Their last hope this time was to fall from the roof but they’d gotten turned around in their attempts to flee.

Their only means of preventing an untimely death was a closed garbage container, as opposed to the fire escape they had been planning on.

The closer the hero got, the more they considered it. What would be a few broken bones compared to losing all freedom and autonomy?

They took one step off…

And was immediately pulled back by strong arms, toppling back to the concrete. [Hero] breathed hard beneath them.

“I’m not letting you fall.”

4) Knowing Sidekick:

“Is there a reason you let yourself get beat to hell, or am I just supposed to take this as part of the job?”

The hero, who was putting pressure on a knife wound in the back seat, closed their eyes. “I got caught off-guard today. [Villain] doesn’t talk.”

The car barely slowed as [Sidekick] made a sharp turn, sending [Hero] into the door.

“Fuck!”

“We’re almost at the hospital. Hang in there.”

“What did you do that for?!”

[Sidekick] took a second to roll glance at their coworker in the rear view mirror. “Why would a talking villain mess you up this badly?”