#i wrote almost all of this either high or at 3 am so please feel free to disagree with me haha

[solarissun]

We are never, ever getting back together.

afab!reader x aged up Clapton Davis

Summary: You moved houses and jobs just to get away from Mike after he abandoned you and your 6-year relationship. But, one day he shows up in the vacant apartment next to yours. You quickly make it your mission to make every night a living hell for him with the (unknowing) help of your old high school fling.

WC: 3.9k

Warnings: 18+, MDNI, enemies to lover, afab reader, p in v, fingering, hair pulling, porn with plot, no use of y/n, hard dom, unprotected (wrap it please), angst, exes, daydreamed violence, aged up character

A/N: I’ve never posted my writing before due to being insecure, but now that I discovered this fandom on Tumblr, I decided to suck it up and see where it goes! I’m sorry if this is bad, I wrote it at 3 am two nights in a row. I just had to write something before I forgot all my ideas. Enjoy!

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You hated him. You hated him so fucking much. All you wanted to do was watch him wear your hands around his neck like a necklace. And there he was, standing outside the vacant apartment beside yours, cardboard boxes surrounding him.

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You're running late to work, having slept through your alarm. You quickly hop out of bed, jump into the shower, and throw on whatever clean enough clothes are on your laundry pile.

As you run out your door, you pause, noticing the piles of boxes lining up the wall of the apartment next to yours. You smile, waiting for whoever it is to walk out. You honestly didn’t mind your previous neighbors. By all means, they weren’t the friendliest of people. They’d bang on your walls if you even played your music one digit too loud.

So, honestly, you couldn’t help but admit you were pretty happy when they moved out. As you eye the boxes that take up half the hall, you feel yourself getting excited.

After a few moments, you see him.

Your heart drops, and you feel your whole life falling apart in just one second. He turns to look at you, your eyes locked on each other. Both of you pause, not a word leaving your mouths.

Almost exactly 2 and a half years ago, the love of your life, the man you pictured spending the rest of your days with, left. He didn’t warn you, he didn’t even call. You came home, and all of his and his sister's belongings were completely cleared out of your apartment, gone without a trace. All he left you was a text. A single text.

“I found someone new, I’m sorry. I truly wish you the best. I hope someday you’ll forgive me.”

After a few months of rotting in your bed with mascara-stained pillows and tear-soaked bed sheets, you got tired of wasting away. You moved away to a new, cheaper apartment, not warning anyone of your departure. You wanted a fresh start. A new job, a new home. A new you. All you craved was a way to forget the past, and you were so close.

Except after 2 years, the past was standing in front of you, only a few feet away. Anger bubbles within you, the deep cuts he left when he abandoned you all of those years ago tearing open and filling with nothing but pure, burning hatred.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” You say, his face twisting.. into god knows what. You want to ask him so many questions. You want to get on your knees and beg him to tell you why he did what he did. At the same time, you want to sock him in his mouth. Instead of doing either, you turn on your heel, walking away as fast as you possibly can.

He doesn’t call after you, he doesn’t chase you. Instead, you hear the faint click of a door shutting behind you. Your anger turns to anguish as you hurry down the hallway, trying desperately to put as much distance between him and you before breaking down. You find a maintenance closet, slam it behind you, and sink to the floor. You sob until your throat is destroyed and your eyes are dry.

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All you can think about while you work is him. Are you grading your students' homework? Mike. You’re yelling at your class for being too Rowdy? Mike. He lives in your head the entire day, and no matter how hard you try, all you can think of is the look on his face when he saw you just a few hours ago.

The school day is finally over, but you dread going home. You wish you could curl up under your desk and live there for the next few decades. But you can’t, so you suck it up and drive back to your apartment.

You get to your door, fumbling with your keys as you quickly try and escape the hallway. You hear the door next to yours click open. You rest your head against your door in defeat. He walks by you quickly, not even glancing towards you. You clench your fists, swinging your door open as soon as you unlock it, slamming it so hard behind you the frame shakes.

You want to cry, just like you did before. But no tears spill. Your eyes don’t even water. All you feel is rage.

You decide right then and there, you're going to make him suffer for what he did to you. Besides, maybe if you truly make him miserable he’ll move back to wherever the hell he came from.

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Later that night, you start plotting different ways you can get him to pack up his shit and run away with his tail between his legs. You think of hundreds of possibilities ranging from glitter bombs in his mail to… Clapton. You shake the thought out of your head immediately. You can’t do that to him. He’d probably be down for anything, to be honest.

Despite that, you tuck the idea into the back of your head, writing it off as a last resort. You want to start with more petty things before immediately jumping to the most extreme idea your mind can muster.

You quickly form a short list in your head, smiling as you daydream the look on Mike's face as you go through each scenario. Around midnight, after you finish coming up with every possible insane revenge plot you can think of, you crawl into bed.

After tucking yourself in, you Bluetooth your phone to a speaker, turning it up. You play the most infuriating, mind-numbing song you can think of. It starts blasting out, the speaker shaking on your bedside table. You sigh, sinking into your pillow as you hear Mike’s old bed springs creak through the wall.

You sit there for what feels like hours, the same song looping repeatedly. He doesn't knock on the door. You don't even hear him speak, let alone breathe through the wall. You groan, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes as you realize it might be pointless.

Despite your failure on the first night, you continue to blast the same song night after night, all with the same result. After almost 3 nights of getting only a few hours of sleep, you give up. You have to step up your game if you want to get results.

A few weeks pass without you tormenting him. You want to make him feel safe. You want to make him feel like you realized it was all a waste of time. Well, you also waited a few weeks since that's how long it took for the prank package you ordered to come. Sure, the package was a bit pricey, but you decided it was worth it either way. As soon as the post office stops by your apartment, you snatch up the box, almost ripping it out of the poor mailman's hands.

You quickly customize it so Mike believes not only is it his mail, but that some random man from Florida sent it. At first, you had thought to sneak into his apartment and throw glitter over everything, just like you'd do back in high school. But, you need to be careful about how you go about this. Unless you want a lawsuit to land in your lap, you need at least some amount of deniability

After deciding it's perfect, you leave it directly in front of his door. He might think the placement of the box is a tad suspicious, but you rationalize it by telling yourself he’ll feel so special he’ll open it on the spot.

After a few hours, Mike comes home from what you assume is work. A part of you wonders why in the world he works on the weekends as well. You forget about the thought quickly as you flip open your phone, watching through the camera that comes with the box. You watch in anticipation as you hear the sound of tape tearing off of the cardboard. Your smile widens as you see Mike's face appear in the frame, peeking into the box.

After a few heartbeats green, blue, and pink glitter explodes directly into his face. He yelps, dropping the box immediately. As soon as the box thunks against the door, more glitter explodes out, covering his entire living room. You hear him groan through the wall, grumbling about how petty and childish you are.

You’re laughing way too hard to even care he knew it was you. Tears start streaming down your face, and you clutch your stomach as you try to breathe. You finally got him. You feel on top of the world as you look at the camera through blurry eyes. All you see is a beet-red Mike decked out in sparkles. You start laughing even harder as he flips off the camera before stomping on it, destroying the feed.

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Despite how his misery made you feel at first, you start to get a little less happy as the days pass by. He hasn’t talked to you about it and he hasn’t told anyone what went down, not even the landlord. A fraction of you begins to feel a little worried he might be planning. As you ponder the thought, you hear a knock on your door.

You creep over to the peephole, seeing no one standing at your door. You crack it open, worried Mike might be standing outside, waiting to ambush you. Instead of Mike standing around the corner with an airsoft gun, there's an Amazon package.

You smile, realizing exactly what it is. You ordered soundproof headphones so you could sleep while also torturing Mike. You quickly take it to your kitchen, tearing it open without a second thought.

What. The. Fuck.

Glitter sprays everywhere. Directly into your eyes, all over your dining table, all over the countertops. It even reaches the sink. You scream as you try and claw the glitter away from your face. As you stumble towards the sink, glitter continues to coat your entire kitchen.

This means war.

You immediately flip open your phone, not even bothering to clean the mass of glitter that’s coating your kitchen. You text the one person you know would do anything for you.

“I need you, Clapton.”

He found someone new? Well, so did you. And you’re going to do everything in your power to make sure he fucking knows.

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During your high school years, you and Mike became inseparable. It was the two of you against the world... Until Clapton Davis came along. The three of you became the best of friends. You always knew Mike was jealous of Clapton and how much he captured your attention. Despite how you felt towards him while you were younger, you chose Mike. And he threw it all away for some random bitch.

So, now you’re choosing Clapton.

A month ago, you two decided to reconnect and reminisce about old times. You had him over a few times just to watch a few movies, but the most you’ve done is kiss. Every time he’d come over, you knew he wanted more. And he was getting exactly that.

You lay in bed, waiting for just the right time. Around 2 am, you smile to yourself as you faintly hear Mike shuffle into bed and sigh as he sinks into it. Thank god for the paper-thin walls. You reach over to your bedside table, squinting into the light. You flip to Clapton's contact and text, “Do you think you could come over right now?” You had originally told him to come over the next night, but it had to be at an ungodly hour, or it wouldn't be as satisfying. Almost immediately He texts you back, “Are you okay?”

“I just need to see you sooner.” He immediately texts back a thumbs up, and after a little over 10 minutes you hear a knock at your door. You unzip your hoodie, quickly making your way to the front of your apartment. You open the door and there he is. He clearly had just woken up, wearing a tank top and grey checkered pajama pants. A fraction of you feel bad for calling him over like this, but you push it aside and remember who’s sleeping just on the other side of your bedroom wall.

He raises his eyebrow, unsure of how to ask why you ‘needed him.’ You don’t give any explanation before you throw yourself at him. You wrap your arms around his neck, kissing him. He sucks in a breath, clearly confused. That confusion vanishes when you press yourself against him, pulling his waist against yours.

He wraps his arms around your waist, walking you into your apartment. He walks you backward, your back hitting the kitchen counter. You whimper as you feel him hoist your thigh up, holding it as his hip. Suddenly, he pulls away. Your eyes flutter open and you look up at him, your eyebrow furrowed. You sigh as you see him looking at your kitchen in utter confusion. “What in God's name happened?”

The kitchen is still completely decked out in glitter. The moonlight slithers its way through the window, illuminating the sparkles, making it look like a thousand stars splattered against the walls. You laugh a little, brushing it off. “Nothing Important.” He seems like he wants to say more, but as you grind your hips against his, he immediately forgets it. He groans, bending down to press his lips against your neck.

You tangle your hands through his hair as you feel his lips brush your neck. He starts sucking the skin below your pulse, making you whine into his ear. You gasp as you feel his teeth meet the plush skin, nipping at the sore spot. You slowly start grinding against him harder as his tongue swipes across the already numb skin. He groans against your neck, his breath hot against it.

His fingers slowly brush down your body, leaving goosebumps erupting on every inch he touches. His hand reaches your waistband, fiddling with the elastic. You whine against his shoulder as his fingers dip lower, rubbing your clit through the thin fabric. You slowly grind your hips against his finger, desperate for more friction. He picks you up by your thighs, his fingers digging into the skin. You wrap your legs tight around his waist, holding onto his neck. He quickly carries you to your bedroom, throwing you down as he reaches your bed. He lays you down, sliding next to you.

He presses his lips against yours again, this time wasting no time to dip his fingers into your panties, not even bothering to remove them. He drags his digits through your folds, circling your clit. “Shit, you’re already so wet.” He gasps out. His middle finger teases your entrance before slowly sliding in. He slowly pumps in and out of you, curling his fingers on the spongy parts inside of you, hitting all the right spots.

“You like that?” He asks, and you nod, unable to form a coherent sentence. You feel him add another finger and your walls clench around him. “Fuck!” You cry out, frantically grinding against the palm of his hand begging for more.

He adds a third finger, and you see stars. He pumps faster and faster, bringing you dangerously close to the edge. You just barely overplay your volume, remembering Mike. As soon as your legs begin to shake, he removes his fingers, ruining your orgasm and leaving you feeling empty. Your eyes flutter open and you stare at him, whimpering.

He slowly puts the fingers that were just inside you in his mouth, cleaning them off. You bite your lip as he blinks at you through his long eyelashes, savoring the taste. He smiles down at you once he’s done, sliding your zip-up off your shoulders. He slowly undresses you, a pile of clothes beginning to form on the floor. He leaves you in nothing but your panties. His breath hitches in his throat as he studies every curve of your body.

You do the same to him, helping him pull his shirt off his head. Your hands quickly fly down to his jeans, unbuttoning them and sliding them down to his ankles. His tight grey boxers leave little to the imagination as you see the outline of his hard-on, begging to be free. You do exactly that, pulling them off of him. His dick springs free, hitting his stomach.

Your eyes trail along every vein and detail, taking him in. He’s average, but somewhat girthy. The tip is hard and red, already leaking with pre-cum, slowly dripping down his shaft. You reach out, your thumb collecting it. You stare into his eyes as you suck it off of the pad, a bittersweet taste spreading across your tongue. As soon as your thumb pops out of your mouth, he grips onto your hips, pulling him on top of you. He slides your panties to the side and you moan feeling the cold air hit you. He slides his tip through your folds, collecting the wetness.

You slowly sink down onto him, gasping as his tip enters you. He grips your waist harder, holding you down. “You can take it.” He moans out. He slowly pushes himself in a little more, and you swear you hear him whimper. You cry out, laying down on his chest. “Shit!” He goes inch by inch, and you groan louder and louder as he fills you out.

He pushes in, faster this time, and you finally feel his hips meet yours. “You’re such- Shit! You’re such a good girl.” Suddenly, he grabs you harder by the waist, flipping you over. You gasp as your bare stomach meets the rough sheets of the bed. He grabs your hair, pulling you against his chest, somehow hitting so deep you see white.

You moan out his name louder and louder as each thrust inside of you quickens. He shoves you back down against the bed, thrusting so hard the headboard begins to slam against the wall. You smile into the sheets realizing the torture Mike must be going through right now. “You’re taking me so well��” He grumbles out, pushing deeper into you.

The smile is immediately wiped off your face as he moves one hand away from your hair and slithers it down to your clit. He rubs circles on it with 2 fingers. You grip your fingers into the bed sheets, screaming into the mattress. Your vision starts getting blurry as the knot in your stomach gets tighter and tighter. Pure euphoria tears through you as his fingers quicken as well as his hips.

“I’m close-“ He groans out as your walls clench around him. He rubs faster and faster circles on your clit and your legs start to shake uncontrollably. You scream louder and louder, and your walls start to spasm. Quickly you hurdle over the finish line, coming all over his dick. You feel tears running down your cheeks as you feel him release inside of you, his hips stuttering.

You call out his name one last time before he pulls out of you, lying down next to you. He looks over at you, tears spilling down your face and your fingers still bunched up in the bedsheets. He laughs as you give him a shaky smile.

“I’ve imagined that since grade 12..” He whispers out. He reaches towards you, brushing your hair that’s plastered to your face with sweat. “Me too..” You smile, moving forward to press your lips against his. He kisses you back, pulling you on top of him. He smiles up at you, his face flushed.

“Round two?”

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Your eyes flutter open, the warm sun creeping through the blinds, bathing your room in a warm orange glow. You slowly reach next to you, feeling the muscles on Clapton's back. He stirs, turning onto his back. His eyes slowly open, and he slowly looks over at you. He stretches up, propping himself up on his elbows.

“I better go…” You get up as well, turning and placing your feet on the cold wood floors. You gather up his and your clothes from last night, handing them to him. After you're both dressed, you lead him to your front door. He opens it and steps out into the hallway, starting towards the elevator.

As soon as you hear Mike's door click open, you quickly grab Clapton's wrist, pulling him back towards you. You get on your toes, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing him. He grabs your waist, pulling you against him. He slips his tongue in your mouth, his hand untangling your hair. After a few seconds, you pull away, resting your forehead on his.

“I’ll see you around?” He says, smiling. “Of course.” You grin, pecking his cheek. He unwraps himself from you, turns around, and walks away. He doesn’t even seem to notice his old best friend who is standing just a few feet away, watching.

Once Clapton’s out of sight, you turn to look at Mike. Oh, he looks absolutely wrecked. His curls are a tangled mess and the bags under his eyes are even deeper than you’ve ever seen them. He has the same look on his face you’ve seen him have when men would flirt with you on your dates. But, he also just looks.. sad. You expect him to turn back into his apartment and walk away but he speaks instead.

“The glitter wasn’t enough for you, huh?” You scoff, anger filling inside you at his audacity. “A girl can’t have fun?” He raises an eyebrow at you and a small smirk creeps onto his face. “You think I don’t know how purposeful that was? Do you have any respect for others?” You laugh, right in his face. His mouth twists into a nasty scowl, his stupid smirk wiping immediately off his face.

“Mike, I lost every bit of decency I had towards you when you abandoned me for some..” You don’t finish the sentence, instead letting his mind fill in the blank. He doesn’t look angry, he just looks disappointed. He looked at you like that when you were still together.

You’ve always hated that look.

He opens his mouth and closes it, clearly wanting to say something important but deciding against it. He shakes his head and turns back into his apartment, closing the door behind him softly.

You do the same, opening your door and sliding down with your back against it. You pull your knees up to your chest, rubbing the bruises on your sides that Clapton left. You rest your head on your knees and sigh.

“God, what am I doing?”

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[rqbossman]

Hello Mr Bossman! (and possibly anyone else who reads this)

Its an honour to be here, I have a few questions. First i appologise for the long paragraph, you may dismiss it for the questions at the bottom. For context, i am here after finishing TMA and being up to date with TMAP, i then went over and listened to RQG, and have just finished listening to Epilogue 3 and might i just say, good sir I am grateful for your podcasts. I am currently just a few months away from my final exams of High School, and as someone who even just 1 year ago was very lost, struggling with school and being just overwhelmed. TMA isnt exactly comforting, but the characters and plot managed to serve as a good form of escapism while sorting myself out. I found my self engaging more in creative things that i had originally put aside in favour of maths and science (which i hated but thought i needed to do). I started drawing again, even if just fanart. and i found things going well. By finding podcasts, story telling and these communities have helped me in my own understanding of what i want in life. I got an ADHD diagnosis earlier this year, and almost directly after started RQG and as my first hyperfixation (that i was aware of as an hyperfixation) gosh dang it hit hard. (in a good way). Ive been able to do so much more creative writing and drawings, and got re-involved with a small dnd group with some friends who i played one game with almost 4 years ago now. So overall, inspirational sounds cringe, but it was. Im doing my best with the upcoming exams, but trying to get in to Medicine is not my only prority, and the fact ive been re-introduced to my first love (Literature and story telling), im planning to go do an Arts degree and i know i wouldnt have been able to confidently make this decision, or even have survived this long in the school system without the work you and your coworkers do. Now the sap is out of the way, Question time! (if you could answer even just one of these questions it would be so cool)(they go in order of RQ relevant to random stuff)(dont feel pressured to answer all/any. i know i wrote alot): 1. what would you say is the best way to draft out a long-form story. (with "Erasing the Line" as an example) Did you start at the end, with the links to the overarching plot.

2. When working with the players (in a form of TTRPG), what did you do to make sure you didnt miss relevant timing of plot points/ avoid creating spoilers while still giving enough detail?

3. What are good places to start with making a job out of storytelling/voice acting/audio etc. In the case of RQ, how is this a job and where do i sign up please! /j (what i mean is, how is best way/how did you find all the people involved and was there a common path that you were all on before getting to where you are now?) 4. Do you have recommendations for Terry Pratchett Books, i may be an literary-leaning student, but it seems i have never actually properly read any of his books. so where is best place to start?/What did you read first?

5. Similar authors or similar inspirations? Did you have a favourite podcast you listen to in your free time that you havnt had a hand in producing/directing/working on. 6. Favourite song/album/artist. And more specifically, what you like listening to in background when doing either writing or (for ttrpg) character research/game planing. 7. Since the olympics are on at the moment, what has been your favourite sport to watch, if you have been watching at all. Thank you for your time :)

Thankyou for all the kind words. Knowing our work is helping people really keeps our engines fired up. Let's see if I can't answer your questions: 1. I "sandbox" which is where I just shove everything I can think of into an unorganised bullet point list. Characters, setting, plot, all of it in one big mess. Then I decide what type of story you want to tell, copy and paste to a new document and then start to organise the thoughts (with the sandbox on standby if new stuff comes in I don't know what to do with). I think of it like scultping, you cut away bits and reshape until something comes out the other end that is story shaped. Only then do I attempt to build the sandcastle and put something coherant together like a synopsis or scratch draft etc.

2. Very tricky. I did a complete review and update of all notes after each recording session and don't forget the audio eas edited. I made lots of gaffs that you never heard as audience.

3. I contacted anyone I could convince to take part and just proved I was serious by overworking. I don't reccomend that route. Unfortunately it really is "who" you know. That doesn't mean chase established professionals as much as it means you need to get out there and associate with other up-and-comers who match your vibe. For me the route was long and windy and not a particularly good example. 4. I normally recommend people do not read his books in publication order. Don't get me wrong, its wonderful watching his craft grow from one title to the next but I would recommend new readers tip their toe into his later works to see if they like where he ended up before committing the time. I often recommend 'Monstrous Regiment' as people's first one. My favourite though is 'Thief of Time.'

5. I don't get much time to listen to podcasts in the last couple of years. I used to listen to a lot of non fiction. 'Stuff you Should Know' and that ilk. I also read a fair amount of classic YA fiction to unwind (Windinsger trilogy, Bartimeous, stuff like that.) 6. Paul Simon's Graceland but when working I assemble a playlist for each seperate project that is tonally appropriate. If I really need to focus I listen to Classical Minimalism. Or the Old School Runescape soundtrack. I'm allowed to be ecclectic. 7. I am actually in an incredibly busy work crunch at the moment so haven't seen any of it!

[sequinsmile-x]

literally haven't been able to stop thinking about Our Field of Dreams, Engulfed in Fire since you wrote it...any chance you could do a sequel where they get pregnant again by accident? I can't stop thinking about the possibilities (although I'm hoping you go for a happy ending <3)

hiii bestie <3

I won't lie, this fic has kind of sat with me in the couple of months since I wrote it too. Its up there with one of the saddest things I've ever written. And I feel like this anon has just tipped me over the edge into writing a follow up I was already vaguely considering.

Snippet below the cut, the fic will either be up tonight or tomorrow, not entirely sure yet!

Please note the snippet, and the fic, will have themes of pregnancy, pregnancy loss, and miscarriage/stillbirth throughout. So please take caution when reading if those are hard topics for you <3

“This is…” he clears his throat, “How do you feel?” 

She laughs bitterly and shakes her head, “How do you think I feel, Aaron?” She shakes her head and starts to pace back and forth, her arms still crossed over her chest, sure that if she looked at him for too long she’d burst into the tears she’d been trying to avoid for weeks, “I am 45 in three weeks. That makes this high risk anyway. Then you take into account everything else…” she clenches her jaw, “We weren’t even trying. We haven’t been in years. It would be kind of funny that I’m apparently the most fertile fucking woman on the planet if it didn’t always end with my heart being broken.” 

Her almost hysterical laugh breaks his heart and he puts the picture down, stepping towards her again but making sure he still keeps his hands to himself, knowing his touch could tip her over the edge either way, “If you don’t want to do this-”

“Of course I want to do this,” she half shouts as she turns to look at him, her jaw tight as tears finally slip past her lash line when she takes a calming breath as she desperately tries to remind herself Jack is upstairs, “I want this so much it hurts, Aaron. It physically hurts. But…I can’t go through it all again. I can’t. Losing Elliot almost destroyed me.”

[chthonic-cassandra]

Tagged by @awildwickedslip

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

111

2. What’s your total AO3 wordcount?

312,131

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I write a little across a lot of fandoms. The only fandoms for which I have written substantial amounts are Dracula, Greek mythology, and Shakespeare's plays. I have active projects right now in Dracula, Xena, and Penny Dreadful.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Shattered Mirrors (Jonathan in Dracula's castle), Make It Through the Wintertime (Hadestown Persephone character study), To Burn the Castle Down (Jonathan angst), Compromise (Dracula darkest timeline AU), Minor Initiations (different Dracula darkest timeline AU)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I have been trying to get in the habit of it. I think it's nice to express my appreciation and try to be a bit more social about all of it.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This is a hard question; so, so many of the things I write are angsty. Specifically as far as endings, I am realizing that an extremely high proportion of my stories end with a character aware that they are about to die or that something else terrible is about to happen to them, and in some way accepting it. This is of course tragedy but I'm not sure it is quite angst.

Outside of this pattern, I think that To Burn the Castle Down is almost over the top angsty (it's not one I like to reread), as is For Every Grief That's Offered (yet another Dracula darkest timeline AU). Both are from ~15 years ago, and I would write them differently now.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Ha. Do I write happy endings? Sometimes I do bittersweet hopefulness, of which I think Fidelity (poly Mina post-canon) and Still in the Realm of the Sun (Code Name Verity Julie/Maddie fix it) lean most heavily on the sweet side. The Caucus-Race (Alice in Wonderland, the Dodo enters politics) is legitimately happy.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not to my face for a long time, at least not in a serious way.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I do not.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Not much. Many years ago I did a couple - a Dracula-Greek mythology and a Dracula-Vampire Chronicles, and also a little Nosferatu-Pied Piper of Hamelin which is the only one of those still up.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes - someone translated Foreigners (Aida, Amneris character study) into Mandarin. There might have been another but I don't remember it.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

No, though I once told @forthegothicheroine I would and then bailed on her, for which I continue to feel some guilt

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

To write, certainly Mina/Dracula/Jonathan. But that's not from an actually shipping it perspective. What I tend to write and what I ship when reading or watching something aren't all that related.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Mood, imagery, psychological interiority, small-scale structure/pace

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Smut, happy endings, writing anything long form

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it in a language that I didn't myself know, and the only non-English language I know well enough to do that in is ancient Greek, which I guess I could use somewhere but it hasn't felt necessary. Several installments of Compromise have important scenes of switching between languages so I've thought about it, but keeping all the text in English let me do a particular language-related reveal in this last installment which pleased me.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Either Lord of the Rings or Phantom of the Opera

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Right now it has to be Compromise as a whole, but this is hard. There are a lot of other things I've written that haven't gotten as much attention as that one but which are very dear to me, but as a series Compromise means so much to me at the moment.

Too tired right now to tag anyone, but please consider yourself tagged if you'd like to do it!

[hoodlessmads]

Who wants to read a long ass review of FFXVI?

I would give this game a 6/10. Here’s why. (seriously, it's long, I'm warning you)

SPOILERS for late game (I don't spoil the ending but I do mention characters and events through basically the beach scene - if you know you know)

First, I've seen a tendency to dismiss and/or mischaracterize people’s criticisms of FFXVI as them saying “I don’t like that it’s not turn-based” or “it’s not like other Final Fantasies” when that’s not at all what I’m about to say. Those aren’t my issues with the game. At all. So just getting that out of the way. Kingdom Hearts II is one of my favorite games of all time, so I am not at all adverse to this game having action combat. Final Fantasy XII is different from other Final Fantasies too, but that’s in my top 3 FF games, so that’s not my issue either.

To be honest, I haven’t actually seen anyone criticize the game for not being turn-based except in memes, so I can’t help but feel like fans are blowing this particular criticism out of proportion, unless I’m just in the wrong places online. Who is actually saying the game isn’t Final Fantasy because it’s not turn-based? 90% of people seem to love the game.

Moving on.

This is not...professionally written, by the way. I kind of wrote it in one sitting. Also, please try not to take my extreme language too seriously - that's just how I write. praying emoji

Credit where credit is due

The presentation is great – graphics, cinematics, voice acting, cutscenes. Some of the cutscenes in this game and some of the cinematic QTEs were actually insane. Completely bonkers. The game reaches extreme high points with its story and spectacle that had me yelling. I’ve never in my life cared about graphical quality or spectacle, but this game got me, and I think part of it is the way they successfully integrated the story’s most dramatic moments with the grandest spectacle possible gameplay-wise. Virtually all of the big story moments were dope as hell. I hope this integration helps these spectacular moments stand the test of time when they eventually become graphically outdated. (Because they will. Who cares about the FFVII motorcycle chase anymore? But it blew minds back in the day.)

Things I didn’t know I needed in Final Fantasy: Ifrit hanging off a crystal going, “Fuck.”

The combat is pretty good. It could be better, but it’s pretty good. Action combat-wise, it’s a huge improvement from FF15. I didn’t love it, personally, but I enjoyed my time with it sometimes, and would definitely count it among the game’s strong points. I like that you can control Torgal; it added a nice layer to the combat. I did find myself skipping most mob fights, though.

The story, like the combat, could be better, but overall I think it’s pretty solid. My issues have more to do with the execution and storytelling than the core concepts, which I think are really good. There are some really compelling and interesting ideas here. The story feels very “Final Fantasy” in a good way. I enjoyed it for the most part. I had one MAJOR issue with it that I’ll discuss in the negative section of this review but other than that the flaws in the writing, while there (especially the writing of some of the characters and the ending), aren’t huge detractors for me. I hated the moments I call “Game of Thrones bullshit” which is where I felt the GoT posturing got a little too on the nose, but otherwise, I’m a sucker for political storylines and the political machinations and such in this story were some of my favorite moments, along with the epic confrontations, of course.

Some of the characters: I like Joshua, Cid, Mid, and Dion. Joshua....what can I say. I’m obsessed with him? I’m hyperfixated on a character that is trapped in a game which I think is otherwise mediocre, and that sucks.

Overall, I'm actually really frustrated by all the things I like in this game, because similar to the last mainline entry, I feel like Square almost made one of the best games in the series, if not the best. Truly. But they kind of shat the bed instead.

Gameplay negatives

I could nitpick forever, but the main gameplay element that fully ruins this game for me, if I’m being honest, is the fact that there is no permanent party.

You have your dog, and sometimes you have Jill, but for most of the game Clive is alone. The game’s story preaches a lot about bonds with other people and togetherness and how that is humanity’s strength, but the gameplay doesn’t match up with that message at all. The gameplay sends the opposite message: that this is Clive’s sole journey. As a result, a lot of the story’s themes don’t land well. Also, because you are playing alone as Clive for most of the game, the game is pretty much made or broken on how much you like him. For me, I don’t like him. I’ll get more into why in the story negative section. But because I don’t like him, I have a hard time really enjoying my playing experience because I am forced to spend all of my time with him, and only him. This isn’t about not being able to play as other people, though that would be nice. It’s that the other people aren’t even there.

Final Fantasy XV is a broken mess of a game that I did not enjoy, with a messy story, but even that game understood this most basic principle of building a sense of camaraderie with the main character’s friends by having them all in a permanent party together all the way through until the very end of the game. When that game talked about Noctis’s bonds with others being his strength, it landed because of all the time I, as a player, had spent with the party members. I bought that. The game had earned it.

This sort of leads into my other big issue with the game, which is the virtual lack of RPG elements. Even when you do have temporary party members, they are (relatively useless) AI bots that you have no power to affect whatsoever. You can’t even change their equipment. In the menu, the only character is Clive (other than some cute sprites). It makes you feel even more alone in the journey. So there are no party members to outfit – what can you customize? The game’s customization options are limited to picking and choosing which abilities to give to Clive using earned ability points and an extremely bare bones crafting system. As for the abilities, I will admit there is potential to customize your combat based on which Eikon abilities you choose to outfit Clive with. But it pretty much stops there. The itemization and crafting system are utter dog shit. I don’t feel like I need to justify saying that...even fans of this game have to admit how tacked-on that shit is. In addition, there isn’t even something as simple as elemental weaknesses that might be affected by said tacked-on crafting system. This is a game where the story centers around eight Eikons for eight magical elements and yet there is no elemental affinity baked into the gameplay. I have to ask, what the fuck?

Some Zelda fans would probably get mad at me for saying this, but even though Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom also feature a solo journey without any party members, they legitimately feel more like RPGs than Final Fantasy XVI. Those games have elemental weaknesses and systems that force you to put some thought into your approach to combat, and they have a more worthwhile and involved gear upgrading system. It’s crystal clear that the developers of FF16 put a lot of effort into the presentation, the story and the combat and I applaud those efforts, but it really feels like they put zero effort into ANYTHING else outside of that because there is NOTHING to this game outside of the main story and combat. I would almost rather they hadn’t even bothered to try to pretend this was still an RPG instead of the linear character action thriller it wants to be.

Even in that sense, it’s not particularly outstanding. The combat’s depth is questionable...I would have preferred if you could at least use ability points to, say, modify the base combo, which never changes. Shake it up just a little bit. Instead, the modifications to Clive’s combat as the game goes on come entirely in the form of Eikon abilities that are on timers and you can cycle through them as you want. I don’t get the feeling that Clive himself is growing stronger or better, persay. Each ability has a unique utility, but that utility is limited in any given boss fight due to the lack of enemy variety, and they mostly served for me as extra damage dealers rather than relating to any sort of strategy. The lack of combo modifiers and also the lack of a dedicated block mechanic other than the one Titan ability makes the combat feel a bit clunky and outdated to me. I don’t know how to say it, I guess, because Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom also don’t have combo modifiers and that combat isn’t particularly deep but it doesn’t feel nearly as clunky to play, so I don’t know what I’m saying...but FFXVI’s combat just feels clunky to me sometimes and you’re gonna have to believe me. (I'm not trying to compare these two games, I just feel like since I compared them in the last paragraph I should at least mention I'm not trying to make a double standard about the combat here.)

Lastly, a big issue I have with the gameplay is the exploration. It’s shit. Really. You get a couple of big maps but they’re empty. The coolest locations in the game are ones you either only get to visit once or ones you only see in cutscenes. This does a lot to alienate me from the world the game is trying to build.

I've seen a counter-criticism amounting to basically, "You shouldn't bring franchise expectations to the game!" when people criticize the lack of a party or the lack of RPG elements but I have to ask...why shouldn't I? Any game that carries a series title is going to draw comparisons with other entries in the series, and why shouldn't it - otherwise, what's the point in carrying the title? Every Final Fantasy game has always been "new" in many ways, but there has also still always been a thread connecting them, even a thin one. For me, this game just frays that thread a bit too thin. Through 12, 13, 13-2, Lightning Returns, 15, you name it, I've still always felt like "This is Final Fantasy." When I'm not even playing an RPG anymore, it's gotten too far away from the core of the series. I'm sorry, but it has.

Now here's the story negative section:

Final Fantasy XVI has a slavery problem

There are other story negatives, but for me, this is the big one. I haven’t seen people talking about it much (yet) and I don’t really understand why, because for me it was glaring and cast a pall over the entire story and many of the characters.

There’s nothing wrong with featuring slavery in your fantasy story and/or world; far from it. I think it can add stakes and a dark, realist tone to the narrative (as we know, unfortunately, slavery is a disgustingly frequent part of human history and still exists even today) as well as set up some political commentary. It just has to be done right. It’s obviously a sensitive, heavy topic. FFXVI completely bungles its handling of said topic and betrays that its developers seemingly did not have the historical comprehension or tact to appropriately handle it.

In the narrative of FFXVI, there are good slaveowners and bad slaveowners. (You can see where this is going.) The bad slaveowners are people like Clive’s mom Anabella, who view Bearers (magic users) as vermin and treat them abhorrently. Like, clownishly evil and violent treatment. The good slaveowners are people like Clive’s dad Elwin, who claim to want to make life better for Bearers and treat them relatively well by comparison—see them as human beings (theoretically)—but still keep them as slaves.

During the game’s prologue, you play as a teenage Clive who was raised as a prince of Rosaria in a slave culture where Bearers are branded and are forced to work in service to his father’s duchy. We are shown that Clive is nice to the slaves and wants to make sure they are treated well; however, he doesn’t see that there is much wrong with them being enslaved and is perfectly fine with the status quo. Clive idolizes his father, who is otherwise an evenhanded, astute ruler who truly cares about his people (at least the ones that aren’t slaves). I like Clive during these first few hours. He shows a bit of personality: he is earnest and loyal to a fault, he is fiercely protective of his brother, he is focused on what he sees as his duty to his father and his country, he is secretly devastated that his mother doesn’t love him and wants to earn his place so he has poured his entire life into making himself worthwhile in his own way, i.e. becoming the best swordsman of all time. He’s kind of giving a jock but with a sensitive side.

It’s uncomfortable that he is so comfortable with slavery, but that is exactly how a kid who grew up in a slave culture under a father he admires might think and behave. That’s why there is massive potential here to have his worldview shaken up in a big way – we know that Clive later becomes enslaved himself.  As an adult, how might he look back on his interactions with the slaves in Rosalith? How might he reevaluate the man he thought his father was, compared to the man he actually was: a benevolent father but a man who owned and sanctioned the owning of slaves?

There is one scene where, as adults, Clive and Jill are in Martha’s Rest having just witnessed some awful treatment of slaves, and they comment on how it’s crazy that they never saw anything wrong with slavery as kids. That’s it. The commentary begins and ends there. Outside of this moment, not once does Clive come to terms with his complicity in slavery as a teenager, and not once does he ever think to criticize his father for it.

On the contrary: throughout the game, Archduke Elwin is revered by everyone, and we the player are supposed to revere him too. There is one part of the game where Clive returns to a village in Rosaria and the mayor, recognizing him as the prince, offers him his father’s old Bearers back in a chillingly casual tone. Like, offers to give him his father’s old slaves back who have just been hanging out in this village ever since the country was taken over. Clive of course declines, but we don’t get any indication of how Clive feels about this reminder that his dad was, you know, a slaveowner. Clive also never confronts the mayor’s assumption that these people are things to be owned, just lets him keep on as he was. Clive then meets one of his father’s old kitchen slaves, who has become senile. The old former slave thinks he is still waiting for Elwin to return and take him back to the kitchens, where the former slave apparently enjoyed working. The old man apparently has no idea what to do with himself in the mean time and just hangs out by the well waiting for Elwin, day in and day out. The old man thinks Clive is Elwin returned to get him, and Clive plays along, but says the old dude should just chill out in the village until he’s done with his journey and eventually he’ll come back and get him.

Now...it’s not super clear what we’re supposed to get out of this scene. It’s not entirely clear if we are supposed to take the old man’s ravings about how great it was working in Elwin’s kitchens at face value. Obviously, that would be horrifying. I have to assume that we are supposed to sort of see this as a really dark and sad look at a Stockholm Syndrome-type situation. But the uncertainty that I feel is just the problem. Does this quest exist to show how great Elwin was and how much everyone loved him, including his slaves, or to show how fucked up slavery is? This shouldn’t be a question I’m asking. And the reason I’m asking it is because our viewpoint characters give us nothing to go off of.

Assuming for everyone’s sanity that it’s the latter, why doesn’t Clive have some sort of emotional reaction? This is his father we’re talking about. The great Archduke Elwin. And here is a devastating reminder of the horror Elwin wreaked on a man’s life and psyche. Nothing. We get nothing from Clive. If a normal person suddenly realized that the food they ate growing up was always prepared by slaves, you’d think they’d have some kind of reaction.

And like...is Clive serious? Is he actually planning on coming back to “get him” when he’s done with his journey? Does Clive literally just own slaves in this game? (I don't actually think so, but I'm just saying, the scene was weird.) In any case, it is clear that most of the current and former slaves in this game are completely helpless and will just keep being enslaved through inertia if someone doesn’t save them or at least come and explain to them that being enslaved is wrong, actually, and they should be free. (A portrayal of slaves that is more than patronizing...it’s revolting. Certainly many real life slaves were victims of this sort of brainwashing, but it just feels like...way too many of them are like this in the game, and there are almost no rebellious slaves to provide an alternative portrayal, so it feels very one-sided. The Hideaway folks don't count - I'm talking about current slaves that you meet in the wild.)

After the events of the following section, where a village is massacred, Clive and Jill are upset and suddenly decide they want to help Cid free all the slaves, even though up until this point they have been pretty lukewarm on the idea of joining the liberation effort. I don’t feel like the threads between events are clearly drawn to show how the characters changed their minds. Instead, it’s sudden. They see a massacre (that includes non-Bearers as well as former slaves) and decide slavery is wrong.

Normally, you’d think that since Clive and Jill have, you know, been slaves themselves for the past thirteen years, that alone would be enough to give them a new perspective on slavery. But apparently not. Apparently they had to go through a journey in Rosaria to come to the conclusion that all the slaves should be freed, and even then it doesn’t feel like a perspective change that is earned or that makes sense. The scene with the mayor could have been a great opportunity to show that transition – just have Clive be like “oh, fuck...my dad did this too” – and boom, his character arc starts to make a lot more sense.

Instead, Clive proudly wears his father’s old clothes and later goes so far as to claim that he is carrying on his father’s ideals. At one point, when viewing the atrocious crimes against humanity that Anabella’s men perpetrate against former slaves, Clive mutters something along the lines of, at least in Elwin’s time Bearers weren’t “spit on as slaves.” Fam, what in the world are you talking about? We literally just talked to one of Elwin’s former kitchen slaves? We talked to a man in the Rosalith courtyard in the prologue named “Slaveowner?” It would be one thing if he was in deep denial, but the game doesn’t play it like that. The game plays it straight, like we are supposed to take what Clive is saying as truth. Later, Clive tells Byron that he won’t take back rule of Rosaria, because instead he’s fighting for the world his father believed in, where all people can live freely. Clive explicitly tells us that his father’s beliefs and the goal of ending slavery are one and the same. This does not make sense at all.

I spoke with a friend about this who argued that Elwin did believe in ending slavery, but he didn’t outright do it because he would have had revolts on his hands and so on – it would have been too sudden of a change for the free people to accept since the hatred of Bearers was so entrenched (my thoughts: oh dear, not the free people having hurt feelings, not the revolts! Better keep those people enslaved to avoid such a horror), so he was trying to change attitudes over time. According to my friend, this is what Clive meant by following his father’s ideals - moreso in spirit than in actuality. I think this is a bit of a stretch to assume this is what Clive was thinking since the game doesn't really make it super clear, if I'm being honest, and it's still a very unflattering portrayal because he's essentially excusing his father's policies of slavery. I agree with my friend that such behavior makes perfect sense for Elwin as a character, but owning slaves is still 100% wrong, Elwin was wrong, and the problem is the game’s narrative never really acknowledges this. It's obvious to us, but the game needs to acknowledge it, and it doesn't. (Also, if the reason he didn’t end slavery was truly because he was afraid of the chaos it would cause (eyeroll...it’s giving Northern liberals in 1850s United States...), then why did he himself also own slaves? Surely that wasn’t required if all he wanted was to avoid revolts. It's because he needed to use them as resources and he'd rather use free human beings in forced labor than use up the meager supply of crystals they have, right? Isn't that the real reason?) I bring this up not to discredit this friend, who is great, but because I hadn't considered this perspective before and it helped me understand Elwin's thought process a bit more, so I thought it would be helpful to mention.

What we get, as a result of all this, is a main character who comes across as extremely putzy and tepid. Sure, Clive thinks slavery is wrong, generally. He definitely thinks treating slaves badly is wrong, at least. He probably thinks having them at all is wrong...probably. (Unless you’re his dad, Archduke Elwin.) But at the same time, he doesn’t bat an eyelash when he comes across random NPCs that are in the process of abusing their slaves. And I mean including after he takes over Cid’s role as the international slave liberator and removes his brand. He doesn’t even have an emotional reaction. He just moves on like it’s to be expected. Clive is the most powerful man on earth by this point and he doesn’t lift a finger to help any Bearers he comes across in the wild. Cid the Outlaw, everybody, Clive the great liberator of slaves. What a stand-up guy. If I were a slave in Valisthea, I wouldn’t want this guy to be the one advocating for me. Personally.

It is incredibly difficult for me to emotionally connect with this character when this is how he is characterized, and when the slavery storyline is handled so tactlessly. Like it’s just tacked on to make the world more dark and fucked up, but the developers didn’t care to follow through with exploring it.

FFXVI’s portrayal of the badness of slavery is mostly limited to the cheap, low-hanging fruit of showing horrific atrocities and abuse being perpetrated against slaves by awful slavemasters. But it mostly avoids the true insidiousness of slavery, which is how normal it could be, and has been. How normal, otherwise nice people, could and have been complicit in it. Slavery doesn’t need horrific treatment to be bad. Owning other people is inherently bad. And FFXVI somehow doesn’t seem to get that.

There’s a fun, interesting, comedic relief type character with a lot more personality than most of the other main characters: Clive’s uncle, Byron. He’s wonderful. I wanted to love him.

Except - nagging at the back of my mind from the second we met him was the thought that this guy probably owned Bearers as slaves back in the day, and even if he was somehow the only noble in Rosaria that didn’t, he was close with his brother and could have made an effort to convince Elwin to end slavery, but didn’t.

You can’t have the fun quirky comedic relief uncle character also be a former slaveowner (or, optimistically, a guy who used to help maintain the system of slavery). Tonally, it just doesn’t work.

It would be one thing if Byron ever addressed his past, or his failure to act, or ever somehow recanted his former beliefs and complicity in a way the player can see. But he doesn’t. The slavery in Rosaria thing goes completely unaddressed. Byron easily slides into his role as the benefactor of the Freeing the Slaves Group as if he was one of them all along. It’s confusing and distressing to see the insidiousness of “good” slavery in Rosaria go totally unaddressed.

There’s also this uncomfortable feeling when you go around as Clive after he removes his brand and suddenly no one treats you like shit anymore, and you can’t help but thinking, “Are all of these NPCs actually racist assholes and the only reason they’re not showing it is because they think I’m not a Bearer?” Steph Sterling (The Jimquisition) has a great video where she talks about how everyone in the world of Valisthea comes across as an irredeemable bigoted monster and it makes it hard to care about saving the world. I agree. Like, saving the world is obviously still the right thing to do. I know this logically – but I don’t feel it. I don’t feel any attachment to this world or the awful people in it. This makes it even harder to connect with the “role” I’m supposed to be playing in this “RPG.”

Then the slavery storyline is forgotten halfway through the game for more Final Fantasy-like and less complicated nonsense like killing gods. (Probably for the best.)

There’s also the obvious issue of there being very few people of color in the game, and many of those being white passing to boot, but I feel that has already been touched on elsewhere better than I could say it. It’s obviously stupid and it makes their bungling of the slavery storyline even worse.

There are other flaws with the story, but I can’t even pay attention to those because the slavery thing overwhelms all the comparatively small writing problems for me. I feel like one of the 2.5 people on the Internet who is actually bothered by the portrayal of slavery in this game and it’s making me a little insane. Are people really not bothered by this?

Listen. The slavery storyline had a lot of potential. Episode 2 (or 3?) of Resonant Arc’s FFXVI analysis podcast series on YouTube goes into a really great deep dive about the portrayal of slavery in Valisthea and it made me realize it was more nuanced than I had initially given it credit for. Particularly, the fact that the reason people treat Bearers with such comic book villainy and abuse is because they have to buy into the idea of Bearers being sub-human in order to justify enslaving them and slowly murdering them, and they have to buy in hard. This is extremely true to life. In order to justify treating people like objects, they dehumanize them. There is probably guilt and shame involved over taking advantage of Bearers as a resource, which they have been brainwashed into thinking they must do in order to survive, so they channel that shame into hatred and abuse. Even many slaves themselves have been brainwashed into buying into this system, and as a result they value the “good” slavemasters compared to the “bad” ones. The system has been so entrenched for generations that there is buy-in even from the lowest rung. It’s realistic and true and I definitely get what the developers were going for, I think. But there’s still a problem:

The game never does condemn the “good slavery” in Rosaria. That coming-to-terms, that realization that it seems like the game should be building up to within Clive – it never happens. Clive never has the character growth he needs in order to make the slavery storyline land properly. By the end of the game, Elwin is still a great, admired guy, Rosaria’s slavery is still good, and it is presented as fundamentally different from, say, imperial slavery. This is really just...wrong. So all of that potential for nuance that I just discussed in the previous paragraph ends up falling flat.

Anyway, I don’t like adult Clive. I think he’s a loser. For all the game’s talk of strength of will, I don’t see much strength of will in Clive. He comes across as uncommitted and wishy washy in nearly every instance, with a side dose of angst. He doesn’t compel me in the slightest; in fact, he outright disgusts me at points, and I’d have given my left arm to play as his twinky brother instead.

The women

Okay, so I’m just gonna touch on it briefly. The women in this game...could be better. Like, they’re not bad, but I came out disappointed. Especially in Anabella.

Benedikta’s storyline has already been criticized a lot for being too short and not giving her enough depth so I won’t rehash all that, but we have to talk about Anabella. Clearly, the woman’s inspiration is Cersei from Game of Thrones, unless there’s another beautiful blond traitorous kingmaker who is a total monster that I’m forgetting about. But Cersei is a great villain because in spite of all the horrible things she does, she still feels like a real person. A fucked up person, but a real person nonetheless. Her past is carefully explored so we understand the institutional misogyny, insecurity, horrible monster of a father, and toxic relationship with her brother that led her to grow up into this person. On top of that, Cersei shows a glimpse of humanity – in spite of how she may feel about everyone else, she truly loves her children. She isn’t really a monster – she’s actually just a really fucked up, evil human being.

On the other hand, Anabella is a total monster with no redeeming qualities. We get an indication at the very end that she did genuinely love Joshua and Olivier in...her own way, perhaps...but it’s just a glimmer and then she gets killed off immediately. We watch her commit horrific act after horrific act with no idea why she would do such a thing for tens of hours, and we only just manage to learn what her motivations were the whole time when she spews it out in a rush right before she dies. And the motivations are surprisingly shallow. She was just tired of people gossiping about her behind her back in Rosaria, so she had them all killed. Cool. Why is she like this? I guess we’ll never know.

I love evil women, but Anabella doesn’t even feel like a real person. Such a missed opportunity. I still kinda love when she’s being deliciously evil, though.

*tiktok autotune voice* and I’m not saying she deseeerved it – but god’s timing is aalwaaays riiiight

Oh, you want me to talk about Jill? How did they do? You mean other than her entire life revolving around her love for a man? (Just kidding...sort of.) Well, she’s fine, I guess. Personally, I find Jill to be kind of bland as a character, but that’s just me. I think we needed to get more from her backstory than what we got. As it is, she’s too Clive-focused. She’s giving Dollar Tree Tifa but not in a good way...Tifa definitely still had her own goals and motivations independent of how she felt about Cloud, and she had much more personality. (I also don’t really understand how Jill had the patience to wait for this dude for 18 years, but we don’t really get to see how she feels about that. Or was he the one waiting for her to make a move, and she was the one hesitating? Unclear, but unlikely.) Jill is just totally gung-ho to go at Clive’s pace, in all things. The Hideaway’s goals, their relationship, talking about their feelings, anything and everything is whenever he wants and no sooner or later. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that if it makes sense for the character - We’re just never in her perspective, so we don’t know why, and I find that a shame. But I do love Jill’s design, her voice acting is great, and I like that the narrative treats her like an equal to the men when it comes to combat prowess and general agency. My problem with her giving up her powers to Clive isn’t unique to just her – I hate it in every case that it happens – it just happens to sting a little bit more since Jill is the only female party member in the game.

I like the Jive ship, by the way, even though I'm not very fond of them individually. Like many people (especially fellow adults lol), I appreciate the refreshing maturity and healthiness they have. Not exactly common in Final Fantasy (as much as I love other FF ships).

So close and yet so far from greatness

For those thirsting after Clive and Cid, I raise you, Barnabas? He’s weirdly hot, right?

I feel like fixing FF16 wouldn’t be hard. Not nearly as hard as fixing FF15. It would take some redesigning the way the story plays out a little bit to give us a permanent party, but it would be worth it. The party could include Clive, Jill, Gav, and Tarja for the duration of the game. Characters like Cid could drop out when it’s their time to drop out, and characters like Dion, Josh, and Mid could jump in after crossing paths with the party, and then stay there. When the characters go off on their little quests, like when Dion sneaks off and goes back to the Crystalline Dominion, instead of having them go alone, have the whole party accompany them. This would help organically build the bonds between the characters instead of just having the game tell us that they have bonds.

There are even classic FF archetypes to work with, if they wanted to balance the party accordingly. Clive is a knight/jack of all trades, Jill is a black mage, Gav is a rogue, Tara is like a white mage or an alchemist, Cid and Mid are machinists, Dion is a dragoon, and Josh is a red mage. See? Not that they have to be called this, but I’m just making a point that balance-wise, the party is RIGHT THERE. Then allow the player to outfit them with unique gear and maybe have a couple options for how they want the AI’s playstyle to be, like offensive, defensive, attack Clive’s enemies, attack enemies other than Clive’s enemies...just simple options (if I wanted to be really greedy I’d say add a gambit system but I’m trying to keep it “easy” here--).

But if I can be a bit greedy – how about you allow us to return to the areas featured in the one-off missions and, more than that, how about you actually let us roam around in the fantastical set pieces we only get to see in cutscenes, like Oriflamme? It wouldn’t have to be a big area. Just give me like one little town square. One tiny itsy bitsy little town square per city. Nothing too graphically intensive. Something, anything to help me feel more immersed in this world, because the game desperately needs it. The world is so cool, conceptually, but I can’t really immerse myself because I can't explore most of it.

For the story, just include some deeper revelations for Clive, Jill, Josh, Byron, even Dion, where they regret their complicity in slavery in the past (well, Josh was basically a baby so I wouldn’t necessarily call him “complicit,” but you get it, his family owned slaves, that’s a lot to swallow). Instead of having the boring ass side quests that exist now, create some side quests that are like Clive and gang actually going out and freeing more Bearers on the side, even while they’re dealing with the Mothercrystal shit, so that the freeing the slaves storyline can continue even after the plot shifts to be about the crystals. Have the quests be about unique, fleshed out characters where they have agency in freeing themselves and building a better life for themselves so it’s not all about helpless slaves with Stockholm Syndrome who need to be saved (because that’s both historically inaccurate and gross).

Of course, I think the RPG elements need to be fleshed out, but I think if you just change these two major things (a permanent party and improving the slavery storyline) the game turns from being a uncomfortable and often dreary slog into an absolute banger.

Demake

Okay hear me out – a Switch demake in the pixel art style of, say, Final Fantasy VI (like the sprites we see on the menu). The party that I mentioned above exists. I don’t care if it makes sense with the story or where the characters are supposed to be located in the world. If you’re fighting, you’ve got the party. They’re just there, get over it. If you want it to make sense, you can play the original or watch a Let’s Play of the original. You can choose four of those fuckers at a time. It’s turn-based, for the hoes (I’m the hoes).

The Eikon battles though ��� the Eikon battles are a 2D side scrolling brawler. How fucking sick would that be? Hell, if they really wanted to keep it entirely action-oriented even in a pixel art demake, the regular combat can be a 2d side scrolling brawler too, and maybe you can control your other three party members with, like, their own assigned buttons. Kind of like TWEWY. So it would be chaotic but in a fun way. And maybe (also for the hoes) they can insert some of the epic cinematic cutscenes as FMVs.

Have I mentioned my emphasis on having a party?

Would this not be sick as hell?

Conclusion

I needed somebody to scream at about this and my only friends who are playing this game are still early in, so I turned to the Internet instead. I welcome discussion if you for some reason actually read all of this and feel so inclined. This isn’t a comprehensive review (in spite of being this long) and there’s room for debate and there are certainly more things that could be touched on.

I wrote all this about a 6/10 game because I love Final Fantasy that much – if I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have this much to say about it. Ultimately, I love all Final Fantasy games, even the ones I don’t like. If you get it you get it.

[suekre]

Writing things.

***

I was tagged by my amazing friend Teo aka @teodoraioana221 and I've been meaning to do this for AGES (probably just a few weeks but it definitely feels longer lol) but life kept getting in the way... still keeps getting in the way, actually, but today I'm saying: fuck it, I'mma do this now. 😂

1. How many works do you have?

Oof, I have no idea, honestly. Everything I ever wrote is unfinished anyway, so if I count in my shortest drabbles, too... probably about a hundred or so? 😅 I genuinely have no idea, though, please don't make me count. 😂

2. What fandoms do you write for?

I'm not in any fandom so I don't write for any fandoms either.

3. What are your top 5 stories by kudos?

I wouldn't know. I barely get any feedback, but that's because I'm so shy about sharing my writing in first place. My Little Blurbs tumblr is somewhere in the shadows, almost entirely unseen. 😂

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I absolutely do, as often as I can! ❤️ If someone takes precious time out of their day to leave me a nice comment, it's mindboggling and it always makes my day, so I am happy to show my gratitude for that; I really love replying to comments!

5. What’s the story you wrote with the angstiest ending?

My stories hardly ever have actual endings. 😂 I'd say that the Ballad of Hallie and Lancie is pretty angsty, though, as a whole.

6. What’s the story you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, my stories hardly ever have actual endings. 🤣 Thing is... I don't write my little blurbs for endings anyway, I just love exploring human interaction! Most things I write are very everyday-convo-esque and don't really serve a purpose other than me wanting to write dialogue. 😂

7. Do you get hate on stories?

Nope, but as I said above already, I'm shy about sharing my writing, only a few people see it.

8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

No actual smut, no, but I do include subjects like sex and intimacy, because I love that kinda stuff.

9. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I didn't actually write any crossovers, but I sure do share ideas with friends sometimes, about how fun it would be if our characters were in the same world... and I'd totally love to draw some of those scenes one day. 🤣

10. Have you ever had a story stolen?

I don't know but I doubt it.

11. Have you ever had a story translated?

I dunno?? I switch between German and English when I write, depending on my mood and energy level (high energy level: English, low energy level: German), so sometimes I translate my own stuff when I want to post it to my blurb tumblr. 😂

12. Have you ever co-written a story before?

Also, nope!

13. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

You mean, among my own OCs? I don't even know, I love all my ships, whether they're endgame or not but I think I can say that Charlie and Kieran will always hold a special place in my heart (although I wouldn't want to write the same kind of relationship again these days!) and also Orla and Mick are pretty darn important and amazing! :D

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

All of them. Honestly, I wish I was better at finishing my one shots but unfortunately, I'm not. 😂 I'd really love to write the last few bits of my Ballad of Hallie and Lancie, though, because these two became so important to me over the course of the last six months, and I just love them and would love to wrap their teenage story up one day!

15. What are your writing strengths?

I don't think I have any, but if I had to say something, I think it would be 'dialogue'. It's what I love most and I had people telling me that they love it, which is really cool!

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Everything. 😂 Writing in English is hard for me (not a native speaker) so I really do struggle with everything. It's all for fun, though, so that's cool and I try not to overthink it too much and just do what I feel like doing, without any pressure. I prefer writing badly over not writing at all!

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a story?

I do that all the time, as I'm not a native English speaker. 😂 I'm kinda hoping that I can switch it around one day, though. I'd love to throw in a dash of dialogue in my own language one day but I'm not actively writing any German characters at this point so I guess it won't happen any time soon.

18. First fandom you wrote for?

My own. 😂

19. Favourite story you’ve ever written?

Quite a few, actually! I love my most recent WIP of Sofia and Hallie having a chat after Craig's passing. Also the Sofia&Craig convo about their oldest son... and once I can think of other stuff I have written so far, I might mention some more. 😂

—

That was a lot of rambling lol. GO ME! Tagging everything who wants to do this... it's been super fun! :D

[the--journeys]

HALLOWEEN FOR FLASH THOMPSON??? TALK MORE ON THAT PLEASE!!!!!

LISTEN TO ME!!!

Flash Thompson halloween is something that can be so personal.

I am sure that mr. kahan intended this song to speak to the feeling of being haunted by a past romantic relationship but unfortunately it is actually about Eugene Thompson and the ghost of survival mode. If Flash is going to do one thing and one thing only, it's going to be struggling to live through The Aftermath! Listen to this. LISTEN TO THIS!!!

But the wreckage of you, I no longer reside in And the bridges have long since been burned

I'm leavin' this town and I'm changin' my address I know that you'll come if you want It's not Halloween, but the ghost you're dressed up as Sure knows how to haunt, yeah, she knows how to haunt

Switching from an area where you have to be on constant high alert to being "safe" is such a strange experience. You have all these feelings and all these coping mechanisms that you don't "need" anymore but they're still there. It's being haunted! It's relearning HOW TO LIVE and almost every iteration of Flash Thompson (I'm including the MCU despite the CRUMBS we receive) goes through it at least once whether it be the army or a tense household or something else!!!

I know that you fear that I'm wicked and weary I know that you fear in the end But I only tell the truth when I'm sure that I'm lying So I'm setting sail once again

Sorry that Noah wrote this verse about MCU Flash Thompson struggling with learning to love and be loved post-nwh! Sorry to those who have such a strange and disproportionate amount of hate for MCU Flash Thompson because they are either a) racist or b) have never actually given two seconds of thought to character motivations within the pieces of media they claim to love! I will love him forever and ever!

There are infinitely more lines in this song ALONE that make me scream about my boy™ but this has grown long enough so thank you for coming to/enabling my Ted Talk.

<3

[moonlit-imagines]

an update <3

so, it’s been a while since i’ve really tried to keep up with this blog. you may have noticed most lists are outdated, i haven’t really posted anything and when i do, it’s few and far between. i thought it was because i just lost my motivation to write.

but i started focusing on that novel from a year or two ago!! the inspiration doesn’t stop flowing for it and i’ve been riding this high for a while, it’s made me so happy to write without any pauses or writer’s block, because i really do love writing.

i know that i keep trying to say “hey, i might write something soon,” “sorry, i’m working on this request i’m just busy,” “please forgive me i want to do this event soon i just don’t have the time or motivation,” but it’s time i’m honest with myself that i don’t think i’m that invested in imagines and reader insert anymore and trying to force myself to write things that no longer draw any inspiration just makes me resent writing entirely. i cant even keep up with my fandoms anymore.

this blog has been the best thing i’ve ever created, but i’d like to do more. work on things that keep me going and make me happy. and for a long time this was that for me, but i guess i just outgrew it.

for four years this blog has been active (well, maybe not the most active recently), and in that time i’ve wrote some stuff i’m really proud of, had these ideas that i fell in love with and some of you might have too. i absolutely loved the idea of writing things that helped you guys through your lives, as well. things that made you feel seen and included, whatever made you laugh or cry, sparked your own inspiration. hell, i had a ton of people tell me that my writing helped them learn english, which absolutely floored me. it was the most meaningful thing i felt i could have done. i hope i can do that again someday, either returning to this blog or going a different route.

that being said, this blog will NOT be deactivated. not only do i know a lot of you revisit my old work, but i’d love to look back on it too. this blog has a lot of memories attached to it. it has my hard work on it. it has sweet messages and support from both sides on it. and not only that, i made a lot of wonderful friends on here. and i feel i’ll continue to do so!!

i encourage you guys to keep messaging me, sharing your ideas, asking for advice, telling me your stories!! i’d like to be here for you guys. as a friend or writer. i’ve always been ecstatic when someone asks for writing advice or blog advice, it’s something i always know i can help with.

the burnout almost got the best of me, but this novel i’ve decided to write has been the best idea i’ve had in a while. it got me to love what i love once again. i hope you all understand and we can continue to support each other throughout our journeys. i wouldn’t be who i am today without you all.

much love xx

-lacey

[m1d-45]

ALL OF UR "DERAILS" ARE COMPLETE GOLD IN MY EYES, I LOVE UR THOUGHTS AN IDEAS ABOUT THIS AU DONT EVER APOLOGIZE KING

and omg what u wrote about the corrupted!archons with their limited control and how they hold themself back how their mind and body are disconnected and how they want more of your light but the opacity is down and it feels like their wandering complete darkness with only alternate!creator

I also read this as the alternate creater is reader alternative btw

who do u think in this scenario would help the reader out, if where imagining this as an imposter reader scenario. I like to think that the wanderer or tighnari or maybe Lisa bc id feel like she'd read her books to figure out what's wrong with alternate!creator or why she feels like somethings off (thinking about that maybe alhaitham & cyno too)

speaking about this au, WHAT ABOUT THE TRAVELER AND PAIMON? I mean their the prime vessel so would they be fooled too? or would they help us? is this like a completely worse case scenario with no way out or is their any hope of saving teyvat and it's people?

- 🍄 (I'm sorry if I'm sending too much asks btw, also @ teddy anon sorry for taking ur prompt and running with it, I hope u get back here and talk more with us. also midas your ideas/writings are literally liquid gold their so good pls don't ever apologize for taking inspiration and thinking, I love everything you have brought into this conversation)

1) never apologize for sending asks this is the most fun i’ve had all week 2) rip teddy anon hope you enjoy how we’ve taken it 3) i will always apologize for thinking, it’s kinda my brand /hj

anyway:

i think that, as i said at… some point- that it depends on the fundamentals of the persons faith, at least in this au.

people like cyno, alhaitham, rosaria, candace….. maybe collei but definitely tighnari (don’t ask why there’s so many sumeru characters) are all people i can see praising and praying for the actions of their god. people who pray for the results and not the process, and people i think would be freest of the corruption and most likely to help the reader.

on the flip side, barbara, jean, nahida, and notably keqing would be lore susceptible. they pray for more direct things? almost? idk how to describe it but like- they’re more “please grant us wisdom” or “allow us the strength” or anything that directly relies on the alternate!god, and hence opening their heart to the alternates.

like i… i can’t put it into words quite well, but like- ningguang is one who prays for profits, ganyu is the one who prays for divine guidance, you know? and hence ganyu would fall quicker.

it’s obviously a spectrum, but those closer to the first groups side are more likely to break through and help the reader.

i think…. not solely for plot reasons, but definitely influenced enough by them that i’m mentioning it… kaeya falls solidly in the second group, whilst diluc is firmly in the first.

diluc is the one that prays for a good harvest, for high sales, for the patience to deal with the damned hard in his tavern. kaeya prays for strategic wisdom, for their guidance, for answers when he’s lost and confused and the acting grand master isn’t behaving like she should.

..hopefully that made at least some sense. i’m kinda just wingin it here.

re: the traveller…. i honestly think they’d be treated the same as the archons. if the archons are corrupted, they will be too if the archons are replaced, they will be too. due to the traveller’s relationship with both the archons and the creator, i think the alternate!creator’s hand is a bit forced there. same can be extended to paimon BUT you could have paimon escape since she can pop into a different dimension. and/or they can both live in the teapot as like. vigilantes. idk.

i think that if this were to be written (100% by somebody more knowledgeable about the catalogue than i am) then a pov from one of the archons would be incredibly necessary. either to showcase the sheer power the alternates hold, that they have replaced literal gods, or to shed light on why the archons act as they do, and maybe influence the reader(meta reader, not character reader) and their opinion on them. seeing a blank slate suddenly become full of life at the sight of their savior…. or the archons trapped in some cell, chained down and miserable, lamenting over their mistakes. how foolish they were to trust the one with eyes colder than iron and a grip nearly as strong. how foolish to pray when their soul cried to stop. how foolish, how foolish, how foolish.

and as they sit, maybe one of them begins to pray, unwillingly feeding into the beast that trapped them there.

“o holy creator, maker of light and extinguisher of darkness, the foundation of the earth… please, deliver us from this evil.”

the false god smiles.

WAIT WAIT WAIT ME FROM THE FUTURE HERE:

ADAM DIDNT KNOW HE WAS AN ALTERNATE.

WHAT IF THE FALSE GOD DOESNT KNOW EITHER?

[notablytrustableindividual]

Band Rants #2 - Far Caspian

Sorry for the delay for the 0.63 people who care, the last week has been not great, and I've been barely holding on. As I write this, it is 2:53 am on a Saturday, and I'm drinking tap water out of a Nicholas Cage mug in the dark.

Anyways, back to music.

There were several bands in somewhat similar styles I almost wrote about instead. Slaughter Beach, Dog and their transformation from Midwest Emo to Indie Rock to Folk (The reverse Wilco, as I like to call it) or Peach Pit, who did something similar with an odd yet fun discography. In a more pop vein, I also considered Rotel Otis, who I started listening to when they were on the Fresh Finds playlist, and whose ability to pump out fun single after fun single confuses me to this day.

But instead I settled on Far Caspian, a band that is a bit harder to pin down. So what is Far Caspian, and why should you care about them?

First, Far Caspian is an Indie Rock/Pop Project led by Irish multi instrumentalist Joel Johnston, who has released 3 Eps, and a full length Album. Their first Ep, Between Days, cane out in 2018. The Heights followed in 2019, and their first full length Album, Ways To Get Out, dropped in 2021.

I am not mincing words when I say Far Caspian is some of the most relaxing, aesthetically pleasing music I've ever heard. Listening Between Days feels like lying on top of a ridge and staring out, relaxed. It's music that makes everything feel fine, even when it's not.

Of course, I will admit some bias in this. Far Caspian has been comfort music for me for years now. I used to sit in the library of my school during lunch, surrounded by ornate carved bookshelves and wearing a beat to shit pair of headphones, rushing through my 5th period AP Euro homework as Far Caspian played, keeping me from panicking even more. The example of me laying on a ridgeline isn't just metaphor either. I've done it before (I highly recommend it, it's very relaxing)

While the 2018 EP is mostly acoustic, 2019's The Heights branches out a bit. Some synth and piano show up, adding some variety to the instrumentals. Each song on The Heights also feels just that little bit more unique. Of course, I'm biased in this matter. The slightly faster guitar and simple drum line if Conversations lives rent free in my head.

(I can effortlessly sing along to it by the way, it's my second most played song of all time)

Yes, I'm aware this is a bit cursed.

Either way, the Heights contains some of the best sounding guitar lines I've ever heard. It's just unfathomably relaxing to me. Of course, the lyrics and drums are also pretty good. When talking lyrics, I would be stupid to not mention A Dream Of You. (You should listen)(please?)

This song is Far Caspian's most popular, and it earns it. The lyrics live rent free in my head, expressing longing for someone else's presence beautifully. The slow, calm guitars and passive drumline even have a little beat drop in the instrumental breakdown towards the end. It is probably one of my favorite beat drops ever. Even with its slow pace, the song has this way of sucking you in. I enjoy it quite a lot. The melody holds a special place in my heart.

In 2021, Far Caspian released their first full length Album, and it was quite a pivot. It's atmospheric and plodding. The music is still gorgeously composed, but there's a very prevalent sadness throughout. If you've listened to the previous songs I'd recommended listening to and enjoyed them, I can't guarantee you'll enjoy the album as well.

Of course, the album has its high points. For me, the most standout tracks were right at the start and end. House is by far one of the most complex songs Far Caspian has ever made. It starts out with a simpke guitar riff, and builds, until its soothing saxophone, combined with its other myriad instruments make the songs climax just transcendent for me.

Of course, they have one more Ep which came out a few days before I wrote all this. Its similar to the 2021 release in a lot of ways. That being said, the closer on the 4 song ep, Arbitrary Task, just sucks me into a trance. It's noisy, strumming guitars, combined with an omnipresent drum line, whittles at the senses a bit, until the comparative quiet of the bridge snaps you back to reality.

Of course, like every band, they also have a large catalouge of singles.

I'd recommend the alternate version of Conversations (Shocking, I know) and Holding On, which is thier first ever song.

Overall, Far Caspian is a band that can be both gentle, and calming, as well as rough andmelancholic. Whatever sound they have though, they are always heartfelt. They remind me of Turnover and Real Estate in a lot of ways. To quote someone else's review of Real Estate, "This is a band fotlr those who can chill to the max"

Between Days (2018) - 8.4/10

The Heights (2019) - 9.3/10

Ways to Get Out (2021) - 6.5/10

Pet Architect (2023) - 5.5/10

[jabeur]

i don't mean to give you a task, so don't feel pressure to listen to either of these if you don't feel like it or if they aren't really your vibe...but in the spirit of wanting to help at all, i wanted share these two songs since i feel like maybe(?) they might be a good listen for you.

the first is good days'll come by john-robert. it's a bit cheesy but i think a good reminder...the whole garden snake ep honestly is very good. this one is kind of self-explanatory, "good days will come"...though it feels impossible sometimes and so far away, to keep hoping and believing and trying not to let yourself be convinced otherwise, even when you're feeling the depths.

the second is one of my favorite songs of all time, i've talked about it before but it really does mean so much to me, don't carry it all by the decemberists. i listened to it almost non-stop when i was in the worst of my mental health. colin meloy (main lyricist of the decemberists) describes it as a "gardening song." (i will admit the decemberists are a bit of an acquired taste so i am very sorry if you are not into folk music.)

im not great with music analysis to be honest, but the song basically captures the idea of sharing the highs and lows of life. the whole chorus i think sums it up: "let the yoke fall from your shoulders / don't carry it all, don't carry it all / we are all our hands and holders / beneath this bold and brilliant sun / this i swear to all." i dont want to get too, like...preachy. but basically your burden is not yours to bear alone, that sharing the burden with others is a part of life. the good and the bad.

idk if this helps at all. but even if it doesn't, please just know i'm thinking of you and i really hope good days do come. <3

hi leon, thank you! this does help. music is really important to me especially in difficult times. and i like these, i'm gonna listen to them again but the messages are clear and comforting and i wanna thank you for sharing

this part really spoke to me

and it reminded me of these tags i wrote this morning. i find a lot of comfort in remembering that things change and aren't stuck, and things like the weather and the clouds and the seasons are good reminders

and don't carry it all similarly reminded me of this

really what i needed to hear honestly. thanks, for the nice words too 🩵

[realfactsnlogic]

on apologizing, grovelling and sympathy-fishing

This is a bit of a trauma-dump. But this is my blog and I do what I want with it. And I also want to share my story to the world.

In this post I will talk about my uneasy history and strained relationship with apologies and forgiveness.

Note to self: Share this with the therapist. This is a juicy topic.

CW: I will be talking about abuse I went through as a child (physical, emotional, emotional neglect). Please love and care for yourselves and don’t read if you feel this will bother you.

Then

I was probably 3 or 4 years old. I don’t remember doing this--I don’t have the photographic memory of it burned into my brain, but apparently I hit some kid. My mom took me home, stood me on a chair so that I could reach her height--

And she slapped me. I was in tears, in that ‘child sobbing’ voice, trying to repeat what she tells me.

Something like, “(name), I am sorry.”

Of course, when you’re talking to a child, you need to break the sentence down into pieces. 

So it was more like, “(name) -- I am -- sorry.”

Between those dashes, I would repeat what she said.

The day after that, I literally forgot what she told me.

So when I went back to school, she took me to a rug where the kid was and got me to recite what she told me. I couldn’t remember, so I repeated what was prompted.

I don’t have this memory unless I’m in a certain state. Sometimes I don’t think it’s mine. I still need to accept that regardless of anything, I did it. I did it in this body, so this memory should be considered mine.

There was another incident like this:

In Kindergarten, one end of recess, I followed my friend group back to the building. I did not know that they hid some kid--one that was way older than us, but very sensitive. He might have been of a protected classification, I think. But that’s none of my business. Anyways, my friends had to line up and shake his hand, saying “I’m sorry, Aaron” (was that his name?)--but I, stubborn I, would refuse to. I remained on the couch and shook my head because I did not hit this kid. Still, I walked with these friends and so I pay their consequences.

I actually wrote about this incident in high school. I’ll see if I can dig up the full story to post about it here.

There’s more to this. About how I got M-RTU’d in 2016 because I couldn’t handle too much collective punishment, about how I fucked up real bad with a small fandom in 2018, so on and so forth.

From what I learned in therapy, childhood memories are factors in tendencies in adulthood.

Now

So as I grew up, these memories and other factors made a ‘person’ (more like a dead man walking) who has the reputation of being hard on himself. Yet, he remains to be a hard worker. He’s all about that Sigma Male Grindset, all about that T Guy Swag...but something about him is always missing. Always off. And we wouldn’t know until the bad things happen, and then we start calling him selfish.

All of these are true. Almost. They’re only true if you refuse to hear his side of the story.

“WAH WAH! I DON’T WANNA HEAR IT!”(Or: The Part Where I Look Like I’m Self-Victimizing)

I’m almost always the first one who’s apologizing (which is fine, if I know I started it). When people come to me to apologize, what apologies do I get back? Short sentences when I deserve paragraphs. Okay, that’s a little entitled, but I’d rather get an insight on their feelings in the moment and their intentions than...whatever the hell I got.

I don’t do “short and sweet”. I do “long and bitter”. I was taught that to apologize, you have to name your wrongdoings and either offer a way to rectify it (if appropriate, otherwise make a small promise of stopping a habit and how). No asking for anything, not even for forgiveness itself, not even for the deletion of things you made for each other.

The fact that my values don’t align with some people says and said a lot about how I conducted myself around people I once considered a friend until they didn’t want me to anymore.

Then again, they don’t owe me anything. They don’t need to walk me through the whole process of their wrong doing like I did (albeit without their consent. I have a habit of over-explaining.)

People who really don’t like you aren’t worth your time trying to please. I had to learn that the hard way. I also had to learn that I have to accept people’s opinions of me, regardless of the negativity--not to wallow in the negative ones, but to either move on from them (if destructive) or learn from them (if constructive.)

And in this case? It feels like the middle. I know I can’t change those opinions. That’s fine. I don’t need or have to do the work to convince that change. Change is a choice and it’s their choice as to change their opinion of me.

What Craving External Validation Does to MFs (Or: The Part Where I Attempt to Get Introspective)

Let’s not get started on how I have difficulty forgiving myself. Especially when I knew I was at fault for an occasion. Even if other people forgave me, I couldn’t forgive myself.

That’s what craving external validation does to mfs.

Just as how I’d have unusual methods of self-harm, I had an unusual method of sympathy-fishing via self-victimization. Before I go into that, however, I will say I have engaged in classical self-victimization ala “i’m gonna tell everyone i know what happened so i can get their sympathy!” or “i’m gonna put passive-aggro lyrics in my Discord status to show these mfs how i feel!” and whatever else I can’t think of in the moment.

The “going around telling everyone” thing is really done with the intention of getting different opinions, actually. Still, two things can be true at the same time. So I can understand where outsiders come from when they say I look like I’m self-victimizing. And they’re right. It does appear like that regardless of intent. Also, nobody likes a broken record.

This time, however, the way I went about self-victimization/sympathy-fishing was different. I’m still trying to wrap my head around how self-demonization counts. I think I have an idea, where it’s like: “Wah, it’s all my fault! You should pity me now.”

I acted like I was the villain for everything. I acted like everything was my fault, whether I really did anything or not. In my mind, inaction is action. I let my guilt and shame take over whenever I start craving that sympathy fix.

Hell, I wasn’t even thinking that the kind of attention I wanted was sympathy. Then again, how would you know when you’re at an unstable state?

Conclusion

If any readers stumble upon this, and feels it is familiar: maybe it is--for you.

And if you read this and know (almost) exactly what I’m talking about: What are you doing on my page, and I will once again apologize. Perhaps a thousand times.

I can wait 1000 years to be apologized to and much more to be forgiven, no matter how severe the damage. But some people can’t and that’s okay.

Fuck this shit, I’m gonna play a different game now.

[zukkatrash]

im pretty sure nobody wants this content but:

aged up, no bending atla x fallout 4 crossover!!!

(spoilers for some atla and fo4 stuff obviously, and in sukis part i rant abt the ending where ur against the brotherhood, so major spoilers for that too)

lets start with katara

katara is a minuteman, no lets be real shes the goddamn general, preston took one look at her and immediately knew she'd protect the people of the commonwealth with all she had

elder maxon is actually scared of her, which is why he refuses to let her on the prydwen so none of his underlings see him fold under her stare

shes probably the first minuteman that hancock like actually truly respects bc he knows shes 100% abt the ppl and goodneighbors motto is literally "of the people for the people"

katara is a probably a bit conflicted about him at first bc u know hes a bit ruthless for her taste, but she can see his heart's in the right place

she definitely helped marcy long with her grief and turned her anger into smth productive, aka marcy is now probably a high ranking minuteman

sokka

def a railroad agent (i read alchemy, sue me)

him and tinker tom are the best buddies and yes sokka got convinced to drink his weird serum thing, stop bringing it up!!

god just the crazy inventions those two would cook up, they'd probs scare the shit out of the institute

on topic of the institute, theres probably like at least one abduction attempt from them a month but hes not only smart but a badass too

hes also one of the only people dr. amari is actually nice to and will routinely rescue him from irmas relentless flirting

he definitely fanboys with kent collony over the shroud

i feel like deacon would drive him mad, because on one hand he gets the secrecy and that he doesn't want anyone to get too close but also deacs, my man u cant shut everyone out with ur lies

okay now im thinking abt them bonding over their dead gfs and am sad

when he meets nick he has to hold back soooo hard to not ask invasive questions, bc nick is basically a walking insight into the institute, but hes alao a person who sokka respects and really doesn't wanna be an ass to

toph

also with the railroad(but shes a heavy ofc), probably mostly bc shed get more action there

sokka and tinker tom def made her some really cool gadget à la seismic sense so shes still a BEAST

she can also hear a raider ambush/lurking wildlife before anyone else and if shes not with anyone who needs to avoid that kinda stuff she pulls out her trusty missile launcher and makes quick work of her enemies

probably participates in cage matches at the combat zone and raiders shit their pants when they see her

toph is either dating glory or cait or both, cant decide, just badass wlw

or maybe fahrenheit 🤔, i mean the only refrence of tophs type we have is that she mightve had a crush on sokka who is not only strong but smart and u cant tell me fahr isnt smart, she might only have like 5 lines but at least one of them is abt chess which is a common shorthand for intelligence and she is undoubtedly a badass so yes toph and fahr! never thought id think of those two as a ship but here we are haha

zuko

is the silver shroud, you can't change my mind he's a righteous theatre kid ofc he's the shroud

suki

also a minute man, probably kataras second in command

shes the one training the minutemen at the castle

danse tried so desperately to recruit her but suki is too smart to fall for the bos' bullshit

probably plays into his whole spiel tho to get an inside look at the bos and takes them down from the inside

and not by blowing the ship up wtf there are kids on the prydwen what the fuck why cant u get them out beforehand??? why is that the only option to get the bos out of the commonwealth???? they steal poor farmers crops ffs i want them gone! WITHOUT killing innocent children that are being indoctrinated what the fuck

aang

im actually having a really hard time to imagine aang in fo4 bc u know its a biiit violent for a pacifist monk but i really dont wanna just make him a farmer or some boring shit, its just that stuff usually needs killing in some way in fo4

okay nvm i can def picture him on the island mediating that whole conflict between arcadia, the children of the atom and far harbor

oh god aang finding out how dima kept the 'peace' would be a brutal fucking scene, i dont wanna spoil too much if possible but aang would def feel really betrayed by dima

i can see aang arriving at the island and really trying to make everyone understand that dima only wants arcadia to be safe and left alone and i have no idea how he would actually deal with dima once the truth comes out but fuuck, bending or not aang def entered the avatar state there

but just to be clear he still protects arcadia, just bc its built by smn who thinks the ends justify the means doesnt mean that synths dont deserve to live in fucking peace for once

also aang would absolutely adore erikson and his puppies ^^

but back to the commonwealth

aang would for sureee advocate against the mind wipes the railroad makes and try to find other ways to help synths

he probs cannot deal with desdemonia saying that erasing the synths memory and identity is the only way to keep them safe, aang knows what loss means and he wont stand for it

and i can see him do a lot of the actual building in the settlements and helping all those small communities to flourish

now for the crack, as in i dont think this is in character but i thought of it so now yall have to read abt it:

the fire nation is in nuka world, also there is no overboss per se bc except for like 3 lines we know nothing of colter

ozai leads the operators, but also kinda everyone, so basically the overboss

post breakdown, pre redemption azula leads the disciples

zhao leads the pack bc like mason hes an animal and i hate him ^^

gage is dead bc unfortunately ozai isnt dumb, altho ozai was dumb enough to underestimate zuko when he literally told him his plan to join the gaang, but then again gage didnt like colter bc he didnt get shit done and unfortunately ozai does get shit done so gage is probably delighted :(

if anyone actually read this and wants to add on pleaseee do!!!

[astroluvr]

Crappy Love Stories

You've loved Jack for so long it's hurt, but when you're recruited to accompany your best friend to a family weekend, unwanted feelings come about.

a/n: this was pretty experimental and i wrote it at 3 am, so please cut me some slack lol. hope y'all enjoy! it's 5k words tho

***

After being friends with Jack for so long, you could determine his moods rather easily. You could tell when he was happy, when he was upset, when he was stressed, and even when he was hungry. Knowing your best friend’s mood made it much easier when he came knocking on your door and wrapped you in his arms, with food from your favorite restaurant in tow.

“What do you want, Jack?” you sighed, escaping his hug and shutting your door behind him.

“I came to treat you.” he gave you an all-too-charming grin. “We can rent that movie you’ve been wanting to see, or we can even go out to see it!”

Again, you rolled your eyes and took the plastic bag from his hands, inhaling the scent of the fresh food. Chances were, he would get whatever he asked for if he kept the lost puppy look on his face and you got too hopped up on the specialty pancakes from the breakfast place you loved.

"Thank you for the dinner, Jack.”

“You haven’t eaten yet?” he furrowed his eyebrows, and you shrugged as you sat on the floor in front of your coffee table. “What have I told you about-”

“What did you want, J?” you huffed, looking up at the tall man with an exasperated look.

“Are you upset about something?”

“No, I just know that you want something and I hate when you beat around the bush. What is it?”

Jack sighed himself and took off his thick hoodie, revealing the seemingly suffocating black tank top underneath, sitting across from you on the floor. He reached over into the bag and pulled out the omelet you once talked him into getting a few years back.

“Okay,” he finally murmured, placing his heavy arms on the coffee table and pushing his tongue against his cheek while he gauged your attention. “Okay, I really need you to come with me to this family thing with me this weekend.”

You scoffed at him and reached across to shove his shoulder playfully. “Jack, you could’ve asked me that over the phone. It’s no big deal.”

“I figured, but I need you there because my family is looking for me to bring a girlfriend with me.” your eyes widened almost comedically, and before you could come up with a string of reasons why this was a shitty idea, Jack was stammering. “No, no, no. Just a weekend, Y/N. A weekend where we just sit together at dinner and… I don’t know, whatever couples do.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“Y/N, why can’t you do this one thing?”

“Because.” you dismissed, shoving another forkful of pancake into your mouth and shaking your head.

“I hate do this, but don’t you remember our eleventh-grade prom? When I was your date?”

“You didn’t have a date, either.”

“But I didn’t want to go.” you rolled your eyes at the validity of his point, causing him to continue. “Oh, and our senior homecoming and senior prom?”

“Alright, alright! I was a loser in high school, but you left me to go make out with Rebecca at senior prom.”

“Best two out of three.” he bantered, and you sighed defeatedly. “Y/N, please?”

“I would, but I can’t.” you huffed out and Jack’s shoulders sagged.

“Why? Give me a valid reason and I’ll drop this whole thing.”

“Because. I-I just can’t.”

“You can’t or you don’t want to?” he asked you coldly.

You had to think about his question, even under his burning gaze. You knew he’d be pissed at you if you didn’t go with him, but you also knew that pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend could reveal bigger cracks in your friendship that you weren’t ready to deal with.

As you looked up at Jack’s softened blue eyes, you tugged at the sleeve of his tee shirt that you were supposed to return years back. “Okay, I’ll go.”

“Thank you.” he huffed, wiping his hands on his jogger-clad pants.

||

"Okay, how did we meet?” you quizzed Jack outside of the huge house his family rented out for the weekend.

“Uh,” he clicked his tongue in thought and you raised your eyebrows in anticipation of his answer. “Strip club?”

“That’s not funny, Jack.”

“Y/N, you’re taking it too seriously.” he laughed, taking your phone from you. “We don’t have to make up a whole thing. My parents already know you, so it doesn’t make sense to bullshit. We met in high school, got together a few months ago, and things have been good.”

“A few months ago? And you’re already bringing me around your extended family?”

Jack threw his head back in an exaggerated groan and laughed at you. “Alright, then we met in high school, we started dating a few months ago, but- hmm, we need a crappy I-realized-when story.”

You sat in silence before offering up an idea. “How about… that time we were on tour and we went to that bar and did karaoke? Do you remember how we did- what was it?”

“My Boo.” Jack laughed out, hitting his hands against his steering wheel and shaking his head. “Man, we probably looked like fools. Fuck, do you remember when I dipped you and your head knocked that guy’s drink over?”

“Don’t bring that up, oh my God, I thought he was going to kill us!” you laughed, looking over at Jack who had a glint in his eye.

“Dude was big as hell and he had all those tattoos. Started cussing us out and I grabbed your hand and we ran out of there. I saved your life.”

“Oh, please, Jack, you were the one who was ready to call 911.”

“Whatever.” he rolled his eyes, and you giggled at the memory.

“The smell of beer still gives me flashbacks.”

You and Jack shared a laugh until that feeling set in for you. The feeling of agitating butterflies that made you feel nauseous. You weren’t sure when it started, when it became less ‘how nice would it be if this were real’ and more of every moment that you two shared becoming too much to bear.

“Is that what we’re going with? Drunken karaoke?”

Jack nodded and you did the same, looking out the window almost sadly. Before you could open the door, you felt Jack’s hand come to rest on the back of your head like it had for the past ten years when you got too quiet.

“There’s no pressure, Y/N. It’s not for real.” he reassured, and you pulled away from his hand, speaking over your shoulder as you opened the door.

“I know, Jack.”

The reunion was in full-swing by the time you and Jack arrived, so instead of having those few moments of solitude you expected after the much-too-long car ride you expected, you were forced into the backyard where Jack’s family was.

A few yells came out in recognition when they saw Jack standing on the porch. You saw the beam take over his face as he grabbed your hand and ran off the porch into the crowd. You felt yourself grow slightly anxious despite the grip he held on you.

All of his introductions went in one ear and out of the other as you smiled as you gave out hugs or felt your cheeks warm at their compliments.

“Y/N, is it?” one of his aunts approached you and almost instinctively, you got closer to Jack’s side.

“Yes, how are you?” you smiled at her, and held out your hand, but she just looked to Jack.

“Aunt Izzy, this is Y/N. You’ve seen her in the photo album, you know? Took her to prom and all.”

“Oh, my!” she gasped, and you chuckled. “You’ve… wow, what a woman.”

“She’s still as beautiful.” you all turned to find Maggie with a drink in hand and a prideful smile on her face.

You felt welcomed into her hug as she squeezed you tight. “Hi, Mrs. Harlow.”

“Hello, young lady.” she held your forearms to take a good look at you before looking over at Jack. “Why didn’t you tell me it was Y/N, Jack? You had me thinking you were going to bring someone… much worse.”

“How? I didn’t even say anything!” he said in his defense and you took a step back to allow her to hug her son. “And how are you gonna hug her before me?”

“I’ve been waiting for this, Jack! Ever since she came over for dinner, what was that, sophomore year, I knew that you were going to be the girl to marry my son.”

“Ma.” Jack groaned, and you smiled awkwardly. “We haven’t… please.”

“Well, whether or not you talk about it, I know you’re going to.” she winked at you.

You looked over at Jack to see if he was showing any signs that the topic was uncomfortable for the same reason it was to you. It was hard enough to lie to the woman who obviously wanted the same things for you and Jack that you wanted on top of feeling like it was too big of a lie to tell someone you respected.

“Alright, I’m going to leave you two alone. Show my girl off, Jack.” she squeezed your arm with a kind smile before walking off.

When she was a safe distance away, you turned to Jack. “I’m sorry. She loves you.”

“I don’t want to lie to her. I actually know her, J.” you whispered to him with urgency and Jack shrugged.

“It’s not a lie, you’re my girlfriend. Doesn’t matter if it’s for a few days or not.” he whispered, cupping your jaw to brush your cheek.

“How do you not care about this?” you squinted at him as if you were looking past him to see inside his mind. Jack removed his hand and licked his lips.

“Mom will be fine, Y/N. I’ll explain it to her later.”

“That’s not what-” you cut yourself off before you could say anything that would start a conversation you didn’t want to have.

“What?”

“Nothing.” you shook your head and put on a fake smile. “Could you show me to our room, please? I’m really tired.”

“Of course.” he put a hand on your back and guided you to the door. “Let’s get in you into bed.”

There was something that felt much too intimate about taking Jack’s shirt and a pair of oversized basketball shorts that he handed you through the bathroom door before crawling into the bed, automatically rolling onto the right side because you knew that Jack always slept to the left. As you tucked your head into the pillow and shut your eyes from the stress of the past two hours alone, Jack came back into the room quietly. You didn’t move your head to look at him, but instead watched as he set a glass of water and a bag of chips on the nightstand.

“The pizzas aren’t here yet because we ordered, like, 30, but in case you’re hungry.” he whispered and you flicked your eyes up to meet his.

“Thank you.”

“Are you alright? I know you didn’t want to come, but you’ve been really distant. I mean, not even just the past week, but for a while now.”

“Do we really have to talk about it now?” you sighed, growing more frustrated with yourself by the second.

“Will we ever?” You and Jack shared a look that gave him the answer he was expecting. “If there’s something that’s bothering you, you can talk to me. I don’t care what it is, I hate seeing you like this.”

Without another word, you nodded and Jack left the room with a huff.

You were alone with your thoughts and emotions for at least three hours. For the first hour, you made a mental pros and cons list of admitting your feelings to Jack, how the feeling that only came about when you were in a midnight haze during a night out spread to the moments you shared when you came to the studio to your daydreams, and now to your every waking moment. You thought about how he might respond if you told him how torturous it was to hold on to his shoulder or hear him spill ingenuine comments about how lucky he was to have you.

By the end of the last two hours where you had fallen into a restless sleep, Jack was rushing into the room and startling you awake. Jack noticed and the laugh that was coming out of his mouth paused as he came to stand next to you.

“Y/N, come to the lake.”

“What?” you asked groggily, sitting up and rubbing your eyes. “I didn’t even bring a bathing suit.”

“It’s alright, you can wear that.”

“I’m not skinny-dipping with your cousins, Jack.” your tone was flat, but the idea was terrifying. Jack laughed and shook his head before tearing the blankets off your legs.

“I’m not saying to. Just come get your feet wet.”

As usual, Jack’s excitement over an idea made you more inclined to join. With a towel over your shoulder and his scent overwhelming you as he guided you out of the house and through the backyard- where most of the adults were sitting under lantern lights and talking amongst themselves and the kids were running around trying to catch fireflies, Jack raced with your hand in his down the dock where the only light source was the butt of blunts and moonlight.

“Yo!” Jack yelled out, and the creak of lawn chairs followed as they laughed.

“It’s Jack and his boo.” one of his cousins taunted, and Jack only raised a middle finger as he walked down with you.

“Our song.” Jack whispered in a way that felt more like an inside joke than you would’ve liked.

“You disappeared, Y/N.” another cousin joked.

“Oh, yeah, I just took a nap.” you shrugged, smiling politely as Jack led you to a bench and set the towel down before you sat down. “It’s been really nice to meet you all.”

“Yeah, I’m still shocked.” Clay spoke up. “I don’t know why it took you so long to get your head out of your ass, Jack.”

“Why is the blame always on me about this? Y/N could’ve asked me out.”

At that, there was an uproar of laughter that came. “Look, no offense, but you don’t wait for a girl like that to make a move, you have to shoot your shot while you can.”

“You try getting into this head of hers.”

“What do you mean by that?” you looked up at Jack who had his arm around your shoulders with an intrigued look.

“I mean, I would’ve asked you out a long time ago if I knew what you were thinking.”

“Yeah, right. You’re a pussy.” another one of his cousins jeered, throwing a piece of popcorn at his cheek that made him shoot up.

“Let’s fucking go, man.”

For a moment, you got scared and went to tug at Jack’s shirt, but Clay shook his head. “They’re just playing.”

Jack’s cousin stood up, the both of them taking their shirts off and throwing them to the dock before initiating a rather realistic tousle. It was only taken seriously for a few seconds before they busted into laughter and Jack’s cousin was able to push him into the water and Jack pulled him in with him.

“Damn, it’s cold!” Jack laughed when he got back up above water, shaking his head and laughing. “Fuck, Brady.”

Brady only laughed and shoved Jack’s shoulder before wading deeper into the water and a few of his other cousins jumped in as well. When Jack didn’t seem to be making plans to get out, you grabbed the towel and sat at the edge of the dock, dipping your feet in the water before squealing and pulling them back.

“Told you it’s cold.”

“How are you not freezing?” you laughed, pulling your knees up to your chest and wrapping them around yourself.

“Because I’m so hot.”

“You’re lame, is what you are.” you rolled your eyes at his joke and Jack got closer to place his hands next to your legs. “I know we’re pretending and everything, but you can go hang out. It feels good out here, I’m good where I am.”

“I have all day tomorrow with them. Plus, once the album is done, I’m going to come back home and hang out for a while.”

“Oh, am I going to have to be your girlfriend then, too?” you teased, despite your words having a bit of genuine hurt behind them. Jack laughed and flicked water on your face, making you swat at him.

“Maybe if we talk about what’s been bothering you.” he whispered, taking a more solemn shift to the conversation.

“There’s nothing bothering me. Maybe I’m just stressed with stuff.”

“We’ll talk about it.” he said as he wrapped his hands around your ankles and pulled them down into the water before sliding in between your legs.

You gasped slightly and you weren’t sure if it was from having his shirtless body so close to yours or the chill of the water. Jack smirked smugly at you for a second as if he could see the pound of your heart of contemplation behind your eyes. You curled your arms around yourself and Jack moved his hands to the deck.

“Do you remember that one summer before junior year when we went to our first real party?” he asked you, moving one of his hands to trace a shape on your thigh.

“Yeah.”

“And do you remember how we came down to the lake at that guy’s house and they were playing spin the bottle and my turn landed on you?”

You swallowed and nodded. That night had been unspoken between the two of you since it happened. The night where your feelings for Jack originated from.

“Yeah, it was my first kiss.” you murmured, playing with your hands. “You were my first kiss.”

“You were mine, too. I remember that I was so scared I’d get a girl that knew how and she’d start a sick rumor about me or something, but I got you.”

“I should’ve told everyone how your breath smelled like the cheap beer you were too puny to handle.”

“Excuse me for not being an alcoholic at sixteen.”

You smiled and rolled your shoulders. “I’m glad it was you, too. If I had gotten Tony, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Do you remember the crush I had on him?”

“That asshole.”

“We were seventeen when that all went down, Jack. No guy was loyal back then.”

“Well, that was then.” he whispered in a way that was much too cryptic for your broken heart. “And a lot of things are different, you know.”

You held your breath as Jack edged closer to you. You started to sweat when his hands trailed up your legs experimentally. One of them remained locked on your waist and the other to the back of your head that he tilted down to meet his forehead. You two kept your shifting eyes as steady on the other as you could, your hand trailed to the back of his head and you waited.

“I swear if you do that nose thing-”

Jack cut you off swiftly, meeting your lips with the kind of kiss you only saw in movies. It was nothing like you could’ve envisioned, and you had envisioned plenty. It was nothing like the soft kisses he left on your cheek when something good happened and it was definitely different than kissing the scrawny little thing you had your first kiss with all those years ago. This was more than you could’ve hoped for, all that you needed.

The kiss lasted for as long as it could before it got clumsy. With your hand in Jack’s wet hair and his wet hands starting to slide as he subconsciously tugged you impossibly you closer and you leaned into him, the cold crash that surrounded your body was imminent.

“Jack!” you screamed in pure panic, flailing around the water without thinking. “Jack!”

What was all of three seconds felt like a lifetime as Jack pulled you up and against his chest, kissing your cheek and hugging you close. “Hey, calm down, you’re alright. You’re alright. I got you, baby, I got you.”

You kept close to Jack, moving your arms from around his waist to his neck and shoving your face there. The pull to Jack’s solidity and the way he kissed whatever skin he could find and whispered close to your ear made you feel like this was your moment, the moment you had spent the past few years dreaming and praying for.

“Was that better?” he finally asked, when you had just been hanging on to him and enjoying the moment.

“Was what better?” you asked, pulling away to look him in the eyes. The way he let out a chuckle made you feel almost ridiculed. “Jack, what?”

“The kiss. Being out here made me think about our first kiss and I finally had the chance to redo it, so whenever you think about kissing me, it’s what you think about.” you pulled away from him entirely, watching him laugh. “And I think it’ll be pretty memorable.”

There was a beat of silence before you felt tears brimming in your eyes. You couldn’t say anything, you couldn’t think of anything you could say that could effectively describe the rage and heartbreak you felt just thinking about what he said. Hopping onto the dock, you grabbed a towel and wrapped it around yourself, leaving Jack confused.

“Y/N, where are you going?”

“I’m going home.” you sobbed, shoving your feet into your slides before walking off as fast as you can.

“Y/N!”

You had gotten a good distance away from Jack, but you could still hear his shouts, your name followed by the nerve of him to use ‘baby’. The adults were still outside, but the children had dispersed.

“Y/N, is that you, honey?” Maggie called out, and you paused to turn to her. The others didn’t notice your demeanor, which you were grateful for, and Maggie approached you carefully. “Did Jack throw you in?”

Her smile dropped when she noticed the tears rolling off your face along with the water. Before she could reach out to console you, you sobbed. “I was only here with Jack for the weekend and I’m sorry that we lied- that I lied, but I’m going home now.”

“Y/N, what is the matter?”

“I’m just really ready for this to be over.”

And although there was nothing more you wanted to do than give in and cry into a mother’s shoulder, you saw Jack running up the expanse of the yard. “Go on. I’ll tell him to give you a minute.”

“Thank you.” she nodded, and gave you a sympathetic smile before you walked off into the house. You hated to leave wet spots in your wake, especially on top of the ones that were already there, but you didn’t have the capacity to try and avoid it.

As soon as you made it to the room, you threw the clothes Jack gave you over the closet door and shook in the chill of the home while you started a shower. For good measure, you locked the door as you picked out clothes and found the first flight back home for six in the morning. If you were lucky, Jack would bunk with Clay.

“Jack, why did you bring her here?” Maggie asked, crossing her arms. “If you weren’t dating, you could’ve just said you didn’t have anyone.”

“Mom, I’m sorry for not being honest, but that’s really not what's important to me right now.”

“It should be.” she swatted his arm and Jack grumbled. “Y/N is the sweetest girl I could ever imagine you with and you play with her feelings.”

“I don’t play with-”

“Bullshit, Jack.” she hissed, and although Jack had gotten much taller than his mother, he felt like a little boy again. “She looks at you like you hung the moon and stars. And if I’m being honest, next to Urban, she’s the best friend you’ve got and you’re lucky as hell that she puts up with you. She keeps that head on straight when nobody else can, and how you don’t look at her and think she’s the greatest woman you could be graced with, I will never know.”

“I don’t deserve her.” Jack finally said, pursing his lips and looking away from his mother. “It would be selfish of me to try and make her believe that I do, because I know she’ll love me as I am, but she deserves better.”

“Jack, anything is better than whatever is.” Maggie gestured in the air before cupping her son’s face. “Y/N loves you for who you are right now, for whatever you pulled at the lake down there, and I know my son, I know that this isn’t the best version of himself.”

“I know, Ma.”

“I know.” she whispered, nodding before kissing his cheek. “Give her a few minutes, she was really upset, and then talk to her.”

Jack avoided hugging Maggie considering how he was still dripping from head to toe, but did accept her loving pinch to the cheek. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. That’s my girl.” she winked.

Jack probably sat outside for fifteen minutes before he heard the squeak of the bed from inside the room. He stood up to his full height as he knocked on the door. “Y/N, it’s me. Can I come in, please?”

“Why?”

“To get my clothes, baby, come on.” he sighed, dropping his head to the door seconds before you swung it open angrily to inadvertently cause him to stumble inside.

“You don’t get to call me your fucking ‘baby’, Jack.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think about it.”

“Just felt good for your ego?” you sneered at him, causing him to sigh and shut the door.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for bringing you here and kissing you, I am.”

“I can’t be around you.”

“Why not? We can work this out, okay?”

“I’m in love with you, Jack.” you cried out, throwing your arms up in defeat. “It’s not a crush, it’s not feelings that I have sometimes and will go away after you reject me. It’s this nagging feeling that I’ve felt for years and I know I can do nothing about because it’s one-sided. This is torture to me.”

Jack watched you fall to the bed, rubbing over your face as you wiped away tears.

“Being around your family and hearing you talk about me like you could ever see me like that is torture. Being with you on the red carpets and talking to you late at night or staying over at your house- it's painful, Jack. I understand that you don’t feel the same way and I can be okay with that, but I need a break from it. I can’t do it.”

“I’m in love with you, too.” Jack whispered when you got quiet.

“Jack.” you began, shaking your head.

“No, I am. I’m fucking whipped for you, Y/N. The reason I even kissed you like that tonight is because every time I look at you, I think about that night on the lake and how no other kiss I’ve ever had made me feel like that. You know, I thought that maybe it’s because it was my first kiss, but every time I’m with you and you smile or you hug me or I make you laugh, I feel like that.”

A tear rolled down your cheek and Jack was quick to kneel in front of you to wipe it away. You couldn’t help but wrap your hand around his wrist to keep him close. “Why haven’t you said anything?”

“I don’t feel like I’m good enough for you. I’ve taken what I can get from you- that crazy-ass feeling I always have when I’m with you and I’d be screwed if I lost you and that feeling because you knew that.”

“Jack, you’re perfect for me.” you murmured, letting go of his wrist to hold his hand. “You take care of me, you care about me, you’re my best friend, you’re everything I could ask for, Jack.”

“Fuck, why didn’t you say something?” he sighed, dropping his head to your knee and squeezing your hand. You laughed tearfully and shrugged.

“I didn’t want to tell you that I’m in love with you and risk losing you. I need you, Jack.”

“And I need you, Y/N.” he sniffled, taking your other hand in his and pulling you to the floor to straddle his lap. “I really fucking need you and this isn’t enough. I love you and I need to tell you I love you and hear that you love me. I need you to be mine.”

“I’ve always been yours.”

“Been yours, baby.” Jack rasped as you went in for another kiss.

The two of you couldn’t fight your smiles and breathy chuckles as your lips met and your arms tightened around each other.

“I have a question.” Jack broke away and looked at you with a lovesick smile and you nodded. “The club karaoke thing, was that really when you realized?”

Your cheeks warmed and you nodded, locking your fingers behind his head. “Yeah, I don’t know what it was about that night, but after that I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

“My vocals are incredibly seductive, I understand.”

“Now, let me ask you a question.”

“Anything.” he allowed, kissing your jaw.

“How’d you realize?”

Jack tilted his head back with a fond smile as he stuck his tongue in his cheek. “Senior prom night. That’s when I realized you were just…” he laughed as he looked for the word, looking at you properly. “I still don’t know the word for it.”

“You’ve known longer than I have.”

“Doesn’t matter, we’re together now.”

Everything that you had went back and forth about when it came to Jack seemed to cease when you moved your hands from behind his head to his cheeks, kissing him once again with a big smile.

“I can’t wait to get you back home.” he leaned back to the floor with you on top of him. “I really can’t wait to get you back in my bed.”

“Jack!”

“I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be a gentleman.” he blushed, sliding his hands down to your sides. “I love you and our shitty love story.”

[bbwithaknife]

Lessons in Calligraphy Part One: Dot Your I's ... (Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader)

First off, hello. I come back from my years-long hiatus of writing due to this quirked-up white boy busting it down sexual style. I wrote this to indulge myself but I hope y’all like it too <3 feedback is definitely welcome but also be nice I am sensitive.

Warnings: Minors DNI. I don’t know if I can even write anymore but other than that a few mildly sexual moments, mentions of alcohol, blood etc. Please note reader goes by she/her, has a v*gina and b*reasts. If I am missing anything please let me know!

Word Count: 3K+

You were just the type of person to write things down and store hard copies. The guessing game of names to faces was something you had no knack for, like your Father before you who every semester had a whole set of new students, everyone for the next month would hereby be known as Bob. So files were a given, containing mugshots, notes, personal information, previous “work history” and whatever else you could deem important.

It wasn’t like you had just left the files out in the open either. Confidentiality is key and you had a whole system; lock the cabinet, lock the door. Granted it was a very simple system and you should have known better. Of course, something would happen since you worked with two of the most violent knuckleheads you’d ever met with bad social skills and impulse control, but maybe you were choosing to be blissfully ignorant. Maybe you wanted the man of your affections to stumble upon it, look you in the eyes and then kiss you like a man starved, returning from war.

So when the door to your office was ajar, you peered inside heart racing. What would you do? What would you say? You combed your fingers through your hair, hoping to get rid of any tangles and look calm and collected. Unfortunately, your heart sank when your eyes revealed to you that it was actually Chris Smith, Evergreen’s very own Peacemaker who broke into your office. The red, white, and blue was splayed across the office couch, file held like a newspaper within his hands. You could see the name written largely in your flowing calligraphy, the black sharpie swirling elegantly. For each I there was, the hovering dot was replaced with a simple heart.

It read “Adrian Chase, Vigilante.” You were fucked.

Shit.

It started almost immediately, that giddiness you got from crushes. It was that silly feeling like you were a girl in high school savouring every “moment” the two of you shared. A simple smile or a laugh from something you said made your heart swell. You’d replay them in your mind just as you would when you were younger, except this time no one would be asking anyone to prom. You thought you could play it off and get over it but one fateful day he placed a hand on your shoulder and you felt those butterflies in your stomach. It was then that you came to terms with your doom. He was charming in his own way. A boyish next-door neighbour type of guy with perfect curls and a delightful smile at first glance. He looked like the guy you wanted to bring home to your parents until he opened his mouth, the words that would follow typically containing comments of murders of the first degree or something that could only be summarized as classic Adrian. Considering the line of work you’ve done and the past you overcame, you were overlooking his “for the greater good” homicidal tendencies.

Before you could even think of the best way to handle the situation with Chris, the words were already slipping from your mouth, speech rushed.

“I dot all my I’s with hearts.”

You could see Chris’ eyebrows furrow. He was just a few seconds faster than you but before you could even reach out to stop him, he had thrown the file to the floor and reached for his own. It was labelled with chunky printing, no hearts over any I’s and no graceful writing to be found anywhere. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Adrian’s file was made with tender loving care while all the others were just that; files. As Chris flipped through the pages his shit-eating grin got bigger and bigger.

“I thought you would have read yours already.” You were kicking yourself for speaking too soon.

Chris continued to read his file, scoffing to himself. “Where did you even get this information, that’s not true at all.”

You couldn’t give a damn about what he was referring to, snatching the file from his hands and giving him a taste of his own medicine. “I got it from Google.”

“Touchy.”

“It’s touché, you meathead.” Insulting the “hero” who currently held what could be considered your most embarrassing secret probably wasn’t the best idea. You grabbed Adrian’s file from the floor and placed it back in the cabinet along with Chris’s.“Look, this needs to stay between us” you began, locking the cabinet. “Please don’t tell Adrian about this-”

“Tell me about what?”

Double shit.

He stood in the doorway with a genuine curiosity on his face. Sans mask, Adrian was still in his Vigilante garb. Now that time and missions have passed it started looking a bit worse for wear. The chest piece had chips and scratches along the front, something you would offer to take a look at and fix if you weren’t overworking the gears in your head to think of something, anything to say.

“Are you having a party or something?”

Sure. That should work. “Yup! A party!”

His demeanour quickly changed and he began to look like a kicked puppy.

“It’s a surprise party for you.” You quickly improvised. “You weren’t supposed to find out about it.”

It was like watching a rubber band snapping back into place. His dorky grin returned and you felt your shoulders relax. You could work with this. A surprise party for Adrian, as a thank you from the 11th Street Kids for voluntarily joining the team to save the country from an alien invasion of overrated moths. In typical Adrian fashion, he began to walk backwards and imitate a VHS rewinding. He reset the scene.

“Hey guys, what’s up? Just chillin’ after killin’? Not talking about any surprise parties for a certain hero that rhymes with-”

“Panty.” Chris added. You elbowed him in the stomach. Hard.

You finally met Adrian’s eyes. His gorgeous, green eyes. “Nope, no parties.” You gave him an awkward wink and he offered finger guns in return as he slowly walked backwards out the door, slightly hitting the frame but trying oh so hard to play it cool on the way out.

The hard smack of Chris’s hand on the top of your back snapped you out of your fog. “Saturday works best for me. I’ll bring my own booze.” before he walks out, he turns. “Actually you should

supply the booze I’m pretty broke right now unless you want to spot me a twenty-”

“Get out Chris!”

____________________________________________________________

There was no going back now, seeing how happy this party made him. You shifted into full party planner mode. Nothing compared to your Mother’s, nothing could shine a candle to that but you tried and that’s what counts. You made sure to avoid buying anything that someone else was allergic to, you brought the booze down from the top shelf, and you dusted the fan in the bathroom.

It was never a dull moment with Adrian leading up to the party. Every time he was in the building he stopped by your little dinky office and knocked on your door. Most of these times it was him stopping by testing to see if you would slip up.

“Hey, do you know if anyone is having any cool parties this weekend?”

“Sorry Vij, none that I’ve been invited to.”

But the night before the party was different. You had thought everyone had gone home by this point considering the beating they all took, so you were taking advantage of the quiet air to write out tonight’s report. What intel was found, what they got wrong, what they got right, etc. so it could be sent out and played back to Waller as soon as possible. You attempted to focus but were worried about the team, of course, you cared for them. But you were really worried about Vigilante. You had briefly caught sight of him when they arrived and saw the small flicks of red that stood out on the white stripe of his suit, no doubt the whole thing soaked in the substance.

From what Murn reported back to you, Adrian had taken home a few face lacerations, a fury of punches to the chest, and a nasty but treatable gash to the side of his abdomen. As Harcourt saw your expression change when you heard this news, she assured you despite the condescending tone that he was fine. You knew logically that he would survive, but that scratchy voice of irrational fear had a way of creeping up.

You looked back to the moment of Adrian grunting and climbing up the stairs with Chris and Economos not far behind him for medical attention. You wondered what would have happened if you had gone up there instead. Peeling off his armour as carefully as you could, facing him head-on as he stripped. His bare chest touching feather-light on your ghosting hands, he would look down to you, whisper a “thank you” right above your lips before tenderly placing the back of his hand on the base of your neck, pulling you forward to meet him. Lips plush, moving at an agonizingly slow pace. Realistically, you knew a moment like that wouldn’t occur, let alone a moment like that with Adrian but a girl could dream.

His trademark knock brought you out of your trance, startling you causing a small jump.

“Christ, you scared the shit out of me!” You held your hand to your chest. Be still, beating heart! He was still in uniform and your eyes met his visor.

“Sorry, I saw the light on. What’re you still doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

The pregnant pause in the room sounded like a blaring train in your ears. He made his way to your desk. You stood up to meet him, legs still clenched due to your trip to la-la land.

“I’m gonna pack up for the night-”

“Can I drive you home?-”

You short-circuited. You’re a grown woman, stop acting like this!

“Um, yeah of course.” Rushing to grab your briefcase and forgetting it was still open, all your notes flew out spewing across the room. “Shit.”

You bent down, frantically trying to grab them and shove them back into the case. You couldn’t care less what order they needed to be in, you could sort that out later. Your mission right now was to make sure Adrian’s gaze didn’t notice those stupid hearts over that stupid vowel. This mission almost failed instantly when his gloved hand touched yours. He handed the page to you so gently and to pay him back for his kindness you ripped it out of his hands.

“Sorry.” You coughed. “It’s confidential.”

The two of you stood up in unison, his frame looming over you. Adrian cleared his throat, taking a step towards you. With nowhere else to go, you backed up into the desk. Ass hitting the edge, your arms lifted in reflex and landed on his shoulders. He grimaced. You opened your mouth to speak, ask him if he was alright but he beat you to it leaving your mouth agape for a short second, a blink in time.

“Can I ask you something?” His voice was hushed but raspy. Almost a certain hunger to it. The space between you was close to caving in.

“Of course, anything.”

“Why are you throwing this party? What are you hiding?” His adam's apple bobbed. “Y’know if you’re actively participating in criminal activity-”

“This whole task force is technically criminal-”

“Criminal activity outside of this task force” He enunciated. “I’d have to kill you.”

You couldn’t fight the smile forming. “I promise I am the most law-abiding citizen outside of this team. Cross my heart.” Actions spoke louder than words and the braver part of you had control of your motor functions. You took his forefinger and brushed it against your chest in an “X” where your beating heart lay, pumping at overtime. You held his hand there for a moment, revelling in the contact before releasing him.

“Well, that’s a relief. You’re one of the last people I would ever want to kill.”

Any sane person hearing this statement would think it was the biggest and boldest red flag of the century and run packing. But this easy you hearing it from Adrian Chase. Coming from him this was the highest of praises. With his slipped confession being some sort of confirmation that he did think about you, you took the leap off the edge. Reaching one hand out to caress his masked cheek, thumb brushing just underneath while the other slid up on the opposite side pulling the fabric up. Eventually, you stopped just above his cupid's bow.

“I’d like to kiss you.” It was a whisper in the wind, your voice. And a gamble. “If you’d let me-”

“Could I kiss you back?”

“Yes, of cou-.”

As foolish as it was, you had thought of this moment many times before. You had thought about sharing the types of kisses with Adrian that the main heroine would with her lover. The kiss that expressed relief knowing each other was safe, or the “in wine there is truth” kiss. A smooch so full of intoxication and lust, once and for all ending the will-they-won’t-they. Maybe even the kiss that was so desperate it pained them not to have their lips meet. But every time you had these thoughts, these wishes, you told yourself that’s just not who he was. But you were grateful to be proven wrong.

This kiss you hadn’t expected was the one you received. It was mid-response when his lips captured yours in what could only be described as the first bite of a warm apple pie made from scratch. The kind of pie with such a buttery crust that melted in your mouth and the glaze of apple comp, brown sugar and cinnamon sticking to your lips.

He was sweet to taste and his lips melded perfectly with yours. His hands found your waist and fingertips gripped your sides to leave grape-like bruises along your skin. He lifted you to sit on your desk so that he stood between your legs. Paperclips and pens dug into your backend but at this point, you were too love drunk to care. You wrapped your arms around him and snaked a hand underneath the back of his mask, fingertips running along with the wisps of hair at the nape of his neck. This action caught him off guard. In an instant, your wrists were in a tight lock.

“I’m sorry I . . . I just wanted to see you.” His lips were cherry red from your back and forth. He paused, your wrists still in his vice. You could barely make out his eyes from behind the mask but you could sense he was thinking. It was the next word you spoke breathlessly that solidified his decision. The hopeless “please” that left your lips sounded so orgasmic to Adrian that he yanked his own mask off and placed it neatly in the desk drawer. Slamming it closed, Adrian’s emerald eyes met yours in almost a coy look of endearment and you melted.

“There he is.” You smiled up to him, your thoughts heavy with affection. He pulled you in to meet his lips and held you flush against him. Either he was happy to see you or was still carrying. Hell, there was a good possibility it was both.

Each break for air felt like a chore. You thought about kissing him forever and wondered if he would let you but the rough touch of a weathered glove brought you somewhat back to earth. Adrian’s hands were slowly making their way up to cop a feel. He was just above his target when he hesitated and pulled away, stretching your shirt in the process.

“Is the party a prank? Like a Punk’d kind of thing?” His expression so genuine you could see he really couldn’t understand the gesture of a party unless it was something that would impact him negatively.

“No, not a prank. It is actually happening,” Your breath hitched on your last word as Adrian peppered a chain of kisses from your jaw to your collarbone. “The plan w-was to pick you up tomorrow night and bring you to my place where everyone would surprise you. So far only Chris has RSVP’d but I just . . . wanted to do something nice for you I guess.”

At this point, Adrian was on his knees. Somewhere down the line, he had placed his glasses atop the crook of his nose. They gave off a small shine when he adjusted them and looked up at you. “Yeah, but why be nice to me?”

You were mentally flipping through various flashcards of different responses trying to find the one that would dig out of this hole that you made yourself. Maybe you’ve finally dug yourself too deep. But had you really? He was here on his knees seemingly for you. Your mouth had gone dry and parting your lips to speak was a struggle for multiple reasons.

“I like you. A lot.” You averted his gaze revealing what you tried so hard to hide. Hiding this is what got you into this mess but it also got you the moment in time that you yearned for. The sound of realization from Adrian is what brought you back to look at him. “That’s why you write my name with hearts!”

A paramedic would deem you unresponsive and dead for at least a minute like one of those miracle cases you would see on Grey’s Anatomy. He knew?

“What?” you chuckled nervously. If life was a cartoon you would be pulling at your collar to let the steam out of your shirt. Adrian stood up from his position and reached into his back pocket. Unlocking his phone, he shoved the bright screen in your face. It was a text chat with Chris. A blurry but readable photo was sent to Adrian just a few days ago. In the photo, blue gloved hands shaped a heart over the file reading Adrian’s name. How did Chris even get that shot?

He was grabbing his mask from the drawer now. You stood there unresponsive. Adrian waved his hands in front of your face searching for a reaction. He called out your name as he handed you your briefcase. You were too stunned to speak. The delay lead to his favour when he asked politely “Could I eat you out?”

“Here?!” Your brain wanted to tap out. Just turn off. You grabbed the briefcase and covered your centre with it.

“No, that’s public indecency! That’s a misdemeanour. You should know me better than that!” He knew his stuff. “I mean after I drive you home. At your place? Or we could go to mine, it’s closer but I kind of have to go boxes everywhere.”

He began to leave your office and make his way to the parking lot. You followed along like a lamb to slaughter.

Locking up the office and turning to face him under the night sky, the lights of the “Vigilante Mobile” flickered twice along with a high-pitched horn. You couldn’t help but wonder what brought this on if he truly had no idea how you felt until minutes ago. In gentlemanly fashion, he opened the side door for you. As you slipped in, you inquired. With a gloved hand he cupped your cheek.

“I’ve been wanting to do this since I met you.”

[sournatromanoff]

5 songs i’ve been loving lately 🥰

tagged by: @lindszeppelin and @burninlovebutler (love you linds and mel ❤️🥰)

1. “From This Moment On” by Shania Twain — this is my mom’s and my song. my birthday is coming up (sunday the 30th 🥰), and i’ve been listening to it a lot. i am extremely grateful to be alive for multiple reasons, and i’m extremely grateful to have my mom alive as well. “all we need is just the two of us. my dreams came true because of you.”

2. “Burn Me Down” by Nathan Sykes — i like to listen to love songs and imagine myself in a romance story that i make up as i listen. this has been one of them lately. i know that’s probably cheesy, but throughout middle/high school (and even now) i’ve been made fun of or cast aside because of my size, so i’ve done this to give me some hope. “tell me you love me by the way you burn. your fire ignites me, don’t let it fade away.”

3. “Toa La Noche” by CNCO — i’m sure i’ve mentioned this at least once before, but i’m puerto rican (genetically, at least. i was born in the midwest, and don’t have much connection to the actual island). latin music is a big part of my life, as it helps me feel at least a little bit closer to my culture. i am white presenting (though most of my family is brown, as we have taíno and african ancestry), and for a lot of my life i hadn’t know much about my culture. so listening to music helps a bit, as well as anything i learn now. “por favor, quédate. no te pido nada más. esta noche, bebé, sé que no lo olvidarás.” // “please, stay. i won’t ask anything else of you. this night, baby, i know you won’t forget it.”

4. “favorite crime” by Olivia Rodrigo — i hope i don’t have to explain this one, but this song has been on my rotation for a few weeks since i wrote my first elvis fic. “i watched as you fled the scene, doe eyed as you buried me. one heart broke, four hands bloodied.”

5. “Fever” by Elvis Presley — i hope i don’t have to explain this one either 😂 the man gives me fever 🥵 “i light up when you call my name, and you know i’m gonna treat you right. you give me fever…fever all through the night.”

BONUS: “False God” by Taylor Swift — i’ve been worshipping aphrodite for almost 3 years now, and this is the song she sends to me when i’m having a hard time, especially with religious trauma (i’m a former jehovah’s witness 😢). “we might just get away with it. religion’s in your lips, even if it’s a false god….we still worship this love.”

i tag: @babylovepresley @bisexualwvtson @mooodyblue @goldenpresley @lovininapinkcadillac @powerofelvis @samfangirls @notstefaniepresley and anyone else who wants to do this! (also, my apologies if i’ve tagged you before, my memory is crap 🥺)