#im a bitch for validation from strangers on the internet

[thanks--for--listening]

figments of the dark

yes i read all the grishaverse books after watching the show yes i’ve now written kanej fic yes they’re my dream couple no i’m not okay mentally. SPOILERS FOR CROOKED KINGDOM this fic takes place right after it. 

(also on ao3)

~~

She kept pace with him initially. Walking down to the harbor, he watched as the Suli couple moved closer and closer, the details of their appearance materializing with each step. The gray of the man’s hair creeping in at the edges. The woman’s long braid lying gracefully over her shoulder. Their hands clasped together, tugging each other along as the distance between them and their daughter disappeared. Inej was nearly jumping out of her own skin, but she stayed by his side, only breaking into a sprint when there was nothing but a few feet separating them. It was the most impressive feat of strength he’d seen from her. From anyone, if he was being honest. 

They swallowed her whole. Neither were particularly tall, but they towered over her nonetheless, their arms wrapping effortlessly around her delicate frame. As he stepped closer, he could hear them amidst the sobs, the prayers usually whispered under Inej’s breath now spoken loudly and without reservation. Their foreignness was familiar. Kaz might not have cared for gods or saints, for myths and legends, but the sound of their devotion still soothed his racing heart.

He stood back as they held one another. A feeling deep in his gut ignited softly, a spark burning in isolation: not strong enough to turn into a flame, but with enough heat to leave a scar. It wasn’t resentment — he would have given anything for her to have this moment, would have let the rest of the world crumble around them if that’s what it cost — but an aftertaste of something else lingered as he watched them. No matter how often he won, how deft defying the odds or complicated the scheme, he’d never have anyone waiting for him when the dust settled. Not like Inej did. Not like Jesper did. His victories had long been celebrated in solitude, and he’d come to terms with that years ago. 

Still, the feeling seemed to whisper, a voice in his head that sounded like someone he knew. Still.

“Kaz!” He blinked the thoughts away, straightened his back as they walked toward him. “Mama, Papa, this is Kaz Brekker. He’s saved my life more times than I can count.”

“Your daughter paints me in a better light than I deserve.” He looked at her as he added, “No one has ever protected me the way she has.”

Their eyes were locked, and he saw it again. One of the first lessons Ketterdam had taught him was to read faces as if they were words on a page. Any hand could be won, any man could be manipulated, if one could learn to see beneath the surface. Nobody could hide forever. Their hearts would give them away every time. 

Now he was grateful for the lesson. Not for the victories it had led to, or the money he’d won, but for the undeniable truth of what he saw. Adoration. When Inej looked at him, it was as if the entire harbor floated away, and all that was left were the tears in her eye and the smile on her face. It didn’t matter that the real joy had come from her parents; he would use any excuse to be on the other end of that look, regardless of whether he deserved it.

Kaz didn’t even notice her father until Inej stuck her arm out, spoke in quick and hushed Suli. He didn’t have to know the language to understand — Mr. Ghafa had moved to embrace him, until Inej stood in the way. Kaz had been lost in the endless depths of her eyes, drawn to them like a sailor to a siren, so fixated he would have drowned rather than tear his gaze away. Inej, his better in every way that mattered and every way that didn’t, had never lost sight of the world around them. Even now, when the threat came in the form of a grateful father, when her focus should have been at its weakest, she was still protecting him. 

He wanted to tell her that he would take it. The touch, and the revulsion that came with it. The gratitude he’d done nothing to earn. He would suffer any pain, subject himself to all kinds of agony, play whatever character she wanted, even the farm boy he knew had died in that river. He would hunt the world for her wretched saints and construct an altar of his own, if it kept that smile on her face. 

“Thank you,” her mother said, the words still muddled by the tears that had yet to stop. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

Safety didn’t exist in Ketterdam, and it certainly wasn’t what he’d given her when he’d taken her out of that Menagerie, but he kept his mouth shut, nodded curtly. That wasn’t his story to tell. 

“Every day, we searched,” her father said. “They told us to give up. They said you were lost, that those who took you would never let you go. They said you wouldn’t make it no matter where you’d gone, but we said no. Our Inej has angels on her shoulders and wings on her back. She can survive anything.”

If she hadn’t been before, Inej was crying now. With every passing moment, Kaz felt more and more like an intruder. He wondered if it was some sort of retribution for each time he’d sent her to creep in through someone’s window, to become the audience they weren’t aware of. How much had he learned from her being privy to moments like this, so intimate and exposed? What had it cost her to push back the guilt that came with the encroachment?

“I can,” she said. “But I didn’t have to do it alone.”

He listened half-heartedly as she told them about Wylan and Jesper and Nina. The house she was staying in, with a staff and a view and a life that was much more palatable to those unfamiliar with the stench of the Barrel. Painting over their history was effortless with those kinds of tools. The only question was how long it could last. 

As they began walking, he forced his face into neutrality, buried any evidence of the thoughts that ran through his mind. They would have to find out eventually. Perhaps not all of it, and ideally not all at once, but in due time the truth would become unavoidable. They spoke of survival as if it was an honorable thing, but where that ship had taken Inej, only those with the sharpest of claws and malleable of morals made it out alive. Dirtyhands may have become his title, but nobody around here could claim cleanliness. Not even the dead.

The path made itself clear, the flip of the final card coming to him with striking clarity. A death blow delivered by the river, turning a winning hand into a losing one in a single fluid motion. They had been looking for their lost child, for a little girl who only ever pushed the limits in a performance. But the secret to the Dregs was that everyone was already dead. They may have called themselves Crows, but like phoenixes born from the ashes of their old lives, rebirth was an entry level requirement. Whoever they’d gone searching for, the Ghafa’s had found someone else. He didn’t know when they’d realize it, when they’d look at their daughter and see a stranger in her place, but he knew the moment would come. And for the first time in his short and miserable life, Kaz longed to be wrong. 

Tuning back into the conversation, he caught the tail end of a list of relatives, each one having done their own part in trying to find her. Inej stood in between them as they walked. Kaz let himself fall back just slightly, a pace behind theirs. It was as much privacy as he could give out on the street. Things may have improved for the Dregs in the past few weeks, but that didn’t mean people weren’t still watching, waiting to find them in a moment of weakness, waiting for their chance to steal the throne Kaz and his crew had built from nothing. 

“We’ll send a letter as soon as we make it to your friends’ home. Nobody knew what to believe when the messenger came to us with news about you. Half the family were convinced this was all a scam, a ruse to kidnap us as well.”

“Your aunts will start planning the celebration before we even board the ship home,” her mother said with a smile. The tears had eased up, replaced with effortless joy and comfort. “Preparing the food will take half the length of the trip, at least.”

Inej let out a moan. “Nobody in Ketterdam knows how to cook properly.”

Her mother’s smile grew, something he hadn’t thought was possible. “Anything you want, I’ll make. Saints willing, I’ll be cooking for you for the rest of my life.”

“You’re in for a treat,” her father added. “Ever since the circus ended, your mother has been cooking non-stop. Everything will be better than you remember.”

“Wait,” her eyebrows scrunched together. “What do you mean, the circus ended?”

The smiles faded. “We tried,” he said, his voice tainted with the somber weight of grief that grew heavier over time. “But how could we go on without our star? How could we look to the sky and see someone else walking amongst the clouds?”

“It wasn’t fair,” her mother said softly. “To the family. They needed the performances to survive, but we…we needed every moment to search for you. We needed you to survive.”

They’d slowed their pace, and even though he slowed with them, they now stood nearly side by side. Kaz left a gap the size of a person between him and her father in a pathetic and slightly selfish attempt at disappearing. He’d have pulled an Inej and evaporated altogether, had she not asked him to stay. 

“I’m sorry,” Inej said, and he couldn’t see her face clearly but he could hear the tears in her voice. 

“For what, zheji?”

“For being the reason you stopped. Performing was our lives. It was everything you’d worked toward.”

“Inej, you are our lives. You are more important than any stage or crowd. You are worth more than any money in the world.” Her mother stopped walking, grabbed hold of her face as she said, “I would walk away from the circus a thousand times if it meant you were safe.”

Inej just nodded. The feeling snuck in again, quick and quiet and sharp; he forced it back down as they started walking again. He refused to let his pitiful, despicable nature ruin any part of this moment for her. 

“And who knows?” Her father said, the cheer in his voice somehow both authentic and artificial. “Once you come home, maybe we can put the show back on the road. Perform as a family again.”

Oh. So this was the moment. He’d known it was a possibility when he’d made the deal, but his mind had refused to accept it. The life he led required foresight, examining every outcome for every choice, but he hadn’t found the strength to prepare for this ending: the moment she left.

His step staggered ever so slightly. It shouldn’t have been noticeable, shouldn’t have disrupted the rhythm of their walk, but like a conductor trained to spot the lone instrument out of tune, Inej turned. She stared first at the ground in front of him, then brought her gaze up. Met his. An inquisitive look flashed across her face, as if she was searching for the disruption. Or perhaps she was searching for something else. 

He tried to school his features into something legible, to show her the answer she was looking for. The permission, although it wasn’t his to give. The forgiveness, although there was no guilt to absolve. Even when he wanted to fall onto his hands and knees and beg her to stay; even when the thought of her living across the true sea made the air around him grow thicker and his lungs smaller, made breathing a painful, labored thing. He nodded his head slightly even when every nerve in his body fought against it, because if there was anyone who deserved to turn their back on Ketterdam and leave it all behind, it was her. If leaving was what made her happy, he’d send her off without a single word of protest. If she wanted to fly on her own land, on her own accord, who was he to ground her, to tie her wings for the sake of his own spoiled heart?

Inej didn’t say anything, but the look on her face…Kaz wasn’t one to cling to hope, but he grasped desperately to her reluctance, to the way she bit her lip and kept her eyes away from her parents. Even if she also kept them away from him.

— 

Jesper had a thousand questions. 

He’d spent half of dinner begging the Ghafas for stories about Inej as a child, and the other half endlessly praising Mrs. Ghafa’s cooking. Kaz couldn’t fault him for the latter — Inej and her mother had spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, and what they’d come out with was quite easily the best meal he’d ever had. The way they managed to extract flavors he’d never tasted before from the ingredients he’d had at his disposal for years was an art form in itself, one that rivaled even his own general resourcefulness. And the smell. Envy reared its ugly head at the thought of Wylan and Jesper getting to enjoy the lingering scent long after the meal had been devoured.

“We had a guest faint during one of her performances.” Her father was telling the story with the same enthusiasm as he had with every one that came before. Where Inej was silent and still, her father was big and bold, every move exaggerated and every word announced rather than spoken. Kaz wondered whether it had always been her nature, or whether he was witnessing what Inej might have been had she not been forced into the shadows. 

“Faint? Because of Inej?”

“Oh, yes. You see, we realized that we couldn’t make it look too easy. Not that it was easy, of course, but when Inej walks that rope, it looks effortless. So we staged a wobble, a moment for her to pretend to lose her balance. Oh, the way people panicked! They’d hold their breaths and try to hide their eyes, but none of them could ever look away, not until she made it to the other side.”

“Was the woman who passed out okay?” Wylan asked.

Her father shook his head. “You misunderstand. Women never looked away. They stared with intensity, as if their eyes could carry her to safety. The poor man collapsed right there in the front row.”

“He didn’t even see the rest of my act,” Inej added. “That’s the real travesty.”

“Maybe he’ll come back and see how it ends once you’re home.” Kaz saw it again, the feeling streaking across her face like a runaway star. Only this time, it wasn’t reluctance: it was guilt. 

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what, zheji?”

The first words had come out softly, but when Inej looked up at her father, she spoke with the determination that Kaz had grown used to. “I can’t stay. I can’t rejoin the circus.”

“So you’re out of practice. It’s nothing a little time can’t fix! You have magic in you, Inej. That doesn’t just go away.”

“No,” she said. “I can’t rejoin the circus because I have to come back. Here, to Ketterdam.”

Her mother reached across the table, put her hands in her own. “They took you against your will. Against our will. Whoever stole you can’t stop us from taking you home. Nobody can keep you here anymore.”

“No,” she said, “you’re not hearing me. I want to go home. I want to see the family, to spend time with you. But I also want to come back.”

“I don’t understand,” her father said, and Kaz could hear the desperation creeping into his voice. “What could a place like this possibly have that would be worth leaving your family? Leaving your home?”

“Papa, it’s not about leaving you.” Jesper was practically bouncing out of his own skin, and Wylan’s eyes scoured the room in search of anything else to look at, but Kaz kept his gaze fixed on the table in front of them. A part of him knew the noble thing, the polite thing, would be to silently excuse himself, to give the Ghafas this moment alone. But Inej had started it with them there, and Kaz didn’t have the willpower to walk away before he heard her answer. 

“Then what is it about?”

“It’s about everyone else.” Inej spoke with fervor, impassioned with purpose and righteousness. It fit her better than being a spider ever had. “There are hundreds of little girls and boys going through exactly what I did. Only they don’t get rescued. They don’t have anyone looking out for them.” She spared a quick glance his way; he pretended not to notice. “I can’t go home while they suffer.”

“So it is us who should suffer, then?”

Inej groaned. “Mama, that isn’t fair and you know it.”

“Life isn’t fair,” her father said. “The world is full of terrible people, Inej. You can’t—“

“Trust me when I say I know the terrors of both men and women alike.” Venom had slipped into her voice. Kaz watched the shock slowly register across her parents’ faces, watched as they blinked at the girl who had replaced their daring but soft-spoken daughter. He wondered when they’d truly process her words. Back in Ravka? On the boat home? Maybe it would come while they lay awake tonight, dreams poisoned by the realization that some version of their worst nightmare had come true. That even though she stood in front of them now, seemingly all in one piece, Ketterdam had still taken something from her, and nothing they ever did could give it back.

“I only meant to say,” her father continued, his tone shifting into something gentler, “that this battle is one you’ll likely never win. There’s no end to greed. Not in this lifetime. Perhaps not even in the next. Every enemy you defeat, every man you force into accountability, will only be replaced by two more looking to use his failure as a stepping stone.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to adjust my aim. Target the root and not the weeds.”

“Why?” Her mother groaned, frustration and terror written all over her face. “Why does it have to be you? Someone else can save the world. Someone else’s daughter can play the hero. Why can’t you just come home?”

“Who, Mama? Who’s gonna save them if not me? Who’s going to watch out for them when their families are told they’re dead and nobody else comes looking?” She turned toward her father. “I know it’s a losing hand. But I’m not the same person I was before. I know how to win with anything now, how to bend the rules so they work in my favor.”

“But you don’t have to,” he begged. 

“If nobody ever tries, nothing gets better. I have to try, Papa. I owe them at least that much. I owe myself that much.”

The silence spread quickly. He knew there was nothing in the air, but the tension felt like a gas leak, like one spark could set the whole house ablaze. Kaz watched the way they stared across the table, each waiting for the other to break first but neither one wanting to watch them burn. Even if he hadn’t been a betting man, he would have known who to back in this fight of wills. Whether on the ground or in the air, Inej would hold steady. If nothing else, he could count on that.

Jesper clapped his hands, the sound echoing across the room that felt both overwhelmingly big and suffocatingly small. “So! Who’s up for a little music?”

—

Kaz found her exactly where he expected to. The sound of Wylan’s piano faded as he cracked open the window, pulling himself up onto the roof even when his leg throbbed in protest. 

Inej didn’t move, didn’t do anything to acknowledge his presence. She didn’t have to — she always knew where he was, just as he did her. Climbing up to her perch, he let the sounds of the city surround them. It never mattered what time of day it was: someone in Ketterdam was always awake, and therefore, no one was ever truly alone.

“They don’t believe me,” she said softly. He fought the urge to turn toward her; he knew that some words were more easily spoken to something rather than someone. “They think that the minute I get home, I’ll just forget about everything here.”

“Unfortunately, I think Jesper’s singing is going to be permanently ingrained in all our minds.”

He spared a quick glance, caught the corners of her mouth creeping upward. “Who needs to remember? I’m positive the sound will carry all the way across the true sea and into Ravka.”

“We should be grateful for their diminished armies, then. If they had the means, I’m positive this performance would be a worthy cause to go to war.”

She laughed then, just once, but saints the sound was enough to send electricity through his entire body. He’d start a war himself for that sound. He’d crawl into the Ice Court with nothing but his own two hands. He’d try and heal the shattered bits inside himself if it meant he got to hear her at her happiest, if he got to be the one to make her feel that way in the first place. 

Kaz wanted to stay like this, to poke fun and let the future disappear, to laugh and let the hard words hide beneath the sound, but he’d never had a habit of doing what was good for him. The dead of night exposed questions that cowered in the light of day, and for all his strength, he couldn’t resist knowing the answers. “Would it be so bad? To forget this place?”

“I could never do that. Not even if I wanted to.”

“You don’t know if that’s true. Time away, back with your family, it could help. It could…heal.”

Inej finally turned toward him, the daggers in her eyes as accurate and deadly as the ones strapped to her wrists. “Do you really think you could just leave and pretend like none of this ever happened?”

Part of him wanted to lie, wanted to believe in a world where the past stayed locked in history and the future could be its own thing entirely. If not for himself, then for her. But while the sentiment may have been foreign to her parents, Kaz and Inej spoke the language of the Dregs. There was a reason people got tattooed when they joined: being a Crow wasn’t something you could ever leave behind. 

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“Exactly.” She turned forward again, stared at the city as if it could give her whatever answer she was looking for. “All night, I could feel my parents looking for a ghost. They remember a girl whose only dream in life was to walk across air, but there are other things that matter more to me than the fucking applause.” She leaned back without losing her balance. “I don’t think they’re ready to see the person I’ve become.”

“Then they’re missing out on the strongest, bravest, and most honorable person in all of Ketterdam.”

Inej raised an eyebrow at him. There was curiosity in her eyes, and behind it, something more. Something he hadn’t seen on her yet, despite spending a considerable amount of time stealing glances, soaking in the sight of her whenever he could afford to. He couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like pride. “Since when do you care for honor?”

“Since you watched me at my weakest and my worst, and still deemed me a worthy cause for devotion.” He kept his eyes on her now, emboldened by the light of the moon and the truth of his words. “You look to your saints for guidance, but I look to you. So long as you stand by me, I know I haven’t strayed too far.”

As he spoke, he carefully slipped his hand out of his glove; when the only sound left was the echo of his words around them, he reached for her hand, let his own slide into place within it. Immediately the rush came, the concoction of emotions all tangled up and twisted. He squeezed, let the pressure of her reciprocation ground him in the present and on dry land. 

Pain would always come first. No matter how much time passed, no matter who he was with, Kaz wasn’t sure that would ever change. For so long the agony had held a chokehold on anything else that might come with it, suppressing desire until it was all but nonexistent. The longer they held onto one another, though, the stronger it became. Inej dulled the anguish until it was no sharper than a blunt knife, until he could feel everything else without being blinded by the blade. 

Eventually, she let go, only to shift and drop her head onto his shoulder. She rested largely on his jacket, but there was a sliver, right by his neck, where their skin came together. It set his pulse on fire. It felt like exhaling. Like holding something so delicate in his hands he didn’t dare breathe and risk disturbing it. The weight of her against him sent all his senses up into disarray, and he wondered for half a second if this was what the rush of parem felt like, because with Inej leaning against him. he swore he could see, hear, feel everything. The pain all but evaporated. The world came gloriously into tune, and now that he’d heard the sweet sound it could make, Kaz wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to tolerate a sour note. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, the sound nearly blending into the ambiance provided by the sky above and ground below, nearly drowned by the synchronous beats of their hearts. “Thank you for bringing them back to me.”

“Anything,” he responded just as quietly. “No matter the cost nor the reason. If you ask, I’ll do anything.”

“Why?” The question was so genuine, and he wasn’t sure he had an answer. How could he possibly put into words the feeling of needing her happiness as much as he needed air to breathe? What could he give her that could show just how deeply he craved her, and how terrifying and exhilarating and all-encompassing that desire was? 

“You asked me earlier about my tell,” he said after a moment. His eyes were fixed on the city in front of him, but he could feel her gaze. This time, it was he who couldn’t say the words to her face. “I gave you a half-truth. My tell, my true vulnerability, the thing that gives me away every time, is you. When you’re by my side, no one else matters. Not the rest of the team, not the job. Nothing.”

“Is that why you…?” She didn’t have to finish her thought. He knew what moments she thought of, the constant battle inside himself she became victim to. The back and forth, longing turning to avoidance that never managed to last. A cycle he had yet to fully break out of. 

He nodded, just enough for her to see it. “Van Eck knew. That day he…when he threatened to kill everyone else, he set the trap that I walked right into. In the moment when we were all in peril, he followed my gaze and saw who I couldn’t afford to lose.”

“That’s funny,” she said, and he stared down at her, the confusion written all over his face. She tilted her head back slightly, just enough to look at him without breaking the contact. “Had he turned his eyes to me, he would have seen the same thing. I guess we damned each other that day.”

“It’s not funny.” He desperately tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but control was a fantasy when his mind went back to that night, to the days he spent in fear of Inej being tortured or killed or worse. “I vowed to never let anyone hurt you like that again because of me. Because of what you hurting would do to me.”

The quiet settled back in, as if it had never left, as if their conversation had already dissolved into oblivion. Her head shifted slightly, eyes turned back to the city in front of them. He longed to watch her, to search in her face for the thoughts running through her mind, but she still rested against his shoulder, and he would rather throw himself off the roof than disrupt the comfort she seemed to find there. Patience was something he’d once considered a virtue, but now it was practically nonexistent. 

“We can’t control the rest of the world,” she finally said. “Nor can we stop people from coming after us. Torturing yourself to stop someone else from doing it for you doesn’t solve anything; it only guarantees pain.”

“I’m no stranger to suffering. I’d rather withstand self-inflicting wounds. Those I can control.”

“It's not just you who suffers at your own hand.” She broke apart from him, shifted her body until they were face to face. A chill settled in where her head had been. 

When Inej was walking above him, traversing through territory only few could manage, he’d allowed himself to pretend she was safe. That her perch protected her from the terrors that struck on the ground. But now, sitting above the rest of the world, all he felt was exposed. He was not Inej. He had no control here; be it to the elements or his enemies, or the one who held his heart in her hands. Every part of him was vulnerable. 

“When you hurt yourself, when you consign your life to misery on the basis that it’s coming anyway, you hurt me as well. When you keep your distance, I’m the one who ends up untethered. You want to protect me from suffering on your behalf, but all you're doing is delivering the death blow yourself.”

“I…I never meant—“

“I know,” she said, her voice gentle and calm and everything he’d never deserved. “But I refuse to accept that pain any longer. I can’t love you if you spend all your time demolishing yourself. I’ll go down with this ship, but I can’t stay if you’re the one poking holes in the deck.”

“You won’t have to.” He’d never been one for vows, but he spoke them now, wondered if any of her beloved saints could hear him. If they would even dare listen to someone as depraved as he. “I can’t promise a miracle. I won’t lie to you and spew falsities about changes in morality that I know are nothing more than a cheap trick of the light. You deserve better than that. You deserve better than me. So every moment you choose to stay by my side is one I’ll devote to earning it.”

A crash from below sent them both to their weapons, before the sound of raucous laughter eased their grip. Kaz wondered if they’d ever stop anticipating the fight, if that instinct normally developed at childhood’s end, or if it was simply another consequence of living in Ketterdam. 

“I should probably go rescue my parents. We’ve left Jesper and Wylan to their own devices for too long.” He watched as she floated down the roof, as if the surface itself was flat and level, as if the force pulling them down to the ground was only optional. When she got to the windowsill, he expected her to disappear, but instead she stopped, hands gripping the edge of the roof. “You deserve better, too,” she told him. “Better than you’ve got. Better than you’re going to get. One day I’ll make you believe it.”

Kaz didn’t say anything, didn’t so much as breathe, not until she dropped through the window and out of sight. He stared at the spot she’d left behind. There was no trace of her, nothing he could point to to prove she was there. Only the catch in his breath and the chill on his skin. 

—

It was something he’d almost gotten used to by now. The smell. Saltwater had been one of the first things he’d learned to endure. Success and revenge both relied on the seas, so he’d spent as much time by the water as he could, until he could tolerate the scent without having to empty the contents of his stomach after so much as a whiff. It had been a lesson, he’d told himself. Every time served as a reminder that in order to beat Rollins, he’d need to leave the broken child behind. He’d need to become something better. Someone new. 

He didn’t know if it was the smell now that was nauseating, or the sight of the boat anchored on the harbor carrying Ravka’s double eagle flag. Inej’s parents had already begun making their way to the dock. Jesper and Wylan had given their heartfelt goodbyes back at the house; Kaz had said nothing, but followed a step behind them, just as he had upon their arrival. Inej never stopped him. He took her silence as an invitation. 

They’d passed The Wraith on their walk, and now his eyes kept trying to drag him back to it. Her ship turned his body and mind into a contradiction, elicited responses that shouldn’t have coexisted. Pride and fear, joy and sorrow, guilt and righteousness. It tempted him like a puzzle he wasn’t clever enough to solve, made him think that if he just kept looking, he might be able to sort it all out. To find an answer to a question he couldn’t ever ask. 

“You’ll watch over it when I’m gone?” He turned to face her, unsurprised that she followed his gaze even when the boat lay out of view. 

“Of course. I don’t abandon my investments.”

“Tell Specht he can start trying to put together a potential crew while I’m away. And that he’s got the job as my first mate if he wants it.”

“I’ll pass the word along.”

“Tell him to look into the girls first. The ones from the Menagerie.” 

“They may be hard to find,” he said casually. “Now that Heleen is shut down, most are scattered to the wind.”

“Then it’s a good thing he’ll have you.” Kaz raised an eyebrow at her, and she rolled her eyes. “I know you’ve kept tabs on them. Offered a place in the Slat, a new name and fresh start. Offered them a ticket home, too, if they have one.”

“I work for The Wraith,” he said in response. “She expects me to rid the world of evil women and men. Can’t do that if the girls have nowhere else to go.”

“What a formidable employer.”

Kaz smirked. “Rumor has it she’s got heartsick fools wrapped around her pinky, and slavers and scum crushed beneath her fist.”

“Is that so?”

“If the whispers are to be believed.”

“Sounds like a handful.”

“Only for the scum.”

“And for the heartsick fools?”

Sincerity slipped back in and he let it, forgoed the smirk and the sarcasm entirely. “For them, it’s an honor.”

Her own smile faded, and he wondered if he’d made a mistake. If the price of genuity was her laughter and lack of tension in her shoulders, he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to pay it. “When I return — and I will, no matter what my parents tell themselves — who am I going to find?”

He wanted to tell her that he’d be the same person she left behind. That she could dock her ship and they could walk besides one another the way they have before, that nothing had to change if they didn’t want it to. But that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. And maybe, despite his own internal protests, that wasn’t the truth, either. 

For as long as Kaz Brekker had been alive, he’d had one singular purpose. Every choice and decision, every move he made, was done in service of that goal, the heist within all the heists. Brick by brick required time and diligence, so much so that it hadn’t left room for an after. It didn’t matter what name he used; the dominance, the relevance, the very existence of Pekka Rollins was never going to survive. Until the dust settled and he was still standing, Kaz didn’t think he would, either. 

But here he stood. And here she stood. The waves crashed against the harbor behind her, each one with a different incentive: the threat of drowning, the promise of infinite possibilities, the rueful fate awaiting any who would seek to control them. The sea dragged out what was left inside the infamous Kaz Brekker as easily as it pulled in the tide. In its wake, a rare type of tranquility remained. He had no plan, no scheme. There was only one thing left to give.

“I’m not sure,” he told her. He prayed she could hear the truth in his words. “But I know that each time you traverse the seas, I’ll be here on the shore. And whenever and wherever you decide to land, I’ll be there. Anything you need — support, supplies, a place to lie your head — you’ll have. What’s mine is yours. It always was. It always will be.”

Inej stared at him. If they were other people, he knew this would be the time for desperate hugs, for clinging to one another in some last ditch effort to fight off the sands of time. But they weren’t other people. They were Kaz and Inej. Products of the Barrel. Broken in all the same places. And he wasn’t sure he could handle holding onto her just to let her go. 

So they watched. Her eyes held the kind of radiance that the poets preached about. The wind pushed her braid back just slightly, as if it was trying to pull her toward the sea. The hilts of her knives glistened in the sun, peeking out only in places where he knew to look. If he was a religious man, he’d tell her she looked like a goddess, a deity escaped from whatever world lay beyond their own. If he followed the faith, he’d tell her that no saint, not even the one blessed with sunlight, could possibly outshine her. If he wasn’t a coward, he’d confess that he had already begun to pray for her, to beg the water to bend to her will, to keep her ship and her mission and her body and soul all in one piece. 

Years of walls crumbled under the weight of her gaze, and he let them with no resistance. He wasn’t sure what she saw when she looked at him, but he hoped she could hear the words he could not say. And the selfish, undeserving part of him wished she’d feel the same. 

The blaring horn from the ship fractured the moment. Neither of them flinched, but he watched her turn back, glance behind her at the vessel waiting to take her home. 

“I should probably go,” she said, but her feet stayed planted, her eyes already back on him. 

Courage came in the form of fear, his desperation to keep her in front of him shoving out words he hadn’t planned on saying. “When you return, who am I going to find?”

“I’m not sure.” She spoke slowly, and he wondered whether admitting it came with the same distress, the same relief, as it did for him. “But no matter what happens, I can promise you that I’ll come back. Not just to Ketterdam, or my ship. I’ll come back to you.”

“Why?” He felt sliced open just asking. No one else had ever had so many chances to destroy him without taking a single one. Part of him wondered when the shoe would drop, when the inevitable would happen and she’d turn her knife against him. How would her face look when she had his life in her hands? How long would it take her to realize he would welcome death with open arms rather than resist her? Kaz could think of no better way to die, no better way to live, than at her mercy. 

“A shadow,” Inej answered with a smile, “can only stray so far before the sun pulls it back where it belongs.”

He shook his head. “I’m the shadow; you’re the one who deserves to walk freely of me.”

She stepped closer, and his breath caught in his chest, sat right above his heart in glorious, agonizing anticipation. “Then every night I’ll pray for shade, so us figments of the dark can disappear together.”

Inej reached up, and it was only then that he noticed the gloves on her hands, thin and sleek, the same color black as his own. Despite the barrier, his heart still fluttered when she brought her hand up to his chin. She stood like that for a minute, her eyes searching for permission, and Kaz didn’t know what she was asking for but the answer would always be yes, yes, yes. 

Leaning toward him, she turned his head slightly, brought her lips to his cheek. They only touched for a second, maybe two, but it was enough to elicit another internal vow. He would find a way to fix as many of his jagged, shattered parts as he could, because the next time she brought her lips to his skin, he wanted to feel euphoria unburdened by anything else.

“I know I’ve said it before,” she whispered, “but thank you. For all of it.”

Whatever words, whatever courage he might have had, evaporated as quickly as it had come. The ship horn blared again but he kept his gaze steady, stole one last look, memorized the moment before it could fade. Inej lingered, as if she was doing the same, before she took a breath and turned around. 

Kaz watched. He watched her board the ship side by side with her parents. He watched her turn back as it began to pull away, the lone traveler facing Ketterdam rather than the endless sea. He watched until the ship disappeared into the horizon, the sight of it swallowed up by the glare of the sun. And even when it was gone, he watched for just a little bit longer, as if his eyes could carry her across the sea and into the safety that only existed in dreams and on a stage.

Turning around still hurt. Part of him longed to stay anchored to the harbor, to wait for her in the very spot she’d left him. But instead, he pulled his watch out of his pocket and began walking toward the Barrel. There was no time for standing around and waiting patiently. Not when he worked for The Wraith. She expected him to scrub their dirty home clean, and despite all his failings, Kaz Brekker refused to disappoint. 

[bougainvilea]

just need a steady hand to hold

[romanticfistfightz]

i bought a new onesie i think its cute so here yall go x3

[hinamie]

me: I want people to be interested in my ocs and their story rational me: ok great that means u actually have to flesh out the story and keep creating content so you have new things for people to be interested in! rational me: it’s tough but you’ll be happier in the long run because when you think about it you’ve had this story for years. don’t you want to see it somewhere other than your own head? rational me: this will give you the chance to develop the world more! and they’re your ocs so whatever you say goes ! me: ...but people aren’t interested in my ocs they’re here for fanart why annoy them w original stuff that they know nothing about 

[chestharrington]

okay yes this!! i sent the og one but im coming off anon because you are so correct and i agree wholeheartedly, don’t worry all of what you said make perfect sense

like i wrote the perv steve inspired by your blurbs and ive genuinely had a couple random anons say that it wasn’t perv steve cos he was genuinely creeping on the reader like?? i agree that it’s dangerous, and it does make me as a writer feel pressured to write more extreme shit for validation and to follow what everyone else is doing and it really is goddamn dangerous! i especially think it’s dangerous because these are characters people look up to and they’re being written in such extreme ways and everyone is just fine with it? i feel kind of bad saying it cos yeah write what you want to write if it’s got proper warnings on it etc but idk it’s uncomfortable and it feels like there’s something deeper going on with it, even over the last month stranger things fanfic specifically has gotten so much more extreme with kink stuff to the point that as a writer i feel like i have to do that to be ‘correct’ but like i don’t want to do that!!

and no you are so corrected with the fact that is it rooted in misogyny because so many people write like ditsy fem readers and again like write what you want but it’s ALWAYS that, it’s always that and a some dom man version of steve or eddie that first of all is nothing like the canon them and that always takes advantage of the less than intelligent reader and it’s frustrating and concerning!! because again it sets that standard as you said, i was exposed to similar things on the early internet and it genuinely does make you feel shame in vanilla sex and make you feel like it’s the norm to want extreme kink and it’s like no!! this in its own way feels like it’s just the next generation of desensitising a generation to extreme kink and instilling shame in healthy dynamics and vanilla sex because you’re made to feel like you have to want something more than that because everyone else seems to want more than that

apologies to rant and sorry again if none of this makes any coherent sense it’s just all straight from my brain but yeah, im just glad someone else is on the same page because i really do feel boxed in about it all, there’s no need to respond to this if you don’t want to and i apologise if i made you uncomfortable in any way at all

Omg no you didn’t make me uncomfortable at all!! I 1000% agree with everything you’ve written!!

Honestly I think people cling to the image and visibility of what character is popular at the time so they can project their fucked up abusive mafia boss OC or whatever onto the person who’s most attractive to the most people. And I feel like such a bitch saying it but like if these people genuinely watch the show and like these characters, I don’t think they could reasonably write them doing these sort of things?? It’s completely OOC and they don’t even acknowledge that

[bucksfucks]

holy shit you actually answered about the fact im having the worst week:) my friends is being rly toxic + heres the thing. I keep my problems on the inside. im one of those people that cry at night *silently* + im like the therapist friend. I listen to everyone, but no one gives a shit about my problems. like im depressed on the inside but a fucking bright ray of sunshine on the outside +if im sad, my friends say its a faze. im gonna have to continue on another ask because theres not enough room

this is a long post with lots of general advice but here you go bubs <<3

[me again. im literally so insecure and i hate my mental health and i hate that no one wants to hear whats going on with me. my aunt and i r rly close and i can't even tell her whats going on because i don't want pity simpathy. and i can see people talking abt me and i try to be pretty and i wear mascara because it makes ME feel pretty but im starting to get made fun of the fact that i wear it and i think im gonna stop wearing it now and i just cant anymore. i rly rly cant. i dont know what to do]

take what i say with a grain of salt, i am nothing more than a stranger on the internet.

first of all:

if your friends are being toxic; cut them out.

i know i’m being really blunt, but as someone who had a toxic group of friends up until 2/3 years ago—that shit is not worth it.

if they’re really your friends they would listen to you and they wouldn’t brush off your very VALID feelings.

second of all:

i really do encourage you to get your feelings out. i used to do a lot of journaling and found that it was very therapeutic!

if you can, please look into getting a therapist! i believe that EVERYONE should be going to therapy <<3 it’s not a sign of weakness and it’s honestly great.

i know not everyone CAN go to a therapist, but many schools have counsellors and services you can use!

third of all:

there is nothing to be insecure about—everyone has their bad days and their good days! acknowledging that you’re a work in progress is already such an amazing thing!

talk to your aunt!!!! she cares about you and loves you and sometimes you NEED a shoulder to cry on, and guess what? THAT’S OKAY!!

showing and feeling your emotions is NOT a weakness i can’t stress that enough. we’re humans, we’re emotional and bottling that up isn’t healthy—allow yourself to be vulnerable to your aunt and ask for help! <3

fourth of all (that doesn’t sound grammatically correct):

fuck literally EVERYONE who makes fun of you for wearing makeup. if YOU like it, WEAR IT!!! <<3

it’s hard, but as soon as you stop caring about other people’s opinions and start doing things for you, life gets easier.

if you like wearing mascara, i say you should keep wearing it!! people suck and there will always be someone saying something—but, who cares??

asking for help is not a sign of weakness. cutting out toxic people from your life is not a bitch move. living your life how YOU want is not a selfish choice. do the things that make YOU happy and make sure to take care of YOURSELF first!! <<3

[steponmepinkjun]

oh right yall actually call it mcdonalds over there thats crazy. way too many syllables. but yeah while we know felix as the bright and cute boy who becomes friends with everyone, theres no way he'd be able to keep that up in customer service. no one can. mf will instantly revert to the dark and intimidating image they tried to give him in the earlier eras bc of his deep voice. ppl pull up at the drive through and he just goes "hi ok what do you want." even the brightest people i know dampen as soon as they step foot into a maccas they work at, that shit is soul-sucking. that being said i do see him having fun bullying the managers into liking him bc thats what the eshays do and somehow it works. they just be a shit but get away with it cause theyre hot. i see this so vividly you dont understand maccas!felix was real i swear it

HYPEBEAST WANNABE HOODRAT THATS IT THATS ESHAYS straight up better wording than i could explain it lmfao. BUT YOU SEE IT NOW LIKE i hate eshays and i love my boys but i See It. besides teenagers are constantly tryna be people theyre not just to fit in so its not really a stretch for such a drastic change to happen in their personalities like it couldve totally happened i can see it. except chan left aus at like 13 so he was probs actually just an eshay in the making that never went through the full conversion LMAOOO

OK BUT LIKE THATS SO VALID OF YOU QUEEN... KNOW YOUR WORTH.... thats not stupid at all imo i actually feel the same for the most part. like yes i get all sulky when i realise people dont like me or whatever but thats only bc i Know im that bitch and i Know im worth it. worth more. i be all "hhuuu i want an s/o :((" but as soon as someone Breathes in my direction im like hmmm youre okay and objectively worth my time but i can do Better. can i actually do better? who knows! i dont go outside often enough to find out my ass is unemployed w like 2 friends lmAOoo but thank you, the reassurance does help, esp from a stranger on the internet who isnt like. incredibly biased LOL "I have genuinely spent the better part of several days looking forward to you possibly sending me more messages" that shit hurted. on god that shit hurted im !!!!! glad i could make your days at least somewhat more entertaining, you've definitely made mine. i laughed way too hard at your descriptions on how youd go off at a bitch who tries to slander the homies lmAOOO i felt that shit in my soul tho like if ppl hurt me ill be like well fuck you too bro but ppl even just give my friends a slightly less than ideal vibe i will physically manifest in their doorway at ass o clock in the morning and make sure they'll have nightmares about me for the next six years. genuinely considering jumping bitches for the homies at some point but quickly remembered i am a Noodle and will get my ass kicked. this is why i wanna take up martial arts no one will be able to stop me then. im here for skz bodyguard sara tho like go clock some sasaengs bitch!! ill hold your hoops girl go gettem!! in my experience skz havent actually had many bad sasaeng cases like most groups - probs bc theyre one of the few that dont really shove the whole 'boyfriend image' down your throats, cause their target audience is wider than just young women - but ppl do be getting real creepy w their families n shit like. chris's sister got a tiktok and shes still a minor and people were making some creepy ass comments about her and some even fucking shipping her with felix which is straight up disgusting, so like i might just take up hacking as a side gig so i can drop the addresses of these bitches and all the bullies who gave chan shit in school and you can go ham. team effort 🤝🤝

YOURE 5'8??? ok thats tall for me but thats literally like an inch taller than chan and felix GIRL you are not the giant you think you are. okay maybe if you wore platforms. you give me the energy of someone who would wear those like massive ass platform stripper heels just to assert ur dominance over them weak ass "alpha male" type guys who constantly need to be the tallest in the room. thats very powerful energy u got there im jealous, my 5'2 ass gonna be looking like an angry kitten tryna square up to someone and steal their kneecaps. how changbin is like short as hell for a cis dude and still manages to give off such strong vibes is a mystery to me. give me your secret, seo changbin. -felix bi anon

I s2g I pull up to the drive thru and see Felix and suddenly I'm a sugar momma w money to spare 😂 suddenly I'm "lemme treat you" vibes, suddenly I'm "lemme take you away from this life" energy, suddenly I'm talking him away from the deep fryer like I'm hostage negotiation, suddenly I'm picking him up after his shift and taking him to the Olive Garden on some "see honey, you ain't built for this hustle, you a classy broad, lemme show you the finer things in life 😌" ordering another $2.50 appetizer like I'm Somebody jshwjwjsjjd no but like ACTUALLY.... I S2G I have met, worked with, and cherished retail!Felix many times over my many years in crustomer service and I KNOW he's the cute lil burnout who won't hesitate to help you with closing duties, is always down to take an extra break w you to smoke you out and is universally beloved by all customers but absolutely hides in the walk in cooler every chance he gets. Retail will suck the fuckin soul out of you in the worst way I s2g, but I think Felix would be the type that's sweet as hell on the outside, but the second he's in the break room he pops OFF 😂 in that sense we'd def get along. Everyone needs their Sunshine Coworker. Personally I see Felix as the type that would be soo good at commission based retail, like he smiles and you melt, so you just get put under his spell immediately. He's also pays so much attention to detail that'd he'd know every detail of every product and be a killer salesman. And the idea of Felix just walking around all casual-like in a suit while he's selling fancy watches or some shit 😳 wit his lil bougie ass lmfao. And I just know that 3Racha work at Chipotle or somethin together and are CHAOTIC AS FUCK. Like the manager tries their hardest not to schedule them together because they're so off the rails together 😂 or probably like a skate shop or something.... Yeah very much that. Hyunjin would work at Sephora or the Guerlain or Tom Ford counter at a high end department store and you cannot change my mind. One time i saw someone say that if Innie wasn't in skz he'd be unemployed asf and I was like DAAAAMN WHY YOU GOTTA DO MY BOY LIKE THAT 😭 JUST CAUSE HES AN AQUARIUS SO HES A LIL SPACEY AND CHAOTIC LMFAO LET HIM LIVE 😭😭😭

LMFAOOO MANIFEST IN THEIR DOORWAY AT ASS O'CLOCK LMFAOOO YALL HEARD IT HERE, YOU TALK SHIT ON SKZ AND FELIX BI ANON IMMEDIATELY ASSIGNS THEMSELF AS YOUR SLEEP PARALYSIS DEMON 😂 VALID ASF, GET THEY ASS

OK no like on God I would actually have to smack a bitch for that kind of shit. His little sister?! Like Jesus fuck people are SICK AND TWISTED, SICK AND TWISTED... I'VE HAD IT OFFICIALLY.... I literally always forget any of them have siblings like in my mind they all crawled out of a little dewdrop-covered flower in a fantasy land forest, the idea that they are Actual Humans that were like born n stuff conflicts with how perfect they are, my gene pool could NEVA. That's so fucked though like.... Please some people really do be reading way too much fanfiction, that's straight up weirdo behavior, thats goon shit. That's get your ass beat with a quickness type shit, that's really "I will physically punt you like a fuckin football straight out your own window so you can be forcefully made to touch some fuckin grass" shit. I feel like I do love a lot of aspects of fandom, and I've been around the block and then some fandom wise (I was a part of the OG twilight fandom before the movies even came out... I have seen some DEMONS.....) but I def can't engage w most people in kpop fandoms. There's just like a weirdness to the amount of total disconnect w reality that they seem to think is normal behavior. A lot of weird performative activism shit that's totally unrelated to the topic, like I literally came out here to have a good time, not watch yall force some lil kid to speak on an issue they're not qualified to speak on and then attack them for being ignorant... And a lot of these people are KIDS, like straight up 14 year olds out here starting drama and mess. And don't get me wrong, I'm a messy bitch that lives for drama! But to come out w the most unabashedly psychotic and chronically online take of all time, and then when someone checks you for being a fuckin weirdo to scream "I'm a minor and your bullying me!!!" first of all if you don't get your ass on the fuckin school bus 🙄 why the hell you online when you have math homework? Take all the energy you're pouring into the internet and pour it into your school's yearbook committee or somethin, worry about your GRADES before you worry about your bias, child 🙄 and then it's hella animosity cause I'm "too old to be a fan" like baybeeeee, I don't know how to break this to you, but who do you think has the money to buy all this merch? You think they set these price points with your parents spare change in mind? You think your allowance is what pay their bills??? You think you're bankrolling the whole operation with your lunch money???? Peep the merch that costs one of my whole paychecks after shipping and tell me I'm too old to be a fan 🙄 it's not my fault that these idols couldn't hug you even if they canted to cause they'd catch a case, whereas I've been alive long enough to cook them dinner and give them life advise. I am SAGE, I am WISE, ya buncha fetuses 😂 And the idols that are my age? BAYBEE if you think Wonho gonna holla at a high school girl you are absolutely 1000% trippin 🙄 but I digress, cause I go feral for that man, oof 🥴 very much WOOF WOOF BARK BARK for that mans. But anyways. Yeah lemme find the names of anyone who was ever mean to the boys and suddenly it's "Alexa, play 'Pull Up' by Cardi B."

LMFAO THATS LITERALLY SO FUNNY CAUSE LIKE when I used to go out on the town n whatnot 😌 back in my stunt queen days 😌 I used to wear either these huge platform creepers covered in 2inch spikes that were sharp as hell, or I'd wear these 8inch stripper heels 😂 cause make no mistake, there's a reason strippers wear them, they comfy as HELL and even when I was drunk asf I never tripped or fell over lmfaooooo. Honestly tho like it's very much Leo energy for Changbin. I felt in my soul he was a Leo before I looked up the boys signs, he just has absolute "the world is a stage and I am THE lead role, bitch, whether you like it or not, yall can't TAKE ME" energy it's insane. I mean, as he should, like, it's very justified. They all embody their signs so well it like trips me out. I die for it, but I also die because of it. How they get anything done with three fuckin virgos tho, I will never understand 😂

[malafight]

mhhrhrhrhrhrrr okay im gonna cave and... go into a little more detail, i guess. not like, absolute breakdown of everything that happened, but i need to share a little to get it off my chest and some level of context is required to fully understand just how fucked up my therapist was today so im gonna put it behind a cut and uh, go against my Personal Feelings and turn off anon for a little bit to protect myself

this isn’t an attempt at getting attention or garnering sympathy; i wasnt pressured into divulging my Victim Status by anyone. im just an open book as a person, and i need to vent, and on some level i just need the validation that my therapist was wrong and how she treated me today was really fucked up

so i guess, trigger warnings under the cut: rape/sexual assault, victim blaming and probably some gaslighting by an authority figure who is supposed to be trustworthy, click at your own risk, im deeply sorry to anyone on mobile

so, in the clearest of words, i was sexually assaulted when i was 19, by a 24 year old. at least, i think he was 24. i don’t remember. i don’t even remember his last name; he was my first serious boyfriend, and my first sexual encounter, but i don’t remember his god damn last name. up until about a week and a half, two weeks ago, i just set it aside as A Bad But Consensual Experience, because for almost ten years i’ve been telling myself, word for word, that “i did it because i wanted to, not because i had to.” no deviation from those words, like a fucking mantra. i said it to my mom the night it happened and didn’t change it for almost ten fucking years.

i don’t remember much; some sensory details, him shushing me, crying afterwards and him telling me it can just be intense sometimes, mostly just dissociating through the whole thing.

i’ve dissociated through every sexual encounter since, all consensual on my part at least. i was uncomfortable and anxious and even scared around him after that, culminating in an ugly breakup soon after. i stopped using any penetration when masturbating, and didn’t start again until about three years ago, and even then it’s rare -- especially because it’s uncomfortable and often downright painful to get anything inside me now. it was always a little tough/tight, but not painful. only in the context of sexual stuff, though; i can get a super plus tampon in me and the only problem is getting it at the right angle so that it sits comfortably. surprise rape scenes in any media are intensely triggering, as are (stupidly enough) depictions of jasper being a rapist, which i understand is going a bit far in the projection department, but i unfortunately don’t control my brain.

i never understood why i felt broken because of this stuff, why it felt like something bad had happened that i couldn’t remember, until a conversation with a friend put it in a new light and made me realize that it was absolutely possible to be rape even if it was just finger-fucking.

i don’t remember saying no. but i definitely don’t remember saying yes.

i told this to my therapist today and here are some loose recollections of things she said to me, not word for word because somewhere in here my brain just checked the fuck out:

“since you can’t say for sure you ever said no, it’s kind of a gray area” “how can it be rape if it’s just his fingers, when he’s not getting anything out of it?” “it just sounds like you regret it” “why are you just thinking about it now?” “it sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself that it happened that way” “you should see a doctor to find out if there’s a physical reason for the pain” “i’ll have to do some research into what else might cause the things you’ve said made you feel like that”

when i tried to explain to her that, while i was technically a legal adult, i had been in an abusive household from 11 to 18 and the constant fight-or-flight stunted my development emotionally/mentally/socially, so i didn’t think i even understood that i was allowed to say no, that i didn’t owe him anything, she was just like, “wait, so do you have, like, a disorder?” and i was like “well, i have adhd, which is technically a developmental disorder, but i meant like-” “well adhd doesn’t delay you like that”

and throughout most of the thing she kept saying consulted instead of consented

and im just. so fucking upset. betrayed. and fucking angry. i fear for her past, current, and future patients who might come in with similar stories. and i’m still trying to silence the gremlin in my head that’s telling me i’m making it up, emboldened by the fact that An Authority Person Said So.

the worst part of this is that i have to be in counseling to get my meds, and she’s the only mental health counselor at that location. the only place that i can afford.

god. i feel sick, and fucking dirty, and just wrong all over, and everything from the bellybutton down feels like static right now. my skin feels like there’s something nasty and gritty under it and there’s a sour taste in my mouth.

i want to physically tear into her, tooth and nail, just to stop feeling like this. but instead i called and told her supervisor what she’d done, and her supervisor at least was like “wow, i’m gonna... talk to her i am so sorry.” so, there is that. i’m approaching this like an adult and not a terrified child or an injured animal, at least.

but god i just. i want to cuddle my kitten and sleep forever. i feel awful and i want to die. but i’m not going to. i’m going to take a nap, and clean house, and then go to work tomorrow morning like nothing is wrong. and i’m gonna go to new hampshire next week, and officiate cy and tree’s marriage on halloween, and it’s gonna be fucking awesome. i have a lot to fucking live for and im not going to let some insensitive, victim-blaming bitch be the reason i miss out on it all.

but boy howdy i am not okay right now, either, so im just. gonna take a nap.

sorry for babbling but i. needed to get it off my chest? and i needed to vent. so. here’s too much information, given to a thousand strangers on the internet, after which i have no control over it. i’m desperately hoping this doesn’t go badly, but who fuckin knows.

have a good night xo

[koifishanonymous]

hey buddy this is getting a little ridiculous

its kinda bananas that you are so obsessed with getting me to unlabel myself

1. ok so like. maybe to YOU labels are for others. not for me. but go off ig?

ik im not alone why do you think I follow a bunch of aspec blogs lll

do you think i list off my labels to everyone im attracted to

cause like i dont

i do it online because i feel the need to express myself somewhere

sweetheart, just because you dont feel the need to use more than 1 label to identify yourself is great, I'm proud of you

but like, not everyone feels that way

2. did you know I changed my user only after you commented on my original post about mspecs, when you first decided to be a dickhead it was random-red bcs I only used reblog.

we've come such a long way

you say that aspec labels are just bad. ok buddy you do you. again most people ik have CLEAR distinction between typed of attraction, but ig my experiences arent valid, only yours are

you ARE NOT MY BIG BROTHER YOU ARE A STRANGER ON THE INTERNET also you keep going on and on and on and on andon about micro labels being harmful but like?

cite your sources? at least once?

pretty bold claim, to assume i havent been a relationship and that i obsess over labels. i love it when strangers on the internet decide they know you better than yourself 😍

literally the only time i think about this shit is when you reply to my posts soooo

you on the other hand, seem fixated with idea of saving from future pain, you even used anothe blog, just to reply. whos mad here? me who does this at 3 am when there is no good fanfiction to read, or you?

also i said I yearn for something i dont want its almost like you selectively read my post.

you also said I was mad, but bro i wrote that post while watching netflix thinking about whay i would draw tmrw, i could not care less about you. im just a petty teen on holiday.

my aromanticism is not a core element of my personality. however, i would say that, at the core, i am a stupid stubborn bitch who will not shut up without the last word

but it seems neither are you

ya know what? let me sum it up

you don't believe in aromanticism/asexuality

i am aromantic

discussing on the internet will not change either our opinions, clearly

you can do 2 things:

1. drop it move on witg your life, try to reason that different people will have different experience with labels and their attraction and that maybe youre not always right because there is not right or wrong

2. keep on replying, rebbloging and ill keep doing the same until i have better stuff to do. its quite entertaining actually :)

for @rittz, replies have word limits

you've said many, many harmful things about the aspec community as whole. that much I can say, after having scrolled through your blog

you bring up time after time that microlabels, in my case aroflux or quoiromantic, are useless because everyone feels that way, again in my case in regards to romance.

I have 2 things to say

no, rittz, not everyone feels like there's something wrong with them because everyone around them know exactly what it's like to have romantic feelings vs platonic ones. I can assure you, people do know the difference, quite clearly actually. thanks to you actually, I've made progress with my identity as an arospec. I do think I experience alterous attraction, not that you'd believe in that. you say that a single label can capture an identity because they're influenced my experiences, and you're right. but everytime you fail to tell me why creating new labels to understand oneself is harmful. ''they are meant to quickly and easily convey “i am not attracted to men”, or “i am attracted to the same gender”, or “i am not attracted to anybody”. they are about WHO one is attracted to, not HOW. and when the “who”s start contradicting— like “bi lesbian”— it’s unclear'' you say, incorrectly. my labels are not for other people to understand who I'm attracted to or not, they're for me to understand myself.

you do not know me or my experiences, so you cannot tell me how to feel or that what I feel is ''normal'' because there is no such thing as ''normal'' when it comes to attraction. you say I should live my life without focusing on romantic attraction. but how can I do that if I yearn for something I don't want? you say I shouldn't identify as aromantic, which I don't, if I'm unsure. that's the whole point, I identify as arofluid because I'm not sure while everyone else is. you think, that just because I'm a minor, I don't know anything about myself. that I'm being a naive little kid using words I don't understand. you call yourself a queer elder, someone I should trust when learning about queer culture. and yet you call me names, belittle not only me but other aspec people, actively replying to posts about aspects positivity to not only spread misinformation but hate. is that how a queer elder behaves? sure, my generation has come up with a myriad of labels, identities and such to understand themselves better, but has that not been happening for centuries. lgtbqia+ started only as lgbt, because that was the terminology of the time and it is wrong to call it exclusionist. but today when thousands of unique identities exist to help people understand themselves better, it's a crime. non-binary started out just has hated. so did pansexual and other mspec terms. aspec people are valid because what they feel is real and not felt by allos. romance and sex are complicated and we deserve labels to accurately describe our attraction.

that being said, I do plan on blocking you because while you might see yourself as an older queer trying to ''protect and educate'' the younger queer community, you are quite literally insulting a bunch of kids because they dare have knowledge about their own experiences.

rittz, my beloathed anon, you have a really cool name but unfortunately having a cool name doesn't excuse exclusionist for the sake of pleasing cishet-double-allos

so long, rittz, so long

[petitalbert-blog]

So I'm still - still! - having panic attacks and self harm incidents courtesy of being harassed by the tradcraft mean girls last month, and it's bumming me out. (Don't send unprovoked insults and attacks to strangers; you don't know what they are going through or how it will affect them.) It's feeding into a lot of thinking I'm doing at the moment about the broken promise of the internet. How it does do all this cool stuff like link me with ideas and strangers and make me feel a part of global communities and invested in all sorts of people doing odd stuff. And yet also, it's always at the risk of assholes showing up and shredding you, and there's nothing you can do to prevent that. I think pagan tumblr has an especially bad crowd, but just in this last month I've put up with the same bullshit from like - my ferret forum. My origami forum. My artist trading card community. None of these are me picking fights with people, they're just people deciding that it's fun to stir shit with strangers on the basis of a 100 word post. The last time this happened badly, I had been out of the crisis ward for 2 days - so I messaged the person to say look, this isn't on, I don't want this kind of interaction online and they said "sorry im just tired" as if I wasn't still vomiting every time I consumed liquid. Part of the frustration for me is, for abuse related reasons, I know how badly this stuff fucks me up and have spent the last few years trying to change my relationship with the web to minimise it - I've unfollowed everyone who does it, stepped back from political blogs and conversations which tend to invite this kind of assholery, unfollow or block people instead of disagreeing with them, ghost-blocked a tonne of irl friends who behave like this online, and dumped anyone whose behavior extends to this in person. But no one can really stop drive-by hostility coming to find you. I'm thinking a lot about the Internet As Abuser. Bear with me. I find it hard to differentiate between voices on the internet, as I think most people do. You're not interacting with faces, just with text. I open my inbox and I don't know if I'm going to find supportive and kind messages from strangers, or strangers screaming in my face and telling me to die. Funnily enough, I'm frightened of reading my notes. Have been for years now. It's a pervasive sense of unsafety. It's the same person being unpredictably a source of comfort and a source of terror. It's not being able to defend yourself against it in any meaningful sense. Most of the people I chat to on tumblr are cool people who are lowkey my friends and who I've learnt a lot from. And three three or four times a year You know, it's just so normal. I've actually got a bit in my about where I say "please don't send me hate mail", but obvs no one takes the time to read that. It's normal to treat strangers like this and, if you're a really cool witch, it also boosts your "no one fucks with me" cred and nets you followers. Boy do I love being used as a box others use to clamber on top of. It's also mirroring problems I'm having in real life. Like, I'm afraid to leave the house or go anywhere or talk to anyone because I'm afraid of being attacked. So I spend a lot of time socialising on the internet instead where I - I'm too afraid to read my notes or my inbox or interact with anyone because I'm afraid of being attacked. I'm thinking about "creepy bus stop randos" as a comparable model for internet harassment and how to end it. To wit: three or four times a month ill be on a bus and some bloke will decide we are going to have a conversation, deliberately misread my body language, and saying "please go away and leave me alone" only makes things worse. Comparable in the sense that: 1) being in public is not consent to have conversations with you and 2) the onus is on the person starting the conversation to figure out whether their conversationee is into this kind of interaction and, if you're not sure, err on the side of not doing it. and 3) If the person seems to be uncomfortable, back off rather than inviting all your mates to have a go. I can't opt out of strangers getting in my personal space online or irl, and it bothers me a lot. I don't leave the house most days. And online, it causes problem like - far from hating creatives, I'm literally a full time working artist and author reliant on the web for work, except I'm too frightened to answer my work email or even look at it, and to update my brand blog or insta, and interact with people as I'm supposed to; I'm too frightened to work, but one can't opt out of the internet and be an artist these days. So it goes. My attitude is supposed to be "oh just ignore bullies and do your own thing", but like - this is the third time this week I've been alone and had this panic attack and ended up bloody. It's absolutely a Problem, a problem without end. Like, I don't have a good relationship with the web. I know that. It's just unavoidable; people in my life don't take requests like "I need zero access to the internet" seriously, and you need it to do anything nowadays. This is what happened for me in political environments too. For a while it was like - I hate how all the loudest voices here are mean bitches, I'm going to try and model a kinder sort of politics - and now it's just - I don't care about the collective, and if people want to create a mean environment then they deserve it. I just want the world to leave me alone. This is just the latest in a long series of hobbies and communities and environments where you're welcome only so far as you don't step out of line, and you accept people being mean without complaint. I don't want my existence to be series of standing up to bullies, I want people to be kind as a matter of course. I think this is a roundabout way of saying I'd like to start an old school blog and start putting my posts there instead. There's a post on my queue which I don't know is posted yet or not about the internet of my youth, how 90s html website culture and 00s blogger/WordPress culture were slower, quieter and more generous than the speed and the nastiness of interactive social media like tumblr and so forth. Those older blogging forms were shouting into the dark - you rarely got responses or knew who was reading, and as much as I love the interactions I have with friends online and the support I've had from strangers, I actually don't think that is enough compared to the constant, constant, constant terror the dark side of internet comms has for me. (Even livejournal - batshit as that was - had more ability to wall your content and make rules about interaction in your space than here.) It's my birthday today and all I've done is cry, and cut, and hyperventilate because a small power-hungry clutch of internet bullies have worked out that being performatively mean for their followers is a great way to drive traffic to their content and self-validate the power of their craft by having a fan club and picking on people who can't fight back. I can't get the feeling of panic out of my skin; I can't differentiate the voices on the internet enough to feel like 6 billion people on the planet all hate me personally, and that everyone I encounter is just waiting for an excuse to use me or hurt me or get the knives out; I can't face participating in another club or hobby or trying to meet new people because it's just going to be this same thing where everyone is nice until you get targeted by the big kids and have to accept it or leave; this is my 18th year in therapy, and there's nothing promising on the horizon to help me cope with these fears any better. But like, that's just humans for you.

[kashimos-hajime]

Well then I'll make this one meaner I feel bad man please only take this to heart for like 20mins max: you're a self deprecating bitch who seeks validation from strangers on the internet to feel better about your shitty body image and dropping grades trying desperately to block out the hell your life has become and escape regularly because you're too weak to actually get your life together and pick a university forcing you to live at home your while life then die without being remembered

i love you so much oh my god. okay wait let me respond as if i didnt ask for this

1. i am a self-deprecating bitch you fucking right

2. i love most of my body and im a straight A student good night

3. bold of you to assume my life was actually together in the first place

4. my mother would never allow me to not go to university so guess im going anyway boo

(i loved this thank you but it didnt work either because ive already thought about all of this but its too late now. ohkasdja and if you feel bad dont force yourself to do it ahh i dont wanna make anyone in my blog feel bad except me. do NOT PROSECUTE MY ANONS. THEY caught ME SLIPPIN)

[lesbiansirius]

mutual(s) pining

a work brought to you by bunfox productions, aka yours truly and @lesbianremus! you can also read it on ao3, right here. big thanks to the lovely @nachodiablo who looked it over for us!

this is a prompt fill for the weekly prompt at @introvert-club. this week it was “internet crush”. anyone is welcome to participate, and use the tag #wolfstar introvert prompt for us to see! enjoy :) 

Some days, scrolling Tumblr is pretty boring. A flower, a transparent backpack, a dejected joke about depression, a dead Soundcloud link, nothing to inspire. Sirius is hunched over their laptop, watching the screen with their chin resting on their hand. A long discourse post they can’t be arsed to read, gifs from a show they don’t watch, and then.

Inspiration strikes.

It strikes in the form of two selfies. The person in them is standing in a sunny garden, curls spilling out from under a snapback, and smiling with their eyes closed. You can see lilacs blooming in the background. The person has freckles and a t-shirt with a whale on it, featuring the text “I’m a little overWHALEmed”. Same, Sirius thinks.

They click follow without even looking at the blog.

Remus squints at the tiny, seemingly innocuous, line of text on her dashboard. It’s sandwiched between a masterpost of transfeminine resources Lily’s reblogged (tagged #dead useful tbh #remus i told u joining tumblr wld be worth it) and a post from one of Lily’s friends about how Glinda the Good Witch is trans agenda (shows up at the beginning of Act 2 with a new name).

padfoot has started following you

Who the fuck is padfoot?

Remus quickly opens a new chat, typing in Lily’s url. She had made Lily show her how to do this chat business first, after changing the aesthetically horrifying default blog layout.

do u kno a padfoot

Lily, eternally both awake and online, replies immediately.

wtf is a padfoot

oooh hang on actually i think i do

???

ya they’re one of my mutuals. mostly posts vids of them singing and reblogs pics of animals, iirc

why are they following me??? i don't want to be followed!!

remus chill ffs. it’s not like stalking. they just see ur posts

i dont even have any posts! well except those pics marlene took that u INSISTED i put up here

ur welcome. i bet they think ur hot ;) ;)

hilarious.

remus when will u accept ur cute n give the people what they want!! (more selfies)

im unfollowing u

my dash would be more appealing w just the staff blog posts

im ignoring ur paltry attempts at threats. also, i just went and looked and ya i had the right person. u should check out their vids

why

its polite 2 at least LOOK at someone's blog if they follow u!! honestly remus my 86 yr old grandma is more social media savvy than u

Remus chooses not to reply to that. She does click on padfoot’s blog, though. Not because Lily suggested it, just because she’s curious. What about some boring pictures of her in a garden screamed ‘good content’ to this stranger? Maybe they’re really fond of lilacs, or something.

“What the fuck?” Remus says, glaring at the still shots of the youtube videos embedded on the page in front of her. Whoever padfoot is, they’re apparently unfairly attractive. Remus clicks play on the first video, half-hoping they’re an appalling singer to make up for the ridiculously good looks.

Two hours later, Remus’ phone buzzes, jolting her out of her Tumblr coma and back into reality.

did u die? Lily wants to know. Remus calls her.

“Why would you assume I’m dead?”

“I’ve been knocking on your door for the past ten minutes, asshole.”

“Oh,” Remus looks guiltily down at the headphones she’d put on three videos in.

“Well come open the door,” Lily gripes. “We’re late.”

*

“Can we be late for a thing that we scheduled between the two of us?” Remus points out, as Lily tugs her down the stairs. “You barely even gave me time to put on proper clothes,” she complains.

“We said pub at five. It’s not my fault you weren’t ready.”

“Actually,” Remus says with a self-righteous sniff, “it was. You’re the one who told me to check out padfoot’s blog.”

Lily pauses, looking over at Remus.

“Yeah, three hours ago.”

“Two and a half,” Remus mutters.

“Wow,” Lily smirks. “I knew they’d be your type.”

“Shut up,” Remus grumbles. “We’re going to be late for Weekly Lion’s Den Bitch & Moan.”

“I thought it was impossible to be late for something we scheduled between the two of us,” Lily says mockingly.

Remus walks off without her, ignoring the sound of Lily’s cackles following her down the street.

*

Sirius straightens up from the computer and looks for James. He’s in downward dog position in the kitchen area, because of course.

“Hey,” they say, “quick question.”

“I’ve told you a million times not to interrupt me while my arse is reaching for the sky.” James sounds a little strained, but he still manages to get in a sigh.

Sirius groans. “This is important!”

“More important than my spiritual health?” But James walks slowly into a forward fold, and Sirius waits for him to get upright, one vertebrae at a time. They tap their fingers against their laptop.

James reaches his hands up towards the sun – or in this case, the orange plastic lamp in their kitchen – then finally gives Sirius attention.

“Okay, what’s the quick question?”

“How long should you be mutuals with someone before casually striking up a friendship?” It’s probably not causal to even ask that literally two minutes after the person follows you back, but whatever.

James rolls up his mat and chuckles. “You’re talking to me, literally the least casual person this side of the equator.”

Sirius frowns. They’re used to James always giving advice. Admittedly, sometimes it’s bad advice, but nonetheless.

“You mean I have to use my own judgment? Eh.”

“When I’m your manager you’ll never have to do that,” James jokes.

Sirius doesn’t reply; they’re actually checking out the pretty stranger’s blog now. The title is ‘why are they forcing me to have a title’ and the bio just says ‘she/her’. The pictures are the only thing on the blog. Well, that didn’t exactly help. Tumblr friendships are usually based on mutual interest. Maybe they could strike up a conversation about lilacs?

“Okay, well, thanks for nothing,” they tell James. “I have nothing to go on, my crops are dying, and I haven’t even posted a video in a week.”

“But your crop tops are fine.” James winks and slumps down next to Sirius, looking over their shoulder at the mysterious whale person. “Wow, pretty.”

“I know! The only good thing on Tumblr today. I need more!”

“You need chill,” James says firmly. “Wanna go to the pub?”

Sirius closes the laptop decisively. “Always.”

“Let me change, I’ll be ready in a few.” James gets up, giving Sirius an unnecessarily detailed view of his ass in yoga pants. “And you should put on one of those crop tops.”

“But remember the last time you went out in yoga pants.” Sirius grins. “Worked out well, didn’t it?”

James shakes his head. “Not tonight, honey, I’m tired.”

“It’s hard work being popular.” Sirius shrugs.

They do take James’ advice to change into a crop top, because even if James isn’t up to being hit on, Sirius could use the validation. And they look fucking awesome in a crop top and fishnets.

It’s just a few days after payday, and the time of day when people are off work, so they only barely manage to get the last free booth. Sirius sits down on the edge of the sofa, strategically placing one leg over the other so they’re visible to the people who pass by. It might not be a whale pun or lilacs, but Sirius’ legs rarely fail them.

James returns with an ale for Sirius and his own awful lager with cordial in it. The pink makes it look pretty, but that’s its only redeeming feature in Sirius’ opinion. James sighs happily when he takes the first sip, though.

“Did I tell you about that movie I found the other day? It’s like a comedy about vampires and werewolves, it’s amazing.”

Sirius listens to James try to explain it, and they then spend a considerable amount of time discussing various vampire questions. Do they get boners, and how? Can vampires be vegan? Are there vampires working night jobs that no one knows about?

Their stomach is hurting from laughing by the time Sirius gets up to get a second round. When they get back, James isn’t alone.

*

Remus pushes the door open to The Drunk Carnation, holding it politely for Lily, in spite of what a pain she’s being today. It is Lily’s turn to buy the drinks, which cheers Remus up slightly. At least if she’s going to be mocked she can do it over some semi-expensive alcohol.

Once they’re seated, Remus quickly changes the subject away from Tumblr.

“So how’s your acting class going?”

“Pretty well,” Lily says, sipping at her Seven and Seven. “That creep still won’t stop asking me out.”

“I thought you were going to ask the cute clumsy one to pretend to be your boyfriend?”

Lily shrugs.

“I still might. It’s sort of hilarious watching him work up the nerve to talk to me, though. I’m not sure if I want to put him out of his misery yet.”

“You’re a cruel woman, Lily Evans.”

“Anyway,” Lily says, shrugging off what she probably considers a compliment, “you aren’t getting off that easy. What did you think of padfoot?”

Remus groans, dropping her forehead onto the table and nearly tipping over her can of PBR.

“They’re fine,” she grumbles.

“Someone’s got a crush,” Lily sing-songs. “Hang on.” Her tone of voice changes slightly, and Remus looks up, following her line of sight. She recognizes when Lily’s ‘cute person’ radar is going off. “Weirdly,” Lily continues, looking back at Remus, “that’s him. They guy from acting class.”

“Oh,” Remus frowns. “The creepy one or the one you’ve set your cap for?”

Lily snorts.

“The latter, Jane Austen.” Remus smiles over the top of her beer, but doesn’t reply. Lily looks oddly hesitant for a moment, before her expression clears. “We’re going to go say hi,” she says firmly. Remus groans, but let’s Lily tug her to her feet. “Oh stop moaning,” Lily says.

“I thought this was a dedicated romance-free evening,” Remus says self-righteously.

“It’s just a hello.” Lily strikes a pose as soon as they’re alongside the table, cocking one hip and tilting her head flirtatiously. “James. Fancy seeing you here.”

The man at the table starts slightly, looking up from his phone. He widens his eyes and nearly drops the poor phone into his drink.

“Lily? Oh. Wow, hi. Hello.” Remus stifles a smile as James glances over at her. “Erm,” he says, getting awkwardly to his feet and holding out a hand. “I’m James.”

“Remus.”

“Nice to meet you,” James says politely, before his eyes drift inevitably back over to Lily. “Would you two like to sit?”

Lily looks over at Remus, raising an eyebrow. Remus sighs inwardly, resigning herself to a dull evening of playing third wheel. She knows Lily will go back to their table without protest if Remus asks her to, but she can also see that Lily is more interested in James than her conversation about him had let on.

“Sure,” Remus says, sliding into one side of the booth. She sits on the end, so Lily and James are forced to sit next to each other. Lily grins at her from across the table, and James looks to be a strange combination of thrilled and alarmed.

Remus is just trying to think of a way to excuse herself to give the two of them some time to talk, when someone else approaches the booth.

“I leave for two minutes and you’ve already replaced me,” the person says, heaving a dramatic sigh. Remus just barely manages not to jerk up her head, but she’s staring so intently at her beer that it’s possible she looks like some sort of deranged beer label design student.

Oh no, Remus thinks. I recognize that voice. James is babbling out some kind of protest and Remus’ stomach clenches up. Have we interrupted some kind of date?

Fortunately, Lily quickly takes charge.

“You’re too late. He’s mine now,” she says with a grin. James looks like he’s struggling not to combust on the spot, and Remus stifles a laugh. She’s grateful Lily’s given her a moment to get her equilibrium back. The stranger, padfoot, Remus’ brain helpfully supplies, slides into the booth next to Remus. She turns, friendly expression carefully propped up on her face, and smiles.

“Hello. I’m Remus. The extremely rude one across the way is Lily.”

“Cheers,” Lily says, sipping her drink.

“Sirius,” padfoot says with a grin, holding out a hand. Remus shakes it, trying not to look terribly star-struck.

I can be chill about this, she tells herself firmly. A tiny voice in the back of her mind is screaming that’s a GIANT lie, Lupin. Sirius is even cuter in person and they’re right there, nearly touching her and they smell really nice and it’s horribly distracting. She can’t even escape to the bar to get her head together because Sirius has just brought new drinks and Remus is now trapped against the wall.

“So,” she says a bit desperately, “how do you two know each other?”

Lily, who has apparently decided she’s fulfilled her helpfulness quotient for the year, just smirks at Remus over her drink and lets her flounder.

*

“How don’t we know each other?” Sirius waggles their eyebrows and grins. They then want to punch their own face.

James laughs nervously and glances at Lily. She is pretty, but he’s pathetic. Unlike Sirius, who’s the epitome of coolness right about now.

Remus looks a little pink. It’s adorable. “Oh, were you on a–”

“I beg you not to finish that sentence,” James cuts in. “Sirius is just being a dick. We know each other from school, way back.”

“Clearly this school thing is the way to meet people,” Remus says. Sirius laughs, possibly more than the joke warrants.

But Remus is wearing another t-shirt with whales, and is so beautiful, and Sirius feels like bursting into song. They’re lucky Remus and Lily didn’t turn up after a couple more beers.

“I like your shirt,” they say and nod towards Remus’ chest.

Remus looks down on her beer and giggles. “Whale whale whale,” she says, then looks up. “Get it?”

Lily groans on the other side of the table, but Sirius laughs again. They can’t seem to help it. This person is their kryptonite. “That’s funny. Do you have more of these?”

Remus tells them about the overWHALEmed t-shirt and Sirius pretends not to already know about it. James casts a smug glance at Sirius every now and then, but he looks too nervous himself to be gloating.

“What do you do for fun?” Remus asks, turned to Sirius, her leg almost touching their skin through the fishnets.

“I like singing,” Sirius says. “But it’s not too serious.”

“Ha–” Remus starts, and Sirius groans and buries their head in their arms. “Sorry,” Remus adds quickly. “I’m sure you get that a lot.”

“You have no idea.” Sirius lifts their head again and smiles. “Anyway. What do you like?”

Remus hesitates. “I write,” she says. “But nothing too– er, consequential.”

“Nice save.” Sirius braves nudging her arm with their elbow, and Remus looks at them and smiles.

Sirius doesn’t want to look away. Remus smiles like she’s holding back a much bigger smile, giving the impression that there’s just too much sunshine in her to contain. Sirius spills over.

“I followed you on Tumblr earlier today,” they blurt out. “I liked your selfies.”

Remus goes red. That was the last reaction Sirius had anticipated, but it’s not terrible. “I know,” she admits. “I don’t understand why, though.”

Because you’re beautiful. “They were very aesthetically pleasing pictures,” Sirius improvises. “I was so uninspired and then I saw them and it was good content, what can I say.”

Remus is shaking her head. “Not as good as your singing.”

“You checked out my blog?” At this point, the point where their arms are touching feels like burning, but it’d be weird to move now. Also, Sirius doesn’t want to.

“I don’t have more than ten followers, of course I get curious,” Remus says defensively. She’s not moving her arm, either.

“Really?!” Tumblr really is a hellsite. Remus, no more than ten followers? Atrocious.

“Yes?” Remus looks puzzled.

“You don’t want more?” Sirius is grappling with this concept.

“Not really.” Remus shrugs. “Anyway, I listened to a bunch of your songs, and I really liked them. You should be the one with more followers.”

“Thank you.” Sirius doesn’t know what else to say.

Lily clears her throat. “Excuse me for interrupting what I’m sure would have been an incredibly drawn out flirting process, but I’d like my best friend back, so if you could just exchange numbers now that’d be great.”

Sirius makes a surprised exhale, and Remus moves her arm back at lightning speed. “I will murder you,” she says calmly.

Lily just smiles at her. “Sure, but let’s get drinks first.”

“I’m sorry,” Remus mutters. “May I get out?”

Sirius gets up and gives way, watching with amusement at how James tries not to die when Lily passes him in closer proximity than he could possibly have hoped to have her. They say goodbye, and Lily and Remus start walking away before Sirius finds their bearings.

“Wait!” They take a few long steps to catch up. “Actually, Remus, I’d like that number, if you want to give it to me.”

Remus raises her eyebrows and her mouth opens slightly. How she’s making “flummoxed” look hot, Sirius has no idea.

“Sure, yeah.”

Lily looks extremely smug as they exchange numbers. Sirius is not looking forward to the look on James’ face when they get back to him.

Remus gives them one last barely-contained smile before her and Lily leave, for real this time.

Sirius looks at their phone and starts laughing. Remus saved her number as ‘whale endowed’.

Yes, Sirius has definitely been struck by inspiration.

[feliicityrampant]

i normally wouldnt respond to this sort of reply because 1) its very personal and 2) having to constantly explain and defend myself is exhausting but you seem like a nice enough dude and theres a couple of points i wanna make in general.

first of all, please dont tell me to slow down. if anything it was you who jumped the gun by assuming this post was about teenagers. theres a number of things that should have been clues to you that this was about adult men: my use of the word "man", my age (intentionally very visible on my blog), and the number of people reblogging this post specifically to talk about their fathers and male celebrities. my response was reasonable given the context you provided me and generous given the amount of reactionary harassment these kinds of posts inevitably recieve and which ive already gotten. please dont diminish/dismiss it by baselessly assigning it an emotional basis.

next, im not qualified to or even interested in discussing your personal experiences or your mother's personal experiences. im not a therapist. i cant tell you how witnessing your mother being abused andd being bullied in such a gender-based way affected your development. im also not a psychic. i cant divine the many many details of your life and your mother's life that you havent disclosed or which you arent even aware of that shaped you and your mother. please also know that this isnt an invitation for more information.

what i can tell you is that when women talk about men as a class, we are talking about societal tendancies, not every individual behavior of every individual man alive. to us, this is obvious and should be obvious to anyone listening. when a woman complains about something "men do" you can safely assume, for example, that she knows jesus probably didnt. when men respond "not all men" they think they are reminding us about any specific man in our lives but what they are actually doing is telling us that these societal trends dont exist, though they clearly do, and that they arent harmful to us, though they clearly are.

i want you to take a moment and put yourself in the shoes of a woman. youre hanging out with a good male friend of yours, whom you trust and love, when he makes some comment about another woman being a bitch or about her body or any number of things. to you, this person was "not all men." you didnt have pessimistic expectations, quite the opposite. maybe this person even calls themselves progressive or has been sympathetic in the past. how do you think you would feel in that moment? now i want you to imagine this happening repeatedly. over and over. look at the tags on this post. install tag viewer from new x-kit if you must. look at how this is a regular experience for women. we are doing exactly what you are saying we should - approaching men expecting better - and having our trust broken over and over again. how do you think that feels?

i have been composing this response over the course of my work day on and off as time permitted. i spent my whole lunch break on it. i say that not to get a thank you or an apology or something else - as i said, i dont normally write these kinds of responses to the many many arguments that people try to initiate with me and i dont consider myself beholden to strangers on the internet. but women - and not just women but anyone belonging to a marginalized group - are consistently expected to devote this time and energy to explaining ourselves and our feelings in detail to men who have already decided they dont believe us. its exhausting. its excruciating. especially since so many well educated and well spoken people have already articulated these things in widely published formats, available to anyone who cares to spend, say, their lunch break looking. so when you dont recieve a response or recieve what seems to you to be a hasty or rude response, i want you to think about why that might be.

thats my piece. i dont want to argue about it. the validity of my experiences isnt open for debate. particularly not when theyre being so powerfully responded to with "yeah, same."

you ever see/hear a dude you liked/admired say or do somethin gross and suddenly the veneer washes away and you finally see him as he is and ur like “wow he really was a man the whole time”

[somedaypast-thesunset]

im in this like .. cycle i guess. 

i want to reach out for support because i feel a lack of support but to express a lack of support offends people around me (despite their lack of support) and i lose even the smallest amount of support i had 

i’m really sad lingering on feeling depressed. and im trying hard to reprogram my brain to see it as feeling depressed and not being depressed because its like acting out the emotion of depressed as your character and i just want to feel it because im not in a movie. 

i had an issue with my roommates dog while being in immense pain from a stupid cyst and literally no one would help. as i laid on the floor in pain i knew no one would actually help. it wasnt until 11pm that he returned a phone call i made at noon and when i said i was in pain he offered to bring me to his house and take me to the doctors tomorrow. 

but his whole attitude had changed like i was really burdening his life now and i guess he was calling to tell me he was leaving like the next day or somethng and now ive interrupted it. of course he didnt “say” this but it felt heavily implied and i never really felt comfortable being around him. he didnt want to show any affection and seemed to avoid it, slept through the day and had us go to bed at 10pm 

he had mentioned briefly that he would take me to the doctors again today but pack up and leave in the evening. this morning it was the same awkward uncomfortableness and he had like little desire to talk to me. i thought like if that was our last night and this is our last morning i guess it really says alot. like i guess if im ever severely injured he will begrudgingly help me in some way but he’ll have a really shit attitude about it and i can be nothing more than grateful i guess?

i told him i would take myself to the doctors. he said okay. i said i was leaving in 10 minutes and he said okay. i sat feeling really sick and i understand, a bit, that alot of this sickness comes from feeling really alone in other areas of my life. so theres like this giant hole and immediate panic when the person who was atleast occupyng space in the hole leaves. but if i had other people i wouldnt feel such panic - i’m thinkng like wow i’m fucked if i’m actually hurt. or if i get sick. like i cant expect any help from anyone even though they all receive some kind of help from other people. i cant even make a call to anyone and express anything at all without them having to go or do something else in their life that im not apart of. and its not just bad timing -  i could wait and wait and im just waiting for someone to make the time for me and i have to be grateful that anyone would set aside even one hour of their day for me and ive not been around other people who understand the complexities of this. like, of course im grateful. im extremely grateful. thats like all i think about for that hour that thank fucking god there was a single human being willing to give me this time so i could even help myself in some way. 

and its not like i dont give this. ive given soooooooooo much of this an got nothing in return. except that i have to feel super grateful for the hour i get in return for my huge investment into their lives. and its like at nooooo point can i ask my mom for 20$. i cant ask my dad what credit card i should get. or if this person is ripping me off. like i get that i can (an will) do all these things myself but i dont even get the priviledge of receiving valid learned advice from a trusted source - i get jack offs and reddit commenters explaining how a mortgage works. or how to buy a car. or the best tips on a driving test. and when im sad and lonely? i get to turn to strangers on the internet or i guess worse, this. even though its likely no one at all will read this. when im really sick? i make chicken soup for myself. i go to the store for myself. i maybe find a ride to the doctors and mabe get lucky the pharmacy is there too so i dont have to ride the bus.when i feel like everything is chaotic? i return to cats. 

but hey - i’m going to be a “stronger, smarter” person right? thats what it all boils down to. lacking soo much will somehow make me stronger and smarter than the next person who already has these things. doesnt that seem so dumb? to me, i just worked 10x as hard to get to the same place that someone else did with half the work. but im “stronger and smarter” for the effort. i think you’re wiser and more resilient. because you become wise through experience and knowledge of the experience - but you can still be dumb as hell. you arent stronger - you just learned to put up with more; that’s resilience. you couldn’t use resilience like you could use strength. it just means you didnt give up. 

and thats not a negative but when you place it in this light i think it conjures a different respect for the lack of priviledges that it takes to reach “wiser and more resilient’. 

right now im really.... alot of things. i feel sad and angry and frustrated and bitter and envious. im trying to respect other peoples journeys but its leaving me really fucking alone. i told him i was leaving and he said bye. that could very well be our last personal encounter and i guess i appreciate that i left it as is. instead of trying to shape it into something it wasnt going to be, i just accepted that this was the choice he was making. of course, its easier to leave when you disconnect from someone/the things around you. 

i personally feel that this is the end of the relationship and my expectation is that he’ll be gone in the next 24 hours. i think i would prefer to leave our last encounter as this. although he “asked” multiple times how i was feeling or why i didnt feel good - i knew that he wasnt even the person to be talking to about it. how could i explain any of this to him? he has really not understood it and its doubtful he ever will. i expect nothing from him now - maybe i did before. maybe i wanted to have something real with him, like how we pretended to have. and i guess he showed his ‘support’ but like - youre leaving anyways. what happens when youre gone? does it matter? 

i cant ask these questions because theyre already answered. nothing happens, life goes on. you got what you got for the time being, be grateful. 

its not just him i feel this way with - i actually feel this way with multiple people ive been around. i cant talk about these things beacause it implies they dont care. and they do care otherwise they wouldnt have given me a ride or a sandwhich or bus change or sat wth me for an hour or smoked me some weed. BUT NONE OF IT MATTERS TO My ACTUAL LIFE. when you give a homeless man a dollar, do you think you just changed his life? like you changed 5 minutes before he had to go ask for another dollar from someone else because not a single person wants to give him actual legitimate help. just smile and nod. 

ths morning his mother literally shut the garage door on me. i have no idea how she did not hear the door open or the garage door open standing 10 ft away but she literally shut the door and i sat in the dark. i said nothing because no one cares. 

and he bitchs and moans about all these things and its like hes just discovering no one cares  and his solution is to also stop caring for anyone but himself. and its like he doesnt even see this because hes ‘going to get better and help so many people’ but hes not. he literally is not. and its infruiating that he cant even signficiantly benefit one persons life and his solution to this is to stop any attempts and focus just on himself before i guess inviting the world in. 

am i not fucking worthy or deserving? i’m not some runaway kid. i’m not a fucking drug addict. i’m not a single mom. if not me, then who deserves to benefit? i guess everyone above. you know, i didnt add to everyone being fucking dead and deserted with severe trauma and ptsd and little coping skills by taking hard drugs and fucking strange men. i didnt have unsafe sex. but i guess i should have so i could have the attention that other people seem to get for these acts. i stayed “strong” and “smart” and i’m alone and struggling. i guess i deserve to be. 

when i say this its not like i want people to immediately become my family and do all this shit with me and include me an talk to me all waking moments. i want this person who has been in my life but has remained in a neutral position by their own decision to remain neutral as i express the lonliness that i feel being in this position instead of take it personal or trying to make me be optimistic about it. i am sitting with a person and still expressing this - optimism is not what i need. nor do i need to argue that this person hasnt fulfilled the needs i have when they consider themselves a ‘friend”. to be a friend now is to remain in the position youve already taken and allow me the space to now be myself - this sucks. its hard. when i speak, no one is really listening. when i need someone, i have to wait until “a good time” which could be days. and its not just one person. if this one person was doing this - fine. it’s sad but bareable. it’s so many encounters that i feel like im in highschool floating through the halls unnoticed. i have no significance or importance to anything. and its not like oh god i have to be loved and have attention but like theres litereally none. there is zero. nothing. 

thats when “anything” looks better than nothing and you get stuck in even shittier situations.

[skiasurveys]

im fkn bored man

1: Do you have a crush at the moment? well im dating someone :3

2: Have you ever been deeply in love? yes just once and that is now

3: Longest relationship you’ve ever been in? the one i am in right now which is 1 year as of may 10th

4: Have you ever changed for someone? yeah a few people

5: How is your relationship with your ex? well  i just deleted my one ex off fb because his posts annoy the fuck outta me and i didnt need him on there! My other ex sometimes tries to talk to me but thats really it. im not friends with any of my exes.

6: Have you ever been cheated on? not that i know of

7: Have you ever cheated? no 

8: Would you date someone who’s well known for cheating? idk thats hard because i dont like to believe rumors and so i would have to know him i guess. If i was told by everyone he was a cheater then i would probably not date him. 

9: What’s the most important part of a relationship? companionship, trust, honesty, affection, happiness, empathy 

10: Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings? serious. flings are pointless. 

11: When you are dating someone do you believe in going on “breaks”? no because i think breaks are basically just where youre not dating but you guys arent completely broken up yet.

12: How many people have you ever hooked up with?  ��by hook up you mean fucka  random stranger? none. 

13: What’s one thing you regret saying/doing in a previous relationship?  saying i love you way too soon especially when i didnt mean it, dating someone because everyone else thinks i should. I regret doing things because i thought i knew everyone wanted too. example was my one ex i didnt like really and i only dated him because eveyrone thought he was great..

14: What age do you think is appropriate for kids to start having sex?  kids?...KIDS???

15: Do you believe in the phrase “age is just a number”?  im bias because my bf is 6 years older than me but i do believe it is just a number UNLESS the person is like 15 dating a 22 yr old then thats fucking weird. But if youre both consenting adults then whatever. except for dudes who are like 35 dating 18 year olds thas just fucking weird to me.

16: Do you believe in “love at first sight”?  no. not love thats lust. 

17: Do you believe it’s possible to fall in love on the internet? I mean yeah, if you talk all the time, everyday, share your secrets, then yeah. some of my greasts friendships were online, but i cant do online dating because i need to be with them. I did date someone online once and that was just pointless. Unless you meet from online and then can see them every couplemonths ( like ldr). but yeah idk i understand i over answered the question lmao

18: What do you consider a deal breaker?  Lying to me, cheating, doing illegal shit ( like hardcore stuff...), if you hit me..and if you hate my friends for no reason..

19: How do you know it’s time to end a relationship? you just know. Usually if you lose feelings, or they just keep fucking up your life and or if you know youre just not compatible anymore..

20: Are you currently in a relationship? yeah! its our one year in may! 05.10.16

21: Do you think people who have dated can stay friends? some can, if you can be mature adults. Unless you were super serious and then something happened! It all really depends on the relationship. I was friends with some of my exes but they turned to shit when i started to date Connor they got all jealous and some got super creepy wanting to know about our sexual life..like wtf..

22: Do you think people should date their friends? yeah but make sure they are on the same page.. but i also believe your significant other should be your best friend ^_^ 

23: How many relationships have you had? 4 including the one I am in now.

24: Do you think love can last forever?it can if you can work at it. 

25: Do you believe love can conquer all things? not everything.

26: Would you break up with someone your parents didn’t approve of? no because my sister doesnt like my bf but i honestly dont care. Unless they had like actual valid reasons like if he were to abuse me which he obvs isnt.

27: If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice about dating what would it be? Dont date someone because they like you. Dont date someone because they “look” nice. Dont date them because everyone else thinks they are awesome. and finally dont say I love you until you mean it!

28: Do you think long distance relationships can work? yeah. I did one once, andit took lots of trust but in the long run was pointless. I am in one now but its temporary hes back next month!

29: What do you notice first about another person? Hair and teeth. and for dudes it can be also if they have facial hair and have nice arms lmaoooo.

30: Are you straight, bi, gay or pansexual? Straight as fuck

31: Would it bother you if your partner suffered from any mental illness? No because I already do and I know my bf has depression even tho he tries to self medicate with weed smh.

32: Have you ever been in an abusive relationship? verbally.

33: Do you want to get married one day? Yeah. One day.

34: What do you think about getting your partner’s name tattooed? I just think it is dumb because one i dont need his name tattooed on me..two..like you never know they could not work out and then its awkward.

35: Could you be in a relationship without sex?  not rly i need that physical touch BUT i will respect their wishes if theyre not ready, theyre not ready.

36: Are you still a virgin? Nope

37: What’s more important: Looks or personality? BOTH. 

38: Do you enjoy love films? yes but i dont watch them with my bf

39: Have you ever given anyone/received roses? yes

40: Have you ever had a valentine? yes

41: What’s your imagination of a “perfect date”?   where we both are connecting well and having fun. I dont need a fancy ass dinner.I rather have fun and connect well than have a sit down dinner and it be awkward.

42: Have you ever read “Romeo & Juliet”? yeah

43: What’s more important: Your partner or your friends? Both. My boyfriend is my friend too so cmon. I would never ditch my bf for my friends and i wouldnt ditch my friends for my bf. Unless there was a legit reason

44: Would you consider yourself “romantic”? i try to be

45: Could you imagine to date one of your current friends?  my bf is my friend so

46: Have you ever been “friendzoned”? no

47: Which “famous couple” is your favorite?  dont know. dont care.

48: What’s your favorite love song?  I can’t help falling in love with you

49: Have you ever broken someone’s heart? Yes. It sucks but sometimes you have too. I broke up with my ex like 2 years ago because he wasnt rly a good bf and I know he loved me a lot but He just wasnt what I want. He also was very bad at communication! He didnt talk to me for also 2 months LMAO so I was like bye bitch and Yeah he was out working but i dont know it was pointless. Ldr, and i didnt rly find him that attractive anymore and we didnt conenct. He tries to still talk but its like no honey..lmao

50: If you’re single, why do you think you are?  n/a

51: Would you rather date someone who’s rich but a douchebag or someone who’s poor but a nice guy? poor but nice.

52: Are you good at giving other people advices regarding dating/ relationships?  I try to 

53: Are you jealous of couples when you’re single?  I do when im single cus you want to be with someone.

54: How important is it to make a relationship official (p.e. on facebook)? i like it but connor doesnt rly use fb so were not rly facebook offical, and i mean that doesnt mean shit. I do say im in a relatonship tho, I aint gonna lie. But he doesnt rly use fb except for messaging.

55: Would you consider yourself “clingy”, “overly attached” or “jealous”? Clingy I think. its my anxiety disorder, i get nervous they dont want me around and so i get so clingy and I also love them alot..

56: Have you ever “destroyed” a relationship? no but if i did i would feel awful. Unless I was doing it out of good heart ( like if someone was being abused).

57: Do you think it’s silly to consider suicide because of a broken heart?   no suicide is never silly.

58: Are you the “dominant” or the “submissive” part in a relationship?  submissive.

59: Have you ever forgotten important dates like your partner’s birthday or your anniversary?  no

60: What’s your opinion on open relationships?  i just think theyre stupid. But if you both into that, whatever.. but i just dont see that as a relationship..thats jsut me tho.. 

61: Who’s more important: Your partner or your family?  stop asking this shit. Makes me guilty. 

62: How do you define “cheating”?  If you have to hide it.. if youre kissing..flirting..touching..

63: Is watching porn while being in a relationship inappropriate? No just dont rly tell me about it, because i dont care. but i watch porn too. it would jsut annoy me if he was like swooning over porn stars or watching it more than fucking me.

64: Do you think Valentine’s Day is overrated?  yes. its kinda stupid. you dont need ONE day to show you care.

65: Would you consider yourself a “cuddler”?  hard core

[petitalbert-blog]

Being in traditional witchcraft problems: Could I please have one week where I don't have to unfollow someone for being a judgy asshole? Please? What is it about this path of witchcraft in particular that brings out the worst in human nature? Why is being snarky about percieved-fluffy paganism still a thing? It was ugly in the 90s, it's still ugly now. Frankly, at this point I follow far more people who post ""fluff"" than the darkest, edgiest, most harrowing willing-to-die-for-it Craft because at least they are nice people to be around, and they don't feel being nasty to people is empowering and virtuous. The idea behind "all paths are equally valid" is humility. It's accepting you do not know everything, you do not know everything about how magic works, you don't know anything about how it works for others, you don't know who strangers are and what their goals, skills and wishes are. You can certainly say - "I tried this and it didnt work for me" or even "trying these things set me back a lot; things got better when I..." But when you're taking time to post about how your craft is better than other people's, more powerful, and you are more devoted to it it's - an ugly dynamic. I see it from occultist bros on reddit. I see it from trad craters here. It's the most wasteful and blinkered approach I can think of. Who the fuck cares what someone else is doing? Why does that impact you at all? Why do you need to be The Best for what you do to have value? Why do you need others to validate YOU by reinforcing your beliefs about your own awesomeness? Have some humility about your ability to speak about others, in all aspects of life - have humility when making assumptions about their money, their health, their gender presentation, their relationship structures, have humility and nurture doubt. We can't know another person fully, know what they are doing and why - we can only know ourselves. We should focus on that. ~unfollows a ton of people~ (I wish Sarah Ann Lawless still posted frequently. I know she runs a business now and has, er, two children now? So she doesn't have a ton of time. But her blog got me into this and was the beginning of my current stint in Paganism, it really lit me alight in a way other material hadn't - and she writes about mysteries and hidden things, but she's also gracious, giving in knowledge, and never turned being a bitch into a cornerstone of her craft persona. I really miss her blog, and blogs like it. And maybe I'm talking about a nostalgia for an earlier internet time anyway, the way vitriolic behavior has escalated over the past few years and how chewing someone out is seen as virtuous by far too many, and trying to hold empathy and understanding by far too few. But it's like a problem for me that I want content on my dash useful and inspiring to the sorts of things I am doing, but to get that I have to compromise on having dickish behavior in my online space. I don't enjoy watching people go at each other like fighting dogs - it's scary and coarsening. I like watching debate and the exchange of ideas. It's definitely notable to me that part of the experience of trad craft seems to be creating a personal persona as an asshole badass. I guess this is itself a form of magic, godforms but the form you take on is an image of power - although, i find the idea that "being a bitch in the internet" is powerful a wrongheaded notion. Still, im interested why from a sociological standpoint. Maybe all paths have a tendency to magusitis and I only see it in the ones I follow. Maybe trad is specifically attractive to people who want dark power, or to people who want to grow thorns so no one comes close or hurts them, or to people who are radically solitary and therefore need to put people down to feel validation as they never get that from covenmates. For me, it's an ongoing nuisance best fixed by unfollowing a bunch more people, but I guess if you read this far - try to be kind. Try to be kind in how you speak to people around you, and humble, and open.)