#im completely stuck when it comes to this debacle

[otaku-tactician]

pls help me!

there is one thing ive wondered. did medb abuse cu alter or does he serve her of his own free will? i get that summoning him at all was sketchy in itself as it completely skewered him in a way in which hes endlessly suffering but i do admit... i thought it was the kind of relationship where she says annoying things and then he goes "thwap" lightly with his tail and carries on with his life and helps out of his own volition (where they kinda get along). Like i thought it was like he puts up with her and helps out, she relies on him, they kind of get along in a surreal way.

i do notice that some of the FGO mangas licensed by type moon also take this approach as well where its like they got on awkwardly but can teamwork (chibichuki fgo, medb medb medb and the one that has been covering singularities), so i kinda assumed that it was like him making an extreme sacrifice to make up for a guilt towards her in his past life(like lancer bond 4 where he mentions failing important women in his life) or out of a duty to help her to a certain extent... I am aware that this is an interpretation that cannot be confirmed 100% though.

And he does often avoid her too so I'm open to seeing how this interpretation may not be the be all end all.

yet i have also noticed there is another angle seen in a lot of works online where the accepted view is that she abuses him and forces him to submit to the ground and basically assaults him which i can imagine is extremely traumatic and would cast his character in an even more poignant light than before.

in other words IM NOT SURE WHAT INTERPRETATION IS CANON AND WHAT ISNT ANYMORE 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

this would help as i write cu alter fanfiction sometimes and i feel like this part of characterization is Essential in writing him well.

[cheeriecherrymain]

eyyoooooo i see you like tropes! can i offer u some viktor x reader soulmate au in this trying time? maybe theyre both from zaun, but they never end up meeting until theyre grown, and they meet in piltover of all places?

this is not my best work but oh well im sleepy XD

Viktor x gn!Reader (SFW)

-So I wanna say that there are probably all different kinds of soul markings. Some people have a red string tied around their finger, some people can only see colour once they’ve met their soulmate, some people have a timer on their wrists, or a name.

-Viktor probably has one of the rarest kinds of marks, and it’s not really a mark at all. You can hear each other’s thoughts…but only when you want to share them.

-He doesn’t know this at first, though. As a young child, he fully believed that he didn’t have a soulmate - which wasn’t really an issue, in his opinion. Most people in the undercity didn’t have soulmates, or at least very few adhered to the bond.

-In his eyes, a soulmate isn’t necessary to have a good life. His parents weren’t soulmates, and they were plenty happy in their relationship. On top of that, he had a hard time believing that anyone would want to be stuck with him for life - none of his peers wanted anything to do with him, so it wouldn’t surprise him if his soulmate would be the same.

-He gets the shock of his life when he’s around eleven years old. He’s tinkering away on his own, working on repairing one of his father’s pocketwatches, when suddenly…a voice.

-He startles slightly, and glances around the room. Surely he’d heard someone, right? Your voice had been clear as day, so close to him you might have been speaking right into his ear - but when he peers around, the room is completely empty. And silent.

-He brushes it off, convincing himself that some noise must have carried in from outside. Until it happens again.

-Hello? A soft voice calls, tentative and questioning. Is anyone there? Mama said I should try to say hi like this, just in case.

-Viktor whips his head around the room, but there’s nothing out of place. Nowhere that someone could hide to play some kind of prank on him. Not to mention…he can’t really tell which direction your voice is coming from. It sounds like you’re…right beside him.

- “Where are you?” he asks, out loud.

-A beat of silence, then, You can hear me?

-You sound wholly surprised, as if you hadn’t ever expected anyone to answer your call. Viktor gets it - if you hadn’t reached out, would either of you have ever figured out you had a soulmate? Without a physical marking -or in this case, without someone else’s suggestion to try thinking at someone in hopes you’re heard- mental soul bonds were hard to discover.

-Viktor keeps it a secret for a couple of days. He knows his parents would want to celebrate, if they ever found out, and he doesn’t really want to go through some big debacle. Plus, he’s still not entirely certain that he hasn’t lost his mind.

-But god, do you irritate him. Constantly asking questions about him, about what he’s working on and where he’s from, his interests, his goals in life. Not just that, but you never shut up about yourself, either. He’s apparently the first person you tell whenever anything happens, whether it be local happenings and gossip, to mundane things like the weird toad you found by the runoffs.

-By day three, he’s sick of having someone in his head. In a moment of impatience, he snaps at you; tells you to leave him alone and give him some damn quiet.

-And you do.

-He expects you to start chattering to him again, after a couple of hours. You’re never able to stay away for too long, far too scatterbrained and excitable: he’s a little bit worried when night falls and your end of the line is still silent.

-He falls asleep thinking about you, but he’s too stubborn to reach out and apologize. He doesn’t realize that he enjoys your friendship yet.

-He grows antsy as another day passes, and there’s still no sign of you. He knows logically that you’re probably just pouting - in the short time he’s known you, he’s learned that you’re extremely volatile when it comes to your emotions. But he can’t help worrying - what if something had happened to you? What if he’d hurt your feelings so much that you’d distractedly tripped over something and gotten hurt?

-The thought only makes him worry more, and he ends up going to his mother about it, tearing up when he admits that he’s scared something’s happened to you.

-His mother scolds him real good for being mean about it, even if it was a necessary boundary to set. You’re both still young, though, and neither of you are particularly adept at socializing.

-He reaches out to you after his mother calms him down, trying to see if you’ll listen to him when he apologizes to you and explains that he’s used to being alone all the time and that he really likes to think in quiet places, but also that he’s sorry he was so mean about asking for some time by himself, so would you please come back so you can talk about things again?

-He’s secretly elated when your voice sighs into his mind, Fine, I suppose I’ll accept your apology. We’re soulmates, after all. But next time, just tell me when you need a little bit of time on your own, okay? I won’t be mad that you don’t want to spend every waking second glued to my hip!

-You become friends after that - good friends. Where Viktor is logical and calculating, you’re emotional and wise. Whatever either of you lacks, the other makes up for - on numerous occasions you’ve helped talk him through some of the rough patches in his projects, from smaller issues like making a pocketwatch tick backwards, to more consequential things, like malfunctioning safety mechanisms on heavy machinery.

-Well into adulthood, you’re his only friend. You never meet in person, both of you too nervous to see each other face to face, but you’re aware that you’re both from the undercity. He suspects you have a little more luxury than he does, often waxing poetic about the stars and the sunsets and tasty foods your parents bring home, but he doesn’t mention it.

-If you were from the upper levels, how would you feel about being tied to someone from down below? It’s a question he keeps to himself.

-You’re sad to learn that he’s leaving for Piltover at age nineteen, but so, so excited that he’s gotten a scholarship to the prestigious academy. You know better than anyone how he strives to do good for people, and how he takes pride in his mind and his creations. It’s a perfect place for him, and you want nothing but the best for him.

-You’re bummed that he’s going to be so far away, but then…you’d never met each other, anyways. You could still talk to each other in your heads, and that was what mattered to you.

-And then, one day, you don’t reply to him.

-He is awake especially late at night, so he thinks maybe you’ve gone to bed…but it had been over a decade since you’d not said goodnight to him.

-He tries not to let it get to him, tries to continue his work and his studies as normal. But it eats at him. As each day passes in silence, it eats at him. Something must have happened, he thinks, calling out your name every couple hours, to no avail.

-He asks around to the few people he’s on good terms with, wondering if anything notable had happened in the undercity over the past couple days - to both his relief and frustration, nothing spectacular had come up, and life was persisting as usual. But it still begged the insistent question - where the hell were you?

-At the seven day mark, Viktor is decidedly stressed. His temper is short, he has a hard time paying attention in his classes; he’s a mess, and he’s fully convinced that something terrible has befallen you.

-Of course, he thinks bitterly. Of course the one person he’d ever loved, the one person who’d ever truly known him, had perished before he’d even gotten a chance to say anything. Before he’d gotten to see you smile, or hear you laugh, or feel the warmth of your skin - before you’d ever really gotten the chance to live.

-He’s stewing in his thoughts, laying on his bed with nothing but the dim light of a lamp beside him. He’s been staring at the ceiling for over an hour now, but he can’t seem to muster the strength to move. His body aches, his heart aches…

-A knock at the door.

-A sound that he ignores, rolling over onto his side to face away from the offending noise.

-Another knock.

-And then, “Viktor!” Your voice.

-His eyes widen. That had definitely been in your voice. Distant and dim, like you were trying to speak to him from behind a-

-Another knock.

- “Viktor, I swear to god, I know you’re awake. Open the door before I pick the lock, I know this is your room!”

-In a flurry of movement, he rushes to the door as fast as he can manage, loudly throwing it open to behold the sight on the other side: you. You, in the flesh. Wearing freshly-pressed clothes that were a tad too big on you, holding two suitcases that had been fastened shut with what looked like old belts.

-He stares for longer than he would like to admit, his mouth opening and closing like some kind of pale, startled fish.

- “Well?” you ask, “Are you going to let me in?”

-He steps aside, and as soon as the door shuts behind you, you’re off on a tirade: Breathlessly explaining to him that your parents had scraped up enough money for you to go live with your cousin in Piltover, where your aunt had then offered to pay for your tuition should you desire to go to school - of course you’d said yes.

-She’d pulled some strings, and by some miracle, you’d managed to get assigned to Viktor’s room. He’s barely able to keep up with what you’re saying, you’re speaking so fast.

- “The student housing office is supposed to stop by in the morning to introduce us, but I was too excited. I wanted to meet you for the first time without anyone else around.” 

-You stare up at him with comically round eyes, practically vibrating with eagerness. He has half a mind to be mad that you’d purposefully shut him out, just so you could surprise him…but he figures he can do that tomorrow. For now, he opens his arms and gestures you into a hug, too relieved that you’re in his arms to feel anything else.

[randomoranges]

good god almighty. here is part 4. somehow longer than the other parts. somehow with more Emotions. i decided to not be vague and call the spades spades. this one is more nsfw because of things étienne mentions. 

again, minor character death and lots of introspection ha ha .

ive been working on the beast for like almost a month now. part 5 aint even done. im so glad i hacked it up in the end. 

PART IV

“The 60s were good with that – for forgetting and moving on. There was – or seemed to be this renewed sense of freedom, as if the people were finding their true purpose in the city. A great big curtain was being pulled back and we were given the opportunity to redefine ourselves. It felt like hope, in a way and with the distance put with the church, I felt I could breathe a little more and I was able to find myself. By the time Expo rolled around, it gave me purpose – something to do. The energy in the city was astounding. The projects people were coming up with – the possibilities they were unveiling – I had never felt something like that. I thought for sure this energy would see us through the next one hundred years; we’d be feeding off of it and returning to it for years to come. It would be our source of creation. Everyone seemed to be excited; the world was literally in our backyard and it felt good to bask in the attention.”

 It made sense for Étienne to have Expo, considering how good he was at catering to others – at giving them the good time they wanted. He thrived in giant crowds and lived for the attention. Plus, at the time, Montreal really did feel as though it was the center of Canada. It still felt like an other-worldly experience and there were still times when Edward wasn’t convinced Expo hadn’t been one massive hallucination. And he’d only been a small part of it, unlike Étienne who had lived every stage of it.

 “With the change of decade, going into the 70s, I expected much of the same – moving forward, the endless possibilities of the future and such. For the first time in a long time, I was actually looking forward to having more time – to being immortal and being able to experience every change. To make new connections. Expand and broaden the horizons and such.”

 “And then it all went to shit, starting with the October crisis. There was a lot that happened in the 70’s and not everything was bad, but for me, personally, it was a series of euphoric highs and devastating lows. In the same breath of the Crisis there would be a Cup win, then there was the Exodus, the language debacles and it never seemed to end. Up and down and up and down. One giant roller coaster that never gave me a chance to catch my breath. It was hard to feel anything let alone make it constant. It took a toll – added up and left me reeling in ways I had never thought possible. I couldn’t finish celebrating the Cup that I would get notified that something terrible had just happened. I would be relishing in disco and there’d be a murder. It was too fucking much. I couldn’t take it anymore. Everything I had worked so hard to build was slowly being torn from my hands and what was left didn’t seem to matter enough. The proverbial carpet had been yanked from under my feet and no matter how many times I tried to get up, I just kept falling and falling and falling... there was no end in sight.”

 Their correspondence at that time had petered off, somewhat. They’d both ended up in unpleasant situations and the last thing Edward had wanted to do was to take a pen and write to his friend to let him know how miserable he was. There’d been times when he’d wondered if his friend hadn’t found out about his fate and had left him for dead as well and it had only been later – much later – that he’d found out through Étienne exactly why he hadn’t written as often, if at all, for a few years.

 “I’m not exactly proud of what I ended up doing, but it seemed like the right solution at the time. I was a mess. I needed help but I didn’t realise it and I wasn’t sure there even was such help for such a lost cause. Working the streets and the clubs were as much self-punishment as they were the only place I felt I could succeed. It was easy to spread my legs to let some random guy fuck me in an alley. It was easy to pretend to be someone else. It was easy to get down on my knees and suck them off. It was easy to let others use me as they wanted and write it off as being unworthy of anything else. This was where I belonged – with the outcasts and the has beens.”

 There’s a shuddering breath that’s released and Edward has no idea if it’s his or Étienne’s. He’s astounded his boyfriend is willingly talking of this chapter of his life. It had taken years for Étienne to even speak of it to him and the confession had been a quiet halting thing that had taken him a while to piece together.

 Yet, despite finding out, it hadn’t changed Edward’s opinion of him. If anything, he had found Étienne brave and courageous for telling him about it and his heart had ached for him even more. Étienne was worthy. Étienne wasn’t a failure and he succeeded at so many other wonderful things. In his opinion, he was still as relevant as before and had never been an outcast or a has been. He was still a leader and trail blazer in his own right, even if Étienne himself didn’t always realise it.

 “When they gave me the Olympics,” Étienne goes on, once more showing that he is brave and more than the terrible things that he had gone through, “I hoped this would be the shot I needed – that it would be as wonderful as Expo had. If anything, it would be on a smaller scale than Expo. It would be a piece of cake, I figured. At least, they’d given me the Olympics in a timely way and not last minute. Therefore, there would be no excuses to fail. but for as much as Expo felt like a fever dream doused with magic, the Olympics were harder to get going. There were so many things that went wrong. So many strikes. So much corruption. The magic was gone. It was the opposite of what I needed and it just drove me further down my own spiral.

 “So I went for the drugs and the sex. One made me feel when I was numb, one numbed everything when I felt too much. And the sex was as much a means to an end as what seemed to be the only thing I could properly deliver. So I stuck to it. Went in and out of these phases. Went on the biggest of benders, woke up in places I had no recollection of going to and such. Drove Élyse nuts. But it didn’t matter to me; I’d still be alive, so who cared what I put myself through?”

 Edward wants to say that there were many who cared, but he knows that it would fall on deaf ears. He gets what Étienne means by it, but it still hurts him that his boyfriend had had to go through all of this. He gives his hand another squeeze and if anything, Étienne offers him a small smile, acknowledging the gesture.

 “I was all over the place and when I finally met Koffey, shortly after the Olympics, it was quite by accident and he took me by surprise.”

 “Everything about our relationship was different than the others I’d been in up until then. For starters, it didn’t happen the way the others had. It wasn’t the usual meet, sex and eventually develop feelings. He’d been living in the city for a few years when we met. He’d immigrated here, in search for a new adventure – ahead of the wave that would come later on. He’d decided to open up a restaurant, bringing us the local flavors of his own country. I stumbled there, quite by accident and I was most likely high and not even fully coherent. To be honest, I can’t even say I remember that day; he’s the one who told me later on.”

 “I ended up returning. Later. On a better day.  I think I was convinced it was my first time here, but Koffey was a little wary of seeing me again. Apparently, I had been a little rowdy on my first visit... Yet, he still gave me a chance and was still very polite while he served me, if a little guarded. I felt bad, so I returned and the more I went back, the more I was drawn – by him, his cuisine, and his quiet sense of humour and intelligence.”

 “He eventually realised I wasn’t a complete asshole and he’d start coming to talk to me when the restaurant was quiet. He was – a breath of fresh air, really and at the time the one good thing I had going on. It felt like being thrown a lifeboat – something to hang on to while I tried not to drown – by my thoughts, my life, the shit-show burning around me. A beacon of hope and light I clung to desperately.”

 “I honestly didn’t even think Koffey was interested in men. It surprised me, when one day, I hung around until the restaurant closed. I waited for him out in the back, not wanting to go home just yet. I also didn’t think going home just yet would be wise. I was still all over the place and I knew that if I went home I’d end up using or doing something even stupider. Having a friend helped keeping my thoughts on track. Koffey, without knowing what was going on in my head, helped keep my mind quiet. I wanted to know more about him and his life, so I focused on that. Anyways, it’d been a quiet night and we’d been having a grand old time chatting. I thought maybe we could walk around and bum out in a park. Summer was starting to settle in for good and it was a perfect night out. Warm and this side of humid, with a gentle breeze to make it pleasant.”

 Edward has his own thoughts and ideas about the description of the weather, but he schools his face in a neutral expression and listens on.

 “He was surprised to see me out back, but pleased and we picked up our conversation from where we’d left off. We ended up taking the long way back to his. I didn’t mind having to walk back to mine after and the extra detour would do me some good. However, he invited me in for a beer and I obviously said yes. He was my friend, after all and the thought of a cold beer to end the night sounded great.”

 “We must have spent a few more hours drinking beer and talking and somewhere along the line, he leaned in and kissed me. Completely unprompted. I was shocked and surprised and at first he thought I wasn’t interested, since I hadn’t kissed him back. He must have apologised at least a dozen times. It was quite funny, really. I’d keep trying to tell him that it was fine, but he wouldn’t listen. And the more he went on, the more afraid he was that I’d do something to him – which was quite sobering, let me tell you. I finally took matters in my own hands and kissed him myself. We’d been hanging around together for months, by then and had I known, I would have put a move on him sooner, maybe. The kiss finally got him to stop apologising and for a moment after that all we did was make-out on his couch like all the terrible clichés in movies.” He laughs at that, fond, as he twiddles with an unlit cigarette. “It was so different, though – soft and tender. Nicholas had been very forward with his kissing that first time. I knew we would end up in his bed the moment he kissed me, whereas with Koffey – it almost felt hesitant and cautious and I thought that was lovely.”

 “He still asked afterwards if I was that way, which I thought was both endearing and silly – considering I had just kissed him and wouldn’t have minded him kissing him some more. I assured him that I was and to prove my point, I kissed him again. I recall teasing him about it later, asking him if he needed another kiss to be sure I was into men. He thought I was being ridiculous, which was saying something.”

 There’s a gentle, soft smile that graces Étienne’s features, not for the first time during their talk, and Edward wonders what memories his boyfriend is reliving – what images his brain has conjured for him to revisit. He’s glad, though, that despite the heartache that Étienne still has fond memories of Koffey to go back to.

 “I wasn’t in love with him – not at that point, but I was certainly drawn to him. He was – beautiful. On the outside as much as on the inside; a gentle soul, really. I would have willingly gone to bed with him that night, but he insisted we wait a little and take things slow. This had never really happened and even though I was a little annoyed, I didn’t push the issue and floated back home after one last kiss.”

 “He actually – I swear, the next time I went to see him, he actually asked me out on a proper date. He was too much! And I couldn’t believe that a man like Koffey, sweet and gentle and kind, would want to date me who felt broken and used and soiled in so many ways. But he saw beyond that and insisted we go on a proper date before we went to bed together and so I said yes; because I did really want him and I loved his company.”

 “Our first date was nothing extraordinary, but it was nice – to be taken out – to feel as though I was worthy of someone’s attention and affection again. It was almost as good as a high. He took me out to dinner and then insisted we go to a movie and he was so gallant about the whole thing. He paid for the meal and for the ticket and don’t ask me how the movie ended, because halfway through we started making-out in the back and before the movie ended we left to go back to his.”

 “Koffey was – so very sweet to me. Our first time together felt like something out of a romance movie. There was no frenetic urgency to it. It wasn’t just sex because he wanted a fast way to get to his release. He made love to me. Me! It boggled my mind. He kissed and caressed every bit of me that felt broken and used. It was – wonderful and too much and I tried changing the pace to something that felt less consuming ‘cause I couldn’t handle so much love being given to me, but he kept on finding ways to make it less about the sex and more about us and I couldn’t take it. I eventually broke down in tears.”

 “And get this – he thought he, of all people, had done something wrong to me – that he’d hurt me in some way. I came clean to him. Told him everything. As much as I could. The drugs, the streets – the fall from grace. Every last ugly truth came out as he held me in his arms and made sure I understood I was someone worthy of love again. I felt stupid for breaking down and felt even worse for needing him to comfort me. And despite that, there were still things I couldn’t tell him. He tried asking about what was bothering me – because he could tell. Even when I lied – he could always tell when there was more – when everything in my head was too loud, but it was hard to explain. I couldn’t just say oh by the way, I’m semi-immortal and I represent a city. Yeah, fucked up I know, but I swear that’s not the acid talking.”

 “It wasn’t stupid,” Edward breaks. He knows Étienne is in a better place now, but he also knows his boyfriend is still prone to great bouts of self-doubt that do more harm than good to him. He’d hate to think that Étienne still feels that way.

 “I know,” Étienne responds quickly. Edward wonders if he isn’t deflecting, but he figures Étienne’s heart has been scorched raw enough for the day that he can let it slide for this time.

 “You’ve always been worthy of love,” He adds softly and Étienne stills for a moment.

 “I know.” He says again, but it sounds different this time around; a little more vulnerable and fragile. Edward wants to gather him in his own arms and hold him tightly, but instead he keeps hold of his hand and lets Étienne carry on with his story.

 “I made it up to him, later, once the storm had passed. I didn’t want him to think that I would be some emotional weight to him. He’d wanted sex so I made sure to deliver. He was still very sweet and loving with me and I tried to ignore it. I focused on making it good for him so that he wouldn’t toss me to the side and in my mind it worked. Yet, thinking back, there were still times when I felt like he was onto me. Like he knew when I was faking it for both our benefits, but he let me be.”

 “Still, for as much as Koffey was good for me and to me, he wasn’t a cure to all my problems. It would’ve been too easy. He helped – more than he probably ever realised, but I was still reckless and I still fluctuated. Bad days and worse days. On those, he’d simply hold me in his arms and let me cry in them.

Sometimes there’d be an okay day. He made it tolerable. To be alive. Made the sharp edges rounder. Made me feel like I could hang on another day. And there were those times when I felt like I genuinely wanted to be around – for him. I wanted to take him somewhere or kiss him again. I wanted to tell him some funny story I had heard or simply go to bed with him one more time. So I stuck it out and tried to survive.”

 “He was so kind and patient with me. He loved me, despite what I was and how I was. He loved me even when I couldn’t love myself. God, I never deserved him. He was too good for me and to me. And somehow, I repaid his kindness by making him sick and killing him!”

 “You don’t know that for sure.” Edward replies quickly, without thinking.

 He remembers the visit. Remembers finding out about the real significance of Koffey. Of going over to visit Étienne and finding him distraught and broken hearted. Of Étienne bringing him to the cemetery. The breakdown and the tears. The trembling murmured admissions of guilt. The dawning connection he’d made.

 Edward had been in his own headspace at the time and their correspondence had petered out, hence his grasp of Koffey’s role in Étienne’s life had been lacking in some regards. But standing by that grave, with his friend opening up about him and telling him what had happened had marked Edward.

 “I may as well have, Edward.” Étienne snaps. He lights up the cigarette he’d been previously playing with and takes a long drag from it. “He died and it was all my fault. I couldn’t even – I wasn’t even there when he died. I was too afraid. And ashamed. I was a coward. He’d chosen me and I may as well have tossed him out.” He flicks the ash with more force than necessary and when Edward spares him a glance, he sees the storm of hate and shame fight in Étienne’s eyes through his unshed tears. “He deserved better – after everything he did for me and I repaid his kindness by being a coward.”

 Edward knows that there’s no sense in telling Étienne that it’s not his fault. His boyfriend will keep berating himself until he runs out of steam and he supposes that it’s best to let him be and wait it out. Yet, it doesn’t sit well with him to have Étienne react this way. Sure, he could have been responsible for Koffey getting sick, but at the same time, there was no actual proof. He hates that it still eats Étienne alive and part of him wants to take him by the shoulders, shake him, and tell him to convince himself otherwise. Especially if it’ll help him move on. But – he’s known Étienne for too long and knows that such actions will do him no good.

 Instead, he waits and starts to itch for a cigarette of his own. He settles instead for a deep breath and then another. He thinks back to his own response to the crises. To the way he’d taken action. The misery and heartache he’d seen and lived. The friends he’d lost. The ones he’d buried. He thinks of running to Montreal to get away from it all and leaning on Étienne for a chance to forget and leave it all behind. There’s an irony here he still hasn’t fully grasped but it’s a reflection for a different day. There’s already enough that’s been looked over for one day.

 “I don’t think he would have wanted you to beat yourself over it,” He offers instead. Étienne sniffs loudly and doesn’t give him an answer. Instead, he remains quiet, fighting with his own demons.

 “You never did tell me why you called him Koffey,” Edward tries again, minutes later, when he feels that the mood has shifted once more and that Étienne has calmed down some. Perhaps this approach will work better, he thinks.

 Étienne sniffles and rubs at his eyes, “Oh,” He starts and a small smile deigns to make an appearance on his face, which Edward is thankful for. “Apparently, his regular customers used to call him that. He thought it was hysterical and he never really liked his own name. I never questioned it beyond that and it stuck.”

 Étienne grows silent after that and turns reflective. Even Mercury seems to sense the shift in mood and nuzzles her way up to his arms for cuddles. The distraction serves its purpose and Étienne focuses on her for a while, caressing her fur and scratching her behind the ears, which she seems to enjoy, if Edward is to judge by the wagging of her tail. He watches and lets them be for a while, glad the dog can help where he can’t.

 “You would’ve liked him,” Étienne quietly says after a while. He’s not looking at him, hands still buried deep in Mercury’s dark coat, but Edward doesn’t mind.

 “I’m sure I would have – he sounds like a great guy.”

 “The greatest.”

 Not for the first time, Edward wonders if Étienne’s feelings hadn’t become tainted with guilt over the years. He doesn’t question Étienne’s love for Koffey, but he wonders if the circumstances of his death haven’t left a lasting grip on him that wouldn’t have otherwise been there if the man had died of natural causes at a ripe old age. The wounds are still too raw and fresh to ask, so he lets the matter rest and figures that there will be other occasions to ask.

 They fall silent after that, both lost again in their own thoughts. He hears the occasional snuffle from Mercury and sends out a silent prayer of thanks to whatever higher power there might be out there for her presence in Étienne’s life. In the few years Étienne has had her, he already sees the difference and impact she’s made in his life.

 Eventually, Mercury settles back on Étienne’s side and his friend leaves a hand around her neck, absent-mindedly stroking her dark coat, while he reaches out for Edward’s own hand with his other. Edward is a little surprised, but he doesn’t mind and let’s Étienne play with his fingers. He traces the lines on his hand with the edge of a nail and draws loops with it afterwards. Edward watches the movement carefully with his eyes and finds it oddly grounding in a way. He hadn’t realised he’d felt a little unmoored by these tales and he wonders, not for the first time, just how attuned to him Étienne really is.

 They settle around each other, the breeze gently ruffling their hair and Edward takes a deep breath to process some of what he’s just heard.

 “And shortly after Koffey died, while I was still mourning him and hating myself for everything I had done, you came along at both the best and worst moment of my life.”

--

Part III Part V

[nadiineross]

title: cheeks get redder, nothing better

pairing: chloe/nadine

note: this is incomplete but basically fluff bc i didnt know how to end it and if im going to be honest i shouldve went a different way with the bathroom scene and ended it earlier

It’s been a month and a half after that whole tusk debacle and while Sam had stuck around, waiting for them to say the word, he hadn’t gotten in the way much. 

Which is to say, he only cockblocked Nadine once. (He also had a boot thrown at him the one time.) 

They’re in America now, wallets considerably heavier and treating themselves to a five star hotel. 

Obviously, she wanted to catch up with her old friends — mostly she just wanted to brag about all the trinkets she’d found on her latest excursion — so she texted Nate upon landing, telling him to go to her, because it’s safer to keep her load of treasure safe if she didn’t parade it across a city. 

It only occurs to Chloe now that she probably should not have given Nate her room number and definitely should not have told him to meet her there. 

She’s just realising that none of her friends outside of Sam know about Nadine yet. She also remembers Nadine telling her that she threw Nate out of a window twice. (She’d chuckled at the time, now not so much.)

Nadine’s always prattling on about foresight and she figures she should probably listen more. 

“Oh bloody hell,” she mutters under her breath, and as if on cue, the barista plops down two to-go cups on the counter and yells for her.

She scoops up the coffees and promptly drops them back down, hissing. Fingers now properly scalded, she slips cardboard sleeves around the cups before she’s off again. 

Thankfully, the Starbucks is right next to her hotel and she has no trouble getting to the elevators. 

There’s a bellboy in the elevator, and she flashes him a smile. “Hey, mate, hold my coffee?”

He clears his throat, nods after a beat, and does as told, watching as she digs her keycard out of her pocket to get access to the guest floors. 

“Thank you,” she says when he hands the coffee back to her. 

She must look a sight; a beaten up Kim Possible who dresses in shades of red and has mismatched socks under a pair of knock-off Nikes. Not exactly the kind of person you’d see running around the lobby of a Hilton. 

You can’t blame her. She’d only woken up half an hour ago, sprawled over Nadine, eyes bleary with sleep. 

She’d texted Nate again last night and forgotten he was coming over, so she scrambled up to get ready. They’d missed the buffet, so she gave a drowsy Nadine a solid kiss on the mouth and hurried off to Starbucks to buy them breakfast. Speaking of which, she forgot the pastries. 

She huffs to herself, mutters a “thanks” to the bellboy, and taps her foot impatiently over the beat of jazzy elevator music. 

The frowning bellboy stays on after she rushes off to get to her room. Oh. She winces when she notices the door is left ajar. She jogs the rest of the way and pushes the door open with her shoulder. 

There, against the wall by the windows, is a barely waken Nadine Ross and a snarling Nathan Drake. He’s got his arm around her throat and she’s preparing to give him an elbow to the gut. 

Nate notices her first, but he can’t get anything out, the wind knocked out of him as Nadine twists and slams him into the wall. 

“Chloe,” he gasps, one hand shoving at Nadine’s face. “If you’re free any time today, could you possibly give me a hand?” 

That spurs her into motion. She closes the door with an audible slam and stomps her way in. “Hands off my girlfriend, Drake!”

“What?”

Chloe dumps the coffee onto the table with a dull clunk and eyes the window right next to them. Nate would have a rough time getting out of that fall. “Nadine, love.”

There’s a beat. Then, Nadine’s backing off, forearm coming off Nate’s throat and swatting his flailing hand away from her. 

“I can’t believe I like his brother more than I do him,” she informs Chloe, ignoring Nate completely.

She’s in a pair of leggings and an Adidas sports bra, hair stuffed in a sloppy ponytail. Chloe has no idea what kind of conclusion Nate came to when he first saw a disheveled Nadine Ross at the doorway.

“Sorry,” she mouths to Nadine, who rolls her eyes and grabs her disgustingly bitter coffee off the desk. 

Nate’s eyes are flicking between Nadine and Chloe, hands rubbing at his neck. “Well!” she starts, clapping her hands together. “How’ve you been?”

Behind her, Nadine snorts into her coffee. Chloe ignores her. Nate follows her lead, ignores them both, and gestures wildly. “That—That’s Nadine Ross!”

“Oh.” Chloe puts a hand to her heart and turns to look at Nadine, bent at the waist to pull a shirt from her bags. “Hear that, china? You’re Nadine Ross!”

“Astounding,” Nadine deadpans. 

Nate is completely and utterly lost. “You...” Here, he sputters and points an accusing finger at Chloe. “You’re sleeping with the lady who threw me across, like, five different rooms!”

She nods, faux serious, and hums in appreciation when Nadine hands Chloe her coffee. “Yes,” she says, taking a sip. “She’s really strong.” 

“You’re unbelievable,” he finally says. 

“I’ll give you two some space,” Nadine says, stiffly. She shuffles into the bathroom, leaving the door open. 

Chloe sits herself down on the edge of the bed, watching as Nate gapes a little more. 

“Oh, c’mon, Nate,” she scoffs after a moment of prolonged silence. 

Nate frowns. “She shot at me.”

“You shot at her too.”

“Well,” he says, sniffing. “She started it.”

Chloe gives him a look. “Really?” 

Nate sighs, drags a hand down his face, and squints at her. “Okay, but she’s scary.”

“It’s a quality I greatly admire,” she says, grinning. He’ll process this on his own time; she can already tell he’s moving on, because he’s working his jaw and straightening up. 

“I have so many questions for you,” he tells her, sitting down beside her. 

“Later.” She flops onto her stomach, upper body hanging over the end of the bed, and stretches out to haul her suitcase closer. She unzips it and piles her folded clothes onto one side, revealing a myriad of trinkets she’d collected. 

When they’re done here, Chloe’ll probably head back to Australia so she can add it all to her collection at home, but for now, she lets Nate have at it. 

She chuckles when he gasps, grabby hands skimming over the edges of the pile, and waves a hand. “Have fun, cowboy.”

As he marvels over it all and takes pictures to send to Elena, she rolls onto her feet and peers into the bathroom. 

Nadine’s perched on the edge of the bathtub, typing something on her phone with a plastic toothbrush sticking out of her mouth. She glances up at Chloe when the door clicks shut, but only puts the phone down after a moment. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” Chloe jokes, eyes following Nadine to the sink. 

“I’m really questioning your taste in company, Frazer,” Nadine says, lightly, after she rinses out her mouth.

Chloe grimaces, letting Nadine cage her against the door. “I forgot to tell him about our,” here, she hesitates, “partnership.”

If this was a month ago, Nadine would’ve ripped Chloe a new one for this stunt. Now, she only tilts her head. “Girlfriend?”

Right. Chloe said that. 

She doesn’t have anything outstanding to say, so she pulls her signature move: go head first and hope for the best. 

“Yes?” she replies, sweetly. 

Nadine snorts, pulling back, but not completely. “We’re fucking.” 

The bluntness of it has Chloe wilting in her spot a little, and if Nate wasn’t less than two meters away, she’d probably be trying to start something just to hide her embarrassment and dismay. Instead, she’s forced to handle it like a functioning adult. 

She nods and slips her fists into her pockets. “We’re fucking regularly.” A beat. “And spending most of our waking moments together. So.” 

“So.” Nadine looks faintly amused and, oh, Chloe wants to thwack her over the head if she could get away with it. 

“So, logically,” Chloe says, “that’s dating.” 

Nadine grows serious, not stern, the softness is still there, but the humour’s gone. “If there’s a question somewhere, ask it.” 

Chloe’s only ever dated when she was in high school. Sure, there were a couple between then and now, take Nate for example, but they’d always asked her first. It’s a little jarring being on the other end. She’s faced armies and imminent death by bomb, and asking a girl out can’t be that hard, so she sucks it up. 

There’s a moment she uses to gather her courage. She thinks about Nate, about when she’d asked him to run away with her so many years ago and the knot of nervousness at the base of her chest when she did. 

“Nadine Ross,” she says, pulling Nadine closer. The warmth of her body quells the rolling in her chest. “Will you be my girlfriend?”

Nadine, who Chloe had kept waiting again, surges forward to kiss her, impatient. In her haste, she bumps their teeth together, but Chloe reckons this is the best fucking kiss she’s ever had.

“So that’s a yes?” Chloe asks, into her mouth. 

There’s a sharp inhale. Nadine let’s it out with a breathy laugh. “That’s a yes.” 

Chloe beams. She’s about to say something more, a teasing quip to lighten the mood just a tad more, but there’s a hesitant knock on the door before she can say anything. 

“Uh, guys,” comes Nate, awkward, “I really hope you’re not...”

Nadine looks like she’s going to have an aneurism, so Chloe kisses her again, chaste this time. 

Then, she turns and pulls the door open a crack to glare at Nate. “What?” 

Chloe mourns the warmth when Nadine pulls back. She opens the door fully and raises an eyebrow at Nate. He glances at Nadine, shifts his weight, and wiggles his phone. “Elena said she managed to get out of filming and wants to meet for lunch.” 

“Oh,” Chloe says. She looks over her shoulder to an impassive Nadine. “You coming?”

“No. I’ve got some business to attend to.”

Usually, Chloe’d push, but she figures Nadine wouldn’t have much to say and would be bored out of her mind, besides, they’ve only been going steady for about three minutes. 

Relieved, Nate jerks a thumb at the door. “I’ll wait outside.”

[topicprinter]

Hi all, I recently wrote this post about how Drip screwed over its most loyal customers and I thought perhaps /r/Entrepreneur would get value out of my lessons learned.----If you’re not familiar, Drip is email marketing software that’s pretty heavy on the marketing automation front. I won’t do them the courtesy of a link, so you’ll have to Google them if you want to check it out.They’ve been around since 2012 or so, founded by someone I trusted, but he sold the business to Leadpages a few years ago, and it’s been going downhill ever since.I’ve been using them for years as the backbone of two “side” businesses: IndieHive, which covers this website for freelancers and the related products and services that I sell, and Everleads, a curated lead generation site for freelance designers and developers.In 2016 and 2017, I really dug deep into Drip. I built out dozens of interconnected workflows to carefully shepherd my subscribers through various funnels and sequences with duplicate emails or annoying content that’s not relevant to them. I integrated my web front-end with their APIs so that I could customize the site for subscribers. I wrote bridging scripts to connect it to Mixpanel for analytics, and I used Zapier to hook Drip up to even more services. It was the heart of my entire business, and it was awesome.But throughout 2018, things started to go awry.I kept experiencing glitches in the workflows where people would get stuck on workflow steps that should be instant, like “remove tag”. Or people would end one workflow and start another, but not have any of the data that the first workflow had set. There were honestly dozens of these little glitches, but individually they were minor.Also troubling: deliverability started to slip. Not precipitously, and I can’t prove that it wasn’t just my emails, but I have heard from others that they were having issues with getting their emails into people’s inboxes in 2018.But the most egregious thing for all of this was that support was basically no help at all. I probably opened two dozen support requests in 2018 and I’m not sure they actually resolved a single one. We’d spend hours going back and forth so they could even understand the problem. Then they’d almost always say one of two things:“For a workaround, just insert a number of delays between steps in your workflows so that the system doesn’t get confused!” So all my workflows had little 5 minute delay steps to try and make sure things worked correctly. Which they still didn’t. Wtf.Or they’d just say they need to escalate to the developers and then I’d get an email weeks or months later from some random support engineer letting me know they were still looking into why the most basic functions of their software don’t work right. Awesome.Alarmed by this, I repeatedly researched alternatives throughout 2018, but nothing seemed worth going through the pain of migration and the risk of just having similar issues somewhere else. So I kept resolving to be patient with Drip and hope (pray) that they were hard at work at undoing whatever architectural disaster had led us here.And then…In early January 2019, while I was on a relaxing cruise with my wife for our 15th anniversary, I got an email from Drip:https://ryanwaggoner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/drip-bullshit-pricing-email-2.pngSo basically: “Hey, we’re raising our prices in 12 days! You can keep your current price if you switch to an annual plan!”And if you read it carefully, there’s something pretty important missing from this email.It doesn’t say what the new pricing is**. Seriously wtf.**So I emailed to ask. They responded the next day (so now I have 11 days) to reveal they were doubling my monthly price.Drip raised my price from $184 / month to $368 / month with 12 days notice.That’s just about the worst way imaginable to treat your oldest and most loyal customers.And it was the last straw for me.Now, to be clear, I completely understand wanting to grow a company in a new direction, or thinking that you need to raise prices to reflect more value.But you don’t do it when your platform is half-broken, you don’t do it with 12 days notice, and you grandfather in existing customers, at least for long enough for them to migrate. Also, you tell them the price when you tell them that prices are rising.It’s hard to imagine how Drip could have been more disrespectful to their customer base than what they did here.So as of last month, I switched all my subscribers to ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign for Everleads and IndieHive, respectively. That’s thousands of dollars that Drip won’t be getting from me. I managed to get both setups completely migrated off just before their billing renewal dates, in one case with literal minutes to spare.It was a pain and required some late nights but it was worth it to deny them another penny.I’m not alone in feeling upset about this. Twitter was ablaze for weeks with people who were angry and bailing for greener, more respectful pastures. I’ve taken a sick joy in watching a lot of people migrate off Drip with much larger lists than mine.I also cancelled Leadpages in favor of Instapage. I was already unhappy with Leadpages, mainly because it feels pretty clunky and dated, they aren’t very responsive to user feedback, and they’re still missing some pretty basic things (like being able to pass form data to the thank you page. Seriously?).Side note: I was going to link to the Leadpages idea portal, but they apparently shut it down. Makes sense, since it was filled with hundreds of good ideas with many, many customer votes that had been ignored for years.Regardless, even if Leadpages was awesome, they own Drip and I won’t give another penny to such an unethical company that treats its customers so poorly.And this migration was a huge pain (which is what they were counting on), partly because of how complex my Drip setups were, but also because ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are both pretty different from each other and from Drip. On the surface, they all do some of the same things, but once you dig in, things diverge, which made the migration especially painful.Drip is complicated. Stupidly so. In fact, it’s so complicated that there are a number of problems using it:It doesn’t really work. I mean, it does like 99% of the time, but that last 1% means that some of your subscribers are going to have a bad time. And it’s not just that their emails won’t show up. They might just get stuck in a workflow, or skip some emails in a sequence, or get things at the wrong times, or lose data, etc. And since this happens randomly, the number of subscribers who experience it accumulates over time.The customer support reps don’t really know how it works, because it’s too complicated. So you end up spending hours writing up descriptions of the problem and putting together screencasts to show how things don’t seem to be working, and the only response you get is that they’ll have to ask the developers.It encourages you to setup really fancy complex automations which, even if they did work, are way beyond what you actually need. Just imagine: you can do anything! You can track everything! You can have an unlimited number of tags and fields! Track and automate all the things!Your setup can end up being really brittle and deeply tied to the Drip architecture, which is a problem if you want to migrate off. And it’s hard to expand and modify over time without breaking all kinds of things for your subscribers who are in those automations.The setup is hard to document. It’s easy to end up with a large collection of documents and spreadsheets and screencasts to try and explain not only what you did, but why you did it.It’s hard to audit and debug when things go wrong. And things will go wrong. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s happening with your subscribers, where things went off the rails, and how to get it back on track without screwing things up further.In the end, Drip for me felt like a really shitty programming language. Technically possible to do almost anything, but so painful that in the end you wish you hadn’t bothered.By contrast, ConvertKit is simple. And yes, I think it’s too simple in places. I think there are some genuine gaps in the functionality that makes it a little too hard to get done the things you want.But I’m also aware of the fact that I’m coming from Drip and a really convoluted setup, so being forced to simplify is probably a good thing.And ActiveCampaign is not simple, but it’s powerful in a bunch of ways that Drip should have been. Additionally, it has the distinction of actually being, you know, functional. Crazy, I know.Also, ActiveCampaign apparently is more open to feedback than Drip. I posted a Twitter thread listing some things that I like about it and Jason VandeBoom, the founder of ActiveCampaign, setup a call with me to go over some of my feedback. And ActiveCampaign isn’t a tiny company; they have hundreds of employees and are much larger than Drip. It meant a lot to me that Jason would just jump on the phone with a random customer to see how they could improve.Meanwhile Drip’s emails aren’t even signed by an actual person. During this whole debacle, I don’t think anyone from Drip actually responded to anyone’s tweets or complaints. A couple days after the initial announcement when things were blowing up on Twitter, they sent this out another email that was basically "sorry, not sorry"Just like their price increase, all of their corporate communication just screams “We don’t care about you. Go away.”So I did.I’m actually really glad that I dropped Drip, after all that. Partly because of how much better ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign are as tools, but mostly because it taught me a lesson about how you need to be careful when you’re a small company about who you integrate with, because while your interests may align now, that could change at any point.But this rant has gone on long enough, so I’ll save that point for a future post.Disclaimer: just in case Drip decides to sue me (which would be so on-brand for them at this point), ALL the descriptions of Drip’s functionality, failings, and communications is to the best of my recollection and should not be taken as a literal word-for-word account.----Happy to answer any questions about my experience with Drip, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign. Would also love to hear anyone else's experiences with any of those (or others you'd recommend in the space of email-based marketing automation).Original post: https://ryanwaggoner.com/drip-pricing-review/

[cliveboney]

i just want to give an update on that whole upsetting fic debacle since i kept posting abt it, for closure. feel free to skip this as it’s kind of heavy and very personal; i just want to let myself talk it out so i can let it go and move past it

((warning for depression & vague talk of my personal experience w/ it))

so!! i finished it, the whole thing, it was almost 130k words & it was excruciating & it made me completely miserable and i need to never ever do something like that to myself ever again!

i have a problem, a Thing I Do, where if i start watching/reading something, i want to finish it. i will rarely deliberately drop something altogether because no matter how much im not enjoying it i want to see it through, because theres always something i still do like about it, you know? thats why i finished the first season of k-on, even though i hated it (tho im loving s2 actually), and why i watched all 13 episodes of amagi brilliant park, including the special, even though i hated it, and why i stuck it through to the end with comic girls despite its very fucking best efforts to get me to stop watching, and same with darlifra and many other things because i just. wanted to finish the job. there’s a satisfaction in bringing something to a close, so you’re not leaving any loose ends behind. i may not have liked the story, but at least i finished it.

that’s kind of how it was with this fic. i started reading it because one of my coping mechanisms when im feeling really sad or having a bad depression night is to read angst fanfiction kind of as a cathartic release of those negative emotions, it feels good to embrace them and let them wash through me via the opportunity for projection that fanfiction provides. a lot of the times the content of the fics i read are extremely heavy because that’s just what works for me. so when i saw the content warnings on this particular fic, i wasn’t particularly fazed because it was just. stuff i was used to consuming- i mean honestly the content warnings are often the reason i picked the fic in the first place

this one though. uh. it was a lot heavier than im used to, which was becoming rapidly more apparent the further along i got. i mean, it was fine for a couple chapters because it was hitting very close to home in that satisfying kind of way that i needed that night, but after i got over that initial release of emotions it started going downhill, um, a Lot

two chapters was enough to get me invested, but this was a Depression Fic, about depression, with themes centering explicitly around how mental illness destroys lives and friendships, and its aim was to explore these themes in the most realistic way possible. thankfully, it was also about recovery and rekindling lost friendships, and it did ultimately end well, but it was a very long, painful journey. the author did an excellent job conveying these struggles.

it was a very, very hard story for me to read. i wanted to stop, many times, and i fucking should have. it was a very bad time for me to read a story like this- due to a recent surgery, my thyroid levels are very low, leaving me feeling more sluggish than usual and in effect worsening my depression. im taking medication for it, but the medication takes several weeks to kick in and i’ve only been on it for a little over a month now, so i’ve been feeling very low. i shouldn’t have read this fic. i should have stopped after i realized what kind of story it was going to tell, and how it would affect me, and i was only lucky that it ended as well as it did, because the trigger warnings listed above the very last chapter had me so upset that i didn’t know what to do with myself & it was only after i forced myself to read that chapter that i was able to feel better because it turned out that those warnings were extremely misleading out of context and there was a happy ending after all.

putting that much emotional dependence on a story is unhealthy. this fic made me feel like shit, and that’s unhealthy. it took me back and showed me a very dark place that i haven’t been to for years, reintroduced thought processes that i have moved past indulging in for a Good Reason, and made me feel hopeless and sad about my own future despite the recent positive feelings i’d been starting to have. i saw myself in the characters and their struggles. i saw both my past self and the ugly side of my recovering self at the same time. i related to these characters so deeply and integrally that i couldn’t handle the thought of anything but a happy ending, and i don’t know how i would be feeling right now had things gone wrong in the end. that’s unhealthy.

i’m proud of how far i’ve come. i have come a long way since my darkest days. i’ve learned a lot about self love and what it means to take care of yourself. what it means to find meaning in the little things and to keep pushing forward for them. to hold onto the happiness in my life and keep finding more things to be happy about.

this fic felt like a huge step backward, and i knew it was even as i continued to read it. i ignored every voice in my head telling me to stop, to just let this one go. i wanted to see how the story would end. i wanted the emotional satisfaction of seeing everything turn out okay, of conflict resolution and watching characters get back on their feet. it’s okay to want that, but when the journey to get there is so bogged down with these harmful paths, it’s better to just take a different route altogether and leave it behind. it’s a part of my life that i’ve worked so hard to leave behind me; dragging it back in was the wrong thing to do. 

like i said, im lucky everything turned out okay in the end. but im still dealing with the emotional repercussions. it may have ended well, but all the rest of those 125k words of misery still happened. they still brought my mind back to those bad places. i’ll be able to move past this, i know i will, but i only just finished reading it yesterday, so it’s still pretty fresh in my mind. immediately after i finished the last chapter, i went looking for the happiest and most wholesome fics i could find in comparison. a part of what had upset me so much, besides everything else, was the fact that my favorite relationship from the show was broken almost beyond repair in this story, so i found fics with those characters that showed unconditional love and friendship instead, and that helped me feel a lot better immediately. this fic had been one of the first ones i read for this fandom, so i think it was kind of acting as the defining example of this fandom’s fic for me; repairing that mental connection is helping me move on from it, because there are so many other stories to be told and i’d much rather have those define my experience here instead.

so, ultimately, what did i learn?? listen to ur fucking logical brain when it tells u to stop forcing urself to do something that’s hurting you!!!!! sure i would have been worried over that fic for a while, wondering how it all ended, if everything worked out, but i would have gotten over it, replaced it with better things, and i wouldn’t have had to go through the intense emotional labor i did while reading it. if you’re not enjoying something, it’s okay to just drop it!! it’s not as big a deal as it feels like in the moment. remove toxic things from your life, the quicker you can the better. live to better yourself and keep working at your own improvement. forgive yourself for messing up, take a deep breath, and move on. it will pass, and you will have become stronger for it. hold onto that strength and use it to keep moving forward. 

you can do it. 

i am proud of you.