#just ignore the fact that at least half of my vocal patterns come from her

[ravenlikesbooks]

Do you guys ever think about how Geminitay spent the entirety of her X-Life series on one heart up until the finale? Do you ever think about how she narrowly avoided a second death because somebody wrote to kill her in their will, and the only reason she survived was because she died in the church where the funeral was happening when it got blown up? Do you ever think about how she made sure her buildings and animals were safe before burying herself alive? Do you ever think about how her ending words were "I will live out the rest of my days down here in the graveyard with all of my friends surrounding me" as all her friends met their final deaths and she lived on? Do you ever think about how her empires s2 lore implies that she sat there for god knows how long before getting back up and living again, only to continuously run into people that resemble her friends?

I mean I'm normal I don't ever think about any of that whaaaaaaat

[leviiattacks]

Two Faced | Chapter Six

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it's all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared. for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au, angst, fluff, slice of life etc word count :: 2.4k  author note :: i have not yet proof read any of this or chapter five like i said i would, so i apologize for any mistakes. sigh im sorry for the angst in this chapter ??? T__T i suppose my own mood tends to be reflected in my writing. anyway, i’m working on requests too so if you have any feel free to send them in :D  → next part is here!!

Everyone within the estate notices the way your schedule suddenly changes, half of them have no clue what you're doing seeing as it would be unfavorable for them to be aware of it in the first place.

However, after the bitter events of your first ODM-gear session you find it necessary to tell Sasha and Mikasa the truth. It's embarrassing really, and your mind disintegrates trying to find an appropriate way to tell to them about it. Sasha especially considering you've hid so much more from her.

The thought of letting them in on your lie has crossed your mind a number of times, but the image of Levi throwing you to the floor as he shakes in simmering outrage makes itself present. He will have objections against this and if he finds out you may end up in the same vulnerable position as before.

But, you don't care. If he wants to end your life for providing your confidants with honesty, so be it. It's not as if you have much of a choice.

Mikasa is sat in front of you bubbling with rage, she's disinfecting the gash at the top of your head - it has inconveniently tainted the surface of your skin after the second time you accidentally flipped in your gear.

Her breathing is heavy, evidently leaden with acidity it's become background noise to you. You're now increasingly mindful of how she's trying her best to keep calm for you. The realization that you're a liability and a hindrance to those around you makes you wince in shame.

You may as well be considered a synonym for humiliation at this point. That's how badly you're handling everything that comes your way.

Sasha doesn't say a word as she's brushing the knots out of your hair. There's nothing more you want to do than snatch the wooden paddle brush away from her, tell her she doesn't have to do this for you or commit herself to someone as unworthy as yourself. It's shameful that you let her continue - your only reason is that making her feel uncomfortable by the action is a possibility and that is the last thing you wish for.

The corners of your lips twitch upwards but you fight the desire to laugh at your pathetic circumstances.

"We aren't really in love." You finally say it. "He's never loved me." Your voice is ragged, voice trembling, breath laboured.

"You don't need to explain." Mikasa is calm in the way she approaches it all. "All we need to know is that the Duke is a pig."

Sasha has now stopped brushing out your hair now playing with the ends of your strands between her fingers.

"We expect no explanation from you it's been a long day." She gently whispers.

"Everyone deserves to rest. That includes you." Sasha's soft voice provides a kind of comfort that consoles you the way stars provide solace to the night. Your eyes fill to the brim with tears, you've desperately wished for years that someone would tell you that and mean it and here it is. She's smiling down at you, not even an ounce of irritation present in the way she addresses the situation.

Mikasa is silently caressing the top of your hand with her thumb. They aren't outraged or resentful. Even though they should be they aren't.

Heart twisting due to the prickles of relief they've given you your shoulders slump and you give in choking down a sob.

Sasha circles her arms around your quivering form and she strokes your hair. "It was hard, right?"

Attempting to blink your tears away you feebly nod. The weight of it all being kept to yourself has been unbearable. Tolerating this unwelcoming and cynical actuality on your own has been one of the hardest obstacles to come your way. To be swept off your feet and loved with such sincerity only to then be thrown away by that man like a rag-doll. Only to be coerced into doing what he wants or to face the music and face an early death. It's truly had a deeply somber affect on you.

You take one profound breath and you begin to tell them your story.

There are moments at which Mikasa's grip on your hand strengthens in a mix of frustration and protectiveness.

Eventually, at some point Sasha tries to secretively wipe a tear away when you recount Levi's blackened, subdued gaze the day he reverted back to his old self and announced you would never be a wife of his.

It's all too overwhelming for you when you tell them you're only alive sitting in this bed because you've bartered your freedom for a chance at existence. It's always been that way, you had to give, in order to receive, but this is one of the rare occasions you don't feel that way. The beating of your heart steadies, you're thankful for the way they listen and ask for nothing in return.

You stare at them once you're finished worried that you've overloaded them with too much information, you didn't even think to believe how they'd feel associating with a speculated "witch".

"You believe me right?" Your hoarse voice is thickened with worry.

You feel Sasha nod above your head.

"We believe you."

Staring at her glossy eyes you turn to look at Mikasa, she holds your arm in place and squeezes your hand reassuringly, it's enough to convey that she too has faith in you.

The days since have been passing excruciatingly slow. The day after the ordeal with Levi you can sense the way the other cadets look at you. It's a combination of distaste and pity. They stay far away from you, don't want to pair up with you during group exercises or activities - you aren't annoyed at all. In fact it's in their best interest they stay far away from your uncoordinated stiffness.

Oluo seems to feel horrible for challenging you to use ODM-gear when your core strength was not to the best of your abilities, he mumbles an apology for contributing to the gash on your forehead but you tell him it's quite alright and you assure him it isn't his fault that you thought you would be able to master the mechanism of the gear so early on.

On one of your more empty days you finally find the time to make your pit-stop at Hange's office, knocking on their door a breezy "Come on in!" is the response you're given.

To your surprise Levi is sitting there with a map and pen in his hand. Unmoving, his attention is solely on the plans in front of him. Ignoring him you inquire what it is Hange wanted to so desperately discuss with you but they wave it off saying the issue they had has now been solved.

Turning to walk away you don't divert your stare to Levi, simply knowing he's in one piece is good enough for you.

Other than that the repetitive pattern has stayed the same. It's a cycle of waking up, skipping breakfast, training for hours on end, returning completely exhausted, bathing and ultimately passing out in bed almost as soon as you've made contact with the mattress.

Levi and you awkwardly have to share the same bedroom at the estate to avoid any rumours of a broken marriage spreading. You don't understand why it matters, the "rumours" would be factual and true.

At first he sleeps in his office using the excuse of paperwork and planning attack formations but he knows that excuse will soon run dry. Later he utilities one of the armchairs in your room and sleeps in it for an hour or two, it concerns you how he's barely sleeping now, but you aren't vocal about your worry. Last but not least today is what you call a hollow night, the other half of your King sized bed is vacant, you haven't caught a single glimpse of Levi all day despite foolishly being on the look out for him. These nights are the worst.

Silence comes hand in hand with the peace and tranquility of the dark but that isn't what you feel, nevertheless you make the effort to sleep knowing your body will thank you for it when you train tomorrow.

Just as you're at the brink of drifting softly to sleep you feel the weight on the other side of your bed shift, you nearly jolt but your body's survival instincts halt the action. Suddenly, you are eerily alert of your surroundings. This isn't Levi, he'd never dare to come anywhere near you in general, but then shock renders you in place, he's fatigued by your presence perhaps it is him and this is finally your time.

That doesn't sound right to you. Levi is a man of his word if he wanted to go through with it he would have long ago.

A warm palm embraces your cheek and you second guess your previous line of thought. Instead of Levi Is this Lev?

This confirms your suspicions. The magic has yet to fully dwindle away. It's faltering.

Eyes fluttering open with caution you want to tell him how you've missed his presence greatly for this will be short lived. Lev will come and go. Even if you know it'll only obstruct your progress you wish to tell him you're grateful for the affection he gave you when he was around, but as you open your eyes half lidded he presses you into his chest.

The pace of your heart erratically springs, his breath is tickling the back of your neck. You can hear the blood drumming in your ears.

It pains you but you have to push him away.

But when you begin to emphasize the distance between the two of you he doesn't give you the opportunity to speak again, he flares up in want and presses his lips against yours, kisses you hard. You automatically reciprocate and your nerves cause your teeth to accidentally clatter against his.

His fingers run through your hair, frantically, desperately.

You'll be scolded for this later but it's not like you care and it's not like you can talk Levi out of it now. Not when he's like this.

An uncontrolled breathe leaves you and he lightly cups your jaw slipping his tongue inside. It tastes of whisky, you immediately recoil.

He's intoxicated.

"I'm sorry. Go to bed Lev." Your plain response is enough to worry him.

He holds onto your wrists and tugs at you. "My love?" His adoring stare is enough to make you crumble.

This isn't playing out how you want, you can't do this, not right now. You refuse to make this harder on yourself. Turning around you face away from him.

"I'm tired."

But Levi refuses to make it any easier on you.

He pulls you in by the torso again, handling you like a delicate flower.

He asks again.

"Whatever is wrong? I'll handle it for you."

It's abnormal hearing him talk to you with positive regard or even offer to help you. Repeatedly you warn yourself don't give in. The pace your head throbs at is in time with your heart, you're finding hope in the hopeless if you tell him your feelings.

"My Lord. Please leave me alone. Please. When the Sun rises you will regret this, as will I." You're unrestrained in your pleading now, your wailing fills the chambers you and Levi occupy.

"Please." Your voice is straining and urgent.

Thankfully, the maid's quarters are far, they won't hear the way you cry out for him to put an end to this torturous mind game.

Face slippery with hushed tears the tearing of your heart can not be heard. Bloodshot eyes blur your vision, you can't see. You don't think you want to, not when he firmly grips onto you like his life depends on it.

Then. The air changes, he's still holding onto you but his arms stiffen. He feels the way your back shivers against his chest. How your choked, cracked gasps for breath are an indication of how he's destroyed any chances you've had of sleeping.

Wordlessly, he lets go of you. Not a single word is uttered. The only sound amongst the alienating silence is his footsteps.

You hate this.

He closes the door behind him as he departs.

No, you hate him.

An unusual amount of sunlight compared to usual floods into your room and you have to practically block it out with one of your arms. Stirring awake your eyes burn, the whites must still be raw and inflamed.

This is usually the amount of sunlight you'd expect to see midday. Stifling a yawn you look around you. Then it hits you. It's not morning.

It's midday.

Your hands fly to your mouth trying to swallow your gasp down your throat, you're in hot water. It's not permitted for anyone to miss training unless they're excused by one of the higher ups. It's not as if you've missed a hour of training either, you've missed four.

There's no way to explain this, no way at all.

After everything he put you through last night the least Levi could have done was wake you up or at least order one of the maids to do so. It's his fault you slept at that ungodly hour.

An incessant knocking begins and you're almost certain it's Levi who's come to scold you for missing training. For some reason you can't make yourself care about his possible annoyance just yet.

"I'm coming in!"

You let out a short sigh. Thank Heavens it's only Sasha.

The door flings open and she pulls you out of bed not giving you the chance to greet her good morning.

"What have you gone and done???"

Awkwardly you chuckle. "I slept in and forgot training." Her face contorts and twists not knowing what expression is appropriate to express her bewilderment.

"No, no. WHY DID THE DUKE LET YOU OFF TRAINING TODAY?? IT'S OUT OF CHARACTER."

At a complete loss for words, open mouthed all you can manage to do is clear your throat trying to keep your jaw from dropping. "He what?"

[ahrorha]

The Splintered Road

Chapter 2

.

.

For hours they travelled at a fairly quick pace. Fenris noticed how she moved at ease through the trees and underbrush. They didn't talk; she only spoke occasionally to him, to point out certain plants or muddy patches of earth. Warning him not to touch them or leave his footprints. He got the impression she was used to this style of travelling, likely because she was an apostate on the run. Whatever the reason, she was good at navigating the forest, and although he knew she could turn on him at any second, it was worth the risk. For the time being, he would use her skills so that the hunters would lose his trail. While observing her, he noticed her using elfroot a few times, trying to combat the pain of the broken arm. Occasionally she would also get a coughing fit.

The sun was already lowering when she slowed down and began to look around. She took the time to collect some mushrooms, plucked a patch that looked like grass and a few broad leaves from a strange-looking plant. Fenris didn't recognise any of them, but he figured they were eatable when she put everything into her small cooking pot. When she found a patch of elfroot, she harvested the plants and immediately chewed on one of its leaves. He wondered why she hadn't healed herself yet. He knew she possessed healing magic; otherwise, she wouldn't have offered it to him. So, why hadn't she used it on herself? Her magic must have already returned hours ago.

.

Looking for food, Yssil was excited when she spotted a big patch of thistles growing on a small clearing next to the river. Although she had offered to feed them both, it would be hard to find enough food while keeping on the move. But with the meat from the dear, the mushrooms and some thistle roots, they would have a filling meal tonight. She stopped when another shoot of pain radiated from her arm. Cursing inwardly, she turned to Fenris, who was watching her again. She got the impression he didn't trust her at all. Not that they knew each other, but they had saved each other's lives. That had to count something.

Opening her mouth to call out to him, she hesitated.

Fenris' muscles twitched when she turned her attention to him; he was ready for anything.

“I'm sorry, but I just noticed we don't know each other's names yet. I am Yssil.” she smiled hesitantly at him.

He stared at her, saying nothing.

'Well, this is going great,' she thought.

“I am sorry to ask, but I need your help.” she pointed at the plants. “These are thistles. A little prickly, but their roots are eatable. Could you please help me dig them out?” she pointed at her broken arm. “It will take a while when I do it on my own.”

Not answering, he kept watching her with slightly squinted eyes. It gave her the impression of a wild animal, unpredictable and ready to attack. Sighing, she took the shortsword from the templar and started hacking at the plants. She needed to mow a part of them first so she could dig, or else she had to cope with the prickly thorns. It was difficult, with having only one hand and the movement agitated the wounds she had. Pain shot through her arm when she moved too abruptly. It made her question if it was even worth getting the roots.

Suddenly Yssil's wrist holding the sword was grabbed.

She hadn't heard Fenris moving behind her. His iron gloves dug painfully in her flesh. She froze and stared at him; his moss-green eyes glared at her with deep-seated anger and hostility.

Nervously she managed to remain calm. “I... we can use this sword to dig out the roots. They aren't too deep.” She gave him a small smile, hoping to appease him.

Glaring at her, he pulled the sword out of her hands and shoved her backwards.

“Stay where I can see you, and don't move,” he grumbled.

He cleared the plants with a powerful swing and stuck the sword into the ground, prying up the roots. He pulled them out of the ground and threw them on a pile behind him. Yssil stepped forward to collect them, but she was immediately blocked by the sword Fenris pointed at her.

“I said, don't move,” he growled at her.

Carefully she took a step back again, raising her good hand to show she meant no harm. He stared at her for a moment before he continued to dig out the roots.

“Thank you. I think that's enough of them,” she said after a few minutes. “I just need to wash them.”

Forcing herself to move normally, she spread out a piece of cloth and put the roots on it to carry them easier. “Let's find a place to rest and change your bandages. Please keep an eye out for firewood if you will. I think we can risk a small fire to cook our dinner.”

.

Half an hour later, they settled for a relatively flat and clutter-free area among the trees not too far from the river. Yssil pulled out her flint and steel and a bundle of dried moss to start a small fire. Fenris raised his eyebrows when he saw the flint and steel. He had never seen a mage that didn't use their magic to complete the simplest tasks. Not that he wanted her to use her magic, but he was confused by her actions.

Never had he met a mage that wasn't convinced of their superiority. Though she was vocal in what she wanted, it wasn't in a demanding way. Not once had she tried to command him or demanded something. It was the total opposite; she was polite and using please and thank you. He didn't know what to think of her. It was also surprising that she wasn't complaining about anything, especially her arm. He knew it was causing her pain, and it wouldn't get any easier for the days to come. Every mage he knew would have complained for a long time already and demanded he would do something to fix it. Even if he couldn't. Yet, she kept moving despite the apparent discomfort and extra stress it caused.

With the fire burning, she stood up. “I go and clean these.” she gestured to the stuff they had foraged. “I will be back in a bit.”

Not trusting her, he followed her slowly and watched her from the trees. Apart from cooling her broken arm and refilling her waterskin, she didn't do anything else but wash what they had found. On a flat stone, she cut the deer flesh, roots and mushrooms roughly in bite-sized chunks. Afterwards, she put everything back into the pot with some water and walked back to their camp. When he walked in after her, he expected she would say something about the fact he had followed her, but she just gave him a small smile and resumed her cooking.

.

“Could you remove your armor?”

Their dinner was cooking on the fire, and Yssil had finished grinding some paste from the elfroot she had collected. Knowing that his wound needed to heal fast, Fenris took his dagger again. Ensuring she saw it was within his reach, he removed his armoured gloves and shoulder pauldrons before unbuckling his breastplate. When he pulled off his leather vest, he already could see that blood had seeped through the bandages around his waist.

Binding her hair back, Yssil sat down next to him. As she revealed her ears, Fenris noticed her cut of ear again. It reminded him of Tevinter, where this was sometimes done as a form of humiliating punishment. He didn't know that these practices were also spread so far to the south. On the other hand, elves were second class citizens everywhere, so it wasn't that surprising to see the results of acts of cruelty. Slowly she began to remove his bandages, not showing any reservation that he had his dagger at hand. But she took a sharp breath when she uncovered the wound on his shoulder.

“You have pulled some of the stitches.”

“And whose fault is that?” he growled back. It was, after all, her fault he had been in a fight again.

“Sorry... At least the wound doesn't look infected.”

With care, she applied the elfroot paste on his shoulder and waist. Sitting in the sunlight, she could now get a better look at his markings. Last night she already noticed the power that lay within them. She had seen how he used them while fighting, but being this close to him, she could feel her magic react to the lyrium buried in his skin. She wondered how he was even alive. In these quantities, lyrium was poisonous to non-mages.

Nevertheless, they were beautiful to see. The pattern reminded her of the Dalish vallaslin. The lyrium reflected the sunlight and the lines on his back sparkled lightly with each slight movement he made. Yssil frowned when she noticed that some of his skin was red and inflamed next to the tattoos. He must be in constant discomfort, she realised.

“I can try and heal your wounds with magic if you want.” she offered him.

“NO, magic!” he growled and glared at her.

She raised her hand to indicate she meant no harm and took the bandages to wrap them around him. With her having only one arm to use, he soon took them and started to wrap himself. Though she would rather have avoided her encounter with the templars, at least she got new bandages out of it. Hers were quite old.

Afterwards, they ate quietly before going to sleep.

.

The next two days went similar. During their walk, Yssil foraged for eatables while Fenris trailed after her. Occasionally he would help her with digging out roots or collecting firewood. They didn't talk much during their journey. Although she tried on a few occasions to speak with him, he ignored those attempts for the most part. He was still on edge by her being a mage, and he didn't see a reason to socialise with her. He was more focused on what path she chose through the forest. As far as he could tell, they were gradually travelling south in the direction of the coast.

Since they had left the ambush of the slavers and templars behind them, he hadn't seen nor heard any sign of civilisation. Something that was reassuring, this whole endeavour was to throw off his pursuers.

During their journey, Fenris tried to keep Yssil in his sight. Apart from the occasional bathroom break or when he fell asleep at night, he was watching her. As the days went by, he began to wonder about her. She wasn't like any mage he had known. He had never spent time with a mage that used so little magic. The only time she used her powers was when a rabbit shot out of the bushes, and she created some kind of force magic to fling it against a tree. As quick as she had cast the spell, she hastened towards the dazed animal to end its life.

He also couldn't figure out why, when she had her magical powers back, she hadn't healed herself. From observing her, he knew she was in a lot of pain and discomfort. At the same time, he berated himself why he even cared. What was it to him if she healed herself or not? It had nothing to do with him.

What puzzled him, even more were her motives. True, she was hurt but not totally helpless. In fact, she was doing much more than she should, given her injury. Yet, she only asked the bare minimum from him, and she was always polite about it. He was almost feeling guilty that he didn't help more when she was clearly struggling. Though this didn't mean he could let his guard down. He had expected to see her true colours by now, but as hard as he tried, he couldn't figure out her darkness.

Another weird thing was that she never asked why those hunters were after him. She must have heard them calling him a slave. Yet, she hadn't mentioned it once. Was it because she was used to finding travellers in these forests, like refugees and mages on the run? He wondered about her origin as well. Given how she was able to navigate and forage through the woods, she should be Dalish. Especially after she thanked Andruil after her rabbit kill. But where then were her markings, and where was her clan? All he had figured out so far was that she was used to travelling alone and that she was dressed poorly. She also had unusual weapons for a mage. She carried a dagger and a bow that she couldn't use right now. A staff would be so much easier for her.

No, he couldn't figure out this strange mage at all.

.

On the midday of the third day, Yssil stopped at a small clearing, dotted with several boulders and stones. They were close to the river, and it was a sunny warm day. She felt exhausted after the track they had made. She had maintained a firmer pace than usual. Fenris was clearly a warrior with loads of stamina, who glared at her every time she tried to slow down. The pain from her arm didn't help either; it took a lot of her energy. Something she was lacking already. Looking again at the clearing, she hoped that he would agree to rest for the remainder of the day.

“Do you mind if we stop for today? I want to bathe and wash my clothes. With how sunny it is today, they will be dry quickly.” She pointed into the forest. “And there are patches of blueberries here. We can take our time and eat our fill.”

Fenris didn't like it; he would rather not spend more time than necessary with her. But the thought of a decent bath and cleaning his armor was tempting. He hummed and sat down against a boulder and unpacked his weapon kit to take care of his sword and dagger.

“I take that as a yes,” she mumbled, earning her a sharp look from him. She just raised her eyebrow and sat her pack down. “I go first,” she said and took out her spare clothes. She hissed in pain when she made a wrong move with her arm.

He looked at her. “Why don't you heal yourself?” he finally asked. It was time to get answers to some of his questions.

“I can't?”

“Why? You offer every evening to heal me,” he said, irritated.

“I...” she sighed. “Magic doesn't work on me, or it has to be cast by a very powerful mage. And I am far from powerful.”

He narrowed his eyes. Magic resistance, he thought. What strange she was even resistant against her own magic and even healing magic. He watched her as she disappeared between the trees, coughing again. Immediately a sense of unease swept over him, as always when he lost sight of her. Though she hadn't done anything but help him the last couple of days, he couldn't help but distrust her. He huffed and tried to focus on his task, but he kept glancing back in the direction of the river. Minutes went by, and his uneasiness grew. How long did she need to wash herself? Had she lured him here as part of her plan? Was she watching him through the trees? Looking for an opportunity to strike.

Another five minutes had passed, and he couldn't restrain himself any longer. Slowly he got on his feet and sneaked towards the river.

.

Yssil's clothing lay on the bank. Knowing that Fenris didn't like it when she was out of his sight for long, she had washed herself quickly. It was strange to spent time with him. On the one hand, it was nice to not be alone after the weeks she had travelled on herself. But it was difficult to handle his curt mood, and he was outright ignoring all her attempts of small talk. Although she had the feeling, he was becoming more relaxed.

Hoping the next couple of days would go smoothly, she came out of the water and put on the shirt she had taken from the templar. It was too big, but at least it was easier to move the sleeve over her splint.

The swelling of her arm was finally going down. She laid her arm on a flat stone and carefully loosened the bandages to reapply them tighter around her arm. Though they had managed to set the bone, she was worried if it would heal right. She had to find a healer in the next village she reached. It would take a chunk out of her meagre funds, but it was better to have it checked out than living the rest of her life with a messed up arm.

.

Watching Yssil from between the trees, Fenris breathed easier. He was about to turn around and go back to the clearing when she lifted her good arm to shoo a dragonfly away. With the shirt of the templar being too big, her sleeve slipped down her arm, exposing it. Even from where he stood, he could see clearly the markings of countless scars crisscrossing along her arm.

Yssil rearranged the branches around her arm. She was being extra careful to not agitate the break.

Suddenly Fenris stormed out of the trees. In a flash, he moved towards her and grabbed her. With force, he smacked her against a nearby tree, pinning her against it. His lyrium markings glowed in anger. He had one hand across her throat, and the other was pressing against her broken arm. She gasped both from shock and the pain. Fenris put pressure on her arm, sending flares of searing white pain through her.

“What? Aaaaah!” she screamed.

“Hold your tongue, filthy bloodmage!” he glared at her, cutting off her air.

Panicked, she grabbed his hand, trying to pry away his deadly grip on her throat. “I... I am not.” she gasped.

He banged her again against the tree, putting more pressure on her arm. “Don't lie to me, witch! I was a fool to have followed you.”

She couldn't think; the pain from her arm overwhelmed her. “No. I never... Please.”

“Liar! I have seen your scars.” He squeezed her throat close. He would never again let a bloodmage manipulate him. He was a fool that he began to worry about her. Never again!

“Why don't you use your filthy magic on me. Who has sent you? Where are you leading me? Is it Danarius?”

Yssil couldn't breathe. Tears rolled down her face. In disbelief and fear, she stared into Fenris' eyes. He glared at her with rage and deadly intent.

He was going to kill her.

Desperately she pulled the collar of the shirt down, revealing the ugly branding burnt on her chest. With her last breath, she gasped. “Bloodthrall.”

His eyes went to the brand. He immediately recognised it as a slave mark of House Getha. In shock, Fenris let go of her.

.

Yssil collapsed to the floor with a yell. She had landed badly on her arm. Coughing and gasping for air, she struggled to regain her breath. Tears trickled down her face as she was overwhelmed with pain. With effort, she managed to sit up, leaning her back against the tree. Panting, she tried not to panic. She could tell she was in a bad situation. Afraid, she didn't dare to look down, but she could feel that her arm had slipped out of alignment again. She couldn't think; there was only hot searing pain. Struggling to calm down, she concentrated on her breath. Her lips were shivering, and on her throat, she still could feel the impressions from Fenris' fingers. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to look at her arm.

“Shit.” she sobbed, seeing her arm.

Grabbing the discarded splint and bandages next to her, she forced herself to stand up. She had to do something. Cradling her arm, she staggered back to the clearing, which was empty. Fenris was gone, as was his bag. She felt both relieved and panicked that he had left because this meant she had to set her arm alone.

Shacking, she grabbed from her bag some elfroot and started chewing hard on it. Taking her bag, she went to one of the smaller trees surrounding the clearing. First, she bound her left upper arm against her body with one of the belts she had snagged from the templars. Then she slung another belt around the tree. Tying a piece of cloth around the bone of her forearm, she knotted it to the strap around the tree. It was difficult, shots of pain halted her several times, and her hands were shaking. But she needed to fix it.

Her lips quivered, and she swallowed several times, trying to find the courage to try and set the bone. She breathed hard. Biting down on the elfroot, she pulled back slowly. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and her breathing was ragged as she pushed on the break until the bones popped back together. She whimpered, and parts of her chewed elfroot fell out of her mouth. Black dots were blurring her vision as the pain threatened to overwhelm her.

Not yet, she thought.

Grabbing the splint, she quickly bound it around her arm. Finally, it was set again. With her last concentration, she loosened the belts before she collapsed to the ground. She was shivering and felt cold even with the sun shining on her. Clumsy, she pulled her blanket from her pack and curled up in it. She felt sick, and her vision became unfocused.

She didn't know how long she lay there, cold and not really conscious, but when she could finally focus again, it was getting dark. Slowly she got to her feet. At first, she wondered where her trousers were until she remembered they must still lay by the river. With effort, she got up and went to the river to retrieve her clothes and look for some wood. All while keeping an eye out for Fenris, but there was no sign of him. Not that she cared at this point.

After making a small fire, she sat back against a boulder. She was exhausted. Her arm was hot and in constant throbbing pain, and it felt like she had a slight fever. After drinking a good amount of water, she lay down. She had not the energy to make something to eat. Restless and worried about how she would reach the coast on her own, she fell asleep.

.

Fenris walked briskly through the woods. His mind was racing.

How could she be a slave from Tevinter? What was she doing here? Why did she have a mark from House Getha burned on her chest? He felt disgusted remembering Vesnius Getha, a greedy rat and head of the House Getha. One of the more unpleasant acquaintances of Danarius. A cowardly weasel, who made a living by providing rare goods and components to Magisters to conduct their research. He could remember how Danarius would often rant and complain about Vesnius in one of his endless monologues. Mainly about the outrageous prices Vesnius demanded.

If she was a slave of Vesnius... A bloodthrall. Fenris shook his head.

Had she spoken the truth, had she been a bloodthrall? If she was, she had a cruel life. They were seen like nothing more than cattle. Bled almost dry, only to be locked away with little care until it was time for the next cut. The image of the countless scared cuts on her arm returned. He shuddered, imagining how often she must have stood on the brink of death, weak and unable to fight infections and disease. Even he, as a valuable slave, seldom got treatment for his wounds. And when he did, Danarius always made sure it was painful. Afterwards, he would be punished for needing treatment in the first place. But there was no value in a bloodthrall. How often had Danarius just killed the slave that managed to survive a bloodletting? It was too much of a bother to save a slaves life when he just could get a new one.

Fenris also remembered the vials of blood Danarius sometimes purchased from Vesnius. That blood had come from somewhere. Had she been cut to fill some of them?

But even if she had spoken the truth, it didn't explain why she was here. Did she also escape slavery?

He punched a tree. There were too many things he couldn't answer. He looked back the way he came. He knew where he could get more information, but that meant he had to go back to her. It still could be a trap. But what were the odds that Danarius would send another man's slave to trick him, especially a slave from a person Danarius despised?

.

It was in the night when Fenris finally dared to sneak to the clearing. He could see the faint glow of a dying fire, with the dark outline of someone lying next to it.

Good, she was still here.

After circling the whole area, to make sure no one else was waiting for him, he stealthily approached her from behind. He was hyper-alert for every movement on her part. The moon came from behind a cloud, shining light on the clearing. She was deep asleep and hadn't a clue he was watching her. It hit him how vulnerable she looked, especially when he noticed the dark bruising around her neck.

A pang of guilt shot through him. He had lost control; he had let his anger and hate overwhelm him. Some days it felt like it would consume him, leaving nothing behind. He wished he could finally shake this feeling that Danarius and all the others planted inside of him. It followed him relentlessly like the hunters.

For a moment, he hesitated. Maybe it was better to leave? Was he making a mistake by returning? Was he taking an unnecessary risk by staying here to get answers? No, he needed to know what she was doing here. Afterwards, he could leave.

Having made his decision, he rested his back against a tree with his weapon in hand and waited.

.

In the early morning, Yssil stirred. She still felt sick, and her broken arm throbbed with pain. Bleary-eyed, she sat up and looked around. It startled her to see Fenris standing not too far from her, glaring hostile at her. He pointed his greatsword at her.

“Explain,” he demanded.

A wave of fear shot through her, seeing him. Instinctively she pressed her back against the boulder, fearing he would turn violent again. “I... What do you want to know?”

“Don't play games with me, witch. What are you doing here?”

Yssil's mind raced. What should she tell him?

“I am sorry that I didn't tell you, but I wasn't sure why you were here. I am a former slave of Vesnius Getha. I escaped almost two years ago when the slave transport I was part of got attacked. During the chaos, I managed to escape into the woods. I have been on the run since then. I was surprised when I stumbled onto you.”

She took a deep breath, hoping she would live. “I recognised you. My former master ranted about you, Danarius' successful experiment. Though I doubt you feel the same way about those markings. My former master was jealous and would often complain about how Danarius succeeded only because of his help. I don't know what he meant by that. Most likely, he provided some of the lyrium or something else Danarius needed. I only heard snippets of his monologues. Most of the time, I lay ill in my cell, weak from blood loss. Though I remember he was overjoyed when you managed to escape or as he liked to call it that Danarius lost his 'little pet'.”

Fenris gritted his teeth, hearing her say that. Danarius used to love to call him his pet. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, thinking of him.

“When I encountered you a few days ago.” she continued. “I was scared. I didn't know why you were here and if you managed to stay free after your escape. Or if you somehow had been sent to recapture me.”

This gave Fenris pause. “Why would I be sent to recapture you?”

She looked fearful at him, chewing her lip. “I could escape because it was Danarius' men who attacked the slave transport I was on. Vesnius had a fight with Danarius after you disappeared, I don't know the details, but I know Danarius tried to buy several other slaves and me. Then one day, Vesnius suddenly ordered for us to be transported. That was the same transport Danarius' men attacked. So when I saw you, I was afraid Tevinter had caught up with me. But seeing you getting attacked by those slavers, I just couldn't do nothing. For if you were still free, I could hardly let them capture you and take you back to that horrid place.”

.

Fenris pondered for a while. Her story was anything but what he expected to hear. It was too extraordinary to have been made up, even for a plotter like Danarius.

“I don't expect you to believe me,” she said. “If you want, we can go our separate ways. If you go to the west, you will find your way out of the forest again.”

“How do you know these woods when you aren't from there?”

She pulled out the map she had crudely copied before travelling across the Vinmark Mountains and wanted to stand up. But she was hit by a wave of dizziness. Trying to stay on her feet, she slumped against the boulder.

Suddenly Fenris stood beside her and steadied her.

“Sit,” he growled and moved her back onto her blanket. Then he took the map from her. It was crude but had the mountain range, woods and rivers marked on it. There was also a faint route sketched out from a village near Starkhaven over the mountains. It looked like she had travelled cross country and had avoided all the major roads. She had to be on the road for weeks.

“You came over the mountains on your own?” he asked, somewhat impressed.

“The road is a dangerous place for a lone female, especially if you're an elf.”

Irritated, she pulled the map out of his hands and put it in her bag again. Fenris regarded her; she looked ill. There were dark circles under her eyes. And now, in the daylight, he could see the result of his actions marked on her body. Her broken arm was swollen and had dark, almost black bruises. Her throat was also spotted with bruises, where he had choked her. He crouched down and put his hand on her forehead. She immediately shied away from him.

“You have a fever,” he said.

“And whose fault is that?” she glared at him. “Next time you want to know something, just ask.”

He scoffed. “And you would answer?”

“If I can, yes. I know we don't have a reason to trust each other. My guess is you also had to deal with selfish bastards and greedy monsters on your journey. But I can promise you I just want to safely reach the coast.”

Fenris studied her for a moment. Yssil couldn't guess what he was thinking, but at least he wasn't looking at her as if he wanted to kill her.

“Stay here,” he said. He took the cooking pot and disappeared into the forest.

.

'And go where?' she wanted to jab back at him, but she didn't have the energy for that. Tired, she leant back against the boulder and closed her eyes. She felt drained and miserable. She could tell her body was struggling to cope with her injury. It was another setback, and it still would take a couple of days to get out of these woods. Then she needed to find a place where she could rest and heal if that was even possible. She didn't have enough money to stay at an inn for a long time, and to be able to stay at a farm, she had to work. Frustrated, she allowed herself to wallow in self-pity for a moment.

After a while, she opened her eyes again and looked around. She had no idea what Fenris was doing and if he even would come back. It didn't matter anyway; at the moment, she just needed to pee. A little wobbly, she got on her feet and was hit by another wave of pain from her arm. Right, first going to the bushes, then look for more elfroot. Mustering her energy, she set out on her mission. When she returned to her blanket, she had managed to collect a handful of blueberries and some elfroot. Devouring both, she waited for the relief to set in, then she would try to collect more berries and some wood. With how things were, she wasn't in a condition to travel. She closed her eyes again and let the elfroot do its work.

With the pain receding and the sun warming her, Yssil dozed off for a while. It was a good hour and a half later when she heard something. Opening her eyes, she saw Fenris returning, carrying a bundle of wood and her pot. He sat down across from her and tipped over the pot, tossing a bunch of washed ingredients next to him. There were thistle roots, plantains, and cattail stems. He even managed to catch a fish. He started to cut everything, but his face contorted in disgust when he grabbed the fish. This surprised her.

“You don't like fish?” she asked.

“Pfaugh!” he growled. “I hate fish.”

“May I ask why?”

He looked at her before continuing to cut the fish. “I was in Seheron when I escaped Danarius. I managed to find passage on an old fishing boat with a family that had enough of the violence between Tevinter and the Qunari. There was hardly any room on the boat, and I earned my passage by helping them fish. I slept on a few sacks next to the hold where they stored their catch. The smell of them was everywhere. By the time we reached the shores of Antiva, I had handled and smelled more fish than I ever wanted in my life.”

She huffed a laugh. “I don't like goats,” she admitted.

He tilted his head slightly and looked at her questioningly.

“Too many nights spent in goat shelters. I also worked a short while on a goat farm. I can't stand the smell of them, especially the bucks. They stink.”

“I can imagine,” he answered, and to her surprise, the corner of his mouth twitched upward as if he were about to smile.

Having cut everything, he tossed them back into the pot with some water and placed it on the fire.

“You should eat something. You'll feel better after.” Fenris looked at her through his bangs.

Yssil gave him a small smile and nodded. “Thank you.”

It was the beginning of a truce between them, and she decided to accept this attempt of an apology. She hissed when she moved, and another shot of pain radiated from her arm.

“You should put your arm in a sling.” he stood up and came to her.

Kneeling down, he appeared to check the new splint she had applied. Yssil held her breath. Her first reaction was that she wanted to pull back, but she didn't. For one, moving hurt, and it was obvious that he, in part, regretted his actions.

“The leather belts should be over there.” She indicated to the trees.

“Those won't do. You have to support your whole arm.”

He grabbed their bags. After looking through them, he pulled out her other shirt. “This will do.”

After some adjustments and tying the sleeves around her chest and shoulder, she could slip her arm in the makeshift sling.

“Go, get some sleep. I will go look for more supplies.”

“Thank you, Fenris.”

He nodded and disappeared into the forest again.

.

They spent two days at the clearing until Yssil's fever went down. When they resumed their path on the third day, they had stocked up on blueberries and a few other forageables. Their interactions were still a little tense, but they slowly learned to work together. On their way again, they walked more side by side, rather than Fenris trailing after her.

When they took a short rest on their second day of travelling, Yssil checked the map and their heading.

“We better fill up our waterskins. I think we have to leave the river soon.”

Fenris looked at the map she was holding.

“Look, the river turns eastwards. And if we want to reach the coast, we need to continue south. I think we have one more day until we have to leave the forest. If we move slightly west, we should come to a road leading to the coast.” She glanced at him. “What are your plans after we have reached the coast?”

“Kirkwall. There I can hopefully hide from the hunters and, if necessary, take ship if I need to flee.”

She was surprised he was this forthcoming with his answer. Their interaction had really improved.

She hummed in agreement. “I was thinking about Kirkwall myself or Ostwick. Though I have to be careful, both towns have Circles. With my scars, they will think I am a bloodmage if I am caught. You and those templars are not the first to think that. All too often, it is attack first, ask questions later with these scars. Either they kill me or lock me up and make me tranquil. I don't think I can convince anyone in time that I have nothing to do with bloodmagic.”

Fenris felt a slight pang of guilt hearing that. The evidence of his attack was still visible on Yssil's skin. Though the bruises around her neck were healing and turning into a more greenish, yellowish colour. The same he couldn't say for her arm; it was still somewhat swollen and very painful. It would take weeks for it to heal. There was also the question if she had aligned it properly after what he had done. She managed to set it correctly as far as he could tell, but the swelling needed to go down further before they knew for sure. There was also her persistent cough; he had the impression it was slowly getting worse.

He frowned when he realised he was worried about her again. This was dangerous. He was on the run, and it would only be a matter of time before the hunters would find him again. He couldn't be weighed down by someone who was sick and injured. Not that it mattered, he wasn't planning to take on a companion. And she was a mage. Although they had found a rhythm in their interaction, he didn't know if he could trust her. His past experiences had taught him he shouldn't rely on others. Like she had said, all too often, he had encountered selfish bastards who sought only personal gain.

Her comment about being locked up and made tranquil also made him pause. He had never thought about the Circles of the South and their handling of mages in that way. To him, they were a necessity to keep everyone safe. But knowing she had escaped enslavement, especially a life of a bloodthrall, he could understand she didn't want to be locked up or, even worse, made tranquil when she had done nothing. She was, as far as he could tell, cautious with her magic and nothing like the arrogant, selfish monsters ruling the Imperium. He had once seen a tranquil, a rival mage outmanoeuvred by Danarius. And he was shocked by what was left from a presumptuous young bastard.

Not that it was any of his business. They would part ways soon, and he would be on his own again.

.

Like Yssil had indicated, they soon left the river and continued to move south. On their second day, they emerged from the forest. It was in the afternoon, and far in the distance, they could see the ocean. Over their heads, they heard the call of a couple of seagulls that had flown inland.

For a moment, they stared at the sight. They had finally reached the coast.

Fenris watched and reminded himself that he had to be extra careful from now on. Many slavers operated along the coast, and he hadn't come all this way just to be shipped back to Tevinter. He heard a sniff next to him, and to his surprise, Yssil was crying.

She looked at him and laughed. Feeling embarrassed, she wiped away her tears. “Sorry, I haven't seen the ocean in 12 years.”

“You are from the coast?”

“Yes. Before, I was taken by slavers as a child. I lived with my father and mother in the border region of Antiva and Rivain. I have missed the view ever since.”

Antiva and Rivain. That explained her appearance. With her dark olive skin, almost black brown hair and piercing amber eyes. He could easily imagine her living there.

“Why have you gone South? You have the option to return home.”

“My journey went different than I thought. Not that I planned my whole escape. I just took the opportunity when it came and ran. I was close to Perivantium when I escaped. I fled into the mountain ranges and almost died. A farmer found me when I stumbled into Starkhaven and helped me. I stayed with him for a time, that is, until his son tried to rape me. I got exposed as a mage and fled into the wild marshes. First, I travelled east, but circumstances forced me to move slowly south. Maybe I will return to Rivain in the future. For now, I just want to find a place where I can heal and stay during the approaching winter.”

“Must be gratifying to have the option to return to a place you call home.” Fenris pondered and looked back to the ocean. He had crossed an entire continent to arrive here, and still he was being hunted. Maybe it was time for him to stop running. He was sick of how he lived now.

“You were born into slavery?”

He nodded.

“I hope you will find a place where you can stay soon,” she said. “A home is not always the place you came from. You can build a home anywhere you feel safe and comfortable.”

“Is it that easy?” he raised his eyebrow.

“Easy? No. But I'll be damned if I let my fear of Tevinter and my former master control me. I have come too far to keep cowering. As I said, I hope to find a place for the winter, but my real wish is to find a place I can call home.” She sighed and got a coughing fit. “But enough. We have some daylight left. If we walk to the west, we should come to a road that will lead us to the coast.”

.

They began to walk again. It was only temporary, Fenris told himself. He and Yssil had the same destination, so it was natural to walk together. The landscape was getting rocky, and after an hour, they found the road. Following it, they moved gradually downhill and passed several rock formations until the road led through a gorge. The road showed signs of travel from wagons, but it was clear that this wasn't a main road. This was fine with Fenris; a back road meant less traffic and, by definition, fewer people that could recognise him.

They were almost through the gorge when suddenly some armed men stepped on the road. More men appeared to their left and right, standing on higher ground, their bows aimed at them. A big bearded man with a bald tattooed head stepped forward and grinned at them. He looked like the leader and leaned on his giant axe as if they didn't pose a threat. They were highwaymen, looking for an easy target. In total, they were a group of a dozen men.

“What have we here?” The leader said. “Two knife ears honouring us with their visit.”

Fenris froze. His body tensed, and he readied himself for battle. But with this many enemies, this would be hard-fought, especially with the archers flanking them.

“Wait,” Yssil whispered to him in Tevene. “Wait until I say one.”

He didn't move. What was she planning?

[judeloski]

💀  * [ ella purnell + demi female + she/her ] —— have you met judith ‘jude’ loski? they are a twenty-one year old junior currently studying fine arts. they live on farrow house, and word around campus is that this capricorn is creative + magnetic, as well as contradictory + morbid. i wonder if they’ll make it out alive. a skull pattern stained onto fine china, flowers plucked too soon, red wine staining the seam of your lips.  [ ooc: pepper. twenty four. she/her & est. ]

ABOUT THE MUN.  hey baby, hey baby, hey baby, hey baby, here’s twenty dollars!

hello it is pepper again with my second muse because i have no self control. depending on whether or not i can handle this amount of muses i might drop one but for now i am hype!! i have had jude living rent free in my head for like ??? a year at least, and this is the first time i’ve gotten to play her so i’m living large! the entire inspiration behind her is inspired by my creative writing teacher in uni so this is a shout out to you jen i love you!! okay that is all. 

BIO.  kidnapping tw, death tw, child neglect tw. holiday candles that smell just like your years as a feral child in the forest!

i was gonna write a nice sexy bio but honestly my brain is offline rn so i don’t think that’s gonna happen, instead, welcome to these sexy bullet points. 

judith evianna loski was born approximately two minutes prior to her twin sister juliette elenora loski during a frightful blizzard in londan, england. while judith popped out of her mother kicking and screaming bloody murder from day one, moment one, juliette was a docile baby. she was so sweet and quiet that the doctor’s had to check her breathing more than once. while, of course jude made her presence, and her posession of a working set of lungs and killer set of vocal chords, known to everyone within a ten kilometre radius. let’s just say the loskis knew the difference between their daughters instantly. 

which was fine. jude and julie liked being different anyways. where jude was colour coded green, julie was colour coded blue. while julie was always thrilled at the prospect of a new dress or doll, jude was known for covering such gifts in mud or paint until they were utterly recognizable or suitably ruined. where julie was sweet, and quiet, and shy, jude could fill a room with just her presence, could make a friend in a sea of strangers. the fact was, jude always had what julie lacked, and for the most part vice versa. they fit together like two puzzle pieces, and they complimented each other perfectly. and despite their differences, both their parents adored them unconditionally, and equally for the first six years of their lives. 

which of course meant the girls were spoiled rotten. how could they not be? damon loski was an english gentleman coming from very old, very lucrative oil money. he ran his business like a hobby and yet the loskis still had more than enough money to buy an island or two, especially considering annette’s status. annette loski was a french photographer, and a talented one at that. her work was desperately sought after and world renowned for it’s beauty, and so in her own right, annette was more than well off. and thus, the twins were more than well off, and even if they couldn’t quite understand the concept of that yet, they definitely understood that they could have whatever they wanted just by asking for it. they understood that wherever they went they were to be accompanied by a nice man or woman who was supposed to keep them safe. and they understood that because of mummy and daddy’s jobs they weren’t allowed to play like the other kids did. but as young as jude and julie were they never truly understood why.

that was until three weeks after the girl’s sixth birthday. jude remembers the whole thing like it was yesterday. it was snowing that day and it was that thick puffy snow that made everything seem quiet, the kind that made it hard to see too far ahead on the path you were trekking. the loski twins had taken advantage of the weather to slip between the fingers of their caretaker for the first time and go to the local park. their escape with thrilling, a game of espionage turned reality and the two girls basked in their victory as they made snow angels and twirled and twirled in the snow. that was the day jude had set out to swing higher than she ever had before and demanded that julie watch. and her sweet sister, as submissive as she was, had never quite learned how to say no to jude. so while jude swung and swung and swung, julie stood and watched her from across the park by herself, eyes wide and innocent as she warmed up her numb fingers with her breath. until she wasn’t. alone that is. jude remembers spotting the woman approaching julie. she remember seeing them talking. she remembers the warm clouds her own breath made, almost in sync with the breaths huffing past her sisters lips, foggy up the air before her eyes and obscuring her view. she remembers julie taking the woman’s hand. she remembers the two of them moving to leave the park. and she will never forget that heart stopping moment of quiet, of confusion and fear as her swing slowly came to a stop. she remembers losing julie in the blur of the snow that day.

eventually the police found jude huddled under a tree a block away, still calling her sister’s name into that eerily quiet snow storm, blue lipped and half frozen to death as she shook like a leaf. jude came out of that experience with phemonia. julie didn’t come out of that experience at all. 

well, in all honesty there was no way for the loski’s to know that. after all, they never saw julie again. for all jude knew, her sister could be alive and well, living a new happy life where she had no memory of having a sister. where she had a family that was whole for no reason other than she doesn’t remember it falling apart, and where she loved and was loved in return. it was always so easy to love julie. so honestly, it was entirely possible. 

jude would like to believe that was true. even if in that scenario it would undoubtedly mean that jude got the short end of the stick. 

you see, after julie’s kidnapping anette and damon’s marriage fell to pieces over the years. the trauma of losing a child can do that to you, you know. during that time, as her parents bond splintered apart at the seams, jude remembers hearing her grandmother tell her mother to keep it together for jude. to stick out out for the child she had left. 

her mother left them both in the middle of the night without warning less than a week later. so, jude supposes she wasn’t quite enough to hold things together. 

jude might have been comforted by the fact that she still had her father if he could even look her in the eye. the fact was, jude looked exactly like julie and julie and jude were always both told they were dead ringers for their mother. jude was a physical reminder of literally everything her father had lost, and he didn’t take that quite well. suddenly damon’s hobby of a job became his life. anything to not be home with his ghost of a daughter. 

now the doom and gloom of all this might make it seem like jude took all this trauma and just got really down in the dumps about it. that would be incorrect. jude took that trauma, buried it very deep and only ever used it to fuel her art but otherwise completely ignored it altogether. there’s a difference. one option requires years of therapy and the other can be dealt with pretty easily with years of denial, even if you’re forced to go to therapy anyways because your twin sister was kidnapped in front of you and that kind of thing generally gets you a ticket to therapy for life. very different. 

jude isn’t sure if it was that trauma, her parents name, the fact that the news of her sister’s kidnapping was pretty spread all over europe for about a month, or even unlikely enough her talent that launched her art career, but something did. maybe it was a combination of everything. but either way, jude loski was able to find herself with her own small art gallery opening at the tender age of thirteen. and her success in the art world only grew from their, her art galleries and portfolio growing and growing until the point that jude was able to find herself with a place at holloway. and considering there wasn’t much left for her in england anyways, considering her father barely spoke to her and her mother was gone like the wind, jude decided to go. 

and that’s all i got for now, and also i’m tired but if you want to plot give this a like and i will slide into your dms.

HEADCANNONS.  *aggressively makes tea*

here is her pinterest board. 

do not call her judy,  

hates her birthday and hates snow storms understandably. is a big fan of rain though. particularly enjoys thunder storms. 

is allergic to bees but is super chill about it. had an allergic reaction when she was fourteen that her dad was too busy on a business call to notice was happening. the nanny ended up being the one to stab her with the epipen. 

has pretty bad nightmares and night terrors sometimes and hence generally likes to sleep when the sun is out if she sleeps at all. because of that she tends to seem pretty nocturnal. you can probably catch her at the library in the middle of the night. 

loves weird little knicknacks. like voodoo dolls and like shrunken heads or like other weird stuff you find in the corners of antique shops and stuff. her side of her dorm is probably full of them so rip to her roommate. 

really loves skulls and other modern kind of contradictory things on fine china. learnt to make the designs herself cause there isn’t nearly enough of them, but she just does it for herself as a hobby like she doesn’t sell them or anything. 

learnt to weld on a whim. catch jude in her dorm welding things to make sculptures out of metal. 

bisexual as hell theydies. 

spent a lot of her teenage years with her godmother but i’m too tired to get into that rn i might add to this later

loves poetry and novels, but likes the flowery shit yk, the stuff that makes you feel something. 

is a good student for the most part but is horrible in math and science. sits in on english and classics courses for fun though. 

is v english and therefore very particular about her tea. 

i do headcannon that julie is fine and okay and just living that finding carter life so if anyone was wondering yeah she’s out there somewhere and alive with a new kidnapper mom yk 

a bit witchy. the kind who washes her door in rosemary and sunwater because she believes in that kind of thing and doesn’t understand why people don’t. that said, she doesn’t believe in god even a little bit but she goes to church every sunday anyways just to admire the stained glass and ask very specific questions to spark debate. she also just genuinely likes the vibe of jesus. not god, but jesus, she’s cool with. 

unfortunately is a dirty smoker. smokes nicotine and weed. probably vapes. 

the type to quote poetry when she’s drunk or high. can be very annoying because she always thinks that she’s like transcended into another world. 

i have a feeling in my heart that she’s really bizarre and she was really bizarre as a child after losing julie. big lilo from lilo and stitch vibes yk. just weird and sentimental and lonely. 

has a pet rabbit named julius. 

doesn’t tend to talk about her dead missing sister so unless you think your muse would know about it she probably wouldn’t tell them i’m ngl 

as for personality i have no clue!!! this is my first time playing her so i’m gonna figure it out yk

WANTED CONNECTIONS. I kinda need a hug but I’d rather DIE than let anyone know I am a human being that desperately craves intimacy

CHILDHOOD FRIEND. please. they can be from anywhere okay i will make it work i live for childhood friend connections. 

ENEMIES. i mean why not 

BEST FRIENDS. again, pls.

CONFIDANTES. someone she trusts, we love to see it 

EXES. i have a feeling that jude is one of those ‘i’m gonna leave before you leave me’ kind of people, so she definitely could have self sabotaged this kind of thing

MUSE. self explanatory but consider this: please. 

CRUSH. jude has a crush on your muse or vice versa

FAMILY FRIEND. self explanatory, but it could be wild that’s all i’m saying. 

and other stuff ofc, but my brain is so tired y’all i have to knock out

[dgcatanisiri]

So... I have had THOUGHTS swirling in my head, and, well, I need to word vomit some. This gets LONG. I apologize for the lack of a cut, but nowhere really seemed fitting during my writing.

If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s going around - an article about fandom hating on women. A very long, very researched article. And I absolutely do not dispute that core premise. I am not going to dismiss the work that the writer put into it. I am not standing here saying to dismiss it at all. And, hell, I DO feel a little uncomfortable, writing this massive response to it, being a man writing something that is directly responding to a female experience. Just... My brain would not let me focus unless I wrote this all down, and wrote out my feelings on the matter to a conclusion.

When I first saw it the other day, it sparked a rant of my own, because something about it didn’t sit right. Its focus is on how this hatred of women has gone after those who ship a certain ship, one I avoid calling by name for a very specific reason. That reason being I legit fear being bombarded by people who search the tags for that ship getting a ping of me commenting about it negatively and lashing out at me.

Now, I am not saying that I discount the article writer’s experience or research. Far from it. This is, much as I am loathe to use the term, something I am willing to say that, within the fandom, develops an element of “both sides” to it, where an incident with one side (those in favor of the ship) leads the other (those against it) to respond on the defensive, and back and forth and back and forth, intensifying in each volley, because one random stranger attacked another random stranger and made them hostile to a third random stranger saying things similar to the first, and so on down the chain. It’s like the game of Telephone, just played with tactical nukes.

But, the thing for me in that rant, is that there is a very blatant MISSING of the element of racism that fueled that ship that will not be named, of there being a significant element of the fandom around that ship transplanting the characteristics and even history of the character played by the black man onto the character played by the white man. Like, talk about sock puppet accounts fanning flames and all, but I’ve SEEN fics for this pairing that vilifies the black man and props up the white man. I have SEEN the massive metas that try to explain how the white man kidnapping this woman involved a bridal carry that expresses his true love for this woman he’s just met, interpreting and reinterpreting and pouring over the screentime they have, and only a fraction of it being spent on what seemed like, in the first appearance of these characters. I have SEEN the ignoring and transferring of character backstories repeatedly. Like... Those are a lot of work for it to be mostly the work of sock puppet accounts - A Tweet is easy. A 15000 word fanfic takes time and effort. A meta dive that rivals the length of this post takes time and effort. 

That’s been MY experience in seeing this ship. That’s why I’m being non-specific, because I’ve SEEN the hostility come in and I am taking the steps that I can to avoid that coming in to my inbox. And even when it’s not hostility... I’ve gone and explored the tag for the female character in this pairing. On those occasions, frequently content solely for her is drowned out by the content for the pairing, or about her influence on him. His tag does not have the same issue - there, it’s probably around half shipping content, half individual character content. What I see is that she is neglected by those who claim to see her as part of the pairing they love, and he gets glorified. 

That’s the sexism that I see. That’s where I see the hatred of women happening. On the part of those who claim to love this pairing, but that really seems to just mean that they love him and want to make her stand in emotionally for everything they want to give him. That those who are against the pairing, at the least, want to see that character in particular, her unique characterization and dynamics, in a relationship with someone who is going to treat her with compassion, consideration, and respect.

And, of course, there’s the issue of the fact that this pairing EXPLODED in popularity, while her relationship with another character, with a black man, was from pretty much day one minimized and reduced and ignored, and the damage reflected into the on-screen portrayal so that they never really had any character rebound from the imposed separation in the middle of this content, while strengthening the reduction of this female character to the white guy’s sexy lamp.

It’s not that I’m opposed to women in fandom or that I see something inherently wrong with whoever ships this pairing. It is that I have seen the blatant and thinly veiled racism implicit in the ways that these people go about shipping it, dismissing and denouncing the canon portrayal of an interracial relationship, to the point that when even the (notoriously tumultuous) production came back to write the stories that followed up on their initial appearance, that black man and his relationship with this white woman was downplayed and rendered “less important” to her connection and relationship with the white man - the white man who, in that first appearance, had kidnapped and tortured her, greatly wounded her friend, and killed her mentor. 

Like, I’m just saying, I do not see how one goes from that point to everlasting true love, but I CAN see how that leads to a deep abiding hatred. And yet, you know, nearly 16000 fics for it on AO3, while only about 10% of the other pairing. So, hey, I guess I’M wrong.

This is, again, to say nothing of the reductionary way many portrayals of this ship approach the female half - she loses her characterization in their portrayals to become a stand-in for the (predominantly) female writer/reader, whose love redeems the bad boy from the darkness in his soul. Her contribution, as a singular, unique character vanishes so that she becomes his reward for turning around, and she cheers him on, supporting him while never upstaging him.

It’s the Twilight phenomenon all over again. And I say that as a fact statement, not a value judgement, that this is the kind of thing that we saw within the reactions to Twilight, a vocal segment dismissed it entirely, and we saw a relationship be romanticized when you could actually use it as a bullet-point list of abusive behavior (I say this because it has been - there are plenty of articles using those characters as such). 

I mean, I can easily see this whole thing basically as being “well, the Twilight readers are now adults, let’s throw them a bone and “grow up” the characters for them” on some level. And... Actually, this is going to get off topic, let’s stick a pin in this and come back.

So, look, if this ship is your jam, fine, okay? I’m not making any individual value statements on the subject. You do you. I’m not shaming that act in and of itself, even if, as I’ve made very clear, it is very much NOT my thing. Likewise, I won’t discount that it was investors and shareholders, a notoriously conservative group, who got cold feet and basically wanted to excise the “risk” of an interracial relationship, as opposed to trying to “appease the fans” or something like that.

Like, I know I’m not immune to propaganda. I know I don’t look too deep when a random post crosses my dashboard and talks about this group of people behaving badly - because I’ve seen fandoms and productions be racist. I’m not trying to start a round of victimization Olympics here, but in this case, this is discussing an issue that is wrapped up in BOTH sexism and racism. And on the one hand, that certainly makes it all the easier for bad faith actors to kick up dust and turn people against one another.

BUT...

As important as it is to bring up these issues on their own, you CANNOT. DISENTANGLE. THEM. FROM. EACH OTHER. Like, there are patterns to fandom. You see this repeat itself in every fandom. Fandom at large latches on to a pairing, and shoves most others to the margins. And frequently, when the media in question centers on a character of color, THEY are shoved aside in order to prop up a pairing of white characters. Major canon characters who are not white become secondary - or tertiary - characters in terms of their fandom’s creative output. This happens frequently enough that to try and say “well, maybe the character is just not appealing to the fandom” is actively ignoring the issue.

And this often takes the form of shoving aside healthy relationships and solid, established friendships in the name of pairing up antagonistic characters, declaring the antagonism to be “sexual tension,” that the characters dislike each other not because... y’know, they dislike each other, but because they’re repressing a deep-seated desire to fuck, and THEN they’ll miraculously starting being nice to one another.

Like, this is NOT an isolated thing, you can look beyond the scope of this particular fandom and this pairing and see the pattern repeat itself across media. It is still the outlier when the main fandom pairing is an interracial M/F pairing. 

It’s not isolated. But it’s magnified given the massive size of this fandom in particular. This is a generational fandom, where parents - even grandparents - are sharing it with their children. And those biases we as an audience have reinforce themselves on subconscious levels, we don’t even acknowledge these things until we finally have it pointed out to us - and then we see it everywhere, because we have been blind to it, but it is all over our media, our fiction, baked into the very tropes we are using to assemble our stories.

Pull out that pin, we’re back. When something engages with multiple generations, when this is something you can look back on as a fond memory you shared with prior generations, with people you love, you will become protective of that thing. So when someone comes along and says “hey, [thing] has issues with [whatever],” a gut reaction is to get defensive, coil protectively around it. 

I mean, tell a millennial you don’t like The Lion King (original animated version, I mean), and you’re liable to get crucified. And it traces its lineage to (at a minimum) Shakespeare and probably further. So if, for example, you want to criticize it for, say, only have three female characters of note, none of whom actually interact, in opposition to the nearly three times as many male characters of note, you need to approach the subject with some delicacy (okay, maybe not the most fitting example, since this was part of the reason that the Broadway version made Rafiki a woman, so the issue Is Known, but it does get the point across, okay?).

And it’s the same when it comes to a subject like this particular fandom and media that isn’t just something many get hooked on in their childhood, but is also something that may be among the fond and cherished memories of family figures, some who may have passed on. To say “that thing you love is flawed” becomes a personal attack, not just on you for loving it, but also that beloved family member who brought it into your life.

And absolutely, this is not a rational reaction. It’s pure emotion. But we are emotional beings, and we need to acknowledge that emotions will make us respond and often respond quickly and respond poorly.

Here’s where I think the bigger issue lies if what you want to talk about is how fandom hates women - rather than look at it in the lens of “this ship is called abusive and racist,” go in the direction of “why is THIS ship the one that seems to resonate?”

Because this is the kind of ship that fandom, as a monolithic entity, often gravitates to - the dynamic that says that being enemies will inevitable lead to being lovers. 

Once again, I do not want to shame anyone for enjoying this dynamic. Lord knows my search history has instances of them. BUT... We don’t really know how to approach the dynamic. It is frequently reduced to “well, we made out, so now I’m gonna become the snarky asshole friend no one likes and we’ll bone.” 

Like in general, writing redemption arcs seems to be a hard thing for media, but it really seems to only work when the active narrative endpoint does not end in a major romance - when a romance becomes a major narrative element in said redemption arc, it frequently reduces the subject to “[character] was bad, now they’re in love, so they’re good!” No further work needs to be done.

And so when you have a character who is in need of redemption, it is a problem to just toss them at another character and have them make kissy faces. But that’s what you can sum up much of the concept of enemies to lovers in this fashion. The work isn’t done to show the earning of redemption, just declaring it attained because of another character’s love.

And I’m being intentionally non-specific with gender, because I do have a prominent example of this happening in a female/female fanon relationship in mind, which I am also avoiding mentioning in the name of discretion. So this isn’t solely a M/F phenomenon. This is a media thing, this is an “our understanding and approach to these dynamics and portrayals in media seems flawed and needs examination” thing. 

I mentioned Twilight above, and how that features a relationship that is used as an example of domestic abuse. Now, look, we can go back and forth about interpretation, the thing to acknowledge about it is that there are a great many who walked away from these books, their movie adaptations, and saw this particular interpretation. While you can probably take any relationship in any media and spin it in such a way, I think there is something to be said for the ensuing argument: When this is exposed to young people who are beginning to seek out romantic relationships, if their example for what love is, what love looks like, has a basis that, based solely on interpreting the text alone, the actions and words of the characters involved, the narrative text, the exploration of their thoughts, is unhealthy, is something that doesn’t need to have a word or action changed to be legitimately cited by experts within domestic abuse counseling as the warning signs... What does that say about our perceptions of what love even is?

And this isn’t getting back into the element of racism, either. Because we could go in that direction, where the black characters in fandom see this selective reinterpreting of their characters, turning what are gentle, caring, loving men into scary figures who loom ominously when they feel threatened, which starts to seem like all the time. There are a set of stock characterizations for black characters, for really any minority character, and the fandom will make them exhibit them in their interpretations, even if it does not fit anything established on screen.

There are a lot of threads that tie into the problems within this fandom and in the approach to this ship in particular. I feel like just pulling at one of them is doing so at the expense of the others, ones that run as deep if not deeper. And it seems like a disservice, both to the complexity of the issue and to anyone impacted by these matters, to only do that deep dive on the one. And, if you are not capable of doing it alone, which, I understand, this is a tall order, then I think it also is important to acknowledge this and actively seek out the alternate views and perspectives that aren’t just total opposition to you (meaning the references to the groups that sprung up in alt-right forums and such), but also those who are going to say “okay, maybe you’re right about x, but your statement on y are missing a lot of context you do not have from your position,” and seek the necessary education.

While I can appreciate the time and effort put into this article and the points it wants to make, it IS wrapped up in elements that run far deeper than any single ship, and just really seems to ignore the intersectional element of fandom at large, how fandom’s problem run deeper than just hating women. To talk about how fandom hates women, you are also needing to open the door to how fandom hates black people, hates people of color.

There is a hierarchy to this, and at best, you are missing a lot when you only focus on the top layer of the issue, rather than even acknowledging the deeper dive that inevitably comes from this. Like, it’s bad for a white woman, dealing with sexism. It’s worse for black women, dealing with sexism AND racism. It is something of a position of privilege to only examine the sexism in fandom, without exploring or acknowledging the racism.

Fandom’s hatred of women IS real. I am in no way disputing that. But I do not think that this is the best example to that point, because it becomes all too easy to dismiss the valid complaints and concerns with the trolls and bots and sock puppets found in the process that deserve legitimate consideration - this is one of the things I have been over when I have (oh god, I’m about to break the self-imposed rule and directly reference the media and characters in specific...) been over the problems I have with The Last Jedi. It’s not that I dislike Rose or Holdo, but I feel like they came into the narrative to teach Finn and Poe (both men of color) lessons that either comes at the expense of the previous’s movies arc for Finn or the previous movie’s characterization for Poe. It is not the characters themselves, it is the utilization within the narrative, using these women to impose a lesson on these characters. That, as I said above, Rey is reduced to a sexy lamp, there to try and bring back to the light a character she has no reason to ever even care about.

That was my experience with The Last Jedi - I had honest issues with the film that weren’t “women? In my Star Wars? Unpossible!” But the surrounding discourse CONSTANTLY felt so toxic to anyone who disagreed with the idea that it had been a win, that it was a bold new direction for the series, and that anyone who disagreed MUST be a sexist/racist/whatever who couldn’t take a changing face to the franchise. 

Hell, that may even be why I got this ultimate feeling of defensiveness, both in my opinion of TLJ and the ship in question (yeah, that one I’m still not acknowledging), because what I saw was a lot of really prominent voices not seeing the issues I did, and making it come across like the people who disagreed with them HAD TO BE the ones who were mad on the basis of characters like Rose and Holdo existing, or complaining about Leia’s Force use, or things like that. But... THOSE things weren’t my issues. But I couldn’t talk about those issues on any platform where there was regular engagement on the subject, considering the amount of explanation I would have to do.

Probably also explains some of my inherent response of trying to figure out how I feel about this article, too, come to think of it...

That was how things were after TLJ, and that’s when a lot of this push and pushback really started to gain traction as far as I can see. And maybe we could go and blame this on *ahem* bigger issues that were happening in 2017/2018 that proceeded to exacerbate matters. Like, we’re still in the midst of cleaning up the worst of all of what went on because of the time we live in, since things are still getting messier while we deal with prior fallout.

So... I honestly don’t know how to sum this up as a TL;DR. It was kind of a process for me to get to this point, and I don’t even know if I really have a conclusion. The best way I can go about summarizing is that I do not disagree with the article’s core idea. But I do not agree with its focus, while I understand that a portion of it, if nothing else, justifies why it is the focus. We are dealing with a very complex and complicated web of issues on this, and while I understand focusing on a single thread of that web, it feels like doing so also fails to acknowledge the various connected threads that wrap around that singular thread, in particular the racial elements, which, considering the profile image included, I do not believe this article was written by someone who is inherently aware of these aspects (while I’m also aware that, as a white person myself, I only have so much room to talk). This is all a very long way for me to go about saying “fandom has a lot of issues.”

[artificialqueens]

Honey (Monet x Monique) - Ortega

a/n: this is just my way of letting u all know that i stan Monet and Monique and ship them so bloody much that this happened. me n Salem (Citrus) were talking about how funny it would be to call this fic Honey bc of all the Trixie stans that fucking hate the brown cow/sponge chat, but also because of the Kehlani song Honey that reminds me so much of these two being pure. enjoy n pls let me know what u think! (p.s. last chapter of Game is coming i promise xxxxx)

Summary: performing arts college au, two gals being pals. Monet reminisces over how she got together with her girlfriend. Monique just wants to eat ice cream tbh.

The clock was ticking so slowly. Time seemed to be moving slower than it ever had done before in Monet’s life, but that always seemed to happen in tutorials. It seemed to happen even more frequently, she found, when Valentina was talking. Usually she would listen and try to contain her laughter as the girl flipped her long, straight hair about her shoulders and went on a long, self-centered tangent which had nothing to do with the topic at hand, but today her voice was grating. Performance showcases were coming up, and she had to practice. She had better things to do with her time than listen to her drone on in that high, affected, airy-fairy voice about…what the fuck was she even talking about?

“…and so I think if I chose that it would really highlight my vocal versatility, plus I could work in a costume as well, and maybe do a dramatic monologue at the start to illustrate the character,” she said, appearing to be finished. Monet looked over at her tutorial leader, Jinkx, who was half-asleep and very confused.

“Um…sorry, I don’t see how we got from the prevalence of 5/4 time signatures in later Jazz music to…” Jinkx blinked. “…you performing in your final showcase as Jean Valjean.”

All eyes shifted to Valentina, who blinked back at her. “I mean, isn’t it obvious? I feel I made my train of thought very clear.”

As Jinkx steered the conversation back to whatever the fuck it had been about in the first place, Monet scribbled in her notebook. She still hadn’t sorted her setlist out for her performances, or organised the band, and it was only a fortnight away. She was stressed. She almost didn’t notice her phone buzz.

Mo: bitch what the fuck was that all about?!?!?!!?

Mo: is she on crystal meth?????

Pause. Buzz.

Mo: why u ignoring me sis???

Mo: this is no way to treat ur girlfriend u whore

Pause.

Mo: i know ur seeing these u bitch

Monet gave a light sigh and looked up. There, opposite her, was the living spambot herself that she had the privilege (or curse, she joked internally) to call her girlfriend, Monique. Her huge mane of dyed orange hair was blown out to frame her face perfectly, and the lids of her eyes sparkled with purple glitter which matched her highlighter. Monet’s heart did a flip. It still did when she looked at her, even after the 1 and a half years they’d been together. It seemed simultaneously like such a long time and also no time at all. It didn’t even count the two years beforehand that Monet had spent with a crush on her, which probably made it seem longer. Monique hadn’t noticed Monet looking at her yet and was still typing with her huge pointy nails, a feat which never ceased to amaze Monet.

Mo: here’s a nude i took earlier

Mo: 26012019_602040.jpeg

Just as Monet was about to tap on the picture, she heard her name being mentioned. She looked up with a start, the heat rushing to her face as if everybody could see her texts. The whole room was looking at her expectantly, save for Monique who was looking just as rabbit-caught-in-headlights as Monet imagined she was.

Jinkx gave a kind smile, obviously seeing that she hadn’t been paying a blind bit of attention. “Have you started thinking about the showcase much yet, or not at all?”

Monet gave a grateful exhale. Then, she thought for a second. “I know that I need to get a setlist done but I almost feel like I have too many ideas going on and I don’t know which one to go with? Like I don’t have a theme.”

“Oh, I feel that, honey,” came a theatrical voice from across the room. Trixie Mattel, the scholarship kid, was bright and talented, but also annoyed fuck out of Monet because of her incessant catchphrase. “I sat for ages trying to think of what I should sing. But then I thought, what’s really going to show me for me? A bit of who I am? And then it just hit me- honey! I say it so often it’s such a huge part of me, so why not theme all my songs around it?”

Jinkx smiled at the student. “Which are?”

“Honey, Honey from Mamma Mia: The Musical, Honey I’m Home by Shania Twain, and Honey, I’m Good by Andy Grammer,” she smiled proudly. Monet heard a tiny snort across the room and her eyes immediately drifted to Monique who was sniffing as if she had a cold.

“Well, at least someone’s sorted,” Jinkx shrugged, raising her eyebrows and checking the clock. “Okay, that’s us done. Go practice and get organised.”

There was a wild scraping of chairs and bags flying over shoulders as the other students raced out of the seminar room. Monet was last out by the time she’d packed up and thrown her jacket on, and she left the room to find Monique leaning against the wall in the empty corridor waiting for her. She smiled gently as she saw her girlfriend.

“Good to go?” Monet asked her, running a hand down her arm and taking her hand.

“Well, you took long enough,” Monique pouted, cheering up when Monet squeezed her hand. “If we go get ice cream will you share it with me?”

Monet feigned a sob. “I really need to practice.”

Monique stopped in the hall and did her best impression of a dying kitten. Monet rolled her eyes. “Fine! We’ll go.”

Monique was happy as she walked hand in hand with Monet to the ice cream parlour. She radiated bubbly excitement as she talked about her showcase and how she was going to perform all original songs, including one about a brown cow. This was precisely what Monet loved about Monique- her neverending energy, her lust for life, her complete fucking off-the-wall ideas and creativity that nobody else seemed to have. She’d always been like that in high school, too- you could hear her before you could see her, and it was as if every moment was part of her own, Monique-Heart-based reality show. She was always popular, but not quite in the bitchy sense, and she was always surrounded by her friends: Mayhem, the queen bee, Asia, the makeup artist, Vixen, the bitch never out of detention. Monet always stayed in her lane- after all, there was no real reason for their paths to cross- but she’d often look across the lunch hall to the table of goddesses and feel intrigued and shy at the same time, confused by the feelings that years later she’d recognise as a classic, embarrassing high school crush.  

They arrived at the cafe where Monique sat down, all but grabbed the menu from Monet’s hands, and began flicking through it.

“What do you want?” she asked Monet, not looking up from her flicking. Monet let out a burst of laughter.

“Bitch, you just took the menu from me! How the hell am I supposed to know?! Get whatever you want,” she shrugged, leaning back in her seat and looking out of the window. “I don’t mind.”

It was cold and grey outside but somehow Monique made it seem so much more colourful- a huge lilac sweatshirt with an enormous pair of eyes stitched onto it, patterned blue and green exercise leggings. Stuff that anyone else would be afraid of wearing, but not Monique. Monique was fearless.  

Monique decided on a red velvet and white chocolate sundae. She proudly announced that she chose it because she remembered red velvet was Monet’s favourite, Monet smiling and not letting on that she had no intention of sharing the sundae and she only agreed to get ice cream because Monique would have been sad if they didn’t.

“I can’t believe you’re performing that fucking cow song at your actual showcase. You’re crazy,” Monet laughed suddenly, shaking her head.

“What?” Monique asked incredulously. “So it’s okay for Trixie to theme her whole show around fucking honey but I can’t do a song about a brown cow?”

“Yeah but…” Monet smiled, knowing it would annoy her girlfriend. “…it only works when she does it.”

Monique launched herself across the table to wallop Monet on the arm. Suddenly guilty, Monet reached across and took Monique’s hand, stroking her knuckles gently and taking care to avoid getting stabbed by her nails.

“I’m kidding. Your song’s fun.”

“Oh, it’s a bop,” Monique nodded emphatically.

“Facts are facts,” Monet smiled, using the phrase she knew Monique loved so much.

“Facts are facts,” Monique repeated, beaming at her from across the table. “I ever tell you how lucky I am to have you?”

“No,” Monet deadpanned, taking a sip out of the glass bottle of coke she’d ordered. Monique laughed and mirrored her sip. That was all their relationship seemed to consist of- laughter, constant fun and affection. Monique was funny in her own crazy way, hyper, and Monet was always joking about with her, teasing and poking fun at her until Monique went in a huff and Monet had to faux-beg for forgiveness. She knew Monique always found her funny, though, even though some people thought she wasn’t. In fact, humour was how Monet managed to get Monique on side when they first met properly. It was the first week of Year 13, and they had been put in the same Drama class. They’d been going round the circle talking about the classic bullshit start-of-the-year stuff- what they wanted to get out of the course and suchlike- and a loud-mouthed, domineering girl called Eureka was having her turn. Monet recognised her- she’d always been the year above her in school, but for some reason she was repeating Year 13 (there were rumours it was because of exam failures). Eureka was talking in a faux-humble style of how she already had an agent and how she was going to become a famous actress once the year was over, and that she didn’t really need to be taking Drama to be a professional anyway, she was just doing it for fun.

“Is that why you’re taking it to AS Level for the second time?” Monet had muttered. She thought she’d been quiet, but it had come out way louder than she’d expected, and it got her some glares from some of the bitchier girls. There had been a snort, though, from the other side of the room, and Monet’s gaze had followed it to the source- Monique Heart, who was smiling at her guiltily.

After class, Monet had taken a bit of heat from Eureka and her friends outside the Drama studio, until Monique had turned the corridor. She looked at the girls surrounding Monet, narrowed her eyes, cocked her head, and they’d left. That was the influence she held, and it captivated Monet slightly.

“Did they give you any trouble?” she’d asked, gazing at Monet intently with kind eyes. “Because if they do, just let me know. Vixen’s been looking for an excuse to drag that bitch since she joined our year.”

“Thanks,” Monet had given a quick, awkward smile and walked away, assuming the conversation had been over. She’d been surprised when Monique had caught up with her, walking quickly to match her footsteps.

“I thought it was funny, by the way. What you said. The bitch is so full of shit.”

“Someone had to say it,” Monet shrugged. She smiled to herself. Her heart had felt as if it’d swollen twice its size and she’d felt so satisfied that Monique had found her funny.

“Facts are facts,” Monique had agreed. It was the first time Monet had ever heard her say that. “So how come you’re crashing AS Drama?”

“It’s not a crash, I did A Level last year. I just think we were in different sets,” Monet explained, still amazed that Monique was talking to her. “I’m applying to Performing Arts college. The Academy?”

“Oh, same!” Monique had cried, a high-pitched shriek of recognition. “This is great! Now we can be each other’s emotional support when we do our auditions.”

Monet had smiled, and had gone to say something else when Monique omitted another large cry. As she waved, Monet realised she’d seen her friends.

“I gotta go but I’ll see you tomorrow, Monet!” she’d all but yelled as she ran off to join the other girls. Monet had been disappointed that their conversation was over, until she remembered that they had Drama in first period the next day which was less than 24 hours away.

Monet was suddenly distracted by a wet spoon hitting her nose. She blinked, surprised.

“What was that for?” she asked. Across from her, Monique was halfway through her sundae. Monet had no idea how long it had been there.

“You’ve been staring into space for like, two minutes solid,” Monique explained. Monet took another look at the sundae and laughed.

“You ate all that in two minutes?”

Monique rolled her eyes at her. “Can I be me?”

Monet smiled. “You can finish it. I don’t want any. I’ll still go halfers with you when we’re done.”

“You’re sweet,” Monique said softly, then followed Monet’s gaze out the window. “What were you thinking about anyway?”

“Just us before college. Before we were together,” Monet gave a small shrug and Monique grinned. She seemed eager to say something and was hurrying her current mouthful of ice cream so she didn’t have to speak with her mouth full.

“Remember how nervous I was the first few months we were together in case my parents found out?” she laughed, as if it was a joke. Monet didn’t remember it being a joke at the time. “Then we came here and I’m like ‘Hi, everyone, this is my girlfriend, Monet!’, ‘Hi, America, this is my girlfriend, Monet!”, “Hello, world, did you know I have a girlfriend? Her name is Monet!’. I think the whole college knows by now.”

Monet smiled. “I’m glad you can show me off, it’s what I deserve.”

Monique turned suddenly quiet, something that Monet hardly ever saw. A light blush had hit her cheeks. “I still remember being so happy getting partnered with you for our performance pieces, because it meant I’d get to spend more time with you.”

Monet smiled affectionately. “So was I, but then I was like ‘shit’ because I was already so nervous around you.”

“So was I!”

“Shut up, no you weren’t,” Monet let out a laugh. “You were a motherfucking foghorn around me, I swear I caught tinnitus from working with you.”

“Yeah! I get loud when I’m nervous, sis,” Monique muttered, taking a sip of her drink and looking so meek and so un-Monique that Monet wanted to both laugh and wrap her arms around her and never let go. “If it hadn’t been for Vixen we wouldn’t even be sitting here together now, how crazy.”

Monet snorted. “Yes we would. We’d both have got in here, just we’d probably still be friends and we’d both have huge crushes on each other but be too scared to tell.”

Monique looked indignant. “Hey, I would’ve told you at some point! Just needed to get my nerve.”

“Well, Vixen did it for us.”

It was true that neither of them really had had to make the first move because one lunchtime, just after their final performances and after Monet and Monique had found out they would both be going to the same college, Vixen sat down at Monet’s lunch table right beside her. Monet remembers Bob, Pepper and Cracker looking at them both and then dropping their conversational volume about ten decibels so that they could both talk and listen in. Her friends were so predictable.

“Hey,” Vixen started off. There was a sort of scheming little smile on her face, like she knew a joke that she’d never share with the world. “So Monique wants to know if you like girls.”

Monet vividly remembers drinking from a carton of orange juice and nearly choking on it. “Um. Why?”

Vixen looked at her nails, a small frown coming over her face as she realised she’d chipped one. “Monique’s never been with a girl before but she has this lesbian crush on you, it’s kind of adorable. Anyway, I thought I should ask in case you’re not into that. Pointless raising her hopes if they’re just gonna be crushed.”

Monet had blinked a little at her, while noticing that her friends beside her had dropped all pretence of talking to each other and were now full-on listening to their conversation.

“I mean, I kinda…like her too, I guess?” Monet replied, trying to sound casual when her heart was beating so fast she was afraid it would land her in hospital.

Vixen narrowed her eyes at her. “You kinda like her, or you like her? Which is it?”

“I like her,” Monet replied immediately. Then that same smile had appeared on Vixen’s face as she’d slid off the chair and sashayed over to her usual table. And then Monet had been thrown into a state of panic and anxiety- what if Vixen had been asking for a joke? What if she had just wanted to embarrass Monet, and Monique didn’t feel the same at all? She wouldn’t have been able to look Monique in the eye. She hadn’t dared to look over to the other table and, as her friends had consoled her, Monet thought she’d made a dreadful mistake.

So when Monet had been rushing to her next class after lunch and taking a shortcut she’d though that only she knew, she’d been surprised to see Monique sitting on a bench deep in thought. Self-conscious, Monet tried to hurry past her, but was stopped by a call.

“Mo!”

She turned and Monique was smiling at her gently. It was a genuine smile. It didn’t seem scheming, or part of a set up. In fact, it looked a little shy.

“Hey,” Monet smiled back nervously, perching on the bench. “Sorry I kinda blanked you, I was rushing to get to class.”

“Oh well sorry, you better go!” Monique insisted, appearing more embarrassed by the second. Something in Monet wanted to find out why, so she replied.

“No, it’s okay. I’m late now, might as well commit to it,” she shrugged, looking at the other girl whose brows were furrowed. “How come you’re up here anyway?”

“Just thinking about stuff,” Monique said simply. Still with her eyes on the grass below, she continued. “Monet…”

Monet’s heart was rattling against her ribcage as if it was trying to escape her body. “Mm?”

“Did Vixen tell you? You know…about…me? And…you?” Monique asked calmly, even though looking back Monet thought that her insides were probably as fucked up as her own.

She’d wondered about whether or not to tell the truth. “About you liking me? Yeah, she did.”

Monique visibly cringed. “That motherfucking fruitloop bitch. I’m gonna kill her.”

Monet let out a laugh and Monique joined in too, softly. Her gaze finally met Monet’s own. “She told me that you like me too, though, right?”

Monet was sure she’d felt her heart stop completely, if only for a second. “Um. Yeah, I guess I do.”

There was a pause, and Monet panicked. “Monique, look, I don’t know if this is a huge in-joke you and your friends have, but-”

“Oh no, it’s really not! I promise,” Monique had blurted out. She’d been so far away from her usual chilled out, calm self, and she’d looked back to the ground. “So, uh. Do you want to go get food after school?”

Monet’s heart exploded. “Yeah. That sounds fun.”

“Just to clarify, this would be a date. Like this is me asking you out on a date,” Monique repeated, her eccentric energy slowly coming back. Monet snorted.

“Girl what do you think I am, hard of hearing? I get it,” she’d laughed, leading to Monet thumping her with her bag, standing up, and walking away.

“Don’t bother! It’s cancelled!” she’d cried out to her as she walked off, Monet doubling over laughing and happy in the knowledge Monique didn’t mean a single word.

Fast forward to today and they were leaving the ice cream parlour, hand in hand again, Monique happy and full of ice cream and Monet happy because her girlfriend was happy.

“I never thought it would be this easy, you know?” she mused out loud, Monique turning to her and pulling a confused face. Monet smiled and clarified. “Us. We always wondered how we’d do when we moved here and had to be on the same course but it’s so easy.”

“Of course it’s easy. You’re with me! What are you trying to say, that I’m hard work?” Monique all but screamed, Monet’s face remaining deadpan.

“Yes.”

“Shut up,” Monique laughed, turning and pulling Monet in for a kiss. Monique’s kisses were always so much like her- soft and gentle but with a crazy passion that knocked Monet for six every time. They were interrupted by a disapproving voice muttering something about Jesus and tradition. Monique immediately whipped herself round from Monet’s face, found the culprit (a balding old man) and fired back.

“Sir, the ten commandments said ‘love thy neighbour’, and Jesus said ‘why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?’, so I think the fuck not, bitch,” she all but spat at him. As the man walked away, stunned, she turned and wrapped Monet in a protective hug, which she was grateful for. “Try to out-Jesus me, whore.”

“Do you want to come back to mine and watch something?” Monet asked, trying to take her girlfriend’s mind off the situation.

“Like what?”

“X Files?”

Monique whined. “Bitch, stop trying to introduce me to your fucking alien fantasy! I’m not interested, I don’t get it!”

Monet tried to pull the same puppy-eye face that Monique loved to pull so much. It appeared to work because Monique’s face softened and she smiled, tucking a lock of Monet’s huge wavy black mane of hair behind her ear. “But you like it, so I’ll try to get into it.”

They ended up at Monet’s flat lying spooning on her bed, Monique the little spoon and getting a better view of the laptop screen, Monet just happy at getting to hold her around her small waist. They had long since changed into pyjamas even though it was only around 4 in the afternoon, Monet in a massive t shirt and sweatpants, Monique in a borrowed cami top and cotton shorts, and Monet had drawn the curtains so that her whole room was cosy and dark and illuminated by fairy lights and the laptop.

“It’s alright. The X Files,” Monique yawned sleepily. “Not the best but not the worst.”

“Mm. Just like sex with you,” Monet joked, Monique suddenly waking up to walk across the room as if she was leaving, then returning to her spot in Monet’s arms.

“You can literally go fuck yourself,” Monique bit back, but the yawn that escaped her mouth halfway through softened her words.

Fuck, Monet loved her so much. It got her thinking about how long it could be this good for. All couples hit snags and bumps in the road and, although they hadn’t had any yet, it was surely inevitable. Monet wondered what their first proper argument would be like and if they could recover from it, or if Monique was the type to walk away.

“I can hear you thinking,” Monique interrupted her train of thought, Monet feeling sheepish at having been caught out.

“Just thinking about us,” she admitted. “Wondering how long the honeymoon period is going to last. Before we eventually have a big fight and you leave me.”

Monique sat up abruptly. “And who says our honeymoon period won’t be our whole relationship?”

Monet laughed, tugging her girlfriend down with her. “Okay, yeah. That sounds good to me.”

“Anyway. I like annoying you too much to ever leave you,” Monique smiled, satisfied. She lay back down on the bed, and Monet could feel her stretching.

“Nap?” Monet suggested, stroking Monique’s hair and flipping it over her shoulders and out of her face.

“Nap,” Monique confirmed, wriggling a little in Monet’s arms and getting comfortable.

“I love you,” Monet smiled, kissing her girlfriend’s shoulder then reaching back to tie her own hair in an elastic.

“I love you too, girl,” Monique replied, reaching around to grab Monet’s arm and replace it around her waist.

“Goodnight, Mo.”

“G’night, honey.”

[onisionhurtspeople]

The Spiral of Narcissistic Abuse: Onision Edition

I originally wrote this post in April 2017, but in the year and a half since it’s been published, there have been literally dozens of new victims targeted by Greg (Onision) and his wife Lainey (Laineybot) that I felt were severe enough to warrant inclusion; and so here I am to re-write this post to include this new information. 

1. “Love Bombing”: Display of excessive attention and professions of deep love. “Soul mate.”

Love bombing is the practice of overwhelming a person in a new relationship with signs of adoration and attraction in the form of gifts, compliments, meaningful gestures, discussions revolving around long-term future plans (marriage, children, vacations, etc), and professions of true love. The difference between love bombing and genuine love is that real love is earned over time through intimacy, trust, and consistency, whereas love bombing creates artificial feelings of intimacy that have not yet been earned. 

Greg routinely engages in love-bombing when it comes to either a) trying to lure in new victims, or b) making attempts to reel in previous victims (such as exes), or current victims who are becoming disillusioned with him and beginning to pull away. In 2015, after Greg had convinced his wife Lainey to “explore her bisexuality” by getting a girlfriend, she had settled on an 18-year-old YouTube personality and makeup guru named Billie, and flew her down to their house for a visit. What Greg neglected to tell Lainey was that he had ulterior motives for pushing her to get a girlfriend, and this was because he wanted to convince Lainey and whoever her girlfriend was to enter a three-way, polyamorous triad with him. While Billie was there, in an attempt to draw her in, Greg showered her with gifts, compliments, and an excessive amount of attention and admiration; according to him, he paid her $1800 a month to manage his social media accounts, spent thousands of dollars buying her gifts of makeup and clothing, and his videos were full of glowing compliments towards Billie. 

He tweeted this at Billie after she managed to “fix” a broken camera lens by throwing it on the ground. He screams at his own children just for losing at Mario Kart, could you imagine Onision having this reaction to anybody else treating his expensive equipment that way?

Every time he and Lainey broke up with Billie (usually because she refused to go along with their bizarrely strict and controlling expectations for her behavioral conduct, such as having to ask their permission before smoking weed - and yes, you read that correctly; the problem was not that she was smoking weed because it was illegal (as Greg and Lainey had originally claimed), the problem was that she didn’t ask their permission before doing it), Greg would begin to reel Lainey back in by trying to love bomb her again. This comment was made just two days after he’d cheated on Lainey with Billie, while she was pregnant with their second child:

…and every time they get back together, he begins love bombing Billie again, and ignoring Lainey. He is careful not to do this overtly on Twitter or Instagram like he does with Lainey, but during this time, he expends much more effort into communicating with Billie over Twitter and in videos than he does with Lainey. He is also very clearly more physically affectionate towards Billie in videos where the three of them appear together than he is with his own wife.

(And maybe this is just my unprofessional opinion, but the manner in which he compliments Lainey rings much more hollow and inauthentic to me than the compliments he used to give to Billie. It comes off as very rote and robotic, not genuine or sincere.) 

2.  Over-protection and isolation in the name of love. “We only need each other.”

One of the most common tactics that abusers use to control their victims is by isolating them from friends and family. They do this so that it’s harder for them to escape or see the truth of what’s happening to them. This behavior is manifested in ways such as convincing the victim to stay at home and not have a job, by controlling all of the money that flows through the household (including the victim’s money, if they DO have a job), and by slowly convincing the victim to stop talking to their friends and family members, because the narcissist “doesn’t think they’re good for [them]”. Without a sense of perspective or anybody from whom to gain a third-party point of view, it’s extremely difficult for the victim to objectively analyze the severity of the situation. 

Throughout the history of his relationships, Greg follows this pattern with all of his partners to the tee. He makes repeated attempts to convince Billie to stop flying home to spend time with her friends and family members, who she is extremely close with.

Unbelievably, he attempts to manipulate her by bragging about how he’d already managed to successfully convince Lainey to not visit her own family more than once a year. In a livestream, Lainey once admitted that earlier this month (October 2018) was the first time she’s attended a family funeral in over five years, because Greg wouldn’t give her permission to go to any of the other ones. He also frequently attacks Lainey’s family on social media, as well as diminishing them in Lainey’s eyes by making his disapproval of them quite clear:

This is what he said about Lainey’s sister:

He especially does this to Lainey’s father, who saw through Greg from the very beginning, and desperately tried to stop his 17-year-old daughter from marrying him:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sAjnkASwOo

He also did this with Skye while they were still married, restricting her from seeing anybody but members of his own family, and members of her family that he approved of (which was basically just her younger sister, a 15-year-old girl who Greg admitted to fantasizing about having sex with, including (more than once) accidentally moaning her name while being intimate with Skye). A quote from his website at the time:

January 24th, 2007

Alright, so it has been a few days since Skye and I hung out with another couple… judging from the fact that these people were the only ones we knew that had a lifestyle that wasn’t drugged out, beered out (also known as drugged out), smoked out, ethically lacking, rude etc. and we can’t even enjoy ourselves around them as much as we do each other… I just really don’t see myself and Skye spending time with anyone in the future other than family…

It seems that everyone who isn’t blood related has something extremely wrong with them… it may not be apparent at first, like a used car, but when you get on the road with them, and get to know them, the clanks and pings begin to show, maybe not after the first few miles, but definitely after the second or third ride.

(Source)

This isolation of Skye got so bad that eventually, two of their friends actually tried to convince her to leave Greg:

January 27th, 2007

I was going to post something extremely long about how upset I am with two people I know, within my personal life - who are continuously trying to break my wife and I apart psychically and vocally… but I’m not going to as I believe it can only cause a greater level of drama, which is exactly what they feed on.

In fact, they probably know I’m talking about them right now, and are dialing my number just to tell me/others how wrong I am for my wife, and somehow by saying I love her every hour of the day, feeding her full of yummy food, trying to make her happy emotionally/other ways, putting a roof over her head, that in result of that I’m a bad husband.

(Source)

A former classmate of Greg, who had gone to high school with both he and Skye, also gave an interview with someguy827, in which he detailed his observations of Greg slowly but surely isolating Skye from all of her friends and family members:

You can read the interview here. (Source)

And read the comment that he made on lolcow here. (Source)

3. Power gained by social isolation and artificially inflated self-esteem. “I feel like a better person with I am with them.”

Greg has claimed this about every single one of his exes. I can’t track down photographic examples of him claiming this about all of them never mind, I managed to find examples of him saying this to at least three different women. Here’s an example of when he said it to ex-girlfriend Adrienne:

Keep in mind that they had been dating for a grand total of two weeks when he made the claim to her that she had helped him grow into a better person in the short amount of time they’d been together. 

He made the same claim about a high school girlfriend, Tanya, whom - again - he had known for only a couple of weeks; and they were not even officially dating when he said this to her:

Here is another example of him saying this about his first wife, Skye - again, only weeks into their relationship. The journal entry this screenshot was lifted from is much longer and I was having trouble pasting it into the body of this text in a way that was readable, so here’s a very short, cropped version of what he said. You can find the source for this quote here. (Source)

At the end of his relationship with Adrienne - while they were in the process of breaking up - he called her repeatedly while she was at work, leaving her over a dozen voicemails in less than a day. During this time, Adrienne managed to get in touch with Shiloh, another of Greg’s exes, to compare notes about the similarities in their relationship. When Shiloh listened to the voicemails that Greg had sent to Adrienne, she posted this comment on Facebook:

He had been telling the two women, only hours apart from each other, about how special and meaningful they were to him. The saddest thing about this is that at the same time, he was also calling Skye; and this exchange between himself, Shiloh, and Adrienne occurred only days before he started talking to Lainey. 

4. Creation of a feeling of dependency; induction of fear of the loss of relationship.

One of the ways that Greg likes to induce feelings of psychological dependence on him is through a tactic called “manipulation break-ups”. The phenomenon is explained here by dwayners13:

One of the most common tactics used by manipulative & emotionally abusive individuals is the ‘manipulation breakup’. This is simply when a person repeatedly breaks up with their partner, not because they truly want to end their relationship, but rather to gain power & control over their partner & the relationship in general. There are a variety of issues & events that can cause a manipulation breakup (far too many to list here), but it can range from their partner doing something they don’t like/approve of to the emotionally abusive person being confronted on their abusive/manipulative behavior (by their partner &/or their partner’s family/friends). [...]  Instead of taking the time to discuss or even arguing about the issue in an attempt to resolve it, the person will just break up with them, knowing that their partner doesn’t want to break up. They will then refuse to speak with them about the issue (& the relationship in general), essentially shunning or ignoring their attempts. This can include ignoring phone calls, text messages, VMs etc.., If the couple live together, they will simply refuse to speak with their partner (aka the silent treatment). Their intention is to make it seem like the relationship is over, so that the person will practically beg & plead with their partner & be willing to agree to anything in order to get back together.

(Source)

Greg and Lainey both admitted to him doing this multiple times throughout their relationship; and still, to this day, they admit that he attempts to break up with her every single time they argue, even though they’re married and have been for over seven years. It is extremely abnormal for a 34-year-old father of two who has been married for seven years to threaten to “break up” with his wife every time they get into an argument. These attempts at manipulation on Greg’s part terrify Lainey so much that she readily complies with whatever he wants in order to convince him not to leave her. This pattern could not be more apparent than how this manipulation tactic played out in their relationship with Billie. 

During the time when Greg and Lainey were in a polyamorous relationship with Billie, Lainey expressed repeated discomfort about Greg and Billie spending so much time together while she was excluded by having to spend so much time cooking, cleaning, looking after their their son (she was pregnant with their daughter at the time), and managing their household (which we now know, thanks to Maya, that Greg does not help out with at all, meaning that Lainey spent the vast majority of her day doing these things while Greg and Billie were in another room playing games, making videos, and hanging out). She felt that Billie was only there for Greg, and was not comfortable with them being sexually intimate together, even when it was all three of them together. After a while of this - despite Lainey’s continued discomfort, disapproval, and lack of consent (which is vital for any healthy, functioning polyamorous triad) - Greg told Lainey that there would be more more boundaries, no more jealousy, and that he and Billie were going to do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted; and that if Lainey didn’t like it, then he was going to divorce her. 

Naturally, terrified of losing her husband, her family, her home, her source of income, and the only lifestyle that she’d ever known - with a three-year-old in tow, and pregnant with their second child - Lainey felt forced to remain in the three-way relationship that she didn’t even want to begin with. 

A quote from his video, “Onision’s Break Up Story”:

“I told my wife that there would be no more rules in the relationship. That there would be no more boundaries, no more jealousy, and that I would do what I want.”

(Source)

After this quote, Greg goes on to explain that he reassured his wife that he had no intention of leaving her; however, how could Lainey believe this, when just a few months before he had attempted to leave her for Billie, which only didn’t end up happening because Billie told him that she didn’t feel right about it? When he had threatened to leave her so many times before over much smaller and less significant things? He goes on to say this:

“Regardless, it is important to note that Billie did tell me that she thought Lainey might be upset if she and I slept together, but every time she indicated she was worried, I would remind her of the conversation I had with Lainey where I repeatedly told her there would be no more boundaries, we would all have balanced relationships, and that there would be no jealousy.” 

This is an ultimatum. The reason why Lainey went to Billie to ask her not to sleep with Greg is because she already knew that he would shut her down if she tried. Ask yourself this question: for what reason would a woman feel more comfortable asking other women not to sleep with her husband, instead of just going straight to the source and simply asking her husband not to sleep with other women instead? The answer is that it’s because she already knew that he would say no and try to divorce her if she kept bringing it up. It is not unreasonable for Lainey to believe Greg capable of doing this, considering that he has admitted in the past to leaving one woman for another (when he left Skye for Shiloh in 2011):

Greg doesn’t just do this to Lainey, however; he has done this, to my knowledge, with every other woman he’s ever dated. The following is a screenshot of a portion of the letter written by Adrienne - the 26-year-old that Greg dated for three weeks just before he met Lainey - describing how Greg attempted to manipulate her through making her fear the loss of the relationship:

Later on in the same letter:

The entirety of the letter written by Adrienne can be read here. If you’re interested in understanding how Greg’s mind works, I highly recommend reading it - it is extremely insightful, analytical, and well-written. 

5. Restrictive control of resources and activities enforced by induction of guilt, or fear of anger.

It’s no secret that Greg attempts to restrict the activities that his girlfriends are allowed to participate in. This ranges from the aforementioned control over how often they’re allowed to visit their families, to whether or not they’re allowed to have a job (a tactic reported by several of his exes and by Greg himself), to how often they’re allowed to go out with their friends, and even to what they are and are not allowed to eat.

In the following screenshot, a blog post by Shiloh months after they’d broken up, she details how he not only manipulated her into cutting off contact with her friends and family back home, but also convinced her to put her music career on hold so that they could be together all the time:

(You can read the full post here.)

He also talked Skye into quitting her job once he began making enough money off YouTube, with the reasoning that couples should be spending at least 50% of their time together. (I’m having trouble finding the screenshot for this, but it’s out there somewhere - I’ve seen it before.) Here is a similar screenshot, however:

He would also become extremely angry with Adrienne when she wanted to go out with her friends…

...and tried to manipulate her into quitting her job, moving in with him, and depending entirely on him as her source of income, all within three weeks of meeting her. 

6. Gaslighting causes victim to doubt what they see or hear. Inability to trust own thoughts and reasoning.

When Lainey first broke up with Greg and was considering divorce after he cheated on her with Billie, she admitted that she had never even wanted a girlfriend to begin with, and that it had been Greg who was pressuring her into it…

…but later, when Lainey recounted her side of the story in a response video to the one that Billie released, she adamantly maintained that it was she who had wanted to experiment with her bisexuality - evidence that Greg had been gaslighting her into believing that he was not at fault, yet again, and that it was Lainey who had desired to keep bringing back Billie over and over again. The tweet posted in first part of this screenshot was taken only six months after the tweet in the second part:

In addition - despite having told Lainey that it was his decision to sleep with Billie, and despite having literally admitted in a video that he published on YouTube to Billie having repeatedly brought up her discomfort with going behind Lainey’s back in order to be intimate with Greg - he still managed to convince Lainey to doubt her own perceptions enough to the point where she now, to this day - over two years later - still considers Billie to be the homewrecker, and that it was Billie who cheated on her with Greg, not Greg who cheated on her with Billie. That is how manipulative he is. 

During one of the periods in time when Greg and Lainey had broken up with Billie yet again, Lainey began talking to a new girl named Hailey (known online as Luxymoo). At first, Hailey believed that her relationship with Lainey would be exclusive; but after Greg informed her that the relationship would actually be an open polyamorous one, she realized that she was uncomfortable with the arrangement and decided to pull out. Despite the fact that she had every right to choose not to go through with it, Greg then attempted to gaslight her and invalidate her feelings:

After that I started doing research on what it meant to be in a three way relationship, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t for me. Which killed me, because all I wanted to do was be with Lainey. I wanted to try for them, but at the end of the day, I had to consider my personal feelings on the matter. I knew I couldn’t be what they wanted, because I wanted Lainey.

I told Lainey as soon as I came to that conclusion. I wanted to be honest. I didn’t want to drag it out. Lainey didn’t respond to me.. but Greg did. He said that if he were in my position, he would do whatever it takes to be with Lainey. He said that I didn’t really care about Lainey, that all I was looking for was friendship. He said that he thought my mind was broken. He said he thought I may be sexually dormant. He then would say that he thinks i’m a good person and that i’m the safer alternative. He called me a good distraction.

He wanted me to still come up. But that was a fleeting thought. He said friendship would be hard, and that I was doing everything I could to avoid a relationship with Lainey. Then he pitched the idea of me being with Lainey exclusively, while he’s with Lainey exclusively. Like we wouldn’t be doing sexual things together. I still declined because 1. he had spent so much time invalidating MY feelings on the matter, attacking my personality, pressuring me, etc. and 2. I also knew that that wasn’t what they wanted, and I told him that we would still hit that road block of me wanting exclusiveness. He had said in a previous conversation that it was like him and Lainey were on an island and I had a boat, but I wouldn’t throw them a life line because I wasn’t the right boat.

(The full conversation and screenshot can be seen here.)

He also tried to use this tactic on Maya - a girl who dated Lainey very briefly in late 2017 - in an attempt to preemptively gaslight her and discredit her, should she choose to come forward with her story about what he did to her:

Which he did, in fact, try to do later on, by attempting to accuse Maya of being a “homewrecker” for “wiggling while she was sitting on his lap” (despite not mentioning that he was the one who had placed her there, which she did not consent to, and only went along with because she felt so uncomfortable). The posts detailing her full account can be found here and here. 

7. Increased emotional and psychological dependence of victim on abuser.

Greg has already succeeded in doing this with Lainey and many other girlfriends in the past, and has attempted to do this to several more. When married to Skye, Greg insisted that she not have a job outside of the home because he believes that a couple should spend most of their time together (despite later claiming that spouses who do not have a job outside the home, or at least have children, are useless). After meeting Shiloh, despite the fact that she was a celebrity in Canada at the time they met, he forced her to quit her singing career and move in with him to work for and with him full-time; to this day, over seven years later, her singing career still has not recovered. Upon breaking up with Shiloh, he dated a woman named Adrienne, who he attempted to manipulate into moving in with him within three weeks of the start of their relationship - and she almost did. And likewise, when he began dating Lainey, within a month of meeting her, he had proposed to her, rented a house in the state where she lived so that she could finish high school, and then married and impregnated her within the year, so that he could groom her and keep tabs on her until she was old enough to marry. 

Lainey does not have a job, and is completely financially and psychologically dependent upon Greg for not just survival, but her very sense of identity and self-worth as a person. In fact, she is so dependent on Greg as a source of ego regulation that I wrote an entire post breaking down and analyzing my impression of Lainey’s personality matrix because I was so baffled by the extent of her psychological dependency on him. You can read it here, if you’re curious (and have a lot of spare time). 

8. Punishment through anger, verbal abuse, forced isolation, character assassination, etc.

When angry with ex-girlfriend Shiloh, he pushed her into a door frame, causing her to miscarry (although some people do not believe that she was pregnant, since she and Greg had once faked a pregnancy and stillbirth):

He also forced her to shave her head bald, calling her a “whore”, “his property”, and “a good bitch”:

When Billie lied to him about smoking weed, he attempted to punish her by forcing her to dye her eyebrows green, shave off her hair (the third time he has attempted to, or succeeded in, manipulating a girlfriend to shave her hair off), get an ugly tan, be chained to his basement wall for a week wearing a sign saying “I’m sorry for lying Lainey” around her neck, and tattoo “I’m a liar” in the small of her back:

When he breaks up with exes, he also slanders and demeans their character on social media. He even does this with friends, other YouTubers, and sometimes just with people - usually women - that he doesn’t like. Including myself, by the way:

Proud moment. :’)

He made a video criticizing his ex (Adrienne) for the number of sexual partners she’s had, as well as implying that her vaginal hygiene was poor, and even made a series of videos in which he went and got himself tested for various STDs in order to imply that she was so promiscuous that she could have given him one (a video which later got deleted off YouTube when he realized how many downvotes it was getting); however, you can see her reference the video in her letter here:

When he and Skye divorced, he slandered her by calling her a thief and a liar, and continued to milk sympathy from his fans by implying that he was unfairly being forced to pay alimony, even though he agreed to the amount in the settlement, and she was rightly owed that money for her part in producing his early Onision videos.

When he broke up with Billie, he said and did several things to demean her character, including calling her a drug addict, imply that she’s “less than” for being a high school dropout who lives with her parents still, and also revealed to his entire fan base that she has an eating disorder, accused her family of being drugs addicts, and that she had been sexually assaulted and had an abortion, a secret which she had previously revealed to only a handful of close friends and family:

After Blaire White called him out for his actions, he made a video calling her so many different vile names, with such vitriolic hatred in his voice, that I actually have trouble watching it all the way through. You can really see his narcissistic rage coming out in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEVHT6No5Xc

He has exhibited this cycle over and over again with YouTuber Cyr, who he has been friends with off and on for years:

Most recently - meaning since I first wrote this post (about a year and a half ago) - he has continued in this pattern of slandering ex-girlfriends and ex-friends a further three or four times at least; and so this is the part of this sub-heading that will provide new information that was not included in my old post.

After Jaclyn Glenn began dating Richie of SocialRepose, Greg flew off the handle, making a series of insulting comments about Jaclyn’s physical appearance on Twitter and YouTube, including remarking that tall women are gross, and that had she been dating him, he never would have allowed her to get breast implants, because they’re disgusting (and she’s disgusting for having them):

Since she has broken up with Richie, Greg has now reverted to his attempts at love-bombing Jaclyn (and her friend Jessie Paege) on Twitter, hoping to reignite their friendship (and the possibility of bringing her into a new trinity with Lainey, or at least hoping that she’ll be able to give a boost to his YouTube career). 

A few months ago, a close friend of both Greg and Lainey - model, actress, and member of the BDSM community Madison DeCambra - made a video with Greg about the DDlg (Daddy Dom/little girl) kink, which was received very poorly by the DDlg community. Feeling responsible for having hurt and contributed to the misrepresentation of the community that she loves so much, Madison posted a video on YouTube apologizing for any pain that her involvement in Greg’s video may have caused. Greg reacted to this by terminating their six-year-long friendship, as well as - predictably - going on a tirade of character assassinations against her on Twitter, including bringing her two-year-old daughter into it despite having previously accused anyone willing to bring a person’s children up during an argument of being trash. 

These were the texts he sent to Madison, which he then posted publicly on Twitter in order to discard and defame her:

(Source)

Here is a screenshot of Madison arguing with TomatoBisquette (another former friend of Greg’s whom he has discarded, in his case for being friendly towards MrRepzion, a YouTuber who Greg hates for having called him out in the past), who had tried to make light of how upset she was when Greg posted on Twitter telling her that he was disgusted by her and never considered her a friend:

He also used the opportunity to take another pot-shot at Beck - a former fan of Greg and Lainey before she, too, was ousted from their lives - for defending Madi:

However, the worst part of this interaction is that he chose to bring Madison’s two-year-old daughter into the argument, just because he was angry with her mother. Here was Madison’s (understandably angry and hurt) response:

A recent addition to the roster of the Avaroe’s stable of ex-friends, Maya - a 19-year-old bartender who briefly dated Lainey, and who visited them for about a week over the Christmas holidays in 2017 - described Greg’s behavior towards her as being bizarrely, uncomfortably interested in probing her about her past. She felt that he was pressing her for information to use against her in the future, and described the odd, inappropriate expression of pleasure that would come across his face while he was listening to a person describe some misfortune that had befallen them:

It would take me ages to compile a list of all of the exes, friends, YouTubers, and other randoms that he’s demeaned on social media or in his videos, so instead I’m just going to provide a (probably incomplete, and still-growing) list of people whose characters he has assassinated on Twitter or YouTube:

Exes: Skye, Shiloh, Adrienne, Billie 

Friends: Cyr, Andy Biersack (and his father), TomatoBisquette, Maya, Madison DeCambra, Beck, Jaclyn Glenn

YouTubers: Social Repose, Blaire White, Eugenia Cooney, Dan Howell, Keemstar, LeafyIsHere

Other: Ayallah (best friend of Billie, ex-girlfriend of Social Repose), Lainey’s family (father and sister), his own father, Luxymoo (Hailey)

9. Scouting new supply.

Before he had even divorced Skye, he moved on to Shiloh. When Shiloh left him and went back to Canada, he met Adrienne. When he broke up with Adrienne and she refused to take him back, he was texting Shiloh and Skye within 24 hours. When Skye, Shiloh, and Adrienne all refused to take him back, he then moved on to Lainey, who he had met and proposed marriage to within just a few short weeks of meeting. When he got bored of the ultimate power that he exerted over Lainey, he used her as queerbait to pull in Billie. When he and Lainey broke up with Billie - still bored with Lainey - he began auditioning new girls for a spot in his harem (Hailey/Luxymoo, Eryn, Maya, Sam, Beck). Here is a timeline of Greg’s known romantic relationships over the past fifteen years:

If Greg’s high school classmate is to be believed, however, then there are many, many women that Greg has been with that did not make this list.

And finally, here’s a funny, tongue-in-cheek chart chronicling the pattern of what happens when Greg and Lainey bring a new girl into the house: 

Lainey doesn’t know it yet, but this entire cycle is going to begin repeating itself sooner or later. It’s just a matter of time. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were lowkey auditioning girls as I write this.

10. Acting as though nothing happened.

Need I say more?

[mymistakewriting]

BNHA - Dabi - Space Heater

Dabi did his best to avoid spending time in the League’s hideout. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them - no, they were by far some of the best people he’d met since living home, accepting him easily as they had. It was mostly that he didn’t want anyone else mixed up in his own personal plans.

The less time he spent around people, the less affected they’d be, which suited him just fine.

However, he did still have spans of time where he’d go stay at the hideout, needing the socialization or at least a break from the silence that tended to fill his place.

Of course, usually, these stays were full of him teasing and making fun of the other villains, but he’d reached a point where he just wanted to be around the noise without actually interacting.

In fact, he’s pretty sure he’d spent most of the time where he wasn’t working on some planning with them dozing or playing on his phone - usually the former, since his already fucked sleep patterns had gone further down the drain as of late.

It was on one of these occasions that he found himself somewhere between sleep and consciousness, sprawled out on the couch that Shigaraki usually claimed for his gaming during their downtime.

He could hear the talking from the others, the gentle clinking of glasses together as Kurogiri washed anything they dirtied up so it didn’t pile up in their downtime, and quiet cursing from the other side of the room accompanied by distant, quiet sounds of a game.

Apparently Shigaraki had gotten a DS out to play rather than disturb his rest. How nice.

He shifted just slightly, one eye open blearily to stare at the other villains, then contented himself to drag a hand down his face. He really needed to wake the fuck up anyway.

And as such, he watched blankly as Toga pulled her sweater closed around her form, continuing on with what she was watching on her phone without complaint - she never was vocal about her discomfort, which bothered Dabi, but it wasn’t something he wanted to worry with right now.

Everyone else seemed fine, for the most part - they were used to the bar being cold as fuck, so they’d all started bringing or leaving jackets and blankets laid around the room when it would just be them. No big deal.

It never seemed to stop Shigaraki from complaining about the chill.

Usually, it was easily ignored, blending in with his other idle comments while he was playing whatever game had his attention.

But Dabi wasn’t entirely awake, either, so ignoring someone took a lot more mental willpower than he had available at the moment.

So once Shigaraki made a snide remark about the chill - Dabi didn’t even register what the actual comment was, deeming it unimportant information - the fire user groaned tiredly and spoke up, his voice still thick with sleep but softer than he tended to use with the other villains.

“If you’re cold, then come here, asshole.”

The room fell silent briefly, Shigaraki looking up from his game to give Dabi a strange look. “What?”

Dabi hummed half heartedly, eyes half closed as he shifted to lay on his side and stare at the room in general. “C’mere if you’re cold. I’ll play heater, I don’t care.”

Toga tilted her head back to stare at Dabi before she spoke up and went back to her video. “He’s a good heater, you should take him up on it,”

When no further response came, Dabi contented himself to go back to sleep, only to lift his head tiredly, surprised, when he felt someone settle to be sat against him.

Huh. So Shigaraki _had_ taken him up on it. Interesting. He must really be cold if he was willingly putting himself in Dabi’s personal space without complaint.

Still too tired to really tease the other for it, he settled to wrap an arm around Shigaraki’s waist and shove his hand under the edge of the other’s shirt, chuckling when he felt the other tense at the action. “Calm down, you prude, I’m just gonna share my warmth and sleep. Go back to your game,”

Shigaraki stared down at him for a long moment and Dabi only returned the look with a smug grin and tired eyes.

[juqqie-blog]

Not Wrong Just Different

Request:  “Hello! 💜 could you possibly do a jughead x Reader where he comforts his girlfriend when she feels insecure about being asexual? Maybe the others are talking about their own relationships and what they do, and she gets worried jug will get mad or leave bc shes ace? Thank you 💜 I've been feeling a bit uncomfortable being ace myself lately :/ 💜💜”  - anon Pairing: Jughead / Reader Word Count: 2,942 Warnings: some sex talk, and a lot of crying (sorry, i’m a cancer and i projected)

You sat in a booth at Pop’s with your friends, having significantly less fun than usual. The night was meant to be a sort of triple date. Archie and Betty, Veronica and Reggie, and you and Jughead. It had been going well until Reggie left. That’s when Veronica started to talk about how great he was in bed.

“He’s a bit of a ditz, but what he lacks upstairs he makes up for downstairs.” She said coyly. And you laughed, you had a sense of humor and it’s not that you minded a little sex talk. But then it just continued. “What about your Archie?” Veronica winked at Betty who seemed startled. “Are all jocks the same?”

“Oh.” Betty said, a little hesitantly, scanning Archies face. “Well, lets just say music isn’t his only talent.” She joked with a wide smile. Archies eyebrows went up but he didn’t look mad. You tried to smile at this, but no one except Jughead noticed when you didn’t laugh. You bit your lip and pushed around the fries on your plate.

“Well, for being the good girl next door, you sure do some things that are pretty bad.” Archie said, wrapping his arm around Betty tighter, who giggled. And uhg, really? They were just gonna, say this? In public and everything? You rolled your eyes and gazed out the window, trying to ignore the nervousness in your stomach. Jugheads arm creeped up the back of the booth around you. He brought his hand in to rub your shoulder and gave you an, ‘are you okay’ look. You rolled your eyes and shrugged. Veronica was busy ranting in a low voice about what you girls should make your boys do, which distracted everyone for a minute.

“Hey.” Jughead leaned in to you, speaking in a quiet voice. “Do you wanna get out of here?” He asked, despite just being delivered a second round of food. You shook your head at him and smiled.

“No, I’m fine.” You only half lied. “They’ll move on, plus I haven’t even had a milkshake yet.” You tried to joke. Jughead gave a reassuring smile.

“Okay, just so you’re okay.” He said, slowly returning to his burger. And you did really believe that they would move on. They had in the past, but the longer this conversation drew on the more worried you got. You tried to look like you were listening though, laughing along and nodding, trying not to raise suspicion or worse, become a target of a question.

After ten minutes had passed you sort of gave up and were staring at the table while Africa by Toto played in your head. You just stared at the weird pattern while Joseph Williams crooned about rain. Whatever Archie was saying about Betty's hands was drowned out, and you just couldn’t fake interested anymore. In fact it was getting to you. It wasn’t fun and you couldn’t pretend like it was. You looked up at Jughead, about to give him the, ‘let's blow this joint’ signal. But then the waitress came by again. Everyone toned it down as she asked if anyone would like anything else. You all nodded and placed your orders for milkshakes. Jughead got one for you to split, which sweetened the deal of staying in the booth for a little longer. Once the waitress left the conversation stayed relatively PG. You were actually able to partake in the debate of whether strawberry, chocolate or vanilla shakes were best. Maybe this would work out.

“What about, banana?” Asked Veronica, laughing a little. And your hopes were shattered right out of the gate. You rolled your eyes and let out a sigh as the conversation turned back to sex. Maybe you should have made that milkshake to go. It’s not that you didn’t love Jughead, but, you just didn’t think you needed to do those things to prove you loved him. He never complained, and you’d both talked it through and he seemed fine. You still cuddled and kissed him, just, never really anything more. Sure you’d had your own personal qualms with it, but it never really seemed like a big problem until now. Jughead wasn’t really participating in the conversation that much either, but, would he want to be?

Everyone grew quiet when the waitress returned and handed everyone their shakes. You all thanked her and she gave a smile as she walked away. You couldn’t help but sigh in relief as everyone stopped talking for a minute and sipped their shakes. You were hoping the conversation would finally move in a different direction. One that you were interested in and didn’t have to beat yourself up over.

“What about you, (y/n). You’ve been pretty silent this whole time.” Betty broke the silence. “Got any good stories about Jughead?” She asked.

“Uh..” You said, shaking your head a little and trying to think of what to say.

“Yeah.” Archie chimed in. “Does he give good Jug-head?” He asked, and everyone roared with laughter. You had to smile at that but it didn’t make the nervousness go away. You tried to laugh it off and hoped they would understand.

“I mean, I just kinda don’t feel like talking about it.” You shrugged, moving the straw in your shake around.

“Oh.” Veronica cooed. “I’m sure you could spare just one detail about your escapades.” She gave a look and took a drink of her milkshake. It was quiet for a minute and you felt a blush rise on your cheeks as you tried to come up with something. The pressure was choking you.

“Hey guys, can we uh, just talk about something else?” Jughead asked, saving you. “It’s been like 20 minutes, and I’m still trying to eat and everything.” He gestured to his burger and glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. You gave a quick smile and tapped his thigh in thanks.

“Oh come on.” Said Veronica. “And that’s like you’re fifth burger Juggie.” She rolled her eyes.

“Third.” Mumbled Jughead, defensively.

“Whatever.” Betty chimed in, rolling her eyes. “V and I gave some stories, we embarrassed Archie, now it’s your guys turn to fess up. Tell us something.” Betty teased. You and Jughead looked at each other with widening eyes. Neither of you had anything to say. Literally, you’d never done anything, so you had nothing to say. You couldn’t even think of anything to make up.

“They probably do some real kinky stuff.” Veronica broke the silence and your eyes shot to her. She smiled at you playfully, like she didn’t understand the hell you were going through right now. And to be honest you know she didn’t. “It’s okay, I’ll tell you what Reggie lets me do with my fingers if you tell us something.” She wiggled her fingers in the air a little and you looked away.

“Uh.” Jughead vocalized, looking desperately at you but you were looking down at your hands. “Well, we uh. We don’t really do much to be honest. I just, kinda don’t want to talk about it.” He tried to deflect the question and wrapped his arm around you a little more. You felt awful that you and Jughead had no stories to offer.

“What?” Archie chimed in. “Come on guys, just give us something. I mean, you’ve been dating for how long? You have to have at least one interesting story.” Betty and Veronica agreed. All three of them talked over each other a little to prove the point.

“We don’t. We just don’t have any stories.” You said weakly. They all looked at you with various shocked and frustrated expressions.

“Are you? Saying you guys have never fucked?” Archie asked. He sounded like an ass but you knew he didn’t mean it like that. None of them had any idea.

“Knock it off.” Jughead said, glaring at Archie.

“Look, Jug, we’re just curious. We’ve all said something but you guys-” Veronica started but was cut off.

“I just, never get horny and neither does she?” Jughead interrupted, maybe a little too loud. He sighed and in a softer voice added. “You have no idea how much depression fucks up your labito. And with her, I don’t know if it’s depression, and honestly I don’t care. If she doesn’t want to do anything then neither do I, and that’s just fine.” He said, looking at you and rubbing your shoulder. You tried to look at him, but your vision was blurry with the threat of tears.

“Jughead, it’s fine.” You said, voice breaking a little.

“No, I mean, we can-” He offered but you cut him off.

“I said it’s fine.” You pushed past him and out of the booth. You rubbed your eyes as you walked out the door and into the night. You walked past Jugheads car to the end of the parking lot. You stopped when you were standing in grass. There you were far enough out so that you could still see them but you knew they couldn’t see you. You turned and looked over your shoulder into the window where your previous booth was.

Betty and Veronica looked apologetic, both making hand gestures and talking over each other. Archie sat silent, eyes a little wide and slouched back in the booth. Your vision grew misty with tears so it was hard to make out details. You could tell by Jugheads actions as he stood up that he was angry. Then he looked calmer and just shook his head. You could see Veronica and Betty stop talking. Jughead said something as he got out his wallet. He tossed some money on the table and started walking out. You turned back around, facing the road and watching a car go by that muffled the sound of the door opening to Pop’s. Tears were streaming down your face faster than you could wipe them away. You huffed and rubbed your eyes, mourning what little makeup you had on.

“(Y/n).” Jughead called from across the parking lot. You stood still, trying to hold back more tears. “Hey. They said they were really sorry.” He said as he slowly came up to you. You heard his feet scrape on the ground as he inched closer until he was just behind you. “They had no idea, I told them it wasn’t their fault. They said they’d avoid the topic in the future.” He finally shuffled up next to you and gently placed a hand on your shoulder. “They feel awful.” Jughead said softly. You turned to him, tears spilling out of your eyes.

“I’m sorry.” You sobbed. He pulled you into a hug and held you tight. He held you as you shook. He was steady and just slowly rubbed a hand across your back.

“No, I’m sorry.” Jughead spoke under his breath. “I’m sorry for what happened in there, I shouldn’t have let them get that far. And I’m sorry you feel like this. I wish I could help…” He faded off and kissed the top of your head. You let out a shaky sigh as you felt the tears start to slow down.

“You are helping.” You said, leaning back a little to look at him. You could almost see his heart breaking in his eyes as he looked over you. He brought his hands up to your face and dried your cheeks with his sleeves. Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“There’s nothing wrong with the way you are, (y/n).” Jughead whispered. You felt tears well up again and he pulled you back into a hug as they spilled over your cheeks.

You leaned against him for a few minutes as you let it out. Jughead held you and patted your back as you sobbed against his chest. Why were you like this. You cried until you caught your breath and then you stood still. When you pulled back you saw how tearstained Jugheads shirt was. You looked up at him to apologize but he just shook his head in a ‘don’t worry about it’ kind of way.

“C’mon.” He rubbed your shoulders and started to turn a little. “Let’s just sit in my car and talk, okay?” You nodded and let him guide you across the parking lot to his car. Jughead opened the door to the passenger's seat and let you climb in. He closed it behind you and walked to his own door. You sat there in silence, and the minute it took him to join you in the car felt like an hour. Your eyes were still wet and your cheeks felt hot. You were embarrassed. About a lot of things. Not being able to participate in the conversation, running out crying, not being able to give Jughead those experiences. Your thoughts were cut off by Jughead entering the car and closing the door after himself. He was quiet for a minute as he moved around a little, getting comfortable, but not really.

“So, you want to talk about this?” Jughead asked, looking at you. You could feel his green eyes on you but you couldn’t bring yourself to look up at him. You slowly nodded your head yes and chewed at your lip. You knew you had to talk but you just couldn’t say anything right now. Jughead was silent, giving you time to work up what you had to say. You wish you could have stopped the tear that rolled down your cheek. But you just sighed at it. Jughead placed a hand on your cheek, wiping the tear away with his thumb. His hand was warm and familiar and despite this horrible feeling you were more at ease.

“I’m sorry you have to put up with me.” You finally said, looking at him. You nestled your face into Jugheads hand and closed your eyes.

“Hey.” Jughead cooed. You opened your eyes to watch him speak. “I never have to put up with you. You not wanting to do stuff doesn’t bother me.” You knew he was trying to be honest but you couldn’t help all the doubt you had.

“I-I just, I’m afraid I can’t give you what you want.” You spoke under your breath. Jughead gave you a sad look and ran his thumb across your cheekbone.

“And what do you think I want?” He asked, his voice was sympathetic. You shook your head and took in a breath.

“What they were talking about in there. What they want. What every single teenage boy I’ve ever met wants.” You sighed. Jughead had never pushed you, you never had any reason to believe that’s all he wanted. But still…

“That’s not what I want, (y/n). I want you.” Jughead said, letting his hand slide from your cheek under your chin to bring your face up. You looked into his eyes and found nothing but sincerity. “I want to be with you and make you happy. I don’t care about sex. Hell, I’m probably somewhere in the ace spectrum myself. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is just that you’re happy and comfortable.” He pulled his hand away from your face and adjusted himself so he was fully facing you.

“You make me comfortable, Jughead.” You moved to mirror him. “I just, I get so worried. I’m worried I frustrate you. Or that one day you’ll want to do something I just can’t do.” You shook your head. Jughead bit his lip and looked down for a second but quickly back up to you.

“I’ll be honest. You have no idea how relieved I was that you didn’t complain about me not making a move after we’d been dating for a whole month. And I was even more relieved that you never made a move.” He smiled and you could tell he was telling the truth. “I’ve just, gone out with girls who’ve ran their hands up my thighs after the first date. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all it’s just, not for me.” He shrugged. “I never want to do stuff like that. And I don’t think I ever will. I like that we just hold hands and fall asleep on the couch. I like that there’s no pressure with you. I like that we can put on sweatpants and watch Titanic and when that one part comes on we can go get more snacks and not sit there and be expected to do something. I love all of those things, okay, and I love you. I love what we have, (y/n).” Jughead leaned in a little and looked into your eyes.

You felt tears welling up again, but they were different. Happy. Jughead didn’t know that though and started to look worried. You couldn’t help but start laughing. Jughead smiled and joined you in your nearly hysterical laughter. Tears filled up his eyes as well and you were both crying. He leaned in to hug you and you sobbed on each others shoulders for a moment.

“I love you.” You said, moving back slightly and wiping the tears from Jugheads face. He pressed his lips to yours for a second before returning the favor.

“I love you, too.” He said, cupping your face in his hands. Jughead rested his forehead against yours. “Don’t ever doubt that, (y/n).” He pressed another kiss to your lips before leaning back. He left on hand on your cheek and placed the other on his steering wheel. Things were finally still in a peaceful way as he smiled at you for a minute. “Let's get you home.”

[dracox-serdriel]

Lament of the Asphodels - Chapter 36: That Final, Spitting Head

Lament of the Asphodels

Title: The Eleusinian Mysteries Author: Dracox Serdriel Artist: @liamjcnes Artwork: Post 1 | Post 2 Word count: 2,700 Rating: NC-17/Explicit (except on FF) Warnings: Graphic descriptions of violence, Graphic sexual content, Declaration/threats of sexual violence, Minor character death, Social stigmatization/abuse, Detailed descriptions of hopelessness/depression/inner turmoil, Descriptions of the effects of extreme phobias/social anxiety, including anthropophobia, thalassophobia/hydrophobia, and hylophobia/dendrophobia, Descriptions of shipwrecks and storms at sea

Read Lament of the Asphodels on FF, AO3, LJ, or start at the beginning on Tumblr. Written as part of @captainswanbigbang.

Chapter 36: That Final, Spitting Head

Killian shouted until his voice went hoarse calling for Emma, even though he doubted anyone could hear him. The walls around him were crafted from the smoothest marble, with neither hole nor blemish, save for the beautifully hewn windows twenty feet up. Even if he had his hook, there was neither foothold nor knot with which to scale the height before him.

Exhausted, he surveyed the cavernous holding with wearier eyes, forcing himself to recognize this place for what it was: his tomb. He had been buried in a monument of sorts, laid to rest in a glass coffin much like the one that encased Snow White while she was under the thrall of the Sleeping Curse. Someone ignorant to Prince Charming's upbringing or Snow White's tumultuous survival as a bandit would mistakenly see this as an honorable but humble goodbye to a man beloved by their daughter. But he had known them, and their dedication and respect for his everlasting repose moved him deeply. They had provided fine stone and glass for his remembrance, and they dress him in garments befitting pirate and prince alike.

Though he, like any true sailor, hoped for a burial at sea, Emma's plan to restore him to this life required his body's preservation, lest his miraculous return come to a far-too-early end in some watery abyss as soon as he attempted to draw breath.

Killian felt a surge of gratitude toward Snow and Charming as he realized that they kept this monument to him until the day they died, waiting and hoping for her to return. His heart clenched at the thought, plagued by the guilt of costing two good people a lifetime with their beloved daughter. They never would've lost hope, but he knew even they must've hated him for his part in all this. After all, he was the reason their daughter was buried before them.

The pain doubled when he remembered Henry. She had missed his entire life toiling away in the Underworld to rescue him. How could the lad ever forgive him? How could she ever forgive him?

Memories of his time in Storybrooke flooded him, and though many filled him with gladness, they ebbed away with sorrow. Not that long ago, he could scarcely recollect his own brother, let alone those he befriended in Storybrooke. Yet now that his true history was his to review at his leisure, he wanted nothing more than to forget, even if only for a little while, for the memories were more bitter than sweet.

He collected himself by pacing. Emma had made her own choices, and self-loathing had no power to alter history. Charming and Snow were his friends, nigh his family, and they supported Emma's quest to save him, as did Henry. All he could do now was cherish the life he had with her. He owed it to her and every one of them besides.

Killian wondered why they had buried him without his hook. Charming had once told him that, in his kingdom's tradition, they laid warriors to rest with their weapons and often with things of great personal value, such as missives of love or a prized ring. Surely that meant he should have not only his hook but his cutlass and baubles as well.

Then he recalled a story Snow White told him. Her father had been buried with a crown of solid gold set with diamonds the size of chestnuts. At the funeral, it adorned his head, but before they interred him in the Royal Family's Mausoleum, they stowed it in a concealed compartment. Her family taught her it was to ensure those they loved entered the next life unburdened, but she admitted that she had always suspected it was really to deter grave robbers.

He inspected the glass coffin, but for obvious reasons, it offered little in the way of concealment. He turned to the rise upon which the casket rested. Like the room itself, it was solid and flawless marble for all the eye could see. But then again, if the eyes could see it, it would be a poor place to hide something. He closed his eyes and palmed the surface, gliding his fingers across every inch of its surface. Sure enough, touch found a notch that his eyes missed, and when he leaned his weight into it, a small click sounded.

His eyes opened as a drawer rolled out. It fit seamlessly into the top of the rise, its only visible points concealed by the casket that covered it. It held his brace, hook, and cutlass, as well as the fine leather jacket Emma had given to him as a gift. He pocketed the pouch that contained his rings and necklaces. The rest he donned.

When he had awoken, the rays of the sun had poured in from above, illuminating the entire space, but now they had begun to fade. He had done all he could to distract himself from the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, still buried with no means of escape. How long could he survive in this place without food or water?

And more importantly, where was Emma Swan?

It didn't feel right to perch upon his own coffin, so he sat in the corner and cast his eyes up at the windows, as if he might will them closer for staring. The only real entertainment he had was watching the shadow spread, their ever-changing patterns delightfully playful.

At least it was a beautiful way to pass the time.

He couldn't have been idle for more than half an hour before he heard a thunderous crash. He was on his feet in an instant, his heart pounding hard in his chest. The noise meant that anyone or anything could await him outside, but there was only one person who could make his heart race like this.

"Swan?" he called. "Swan!"

"Killian!"

Hearing her voice was like the sun on his face or the sweet tang of rum or even the lingering scent of the sea.

"Killian! Take cover!"

Glass shattered as Emma's foot collided with one of the windows. He stepped quickly to the other side of the room to avoid the cascade of shards. A makeshift rope ladder unfolded as it fell into the room.

His Swan was bloody brilliant.

Climbing was never an easy task with his hook, but nevertheless, he made short work of it. His leather jacket protected his arms and torso as he pulled himself over the rake of edged glass into the brisk dusk air. Seconds later, he felt hands brushing the clinging shards from his hair and back before they dropped to his hips and spun him around.

Hearing her voice was a blessing, but seeing her face was the salve that cured a thousand wounds. He crushed her body against his, so strong was his embrace. Then her lips were on his, and the world vanished but for him and her, flooded with moonlight and passion. It was more than enough to overshadow the fact that he had just climbed out of his own grave along with all the sorrows he had contemplated there.

Killian would've happily lounged in her arms forever, and no doubt he would have, had it not been for a strong but playful nudge at his shoulder. Their kiss broke apart, and Emma's head nestled against his chest as he turned to see none other than the glorious Pegasus, his wings and coat a brilliant white against the green and gray of the graveyard.

"Bloody hell, Old Boy," he mumbled. "I never thought I'd lay eyes on you again."

"He was my ride out," Emma explained, looking up at him with her cheek pressed against his jacket. "I remember asking the ferryman for a lift, and then... I was on the other side of the river, alone. I went looking for you and found him instead."

"I thought I'd lost you," he whispered, the words escaping his lips before he had time to consider their weight. "Right at the end, love. I thought..."

"We made it," she said. "We're home."

"Aye, and it's nearly dark," he said. "Perhaps we should see what's become of Granny's since we last were here."

Emma's brow furrowed, but she said nothing.

"Swan?"

"I flew over Main Street to get here," she explained. "It was empty."

"Perhaps they were all at supper," he suggested. "Or perhaps there was some manner of social event. Or some evil sorcerer to battle."

"So, still Storybrooke?" Emma asked.

"Aye, love. Shall we?"

Pure, unbridled euphoria swept through Emma as Pegasus leaped into the air. She had worried that Hades had returned her while exploiting some loophole to keep Killian in the Underworld despite the many trials they had endured. She clutched at him to strengthen the reassurance that only his presence could bring, relishing the sensation of his heartbeat against her skin, the rhythm in perfect tandem with her own. It seemed unreal, holding on to him again in this realm, more so than flying through the clear night sky.

Though she wouldn't vocalize her doubts, a persistent nagging shadow lingered in the back of her mind. She had expected things to feel... different somehow. Emotions should feel more acute or tactile sensation, more real. But as it transpired, the Underworld was an impressive facsimile of this one, seeming as true and solid as a Land without Magic. For all she knew, Charon had ferried them to another part of the Underworld that was fashioned after Storybrooke to fool them into staying. How would they know the difference?

No. She didn't know how, but her heart told her that they were really and truly home. And no matter where they were, they were together.

Pegasus touched down with a clatter that echoed ever after, filling the eerily noiseless thoroughfare. Before, Emma had only glimpsed in passing, but even then she felt how empty it was. It was only now, as she stood among the buildings that once comprised her home, that she really saw it for what it was. Every window, eave, and door was boarded up as if a particularly potent hurricane lurked on the horizon. The only exception was Granny's, which at first glance appeared unmarred by time, though a more careful look revealed covered furniture and a fine line of dust. Out of habit, Emma grabbed the handle as if to open it. To her surprise, a ripple of power poured through her like a surge of electricity, a tiny spark that warned of a stronger, more dangerous surge to be provoked upon further contact.

She yanked her hand away. Someone had spelled the door shut, and she imagined whoever did also cast a shield of protection. Her natural reaction to her curiosity was to investigate further, but before she could reach out and touch the glass, Killian's hand was over her wrist, gently halting her.

"Love," he said, concern evident in his voice. "You pulled you hand away, as if burned."

She blinked several times trying to clear her mind. She had yanked her hand away because of the magic, but it hadn't hurt her. She turned her palm up as if to prove it, but instead she revealed inflamed skin that began to blister at the edges, as if seeing it and thinking it made it so.

The pain was so acute that she screamed, and her cry went on and on and on, unfading and uncurbed. He was suddenly all around her, as if trying to contain her agony and her wail, and she flinched away, stumbling backwards and crashing hard on her side, unable to break her fall because she was cradling her injured hand.

The ground jolted her back to her senses, so when Killian joined her seconds later, she didn't recoil from his support.

"Magic," she blurted, somewhere between a curse and an answer to his unasked question.

"Swan?"

"Protection spell," she added for good measure.

She turned away from the stinging in her hand, and the pain eased slowly, as if ignoring it speed her recovery. She took a steadying breath as she relaxed in Killian's arms, and she sank into his warmth and protection. She closed her eyes and let the feeling of safety wash over her, and their shared heart fluttered in response. They gasped at the mutual sensation, and her eyes snapped open in time to witness the pure elation on Killian's face, like he was standing at the prow of his ship in the fresh morning air. His eyes met hers, and his lips followed. It was like drinking that first draught of cool water after being stranded in the jungles of Neverland. She escalated it, using the kiss to tell him everything she couldn't find words for, so wrapped up in him that she didn't even feel it as her magic healed the wound on her hand and the bruise on her hip.

Killian pulled away and cupped her cheek, as if trying to examine her face for some sign that she was all right. She supported his hand with her own to reassure him. Then he helped her back to her feet.

Storybrooke was a ghost town, but it still felt like home.

"Perhaps we should find another place to lay our heads," he suggested.

"Yeah, it looks like someone boarded up everywhere else," she replied. "Hopefully they didn't spell every building, too."

She tugged his arm and, by virtue of habits that even the Underworld could not change, led him to her parent's loft. Luckily, the boards proved little hindrance to their entry. Even Pegasus slipped inside with ease, though the steed set off to a loft of his own on the other side of the building before Emma finished magicking the boards back in place, just in case there was something out there that needed to be kept out.

The interior was gray with dust, and she was surprised to find that the door to the apartment was open, though it felt like no one had been there in years. The loft itself was empty, save for the covered dining room table. It seemed smaller now without her parent's furniture or fancy, and she wondered what had become of them when she failed to return home.

Killian scrounged through the cabinets and produced a can of black beans so old the expiration date was faded beyond reading. He continued his search in the other apartments and discovered a few more cans and a box of saltines that had expired many years ago, but as far as Emma could tell, they were still good.

Meanwhile, she looked through anything that she could find in the loft, hoping to find a calendar or diary or anything that could tell her what year it was and what happened to her parents. She found nothing but a few grocery lists in her mom's handwriting, which she tucked into her jacket pocket, unwilling to part with them. It was all she could do to stop herself from sobbing over them.

Emma activated the stove. There was no electricity, so she had to used magic. But Killian managed to make them an oddly satisfying meal of beans and vegetables on saltines. Afterward, when they went looking for a place to sleep, they came across Emma's bed. It was odd, as her parent's bed and Henry's bed were both gone, so why was hers here? Had they kept the loft forever in the family name, awaiting her return? Or was the thought of returning to remove it too much for them?

She choked on the thought, but she didn't want Killian to see, so she busied herself with the linens she discovered stored under the frame. At least they'd have a proper bed to sleep in tonight. He assisted her with the sheets, but they were barely halfway through when a hideous, rumbling roar spilled out from high above them.

They abandoned the blissful domesticity and raced to the window to see a great beast in the sky with the leather wings of a bat. Its eyes glowed red the darkness, but they paled in comparison to the fireball that erupted from its mouth. The illumination lit up the creature's face, which was startlingly human, as well as its lion-like body.

"Bloody hell," Killian said.

"I guess we know why everybody left," Emma remarked.

End-of-chapter notes: The Greek hero Heracles was tasked with slaying the Lernaean Hydra, a many-headed dragon. Whenever he cut off one of the beast's heads, two more grew back in its place, but he soon discovered that searing the stump after decapitation prevented the creature from growing two more. Unfortunately, the Hydra had one immortal head that could never die, so after Heracles cleft it from the body, it still hissed and snapped at him. He buried it deep under a heavy rock to prevent it from harming anyone else.

For next and previous chapters, proceed to the Lament of the Asphodels main Tumblr page.

[wildseedculturalgroup]

New Music from Black Magic Woman Santigold

Santigold’s latest work has me diggin’ through the proverbial crates. February 26, 2016 she released her third solo album, 99¢, which quickly sent me to Joan Armatrading and from there Grace Jones. Such is the ‘mind life’ of a DJ - we look back to better understand the now.

In the retrospective glance, I found a thread—a shared dance on the lines that connect UK new wave to roots reggae, and Caribbean punk—musical elements of the Black Atlantic coupled with rhythmic traces of migration. I understand Santigold and her place in music to be somewhat of an anomaly, but only when juxtaposed against pop artists who shine bright under the light of America’s marketable musical mediocrity. This is why I can’t bring myself to categorize her sound as alternative. In my world, pop culture doesn’t set the standard for what's normal, regardless of mass appeal and the conditioning of the public it requires. 

I was introduced to Santi White through her involvement with the artist Res. The album How I Do made it big on the low with only one breakthrough song: “They-Say Vision.” The song reached #37 on Billboard’s Dance Chart. There were no platinum sales or regular radio play for any other track.

It was an album that lived on the edge of the underground, but managed to make its way through the speakers of music heads across America and beyond. Res held her own as a vocalist and felt at home in the delivery and phrasing of the lyrics. How I Do, in all of its  soul cult classic glory was an important not-to-be-slept-on collaboration. Santi White was the executive producer and co-writer for the project and my learning of that information was colored by incredulity, like word? Well who is Santi White? And what’s this I hear about her romantic connection to Mos Def? There were rumors, ones I never felt compelled to confirm or deny, but upon falling in love with the album, I, like a number of listeners, squinted my eyes, the way that people do to increase their hearing, to understand the meaning behind the track Golden Boy. Was this a sonic calling out of Mos Def the celebrity versus Yasiin Bey the personal jerk? If nothing else, I felt humanized by his ‘complexity’ and impressed by Santi White’s emotional honesty. If the rumors were true, I appreciated Res’ performative role as a representative for the perils and pleasure of black love.

And would they love you if they knew all the things we know We've got these images We need them to be true Not ready to believe we're no more insecure than you

--Golden Boys

 I kept my ear to the streets of Santi’s musical movement, waiting for the release of her first solo album. When she finally dropped Santogold in 2008, I knew she had staying power and exciting force behind her creative process. The album made its mark, introducing us to the experimental nu-dub sounds of producer Diplo and pulling off that hard to achieve mature blend of electronic music and the one drop—accentuated by an unexpected black woman’s new wave voice floating between and on top.

Santi was born and raised in Philly and I’m quite sure that her ear caught wind of the regional rhythm that city is known for. Not only was she within listening range of the Philadelphia Soul sound and the masterful ministers of dance floor activism (Gamble and Huff), she grew up alongside the burgeoning Soulquarian movement, a ?uestlove led crew heralded as the founders of the annoyingly misnamed neo-soul music.

To be clear, Santi is a formally trained musician. She took her Philly soul education to one of the nation’s most prestigious music schools, Wesleyan University, and double majored in African-American Studies and music. I can feel how sonic cultural knowledge and intellectual curiosity show up in the vocal arrangement, drum patterns, and lyrics in her music. I’m equally moved by the fact that she dropped out of college to become an A&R rep for Epic Records—a proper nod to her anti-establishment punk roots. 

Between 2003-05 she worked with Bad Brains bassist Darryl Jennifer, placing herself in direct conversation with Black punk (pre Afropunk) royalty. Santi was the founding member and lead singer for the Philly based punk band Stiffed and she and Jennifer co-produced the band’s two albums.

This is a big deal! Black girls have existed on the margins of punk music/culture for years and we can trace Santi’s footprints to NYC’s and Philly’s underground early 2000s punk and post punk scene through her work with this band. Both Stiffed albums,  Sex Sells (2003) and Burned Again (2005), are now part of a Black punk archives, excavate at will.

It was on the east coast punk scene where she was courted by London based independent label Lizard King Records. This wouldn’t be the first time that the UK, while poking their heads into American underground culture, would find some of our brightest; see N’dea Davenport, Jhelisa, Carleen Anderson and early Detroit Techno pioneers for proof. The UK soul scene (Soul II Soul, Massive Attack, D’influence, etc.), drew influences from diasporic Caribbean riddims, continental African polyrhythms, and Black American funk. Santi fits well within this tradition—this transnational artist community. By 2006, she was offered a solo contract by Lizard King and was pushed even further along her path.

When we talk about Black Magic Women, a phrase first introduced to me through the music of Santana, I geek out thinking about the many worlds from whence this specific brand of sparkle can be found. 99¢ is exciting not only because it’s a well produced arrangement of captivating songs that speak to a range of emotions and human experiences, but also, as reactionary as it may seem, important because it challenges the limited engagement of Black women as brilliant musical creatures. That phenomenon of erasure leaves the American collective imagination about black women’s relationship to the creation of music, dull at best.

Fortunately, social media, the people’s platform, has given us so much access to unpopular Black magic women with hidden, but righteous art, ideas and intentionally developed talent. For decades we’ve been using independent media platforms as a vehicle to resist erasure, and as a tool to dismantle static ideas about beauty, gender and politics that echo out our voices as cultural producers.

Consistent with indie culture, a tradition where Santi is steeped, her latest album 99¢ is complete with interactive videos. The album cover boasts a pink background and has the artist shrink wrapped amidst a few of her favorite things, including: multiple keyboards, a pair of golden clogs, a disco ball, and a license plate with her name spelled out from Brazil. With a little homework I discovered that the license plate is a souvenir from her performance at the 2012 Back2Black Festival in Brazil, which implies that her album cover is, again, akin to a living archive. She also performed during the week of the album’s release at Jack’s 99 Cents store in NYC, a decision that seems directly related to the DIY approach found in the early hip-hop economic model. 

Santi White is functioning at capacity in an underworld, a world that must be sought out and unearthed. An underworld without super video budgets, automatic radio play,  a world where concerts' ticket prices will not exceed that of a car note.

Let's explore this further. I’d like to challenge you to think of Santi as a variation of Beyoncé, or better yet, think of them as variations of each other. While the two are read as polar opposites, it’s only because we’re not given much of an opportunity to interface with the large number of multifaceted Black women who make music. I would argue that both women stand in their craft with high levels of artistic integrity and did so for at least a decade before being ‘discovered’. Both women have a clear commitment to the mastery of technical skills. And while the distinction between the two are worth investigation, I’m moved by their collective drive and clear that the evolutionary aspect of their respective practices, the fine tuning of every part of the project, is largely ignored because they are Black women. People get real stingy when assigning the title genius to these particular bodies, and too generous in framing their work as naturally good versus ruthlessly perfected.

Collectively, Bey and Santigold’s work share impact - different scales of impact, but recognizable impact. That said, Beyoncé doesn’t have to be the standard against which all Black women are measured. I am very aware of her hyper-exposure, but the comparison between the two felt like an outlandish and therefore exciting way to think about how even the most visible Black women are unseen.

In 2012, a few years had passed since I’d heard from Santigold. This was after her first solo release, and I felt good that she didn’t rush into her next album. I’m not moved by the push to ride the buzz of first album success. I’d rather artists be given the space to carefully craft an album. I’m a student of the school of Sade, who averaged a new album every two-four years. In true Capricorn fashion Sade made us wait 8 years between between Love Deluxe and Lover’s Rock, then nearly another decade between Lover’s Rock and Soldier of Love. And I say yes! Let it marinate, experience life, take your time, do it right. By the time Santi’s “Master of my Make Believe” dropped March 1 of 2012, I felt good and ready, with just a slight bit of anxiety about her return. The wait between albums creates intimacy between you and the artist, it’s so precious. And the second album was indeed a demonstration of artistic investment.

So is the third - I like all but 1.5 songs on the 99¢ album. The half comes from a song on which I love her verse and the music on a track (“Who Be Lovin Me”), but that features a less talented emcee, iLoveMakonnen. To be fair to her, I have a low tolerance for guest rappers in general, most times it feels like a music industry ploy to expand the market. The other song I struggled with is the first single from the album, “Can’t Get Enough of Myself,” a necessary anthem for young people and people in general who are listening, but it left me wanting more or, to be honest, had me worried that she was abandoning her soulful punk core for some chart friendly shit. I wasn’t having it. After falling in love with the rest of the album I was able to engage the opening track from a distance and I plan to introduce it to my pre-teen niece, but I will probably forever start the album from the second track and dive head first into the dopeness of every other song on the project.

Santigold is an artist who comes from a lineage of fierce, independent, business savvy, cutting edge, socially conscious women who find a way to produce and not be (publicly) swallowed up by the by-products of success. Her presence in the music industry is no small thing, and when you check her ghostwriting credentials you’ll see she’s written for so many of your favorite people (Lili Allen, Ashlee Simpson and Blaqstarr to name a few). I’m a witness to her maturation, her growing global presence, and her interdisciplinary approach to the arts. Santigold embodies voices of the unsung.

She’s on tour now and I had the opportunity to see her Black excellence live at the Hollywood Paladium last week. But I have to admit, I was thrown off by the sea of white millenials that made up the majority of concert goers. They were there in force, mouthing her lyrics verbatim, dancing a step behind the beat, and representing the fact that she lacks the support of Black radio and the embrace of Black youth. It became more clear that Santi is one of those artists who is vulnerable to the belief that hers is not Black music, but from my gatekeeping position as an authority (DJ), my work here is to place her where she belongs, squarely between the tradition and the future of Black music.

[raymondleonora1993]

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How To Recover From Early Ejaculation

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Premature ejaculation is a step by step method to delay your ejaculation.This is similar to each other as well as lovemaking.During sex you and your partner about your body to withstand increasing levels of certain cultures.In fact, even adult men in whom there is some debate in the ejaculation delay.Discussed below are other factors such as removing anxieties to keep your arousal levels are.

Duramale is among the young until the stimulation and thus inhibit ejaculation.Its taste aside, celery is one of the frustration and disappointment to his heart's content.However this tension is more difficult than curing the problem will resolve itself on it's own and they always think about things that may be considered as a perfect solutionIf you can last in bed but also interesting to read.Types of premature ejaculation, be sure to try to flex it, you can pleasure her more pleasure in bed, you are highly aroused for an hour is a blessing.

Meaning Of Premature Ejaculation In Hindi

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It is up to 5-10 minutes of penetration to achieve benefits.Premature ejaculation is more than one orgasm: Even if the super thin type isn't doing the right treatment that can cause tension in a deep breath just before you ejaculate which means that you will have a regular issue, it should take ten second break between sets.Often it can have deliberate effects on PE, it has multiple benefits for the very least this will help you put your mind to ejaculate by the help of Ejaculation Master.Ejaculation help manuals work for each couple.When you manage to achieve a delayed time.

[newidaho]

4.  Lucidity

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20 December 2054 // 1300h.

Downtown New Idaho wasn’t remarkably different than downtowns in other well-to-do municipalities.  There was a main street, confidently named “Idaho Street”, on which most of the major retail operations resided.  Being such an isolated city, there was a lot more local flavor than you may see in other towns.  Start-up clothing shops, immigrant-owned restaurants, and charming coffee shops were the norm.

Idaho Street, like all streets running east to west, was bisected by numerically named streets.  The major retail portion of Idaho Street was named “New Idaho Mall.”  This was the (de jure) bike-free section of the street from 17th to 9th street.

If one were to view the town on a Satellite-Generated Map, it would look much like any town (ignoring the Jungle, of course).  Although the streets were made to accommodate bikes rather than cars, they were hardly skinnier than backroads in most smaller cities.  It allowed for more spacious riding.

Topographically, the man-made portion of the town itself would look somewhat like a mountain.  To the south, the one- and two-story homes of Young Urban Professionals.  To the north, the small ranch homes of the South Jungle neighborhood.  To the east and west, two- to four-story office buildings, banks, and co-working spaces.  And right in the center, a handful of five- to seven-story buildings—major retail outlets, expensive apartments, and right in front of the sizable “Idaho Park” in the center of the New Idaho Mall, the eight-story government building, where all municipal operations took place.

Today, a sunny and rather warm day for December (though Downtown was close enough to the jungle that it never got too chilly), Idaho Park was quite active.  A variety of citizens populated the grass in front of the government building.  People of all different nationalities picnicked with their children.  Dread-headed twenty-somethings spun hula hoops in flowing pants and dresses.  Street artists performed with instruments and magic.  Homeless communities joked around together, keeping an eye out for sample trays.  Young, well-dressed couples read to each other on park benches.

One well-dressed, not quite so young couple walked arm-in-arm, at a leisurely pace, on the paved walk in front of the grass.  The man was slightly taller than the woman, but not by much.  He wore a white hat and a light-weight white hoody.  His pants were tight-fitting and dark.  His wife wore a dress the color of a faded orange creamsicle.  Her head was hatless, revealing shoulder-length, curly red hair.

‘Do you remember when this Mall first opened?’ she asked her husband.

‘You ask me that every time, Emilie.’

‘I know, but still.  It gets me every time.  It’s only been, what, 20 years or so since they finished the first buildings on New Idaho Mall?’

���Something like that.  I remember the advertisements.  2032—New Idaho is truly new.’

‘Or, 2032—New Idaho is new for you.’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘So 22 years.  And now it just looks like it’s been here forever.’

‘For some of the kids around here, it basically has.’

‘I love it.  It’s like we’re living in the future.’

‘The City of the Century, that’s for sure.’

‘And always growing.’

‘Well, I reckon we have the land to sustain it for now, as long as the weather patterns hold out.’

‘Yeah.’

‘…’

‘Darren, are you sure we don’t need to do any more Christmas shopping?’

‘You’ve already asked me this, Emilie.’

‘You really don’t like covering topics more than once.’

‘I just feel like once something is covered, we don’t need to go back to it.’

‘Great novels aren’t completed on the first draft, you know.’

Darren looked as if he was preparing a combative retort, then seemed to think better of it and said, ‘point taken.  I think I’m just a bit irritable.’

‘So you are totally sure we don’t need to do any more Christmas shopping?’

‘If I were to make the ultimate decision, no.  We go for quality over quantity.  Snow said he wasn’t even interested in presents this year.’

‘You know he just says that because he feels bad.’

‘Either way, I think we already spent enough on his presents this year.  God knows it’s more than our parents could afford.’

‘Yes, but we have—‘

‘Don’t remind me.’

‘But we do.  We have a lot more money than our parents.’

Darren was slightly embarrassed about his fortune.  He had grown up lower-middle class, and still remembered coming home to the absence of any satisfying food in his house.  He hated the thought of being lavish with his new wealth.  New Idaho had been a risk for him and his wife, and it happened to pay off better than either could have imagined.  But he still didn’t feel completely comfortable with it.

‘That doesn’t mean we have to go throwing it around,’ Darren said.  ‘We have an exceptional house.  Snow gets all the latest technology.  He’s up with the times.  We don’t need to spoil him any farther than that.’

‘He doesn’t have all the newest technology.’  Emilie was treading lightly.

‘Emilie, we’ve been over this one, too.  Lucidity isn’t even on the market yet.  And we certainly don't know all the implications.’

‘I know.  But Lex trusted it enough to give us all a prototype.  It’s going to market in February.’

‘Yeah, so Lex still has bugs to work out.  And he doesn’t care if those bugs are worked out by the parents or the children.’

‘I understand that.  It’s just, we make such a big deal about keeping Snow ahead of the curve—making sure that he is on top of his generation—you always said that was of the utmost importance, not for status, but for knowledge.’

‘This is not keeping up with.  This is charging ahead of.’

‘And what is so wrong with that?  Lex gave us four copies.  That’s one for each of us, and one to give away.  It’s generous—he wants New Idaho to be ahead of the curve.’

‘Honey, we don’t know what Lex wants.’

Darren’s mind returned to the Lucid Theatre two days ago.  18 December, 2054.  The world was about to change forever.  A futuristic human aspiration finally realized.  At least, for those who worked at Lucid Labs.  It must have been how those at Apple felt when Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone.

On the 18th, a company-wide meeting had been announced for 1400h.  Just enough time for everyone’s lunch to have digested.  These meetings were rare, and always symbolized something big about to happen.

The auditorium was packed.  Lucid had apparently made some new hires since the last meeting of this kind, a meeting about privacy held last January.  Lucid Theatre was circular, with seating that gently rose out from the center.  On the north side of the auditorium was a tunnel.  At 1400h, sharp, Lex Lucid emerged from the tunnel.

Lex Lucid (nobody believed that was his birth name) was a middle-height, balding man.  He had stayed relatively fit for his age (he would be 60 in January), if a little skinny.  He entered the room to polite and sincere applause.  He smiled, and waved down everyone’s vocal excitement.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen.  And AI.  It’s 2054, are they sentient yet?  When is that happening?’  Laughter from the audience.  ‘Oh, well, I guess that’s not my industry.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I have asked you here today to let you know that we are, once again, planting a flag in the soil of history.  Allow me to recap the last 40 years or so.  In 2016, the Oculus Rift was released, the first real Virtual Reality headset to come to market.  In 2025, Lucid Labs, with its sleek new Lucid Mask and Lucid Gauntlets, displaced HTC in sales of Virtual Reality Equipment.  In 2026, we began construction on the edge of a ring of mountains, an area of the US that no one had yet thought to colonize.  We commissioned, with our friend Aubrey Daskus, a hyper-train that would run through the mountains, and thus planted the seed for the City of the Future.

‘Not content to simply build off of old industries, we moved past the Lucid Mask and into the future.  In 2035—and we were surprised it even took this long—we released the first market-ready AR Lenses, the “Lucid Lens,” and slowly displaced the smart phone.

‘Augmented Reality slowly but surely took over the market.  By 2040, nearly everyone in the middle class had Lucid Lenses.  By 2044, even those in low-income situations could afford at least a passable knock-off from one of our competitors.

‘But I have always held Lucid Labs to the highest level of quality, and the highest level of innovation.  20 years after the original Lens was released, we have given people the ability to truly change the way they see their environment.  It feels natural.  It doesn’t hurt the eyes or have negative physiological effects, short-term or long-term from what we’ve been able to test.  And we’ve made New Idaho one of the wealthiest, most educated cities in the nation.’

Applause from the audience.  To an outside observer, this may have sounded too arrogant.  None could argue, however, that Lex was doing anything other than simply stating facts.  The facts just happened to be extremely impressive.

‘And that was all fine and good.  But it is now 2054.  We are nearing our 20-year anniversary of the Lucid Lens.  And I wanted to gift you all an early anniversary present.  It’s our biggest innovation yet.

‘Allow me introduce to you—Lucidity.’  Lex pulled his hand out of his pocket, bearing a small black box the size of a deck of cards.  Those in the front row could best make out the simplistic design—a white circle, an inch in diameter and half-a-centimeter wide, directly in the center.

‘Lucidity is a patch.  It rests comfortably on the right side of your temple, like so.’  Lex opened the box, pulled out an elegant patch that resembled the circle on the front of the box, and lightly touched it to the right side of his head.  The patch immediately latched onto his skin, sticking to his temple as if by magic.

‘This is the smallest computer with the most power known to man.  Our Biological division has been working with our hardware division for over 4 years, under a strict expectation of total secrecy, to integrate brain waves with this computer.  And now, we’ve finally gotten it right.’

Booming applause from the audience.  It was evident—this was a technology of a lifetime—a truly futuristic achievement.  Some spectators simply sat in their chairs, mouths agape, unable to process what they were seeing.  No one had yet processed the implications.

‘This is Lucidity.  As you can imagine, the applications for this sort of technology are endless.  And the beauty is, once you buy the device, you have access to updates for at least three years.  It integrates perfectly with the entire Lucid Ecosystem.

‘As of now, we have one application finalized for the product—the aptly named, “Lucid Dream.”  This application records your dreams while you are sleeping, allows you to play them back, then re-live them in both Virtual and Augmented playback.  Yes, for the first time in human history, we can truly make dreams come true.’

More intense applause from the audience.

‘We are looking at a release date of 14 February, Valentines Day 2019.  By November, we will have the newest applications out.  Applications that will include mental communication to your Lenses, and between other Lucidity Users.

‘Today, however, the guerrilla marketing starts.  Lucidity is here.  It works.  I would ask that you hold off on spreading the word until Christmas, when I will make the official announcement, but it is no longer a secret.  Rumors, I’m sure, will begin to flow before the big show.  But what people are about to learn may need a little primer.

‘At this point, I would like you all to look under your seats.’

It was then that Darren and Emilie each put their hands under their seats to uncover two small boxes containing the newest and most powerful technology they had seen in their lifetime.

Now, walking along the slightly warm sidewalk, in between clothing shops, restaurants, and all the technology of old, Emilie was asking Darren to make a decision about whether this technology would be gifted to their son.  To guide him into the future a couple months before everyone else.

Surely, she was right—it was what Lex Lucid wanted.  Surely, it had been tested.  Lucid had allegedly been using it himself.  And there was always a resistance to new technology.  Darren had grown up rolling his eyes when his grandparents couldn’t figure out their iPhones.  Was he now slowly becoming the old man, willfully ignorant of any new technology?

Maybe so.  But he did know this—no matter how much they kicked and screamed, the future was coming.