#like. very vaguely but ill tag it to be safe

[byronvera]

this, too, is yuri

(only just starting arc 19 of twig so no spoilers in tags please!!)

[heirbane]

feel free to ignore if you’ve already talked about this before, but i was running prae recently and it got me curious about gaius’s feelings on livia / nero / rhitahtyn? or the xivth in general. :>

i have been roosting on this for. weeks? months? because i have Thoughts and not a lot of them are popular probably lol. long long post below. so!

Livia and Lucia lived with Gaius after they were orphaned. The wiki gives like one sentence to say they were separated, but there's no linked proof. For the purposes of my canon, Lucia and Livia are identical twins, and fell into Gaius' custody around the age of nine or ten. (Mayhaps they had intended to separate them, but doing so to people so obviously two halves of one soul, as twins are oft believed to be, was cruel.)

Livia and Lucia were Gaius' first children. He was 39 and had spent twenty five years in the military already, a feat both telling of his ability and his early enlistment. Those who made it to twenty summers in the military had their futures financially secured for them. Gaius would never want for anything, and he now felt that he could offer himself up as a mentor figure to those younger... because as a child who had raised himself and had grown up in the military, he believed that all children needed was a safe home, plentiful meals, and education. His coin could provide all of those things.

Gaius scarcely remembered being ten years old. Not from lack of trying but from purposeful forgetfulness, a merciful omission made by his subconscious to truly forget the half-dozen winters spent trying to relieve his mother of her grief and fending for himself. He thinks he remembers being lonely, and cold, and scared. That, he thinks, he can avoid with the twins, even while he's on a tour of duty. He is so resplendently well-off and respected that the girls could attend private lessons and be dressed in the warmest coats.

(Providing the essentials - even to a level bordering on excessive, or stifling - is not a love children need. His first daughters were no better off than he at ten: they may have been clothed, in classes, and being raised by one of the military's finest, but they were still cripplingly alone. It is a knife he had handed all of his children, something he doesn't feel the blade of for over a dozen years.)

Livia was desperately, horridly lonely. Even before the death of her parents, she did not receive the amount of attention and love that she felt she needed. Her parents attention had always been split between her and her sister, and - as is often the case in multiple child households - Lucia was often seen as the more proper daughter. Upon their demise, Livia was left with a flurry of emotions she had yet to truly acknowledge and decode as one would growing up. Without a proper parent to idealize and a healthy, consistent environment to grow up in, Livia gorged herself on any and all attention, no matter how uncouth or unhinged. All attention was good attention.

She idolized Gaius to a suffocating degree. After her parents died, it seemed as if he swooped in and brought them into gilded luxury: she had everything she could have ever desired... but somehow - ... she still felt empty. But she felt loved and seen whenever he was home. She didn't know what she wanted, nor did she have the maturity to know there was a what: she simply wanted whatever scraps of affection he would offer... and never quite grew out of that. Trauma and emotional neglect is a bear trap one does not get free from on their own. Unfortunately, Livia was very much alone.

Lucia fled Garlemald at sixteen. Both girls were enrolled in the military at fifteen - one more willing than the other. Livia made leaps and bounds in a short few years, clawing her way to fight at Gaius' side, where she believed she belonged. Lucia focused on espionage, and used her adopted father's name to her advantage... and fled. Livia never saw Lucia after that, and died not knowing if her sister had ever found what she had sought in the savage lands.

Rhitahtyn, by comparison, was decidedly more a younger brother than son. A half dozen years his junior, Rhitahtyn entered the military not long after Gaius turned twenty-four. Not long after, Rhitahtyn was assigned to Gaius' very first platoon of soldiers ... as those from conquered lands were oft used as a new General's testing group.

Rhitahtyn and other Roe folk often used their native tongue to chitchat when in the barracks or otherwise not under the direct eye of Garlemald... or when they believed their superior to be ignorant of the language. Gaius had been in the military over a decade by the time they crossed paths and had chosen to learn the basics of the tongues spoken by those under his command. Needless to say, Rhitahtyn had choice words for his leader. (Needless to say, Gaius had his own in return. The floors of the platoon's bedquarters would never be nearly as clean as the Roe had made them that night as punishment.)

Despite the bad foot they got off on, Gaius saw promise in the younger man. He remained level-headed no matter the confrontation, already had years of work behind him as a mercenary, and had a sharp wit to boot. As time went on, their footing became less uneven, and Gaius began to see him as a peer instead of a recruit. Time and time again, he chose Rhi to be at his side, much like Nero and Livia.

Rhi knew the rest of Gaius' children. He met all of the Au Ri from Terncliff: he knew the Garlean orphans the man sponsored care for. They all came to see the Roe in a similar light to Gaius, despite the wide age gap between himself and them: to his children, Rhi was but another sibling. (It was Alphonse, still losing baby teeth and learning how Garlean names worked, who stumbled over Rhitahtyn's name enough that 'Rhi' came to be. Only the children dubbed him so. It was not a name Gaius would ever admit to using.)

As it is in canon, Gaius would not have sent Rhi to Cape Westwind to die. He would not have left the grounds to Livia and others. He did not believe the Warrior of Light so strong as to put down two soldiers he had trained himself: he had more faith in their abilities - and in Garlemald - than he had fear of the Warrior.

(As not many survived Westwind or after, it took Gaius many, many years to learn how Rhitahtyn perished - a fact only the Warrior of Light carried with them. He knew he had perished: he knew he had fought until the end. But to know that his brother-in-arms had fully intended to go down in flames with the Warrior of Light - ... to say he has regrets is but a sliver of the truth.)

In a perfect world, Gaius may have set up Nero with one of his daughters. In a perfect world, Midas would not have perished, and they would have happily co-parented Cid. Both Cid and Nero were born when Gaius was in his early twenties, and he sees both men in a similar light, much to Nero's disgust. A little competition never hurt anyone, and each boy's promise seemed to ignite fire in the other.

Much akin to Livia and Lucia, Nero is ... definitely the black sheep. While close to the age of his adult children, the man froths at the mouth when such is spoken, forever rushing to be great in his own right. Nero's sights for the future - his future, specifically - is both endearing and infuriating to Gaius, who sees his soldiers as part of a larger whole.

Unfortunately, no matter how infuriating or offbeat he is, Nero is a genius... but would have still come up short, had Cid stayed in Garlemald. Gaius knows this. Nero knows this, and he will fight until he is near dead to get out of the shadow Cid left behind by simply existing.

(Nero does not know why the shadow remains. He does not know why Gaius is soft-hearted for Cid, or why his voice is so fond for Midas. His relationship with the scientist is a secret only two other people were privy to: Midas' wife, and Cid. By the time Gaius meets Nero, Midas' widow has long since disappeared from under Garlemald's eye... and Cid is presumed dead.)

Had Lucia not fled and had Livia been sound of mind, he does think they would have made a fine lineage, all things considered. However, Livia only had eyes for Gaius... and Nero only had eyes for Cid.

[whomturgled]

yrkeby4ur8

[moodymisty]

Author's Note: Inspired by this post. You can blame all of the unhinged horniness there for this unhinged horniness. Someone there put the idea down as space wolves or Luna wolves and I chose Luna wolves because @bispecsual gave me the brain rot. And since I'm a massive masochist, I write.

Relationships: Like five unnamed Luna Wolves/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Vaguely NSFW, Very hornily charged bullying, Astartes are very curious and grabby, Demeaning speech, Just imagine you're that one girl on the couch in the meme surrounded by massive dudes but those dudes are 8 foot tall genetic abominations, Gangbang implications(?) my warning tags are getting weird as fuck

To the Luna Wolves, serfs are a new idea- a curiosity.

But after their good deeds upon a planet of little known renown and placement in the galaxy, a few of their population offered to serve them.

Before them, most serfs were primarily stationed on Terra, and on Luna Wolves ships instead those roles were given to low ranking tech priests, or penal labor. Even then however the Astartes saw them rarely, until now.

Some of the newly conquered planet offered sons as aspirants, of which they eagerly accepted. The Luna Wolves have been eager to grow their numbers now under Horus’ leadership.

Others, older and ablebodied, offered themselves to serve as serfs.

Many Luna Wolves can't remember the last time they've seen a normal human for more than a few moments, ushering them to safely into a Stormbird or pushing them from a firefight. Or seeing their corpse flung on the far reaches of a battlefield, out of sight and mind.

In their brief periods of reprieve from battle, it's now been a struggle for their captains and lieutenants to keep their men on task, now that serfs scurry around them completing various tasks. Particularly for the youngest marines among them, it's been a constant to stop them from reaching towards the serfs, interrupting their sanctioned duties.

They will get to you once finished with your brothers, is what the current quartermaster on duty or Astartes captain says. Though haste to have their armor cleaned or bolter clips loaded isn't the thing on their mind, but instead an almost dog-like curiosity.

But after their superiors leave, they always end up crowding around you again. These astartes have barely seen baseline humans in decades, let alone a woman.

It's suffocating.

You were nothing on your home planet. Insignificant. You’d hoped joining them would bring you purpose, something to be proud of. And to get off the planet that had you feeling so trapped. And while you got your wish, in a way the thing trapping you had merely changed form.

They have you cornered in the armoring room now; Like Wolves. You went from trapped on that no name planet to trapped by five different astartes. Your palms feel hot and sweaty, but not as hot as your face.

“You’re so small, you’re going to get lost on the ship,” One says.

He grabs for your chin and holds it for a moment, forcing you to look into his grey eyes. they're stoic, but you can see he's enjoying something about this. Though he allows you to shrink away and out of his grip, looking downward at their chest armor. Or anywhere else that isn't their faces.

“Or trampled,” Says another. The one who spoke previous gives him a sour look before passively aggressively replying.

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.”

One who hasn't spoken yet has his top armor removed, his lower half unpowered. He was training, using it as dead weight. Training concluded blood now drips down from his nose and lips but is mostly dried, partly covered healing bruises. If he looks like this, you can't help but wonder how his opponent looks.

It’s distracting.

You don’t know if it’s some sort of illness or insanity from being locked in this ship for so long; It makes him look more attractive. You hope to whatever deity or god or whatever exists out in the stars that he doesn't notice you’re staring. That he doesn't notice the way your heart is pounding in your chest and what feels like your cunt as well.

He does. As do the others. You can't kid yourself and think that with their hearing and smell that they haven't noticed that you're boiling alive, and that your body is screaming fuck me fuck me fuck me fuck me-

“He won. Out of one hundred men.”

Your gut twists and the marine behind you laughs quietly. It's deep, enough so that you swear you can feel it in your chest. You would squeeze your thighs together for some relief, but you don’t think you can without stumbling over.

“She likes the winners. Looks like you’re out.” He gestures to a fellow marine that gives him another sour look. You briefly wonder what he lost at to deserve such a jab.

“I should return to my duties,”

You meekly say, hoping to remove yourself from the embarrassment and scurry away to another quarter of the ship.

One of them blocks your path and traps you from leaving, picking you up by the armpits and holding you before putting you back down between them all. It's like you weigh nothing to them, and that they can simply jostle and swing you around like a toy.

“I’ll tell your quartermaster you were helping us.” He jerks his head in the direction of a marine clad in only the casual clothing they wear out of their ceramite. Now the focus of your attention he rolls his shoulder, and you can see the muscles of his neck and around his collarbone flex.

You swallow a knot in your throat that felt like it was going to choke you. Your hands clench tight, nails sharp against your palms. You're going to have a heart attack, you swear it. Tears well in your eyes but they don't break your waterline just yet, from sheer will alone. If any of them say another word, call you cute, small, soft, that you smell so sweet, you swear they’ll roll down your cheeks like a waterfall.

“He wants you to put on his armor. The others are always so rough, you’re so gentle with those little hands.”

The marine reaches for you, and in your back step you stumble and accidentally bump into the one who hasn't spoken at all; Just watching and sitting. You stumble over his massive armored boot and end up falling into a sit on his thigh, legs parted over it. His massive armored hand comes to grip your waist, to keep you from falling over. It covers a good portion of your stomach in the process.

You’re so tightly wound just the simple pressure alone is enough to have you clamp a hand your mouth to avoid letting out a moan that would kill you right then and there, if you weren’t already dead. Your knees quiver, toes just barely touching the ground. His massive height makes it impossible to fully stand with his thigh between your legs.

You know they can smell the way you’re leaking and staining your underwear, hear the way your heart is racing like it's going to explode. You’re half afraid you might make his ceramite thigh plate slick.

You can feel their eyes on you. They look at you like you’re food thrown to a pack of starving wolves.

One suddenly steps forward, and pushes his battle brother out of his way with a harsh slam of ceramite on ceramite before undoing the latch his belt.

“I go first.”

[nardo-headcanons]

About Shisui Uchiha

just some shower thoughts i had about him. this is very headcanon heavy and rather vague at times.

tw for talks about suicide, manipulation, trauma, abuse, etc

tagging: @uchihaharlot @pxssy-stuntin-for-itxchi @lalalover33-blog @burning-bubble @naruto-scribblings-j

Unlike Itachi, who was born during the last year of the great Shinobi war, it is safe to say that Shisui was born while it was still going on. So naturally, he was exposed to the worst side humanity had to offer, most likely traumatizing him in the process.

His mother is never mentioned, so I assume she must have died during his birth or in his early childhood. His father, most likely ravaged by illness before he even entered the battlefield, lost his left leg, leaving him with phantom pains and high medical bills. As a born shinobi, Shisui’s father lacked the funds and education to pursue any other path of career, leaving his child as the only breadwinner of his family. Shisui probably had to spend his entire childhood and youth slaving away just to keep his father and himself afloat. Additionally, he took care of a terminally i’ll man who didn’t even remember his son’s name. Of course, this would lead to Shisui being very perceptive of the psychology of the ones around him, how else could he search for a sign of his father’s state health changing?

Shisui often spent time wondering what it’s like to have a family, a family in which he is allowed to be what he is: a child. Someone who is cared for, someone who is looked after. Despite being an Uchiha, his relation to Kagami Uchiha - the Uchiha allied with Tobirama, the very person planting the seed for all the discrimination the Uchiha would face, up to a point of their genocide, would probably lead him to feel ostracized within his own clan. And like everyone of us, he is trying to find the balance between individuality and belonging - the latter being the one he lacked. His abilities as an Uchiha become a defining factor of identity for him, leading to him being willing to let a comrade via withholding aid - just on the basis of that comrade potentially being stronger than him. Once his comrade dies, the young Uchiha is ravaged by feelings of guilt, by the awareness that the blood of his friend is on his hand.

But nevertheless, he is blessed with a new Uchiha ability - the mangekyou sharingan. His entire life he had to enter a role he didn’t want to be in, robbing him of memories he could have had. So what better mangekyou ability to have than the one that alters memories, and, in extension, alters your role in the world?

Shisui’s resentment against his Uchiha identity starts bubbling up inside him again, and being a shinobi who frequents B- or even A-Rank missions as a literal teenager (how else would you pay for your father’s medical debt as a shinobi, eh?) he was closer to the village from the start. Hailed as the strong and talented Uchiha boy, taking on missions to serve his village, behind the facade a broken kid forced to grow up way too quickly. His first serious doubts begin when he is forced to kill Mukai Kohinata, a direct reflection of Shisui, just the other way around: a father wanting nothing but funds to care for his dying child.

Things don’t get better when the tension between the village and the Uchiha rise. His own brethren or the collective - who will you support? Getting into Shisui’s mind and twisting his perception of what’s right is an easy game for Danzo, almost too easy. A civil war breaking out in Konoha would be a repetition of his initial trauma - the one thing Shisui wants to prevent the most. Shisui starts feeling conflicted, until he finally stumbles upon THE miracle solution: forcefully keeping up the status quo by manipulating the leader of the revolution - an unpleasant reality, but better than the Uchiha clan’s extermination or a civil war breaking out, right? To Shisui, atleast. And honestly, who could blame him? As a ninja who graduated young, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he lacks the methodical and critical thinking outside of the parameters of violence and manipulation he is used to from Danzo and the shinobi world.

And then it happens. He agrees to suppress the revolution of his own ethnic group just for the sake of keeping up a false sense of peace, and suddenly, his co conspirators, the man that is supposed to be guarding him, leading him, suddenly abandons him and steals his eye? Shisui’s entire identity as the Uchiha boy from Konoha collapses and he doesn’t know what to think or believe anymore. In his last moments, he becomes aware of the utter pointlessness of the killing and the brutality of the shinobi system, the sheer feeling of powerless overwhelming him. At this point, death seems like a sweeter option than continuing to live powerlessly in such a system.

Shisui is a skilled ninja, but not always in contact with his emotions. Therapy is a rarity in the leaf, with even the counselors themselves not being able to give advise outside of the parameters of what’s ���acceptable” in the hidden leaf.

So, what better way to hide your agony than behind a -albeit manufactured- goofy smile?

[myosotisa]

Old Heart - Part 4 - Build

‖ chapter summary: Following the destruction of Memphis, you and Eddie make your way to the spot where he is set to hand you off for the final leg of your journey to Colorado.

‖ tags: enemies to lovers, age gap (41 and 25), forced proximity, slow burn, angst, hurt/comfort, HEA, "zombie" apocalypse, reader uses she/her pronouns, no y/n, no physical description given, minors dni

‖ chapter warnings: grief and the tumultuous emotions included. abandonment issues. mentions of untreated terminal illness (cancer). implied/referenced suicide (very implied, not graphic). animal death and using it in a meal. also alcohol.

‖ word count: 11k

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August 18th through 23rd, 2016 – somewhere in Arkansas

You only make the mistake of asking Eddie to talk about Memphis twice.

The first time was Thursday night after the two of you had settled into a place to sleep that seemed secure enough for both of you to sleep through the night. He’d assisted you with changing the bandages on your wound with the supplies him and Max had managed to scrape together while you had been catatonic. It was vague – more of an offer that if he wanted to talk to you about it, you were there for him. He’d bitten back with a harsh retort that there was nothing to talk about before rolling over and pretending to go to sleep.

Progress had been slow as you trekked across the state together due to your injury. You felt tired faster, found yourself pushing to keep going until you got so dizzy you almost fell over, then had to take a rest before you did the same thing all over again. Eddie never once complained about the pace but you could tell the sitting and waiting for you to be ready to move again was weighing on him. He would anxiously pace while you sat, or make an excuse about going to make sure the perimeter was clear and disappearing for 15 minutes at a time. The first leg of your trip he was standoffish and closed off but, ever since Max left, he’s been fully avoidant. Not wanting to get into situations where he would have time to stop and think.

Running away from silence and stillness like he had a bounty on his head.

When you ask again if he wants to talk about anything that happened in Memphis, he doesn’t snap. He barely responds at all. He sits there in the moonlight with one leg kicked out and the other bent up with his arms crossed on it. There’s a far off look in his eye despite his gaze being firmly settled on his boot. Dark shadows are cast along his features that make the circles under his eyes seem more sunken and his jawline more defined. A shadow of himself in the dark.

“Who’s Sally?”

The question catches you off guard, your legs crossing under you as you lean back against a dusty bookshelf in the dark room. “Sorry?”

“When we were leaving Louisville, you told–” His voice is soft and ragged – it catches on the word and he has to clear his throat to keep going. “You told Dustin to ‘get home safe to Sally.’ I didn’t know he was seeing anyone.”

You’re not able to contain the amused snort that forces itself out of your nose and you notice that the silhouette of his head whips toward you in response. Quick to explain, you tell him, “Sally is a German Shepherd. She lives on the farm with Dustin and Will.”

“Ah,” is his short response. You think maybe that will be the end of it but a few moments later he’s talking again. “His mom was a cat lady. He liked the cats, but I always kinda got the feeling he was a dog person. So that’s, uh… That’s nice to hear.”

“Yeah, he’s obsessed with her. Talked about her almost as much as you on the trip there.”

This makes him huff, a quick exhale of breath. You wish you could see his face – figure out if that was a good noise or a bad one. For not the first time, you find yourself wishing you knew what he was thinking.

“I had a cat for a little while.”

His confession has you suddenly on the edge of your seat and you struggle to rein yourself in. Try not to think about how excited it makes you to hear him let a little fact about himself like that slip free. Carefully, keeping your tone neutral like you’re trying not to spook a wild animal, you ask, “Oh yeah? What was their name?”

You’re surprised when he actually answers. “My uncle named her Mimzy. Stupid fuckin’ name,” he complains, though it comes out through a chuckle. “Then again, the cat was dumb as a brick so I guess the punishment fit the crime.” You spend a few moments considering if you should ask more questions to try to keep him talking but he does so on his own. “She lived under our trailer when I was in high school. Was just fur and bone when I started throwing scraps outside for her to eat. ‘Course she stuck around after that. Even though I was the one who started feeding her, she always preferred Wayne. Would rub all over his legs when he got back from the plant in the morning after ignoring me all night. Though she was a fan of mine for a while when I saved her dumbass while trying to fight a raccoon.”

Still not quite sure how to handle this situation in which Eddie is willingly talking about himself, you fall back on humor. “Trying to fight a raccoon is a rookie mistake. They have fully functioning fingers. A cat stands no chance.”

This time the huff he lets out is definitely amused and you find yourself warming under the approval. “I’m just glad she didn’t get rabies or something from the thing.”

While it feels a bit like pushing your luck, you take another metaphorical step closer by offering up some bits of your own. “We had a dog when I was a kid. Yappy little terrier named Lola.” He doesn’t move to interrupt you so you push your luck a little further. “I was always more of a cat person but my dad fucking hated them for some reason, so I was never allowed to have one.”

“Didn’t get one when you had the chance?” He asks, and it makes you hesitate.

Not sure if he forgot how young you were or if he meant something else, you are reluctant to remind him. Despite the worry that it's the wrong move, you still awkwardly answer. “Well, I was only 13 when everything went to shit. And they didn’t want animals on the base so… No.”

Silence falls like a blanket of thick snow. It feels fuzzy and heavy. You immediately try to figure out how you can reel the words back into your mouth, say literally anything else that would keep him talking. Keep the silence from creeping in like hands around your throat.

“I forgot,” he’s borderline whispering now and you can barely hear it over the buzzing in your ears. “Can’t imagine how fucked up it was to go through that as a kid.”

You shrug even though he can’t see it, feeling that captive piece of you starting to pace behind its bars again, looking for the first sign of weakness to lunge. “About as fucked as it was for everyone else, I guess.”

“Yeah… Guess so.” The moment sits heavy on you both before the sound of leather on polyester hisses in the empty air. There’s a lot of shuffling from his side of the room and you see the shadows of him settling down on his sleeping bag. You take that as your sign that he’s done talking.

A small part of you thinks about telling him goodnight. You decide to stop while you’re ahead.

The next 3 nights go similarly. When you’ve both found some abandoned place to sleep, he helps you change your bandages. Looks out for signs of it getting infected and lets you know if it seems to be healing or not. When your cobbled together sling gives out, he rips apart his white overshirt to make you a new one despite your protests that you can manage without. Once your arm is settled and you’ve both eaten at least a little bit of something, you start talking. Not much, maybe 15 minutes to half an hour. But those sacred minutes allow you to learn more little facts about Eddie. Never anything related to Memphis or life during the pandemic. It’s all things from before.

He had the same flannel shirt in 3 different colors because he just really liked how it looked on him. A part of him always wanted to get into fixing up motorcycles in his free time. He also used to enjoy drawing and playing fantasy games with his friends. He learned to play guitar when he was a kid from an old 6 string that his uncle had but never used. 90% of his tattoos were from before, only two being added to the mix over the last 13 years. Not for lack of wanting – more like lack of resources and not trusting those who had set up “shops” these days to do stick and pokes. On that note, his first two tattoos were stick and pokes he did himself in high school.

You drank all the information like sugar water for a fly – desperate to be filled even if it wasn’t the way you were hoping it would be. Even if it didn’t end anywhere, even if it didn’t help either of you. It was something.

In a world where everything felt like a luxury, vulnerability was the rarest among them.

Evening of August 23rd, 2016 – Three Corners, Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma

The last hour or so of your hike through the middle of nowhere has been dirt roads and wooden fences that barely remain standing on the dusty roadsides. While you have questioned him once or twice, Eddie is determined that he knows exactly where he’s going. That he’s made this trip before, could do it blindfolded. And, with the sun quickly sinking toward the western horizon, all you can do is hope he’s right.

As you kick your way through orange dirt roads covered with rocks and tree limbs, the ruined fencing to your right starts to slowly be replaced with newer wood – better maintained and more sturdy. Further beyond, the wooden beams are replaced by a chain link fence that rises a foot or two above your head. This looks even newer, barely rusted and without any cuts or weak points. Despite being far from anything you would even attempt to call civilization, it seems that you are getting closer to something someone is caring for.

You don’t realize that you’re lagging behind, distracted and exhausted, until Eddie looks back over his shoulder. “We’re almost there, Bambi. Just a little farther.”

Not sure if he means to be encouraging or condescending, you decide to take the opportunity to talk again. Maybe if you can focus on that instead of your sore muscles and swollen arm, you can pass the rest of the time easily. “Y’know, calling me Bambi is kind of fucked up.”

He stops, slowly turning toward you with concern and confusion on his brow. He waits for you to catch up before continuing on with you in step. “How exactly is it fucked up?”

“Y’know, because both of my parents are dead now.”

He chokes on air, a hacking laugh forcing itself out of his throat. His eyes are shining with a certain mischief in them, one you haven’t seen since Memphis. “First of all, that’s so fucking dark, Bambi.” You blink at him a few times, not understanding exactly what he means. He continues on, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Second of all, I don’t know if you noticed, but a lot of people’s parents are dead.”

You scoff, shaking your head and looking back out to the road as you murmur, “Asshole.”

“Third of all,” he continues, ignoring your retort, “I’m pretty sure we started calling you Bambi because you’re going out into the world for the first time on your shaky legs; eyes wide and unsure. Not because your parents are dead.”

The realization hits you harshly, suddenly embarrassed for your own morbid assumption. “Oh,” is all you muster, teeth clenching as you try to shake off the fumble. “I am not on shaky legs. I’ve been in the world this whole time, same as everyone.”

“Sorry, but I don’t think your tall ivory walls of government protection count as ‘out in the world’.” He goads, almost sounding pleased with himself. Either not at all catching on to how the assertion frustrates you, or not caring that it does. “We didn’t all get our 3 square meals a day or access to clean water whenever we wanted it.”

The boil in your blood mounts higher – hotter than it’s ever been in his direction. While at the beginning of your journey, you’d been annoyed with his attitude toward you, this is entirely different. This is him taking a knife to where it hurts and twisting it just to watch you bleed. White hot blood you’re quick to spit back.

Your tone is barely contained fire and steam when you say a resolute, “Fuck. You.”

He looks almost like he wants to laugh until he glances in your direction and sees the look on your face. Subconsciously, he shifts another inch away from you, swallowing harshly as he stuffs his hands back into the pockets of his jacket. “Sore spot. Got it.”

The acknowledgement that his comments hurt you does little to smother the flames clawing up your throat, but you leash your tongue and use them to propel you forward instead. Settling into a tense silence that could last 5 minutes or an hour. It’s hard to tell with the rate the sun continues to sink down onto the horizon and the grasslands surrounding you remain unchanging.

Luckily, the fuming is interrupted by Eddie using his long legs to his advantage and crossing over in front of you to grasp at what you’ve just noticed is a gate in the chain link fence. He fights with the chain wrapping the gate closed for a few moments before he manages to prop it open far enough for you both to squeeze through. You pass first, crossing from a dirt road to what can only be described as worn down tire tracks in the grass. It arcs forward and toward the left, disappearing behind a small grove of trees.

“Is this it?” You ask over your shoulder, glancing back as Eddie once again wrangles the thick chain back into place. “Three Corners?”

“Yup, just up the drive.” He exhales a huff as soon as the chain is back in place. Looking at you with an emotion behind his eyes that you can’t determine, he clears his throat and sets into following the path again. “End of the road. For me, at least.”

The startling realization that this is the end of your journey with Eddie hits you unexpectedly. Twists your gut in a way it didn’t when the handoff happened with Dustin. That you had always known was temporary, a means to an end. Just like this was supposed to be.

When had you lost grasp on that?

Oblivious to your internal struggle, Eddie treks ahead, the call of a place to rest and get clean too enticing to let wait any longer. He’s already disappeared around the bend of the trees before you even catch sight of the property.

First, there’s a light blue walled barn, looking only a little bit worse for wear. More like seasoned in the Oklahoma winds. Two of its off-white, rolling doors are shut, the third opened to a room lined with what looks like workbenches – but it’s hard to tell exactly what in the growing shadows of dusk.

Second, you spot a house. One story, laid out wide rather than tall, and organized with mismatched windows and shutters. The walls are painted the same sky blue as the barn, with white trim and a beige slatted roof that is missing more than a few shingles. The roof extends over a small porch, just big enough to fit the door and 2 rocking chairs, and ends in a copper rooster that slowly rotates back and forth in the light wind.

The front door is wide open, presumably from Eddie, and shows only shadows of what is happening on the inside. You hover there in the open space in front of the house, not sure what to do, until you hear Eddie’s voice calling out.

“Hey! Anyone home?” He barely pauses before continuing, his voice getting closer as he goes. “Jeff? … Ama? … Anyone?”

He reappears from the shadows of the house, crossing back through the threshold with a sharp crease of concern between his eyebrows and his mouth set in a thin line. “Hey, you out here?” He continues, long legs carrying him to the barn next, where he once again disappears into the shadows you’re not yet brave enough to venture into. “Jeff? Ahuli?”

The sound of a creaky metal hinge rings out toward you in the open space, echoing out into the quickly darkening sky. Determining your hesitancy in this unknown space is less important than your desire to sit down, you suffer the last few steps to one of the rocking chairs on the porch, tossing your pack to the ground before throwing yourself onto the seat, almost falling backwards with the force of your exhaustion.

Eddie comes back out into the open, hands on his hips as he makes a slow circle to search around the area within view. Leaning forward on your elbows to contain the sudden urge to melt into the ground, you tilt your chin up toward him as he stops to face you. “Looks like no one's home.”

“Yeah, which…” He takes a few steps closer, dust coated face still wrinkled in concern. “They knew we were coming, maybe not this soon but… I don’t know where they would even go.”

“Maybe they left a note or something,” you suggest, wanting just a few minutes to sit and not worry about what was going to happen next. Wanting a few minutes to just rest. “Could look around the house or – maybe they said something to someone over the radio?”

His expression drops from worry to something that looks a bit like despair when he turns back toward the open workshop door. “I should… Let them know we’re here. Tell them what happened.”

But he doesn’t move an inch. Just stares at the steadily growing shadows of the empty barn. Like if he doesn’t go over there, he won’t have to say it. Won’t have to relive it and remember it.

This is something you can’t run from.

You push yourself to your feet, almost numb at this point of exhaustion, and walk past him toward the barn. Without looking back, you hear him get moving behind you, following you as you approach the structure and cross the threshold. Straw softens your step over concrete floors, making your footfall near silent as you venture further into the darkness.

Try to ignore the fear, shake off the urge to reach for your gun or your flashlight. You’re safe here, you’re safe here, you’re safe here–

A short sound comes from behind you and then the room is bathed in harsh white light, nearly blinding in its sudden appearance. You squeeze your eyes shut for a few moments before slowly blinking them back open.

Two of the walls of the room are fully lined with wooden table tops, drawers and random scraps littering the spaces beneath. It looks almost like some kind of machine workshop – drills, hammers, pliers, wiring, and more scattered across the wood between tools and small machines. Most of it you couldn’t even hope to recognize, but as you slowly turn to scan more of the space, you see Eddie approaching what definitely looks like a radio receiver. There are wires all over, some disappearing behind the workbench it sits on and others loosely arching toward the ceiling and through a cutout. Homemade antenna?

He flicks it to life with ease, a burst of static echoing out along the space before settling into a stable hum of sound. Lowering into a crouch, he has to get pretty close to the dial as he adjusts the frequency, like he can’t see the numbers well. You’re about to offer to help him when he drops his hand and straightens up with a groan.

It tumbles out of your mouth before you can stop it. “Careful old man, or you’ll throw your back out.”

Bracing for him to lash back with something mean, you’re surprised when he snorts a laugh out of his nose, shaking his head lightly before throwing a glance back at you and saying, “Bite me.”

And maybe it’s the smirk on his face, or your exhaustion, or your life falling to pieces around you, but you somehow decide that the way you want to reply to that is, “When and where?”

This time he fully looks at you, eyebrows raised in utter surprise, his smile growing and shifting sideways as your face heats in embarrassment. “Yeah, Bambi?”

“Shut up,” you mutter to his teasing, dragging a tall stool across the straw floor to sit beside him. He is still looking at you, a sharp glint to his eye that makes you feel like a mouse being cornered by a cat. “Just radio in,” you try to order, but it comes out more like a plea.

“Whatever you say,” he concedes with a sly smile, pulling the receiver up to his mouth and pressing down on the button. The static hum cuts out as he says, “Hawk’s Nest, come in. I repeat, Hawk’s Nest, come in.”

The moment he lifts his finger, the static cuts back in. Neither of you move, almost not even breathing, as you wait for a response. Eddie, showing more impatience than you, tries again. “Hawk’s Nest, this is Crow, do you read me?”

When he releases the switch again, you dip slightly forward to look at his profile. “Crow? You have call signs?”

He groans, eyes rolling back into his head. “Yeah, and it’s all bird-themed shit. Blame your fucking sister.”

“Ah, Robin, figures.”

“Pain in my ass,” he reaffirms, but the small smile that remains on his face betrays him. He lifts the receiver again like he’s about to repeat when the static crackles a few times – waving between a very high and low pitch before a static tinted voice cuts in.

“Crow, this is Hawk’s Nest. Read you loud and clear.”

“Thank Christ,” he sighs out before pressing down the switch again. “Crow reporting package arrival at drop 3.”

Annoyance prickles at the base of your skull again, ready to snark back about not being a fucking package but the voice you still don’t recognize cuts back in. “Package arrival heard, will relay.”

He barely waits a second before jumping in again. “Drop 3 handoff incomplete, receiver not present. Any report?”

It all sounds so incredibly vague and short form – like if you didn’t know exactly what was going on you wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of any of it. That’s probably the point actually, that anyone listening in would have almost no idea what they were talking about.

There’s some additional crackling, a longer pause before the voice cuts back in. “Nothing noted. Standby at drop 3, will report back at 1500 hours tomorrow.”

“Heard,” he confirms and releases the switch. You wonder if he’ll leave it there, not mention anything about Memphis or Max or any of it. It’s almost like he’s tempted to, because he looks over at you with a hard tension in his jaw. You’re not sure why, if there is something he wants you to say or do. If there is some kind of encouragement you could give him, some comfort you could provide.

Nothing feels right to say. So instead you heave a deep breath, wounded arm protesting as your chest expands, and exhale long. Whether consciously or not, Eddie mimics the motion, shoulders rising and falling as he exhales out through his mouth and then presses down on the switch again. “Hawk’s Nest, additional intel for the line.”

A few seconds of hum before the voice replies, “Ready for the line.”

From your point of view, you can see Eddie rest his free hand on the table top, head falling forward as his eyes squeeze closed. His lips twist in a grimace, head rocking back and forth a few times, before he brings the receiver back up to his mouth.

“Memphis QZ is gone. I repeat, Memphis QZ is gone.”

This time you do hold your breath while you wait – heart pounding in your ears loud enough to drown out the static hum as you stare into the black coated machine. The silence stretches on way too long, the longest pause you’ve heard since the conversation began. You almost have to inhale just to keep from passing out, lungs groaning in protest, before the two of you hear a reply.

“Heard, will relay. Status on Flycatcher?”

A sigh out of his nose before he replies. “Headed your way, arrival unknown.”

Another, shorter pause. “Heard, will relay. Standby for 1500 report. Over and out.”

He sets the receiver down with a heavy hand, raises the other to flick the radio back off. Both hands on the table again, he exhales shakily as he hangs his head.

You don’t move or say a word until he does. Allowing him that moment to collect himself, if nothing else.

Slowly, he rolls his shoulders back to his full height, posture squaring off as he takes a step back from the table.

“Come on,” he requests softly, “let’s go clean up, change your bandages. Get something to eat.”

You follow him out of the barn, light flicking off behind you, across the red tinted dirt circle between the barn and the house, and into the shadows within.

August 24th, 2016 – Three Corners, Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma

Last night, Eddie showed you around a bit. They had an outdoor shower with a water heater, a working toilet and sinks, a small fridge, a wood stove. Electricity and hot water. And beds. Both of you would be able to get your own bed.

You’d awkwardly turned down his assistance on getting clean, insisting you’d be really careful with your arm. He let you go first – when you re-emerged from the wooden enclosure of the shower, there was a little bundle of clean clothes waiting for you. By the time you got inside, there was a small (but warm) meal prepared. He was already halfway done with his, and when he finished, he insisted on changing your bandages again despite your reassurance you could do it.

After making sure you were clean, bandaged, and fed, he told you where you could find a bed and went out to take his own shower. You washed the dishes as well as you could with one fully functioning hand and tucked yourself into bed before he even came back inside.

This domesticity felt unnerving. His care felt unnatural. It was different from the apartment in Memphis. This was the home of a family of four, with kids toys and art and pictures and everything. And, despite it only being the two of you, Eddie watching out for you, taking care of you, putting you first… It was overwhelming and uncomfortable and felt unsafe.

Somehow, laying alone in the dark child’s room, in clothes that weren’t yours and in the silence. It was worse than anything.

You couldn’t fall asleep until you heard Eddie come back inside and close the door to the room beside you.

When you wake up, there’s sunlight coming in through the opaque curtains, a soft yellow cast across the homemade quilt you had pulled up to your ears. As you slowly shift it down to your waist, dust starts to kick up and dance along the beams into the room. Making the blues and greens of the bedding and the child-drawn artwork look almost pastel. And while part of it was comforting, imagining a kid who still got to have a room like this – live a life like this – there were a lot of other feelings that came up. Feelings you weren’t ready to face this early in the morning.

Instead, you get up and get dressed to go find some water.

Your door is barely open an inch before you hear something going on in the kitchen, the scrap of wood against metal and the clink of a glass. Not sure if maybe the homeowners had returned while you were out, and you were now about to meet them, you walk as quietly as you can to the end of the hallway that leads to the rest of the house.

The only person you can see is Eddie with his back to you.

He’s standing in front of the wood stove in a tank top and sweatpants, bare feet on the uneven tile flooring, long hair down and haphazardly placed on either side of his shoulders. The scars along his arms are on show, allowing you a better glance as you slowly approach from behind. His right arm isn’t too bad, a vague slash mark here or there, along with a couple of black ink tattoos scattered across the skin. There’s a healed over bullet graze at the top of his right bicep, the skin indented and slightly puckered pink. Probably somewhat similar to how your own arm will heal.

His left has larger patches of scar tissue, a big section on his forearm and a few other spots as it goes up his arm. They almost look like burn scars – the skin damaged and discolored but healed over. It’s the same texture of the scar on his side you saw last week, also on the left. He must’ve been in some kind of accident with flames or maybe some kind of chemical. 

You wonder if he’d tell you what it was if you asked.

The closer you get, you can see there’s some small bowls on the counter beside him and one of them is stacked high with brown spotted eggs. He has a cast iron pan over the crackling fire and scraping at the yellow liquid inside it to scramble them.

Without otherwise announcing yourself, you ask him, “Are these fresh eggs?”

He nearly screams, wooden spatula going flying and almost losing the pan too as he jumps away from you. “Jesus Christ, Bambi,” he gasps, running a hand through his hair before dropping it on his heaving sternum, “Are you trying to scare me to death?”

“No,” but your mischievous smile heavily implies you’re not exactly upset about the outcome. “Where’d you get the eggs?”

He glares at you while shuffling back to the front of the stove. He still sounds a little out of breath when he replies, “Ama has a henhouse out back, takes care of them. Tries to keep them out of the garden.” He points toward another wooden bowl that has 2 small pears, some leaves of lettuce, and a single shoot of green onion.

“Holy shit.” The fresh, home grown food nearly brings tears to your eyes – brushing past his back to take one of the small, green pears and hold it up in the sunlight to examine it. “I mean the food, the animals, the water, the electricity… How do they keep it all going out here?”

“The reservation was already making attempts to be self-sustainable before the pandemic hit. Their own power grid, water collection, the works.” He continues to cook while he explains, scraping the bottom of the cast iron to keep the eggs from sticking as he watches it carefully. “After everything went to shit, they fast tracked it. Jeff and Ama were living in the city and moved back to her parents' place to help them. Her folks died a couple years ago so then it was just them and their two kids. Jeff is a mechanical engineer and Ama is a fuckin’ genius in general so they made this into the best compound someone could ask for in an apocalypse.”

Looking over the house, you couldn’t help but agree. The stable fencing, communication, their own food and water. Depending on how they sourced the power, they could probably stay out here for who knows how long and the only thing they might need to worry about is bandits. Even then, there’s not much around. A bandit group would have to be really lost to end up here.

“That’s… amazing. I honestly didn’t think it was possible to still be living like this. Anywhere.”

But then again, I thought that about Memphis too.

He hums an agreement as he scrapes the eggs out of the pan and onto two plates. “Yeah. I know they are still in touch with other families around. Maybe they are out helping one of them with something.” He nudges his elbow against your arm, pointing for you to grab the other bowl of greens and bring it over to the table with him. “There was a ton of feed in the henhouse, like they prepped to be gone for a little while.”

You follow his lead in setting the bowls on the circular table in the center of the room before taking a seat to his right. “Well that’s a good sign, isn’t it? That they were prepared to not be here?”

He hums as he settles into his chair, the wood groaning as he leans too far back in it. “I guess so. I just hope Will has something to tell us at noon.”

Laying out a piece of lettuce, he makes a sort of egg wrap with bits of green onion before taking a bite right out of his pear. “So Hawk’s Nest, that’s Will? He mans the radios out on the farm with Dustin?”

“Mhmm,” he confirms as he finishes chewing, eyes locked on his plate like he doesn’t know where to go next. “With Sally, apparently.”

Long fingers wrap around his wrap and bring it up to his mouth with a crunch, so you pick up a fork and start to spear into your own warm eggs. Unseasoned but still warm and fresh. A hundred times better than the powdered egg stuff they made back at Quantico. Even just having a warm meal settles you in a way you hadn’t anticipated, relaxing further into your seat as your eyes close.

When you open them again, you’re struck by the sight of Eddie. The sun coasts in through an uncurtained window – bathing him and the table in bright morning light. His slightly frizzy hair, greys visible, is pulled to one side, showing off the length of his neck and the broadness of his shoulders. The scruff along his jaw has only gotten thicker, salt and pepper across weathered skin, almost enough to hide the scar on his chin. There’s a tattoo of a dragon along his bicep, a slashed scar of white right through its abdomen, and a swarm of bats on his forearm. His hands are clean, maybe cleaner than you’ve ever seen them and you find yourself thinking that he looks good like this.

This is a different person from the Eddie you first met. The wolf in denim and leather who is intimidating, unapproachable, someone you wouldn’t want to get in a fight with. With the sharp glares beneath aviators and sharper remarks against anything you had to say. This is a man who has seen terrible things – done terrible things – and now gets to rest. A safe place where he can just live. Not be constantly fighting to survive.

If only he would sit around long enough to enjoy it.

The two of you finish your breakfast and clean up the dishes. Eddie roots through closets and cupboards until he finds a jacket that will fit you (since they tore yours apart to make a sling), a corduroy coat in a forest green that probably wouldn’t stand up well in the elements but keeps you warm nonetheless. He helps you slide it up one arm and hang it over your other shoulder. Your arm is still in your makeshift sling at his request, insisting it would be better to take it off in another day or two.

After that, he explains he’s going to go check the trap line Jeff normally has set up, see if there is anything caught so the two of you might be able to eat some fresh meat tonight. You offer to go with him, to try to help, but he’s quick to deny.

While he says something about your arm and wanting you to rest since it’s still healing, you get the feeling he just wants to be alone for a while. So you watch him re-emerge from one of the bedrooms down the hall in his jeans, boots, red and black tie dye shirt, and his leather jacket before walking out the door with a promise to be back before 3pm for Will’s call.

Leaving you to your own devices.

At first you snoop around the house, trying to bide time. Walk the walls like an art gallery – seeing old and faded photos of families, women in calico tear dresses and men in their ribbon shirts. Newer photos of people gathered in churches, an older man and his three kids all climbing on a pasture gate. 

Closer to the fridge, there is a set of three polaroid photos. The top is a family of four sitting on the porch of this house, a man and a woman sitting on the steps with a boy and a girl posing between them. The boy is older, looks almost 7, and the girl looks about 5, with his black pigtail braids draped over her shoulders. The other two are each centered on one of the kids; a shot of the boy with a stripe of grease on his cheek and holding some kind of contraption in his palms with a huge smile, the name ‘Ahuli’ written in cursive underneath, and a shot of the girl sitting on top of the father’s shoulders, her hair wild and windswept as she appears to scream out with laughter, the name ‘Tay’ written in cursive beneath.

This must be Jeff, Ama, and their kids. All living out here on this land. These were kids born after everything fell apart. A family created in utter tragedy. There’s something bittersweet about it all. These kids… This is the only world they know. A world ravaged by man eating man and fungus that takes over your body, pilots your muscles and tendons, and leaves you aware. Cities were destroyed and millions of people died and society collapsed. They don’t even really know it. They’ve probably been told, at least some of it. But they don’t have any idea of what it was before – don’t have anything to miss. This is what they have, have always had. A safe home with a happy family.

The chained creature roars in agony, jaws snapping at the bars like it will tear free and take out its anger on them, on their happiness. Roars for you to grab the polaroids and tear them to pieces, to destroy, to light fire to it all. Burn it to the ground.

You go for a walk.

Slip on your boots with some difficulty and just start walking. Past the outdoor shower, the light clucking of the henhouse behind, and out into the grass beyond. Going until you reach the edge of the fence line and then follow along it, looking out for anything that catches the eye. There are a few horses grazing on the property, a single cow with its calf in the acres beyond the fence. Birds flit by overhead and the drying grass shifts as small creatures scurry far away from you.

You’re not sure how long you walk but the sun beats down, along your shoulders and a sweat breaks out. The breeze keeps you from being miserable but you’re still definitely getting sunburnt along your cheekbones. You’d think after days and days of walking, you’d want to do anything but that. But this feels different. It’s peaceful and relaxing. You’re not on edge, listening to every sound and searching for any sign that something or someone is coming after you. Somehow, your body has gotten the message that you are safe (for the most part) within this chain link fence, allowing some portion of your guard down. So you walk and listen to the birds without constantly looking over your shoulder.

Somewhere toward the back acreage, you intercept Eddie on his way back to the house with a string connecting two dead animals hung over his shoulder. He looks surprised to see you but gives an awkward little wave, waiting along the fence until you get there. “Dinner?” You ask, free hand stuck in the pocket of your coat as you look over the furry animals hanging from him, one on his front and one on his back.

“Dinner,” he confirms with a small smile, adjusting the line holding the animals together before you set off back toward the house together. “I can skin ‘em easy enough, and make sure they’re cooked through, but can’t guarantee it’ll taste very good.”

“If you skin them, I can cook them. While I was snooping around the house, I found some bone broth and other stuff. Should be able to make something edible at least.”

His head tilts toward you, eyebrows raised slightly. “You know how to cook?”

“Yup,” you keep your eyes forward, across the waving prairie grass and toward the outcropping of trees that hides the house and barn. “My mom taught me. She used to work in the mess hall on the base.”

He audibly swallows beside you, a nervous pause before he asks, “When, uh… How long ago did she… pass?”

“Eight years, I think. 2008ish. I think it was summer.” Your voice remains surprisingly steady as you explain. “I still don’t even really know what happened. My dad just came home one day and told me she was gone. I was 17, old enough to be more aware of stuff, but it still felt like he was protecting me from something.” You kick at a stone that caught the tip of your toe in the tall grass, eyes on your dusty boots. “Guess now I’ll never know.”

You cross another 15 feet or so before he replies. “One of the shittier parts of keeping secrets. Once you’re gone, they’re gone too.”

You huff a small laugh, gazing ahead at the trees as you continue to inch closer. “He says as a man overflowing with secrets.”

“There’s a difference between not knowing someone and being ‘filled with’ secrets,” he points out, almost defensively.

“Oh yeah,” you roll your eyes, “because you’re an open book.”

He quiets down again, the silence growing more tense than before. When you finally glance over, you see him looking straight ahead, a muscle in his jaw rolling with tension. Despite your desire to say something else and lessen the sudden distance between you, you decide to let him sit in that. Stew in it even. Like maybe if you reflect that mirror right back at him, he’ll see something.

Maybe something will change for him. Even if you’re not going to be around to see it.

The rest of the walk is quiet as you pass back through the treeline. You follow Eddie into the barn, where he disappears through a door into the other half before reappearing sans animal carcases. The two of you settle in front of the radio again.

Will comes through at 3pm sharp with almost no news. No reply from Colorado about Memphis. No news about Jeff. The only thing he is able to tell you is that he will have more for you at 1300 tomorrow and he lets you know Max arrived at the farm early this morning, unharmed. It’s all in code, but you’re able to get the gist of it. When the radio clicks off, Eddie’s frustration boils over. He kicks hard at a metal can sitting on the ground, the side caving in before it goes sailing out the open door and bounces across the dirt drive of the house. You watch it roll to a stop before looking over at him, one hand on his hip and the other over his mouth as he stares at the object, the sun reflecting off the coating in a glare.

“I’m gonna go skin the animals.”

The door slams shut behind him.

You stare at the closed door for a few minutes before getting off the stool and heading back inside the house.

When you wake up on the couch a few hours later, the sun is even further toward the west. The light no longer shines into the windows of the front room, leaving it much darker than it had been when you and Eddie ate breakfast this morning. Rolling up to sit, you stretch overhead with one arm and a yawn before glaring down at the sling keeping your other arm captive. You’re well past tired of the limitation now and slip it over your head, tossing the fabric to the other end of the couch.

Extending your arm, there’s still some pain and discomfort, but as long as you don’t bring your arms above your head or lift too heavy with your bad arm, you’ll be fine without the sling. It is well past time you were able to use both hands again.

The heavy glance from Eddie when he slips back inside implies he disagrees, but it seems not enough to say anything.

Heavy footfall breaks up the silence until aluminum hits tile. “They’re cleaned. Are you still willing to cook?”

“Yeah, absolutely.” Padding across the room in your socks, you step right up next to him to peer into the container. Trying to ignore the way he shifts his shoulder back to make room for you at the counter. Tilting your head toward him, you’re closer than you thought when you add, “Thank you for doing that.”

He looks surprised by the proximity too – brown eyes even just a little bit wider as he scans your face. You can see the way his Adam's apple bobs up and down in a hard swallow. The words sound a bit caught in his throat when he replies, “Sure, no problem.”

Although he looks nervous, maybe even uncomfortable, with how close the two of you are standing, he still makes no effort to move away. Neither do you, although you do lower your face to look over the meat before you in an attempt to ease some of the tension.

If you didn’t know any better, the warmth to your side makes you think he drifted even closer when you stopped looking.

Softly, entirely too intimate compared to the standoffish man who slammed the door behind him mere hours ago, he asks, “Do you want help cooking? Or can I go take a shower before we eat?”

“Go shower.” He doesn’t move an inch. “Oh, actually,” you twist and your noses almost knock together, causing both of you to jerk back in shock. What in the hell is happening right now?

“Could you…” Your voice is unsteady, a bit breathless. “Would you light the stove before you go? I’ve never used one like this before.”

The corner of his mouth tilts up in a small smile before he drops down to his knees right there beside you. Steady hands reach in toward the wood burning stove as you avert your eyes, shifting out of his space and over toward the cabinets you scoped out earlier. Overwhelmed by his quick change in attitude, you busy yourself in preparation until he pushes himself up with a groan.

Seeking some normalcy, you sigh louder than necessary. “Sorry, shouldn’t have asked you to do that. Old knees and all.”

He huffs a laugh, hair shifting while he shakes his head in your periphery. “Careful, Bambi, or I’ll have to give you a taste of what these knees can do.”

A laugh bursts out of you before you can contain it, turning toward him again. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

His eyes narrow playfully, a hand raising in an accusatory point. “Better hope you never find out.” Raising your hands in surrender, you turn back to the counter before he offers one more, “Anything else before I go?”

“Nope, all good here. Thanks.”

He dips his head in acknowledgment before leaving you to your cooking.

As the door clicks shut behind him, you find yourself wondering which Eddie will he be when he gets back.

Evening of August 24th, 2016 – Three Corners, Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma

The chirp of crickets is nearly deafening out on the dusty porch now that the sun has sunk below the horizon. It echoes through the circular clearing of the drive – ricocheting off of thick foliage and the aluminum siding of the barn in a chorus of hissing. A cacophony of noise that drowns out everything but the creak of the rocking chair while it slowly shifts beneath you.

A knit blanket, softened with age, is draped across your lap, frayed edges rolling between your fingertips as you look out over the darkening landscape. The wind has softened from earlier today, meaning you don’t really need the blanket to combat the cold itself. But there’s something about curling up on the porch with a blanket that feels so… Novelty. Comforting.

Another thing you never thought you’d be able to do again.

Dinner with Eddie had been… Strange. He wasn’t quite the tease from when he brought back in the meat, but also wasn’t the grump you left in the barn. Somewhere in between – or maybe something else entirely.

His mood appeared to be wildly shifting by the hour and left you feeling unsure in how to act. While dinner itself had gone relatively easily, you couldn’t help being uneasy by what the next shift might bring.

After eating, he’d insisted on cleaning up. You didn’t fight him on it and made yourself scarce. Found your current blanket, bundled it up into your arms to keep it from dragging across the ground, and made your way to your current spot in the rapidly darkening dusk air. Taking a little while to breathe in fresh air and do your best to reach some sort of relaxed state.

You don’t get anywhere close before the metal hinge of the door behind you creaks open to announce your companion’s arrival.

“I come bearing gifts.”

A cool, glass bottle of liquid is set in your lap – two long fingers releasing either side of the neck before retreating out of view again. Twisting it toward you, you recognize the label of the familiar liquor.

“Where did you get this?”

Eddie drops into the rocking chair beside you with a sigh while he sets a flickering candle on the floor between you both before moving to untwist the top off his own bottle. “A lady does not reveal her secrets,” he murmurs before lifting the bottle to his lips and taking three long swigs. He hisses in through his teeth as it lowers, face contorting in a sort of pleasured pain before falling slack. “Fuck, that’s good.”

Curious if the label is true to the contents, you’re quick to follow - popping the top and bringing the cool glass mouth up to your lips in a more cautious sip than Eddie’s gulps. Sure enough, the liquor is strong and sharp as the burn invades your mouth before sliding down your throat. You groan slightly, not sure if it’s a good thing or not, as you lower the bottle again.

“That’s strong,” you cough slightly, face pulled back in a grimace. “Haven’t had any real shit in a long, long time.”

“Yeah, well.” He glances over at you, brown eyes warm and bright in the dancing flame between you, as the corner of his mouth tips up in a small smile. “Don’t get used to it, Bambi.”

“You sure they won’t miss these?” You ask him, curiously. Despite the burn, you bring the bottle up to your lips again, seeking the numbness that is sure to follow.

He takes another long chug, releasing his mouth with another hiss. “I stashed ‘em here. Guess I should feel lucky they didn’t drink them.”

“Guess so.”

Silence falls again. Or, what can be considered silence beyond the buzz of insects in the dark. You both continue to silently nurse your bottles – you more gently than him – as the red hues of the sun disappear into the navy blue blanket of stars.

When you glance over at Eddie, he has his head hanging back, the base of his skull resting on the back of the rocking chair, baring his throat to the night. He looks exhausted but at rest. Like the alcohol is finally lulling him into some semblance of ease. His legs are splayed wide with the bottle resting between them, hands loosely resting on his thighs. The salt and pepper scruff on his jaw grown thicker than when you’d first met him and his hair pulled back haphazardly.

It’s the most vulnerable you’ve ever seen him. Completely unguarded. Even with you right there beside him.

Which makes him breaking the silence first even more terrifying.

“I think I owe you an apology.”

You try not to tense too much in response, looking over at him again. His head is still facing up but his eyes are open now, trained on the stars above you both.

While you can think of a few things, you’re still unsure exactly what he might be referring to. “I feel like I might regret asking this but, for what?”

His hands shift in his lap, tensing into fists before relaxing again. Shoulders rising and falling in a heaving sigh, his eyes pinch closed again. “I haven’t exactly treated you fairly since we met. I…” He trails off, head slowly lulling forward to glance at you before sticking to the ground before him. He clears his throat before continuing again. “Your dad and I never liked each other very much, for a lot of reasons. The biggest one being how he treated Rob.”

You can’t help but cut him off there, confusion apparently in your face. “What do you mean how he treated Robin?”

Eyes shifting over to you nervously, he takes another swig before explaining. “I’m sure you know the story - your dad and Rob’s mom had her really young, didn’t know what they were doing, all that. You probably heard the sugarcoated version but your dad just kinda up and left them. Didn’t really call, definitely didn’t visit. Moved on… Started a new family.”

Your heart burns then, sorrow and guilt pulling you in different directions. A new family – your family. 

“Robin never blamed you, or your mom for that matter. She’s never had anything but good things to say about you.” He’s quick to add, making minimal eye contact with you as he continues to explain. “But I did. I was real protective of Rob around the time your dad came back around wanting to make amends. I remember how much it hurt her. And I think a part of me always blamed you for that.”

Definitely not what you were expecting, you don’t say another word, waiting to see if he’ll keep going. It’s a bit painful; knowing he disliked you for something that couldn’t have possibly been your fault. Almost like he hated you just for being born.

“Anyway, that wasn’t cool or fair of me. The fault was always with your dad and his choices. So… I’m sorry.”

While the sentiment is appreciated, it’s still hard to swallow. You counteract the choking feeling it leaves in your throat with another sip of hard liquor.

“Thanks for telling me.” You offer softly. While you might not be ready to forgive him or even to accept it, you’re still at least grateful to understand a little better why your relationship had seemed doomed from the start.

His chest rumbles in a hum of acknowledgment, turning his attention to his bottle again. You let that hang in the air for a little longer before you speak up again. “What were some of the other reasons?” You ask curiously, looking anywhere but his face. He mumbles a ‘huh?’, urging you to clarify. “You said there were a lot of reasons you and him didn’t like each other. What else?”

You see him grapple with the question, rolling it around in his mouth as he figures out how to chew it. The liquor has definitely loosened him, mentally and physically. Maybe you shouldn’t press for more info like this but… Maybe this is your only chance.

“He tracked me down a few years ago. 2011, I think. It was a week after… After my Uncle Wayne died.” His voice is thick with emotion now, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration as he remembers it. “He asked me to help him with something – something big. But I… We argued. Barely held back from punching him square in the jaw a couple times. He said a lot of shit about ‘expecting more from me’ as if he knew me at all,” he let out a bitter chuckle, his head shaking slightly.

“I was in a lot of pain,” he admits, slightly choked up. You’re shocked still, not sure how to handle this turn of events. Should I comfort him? Let him talk through it? Ask more questions? “I told him to go fuck himself and he called me a selfish bastard. And we kept our distance from each other after that. I’m sure he’s probably rolling in his grave right now knowing I’m one of the people escorting you around.” A huff of a laugh at that, bringing the bottle back up to his lips before his eyes widen and glance your direction. “Sorry.”

You swallow around the lump in your throat. “No, uh… Don’t worry about it.”

Suddenly feeling yourself scramble for something else to say or some way to keep the conversation going, you put your foot right in your mouth by asking, “What happened to your Uncle Wayne?”

He looks at you, shock and maybe even offense clear on his face, and you wince as you kick yourself mentally. What kind of question is that? What the fuck do you think happened to him, idiot –

“Cancer, actually.”

Not sure if you’re more shocked by that response or the fact that he actually answered, you focus in on his face now to make sure he knows he has your attention.

“He worked in a factory for years and years before everything fell apart and smoked a shit ton. Lungs started giving out a couple years after everything fell apart. Coughing blood, wheezin’, the whole thing. Wasn’t really much anyone could do, everything being like it is.” 

He pauses to take another long gulp of liquor, the points of his cheekbones tinged pink with it. Or maybe emotion, it’s hard to tell in the candlelight. “Did everything we could but he, uh… Decided he was ready. Said he didn’t wanna wait around for the day he tried to take a breath and couldn’t. So I helped him out to a church in a small town that’d already been picked clean. Held his hand while he said his prayers. Gave him a hug. Gave him a pistol.”

Your heart drops into your stomach, Eddie’s gaze far off. Reliving the moments in his head. “Went outside and shut the doors. Waited… waited until the shot went off.” His hand harshly clasps over his mouth as he leans forward, nearly knocking the bottle to the floor as he leans his face away. You can still see the reflection of the tears escaping his eyes.

The softest whisper you can muster, you twist your fists in the blanket in your lap. “Eddie… I’m so sorry.”

His face pinches tight, tears spilling out of his closed eyes, as he shakes off the feeling and rights himself again. “Better end than most people get nowadays,” he admits, voice rough and dismissive. “Least he got to decide on his own terms. Not everybody gets that chance.”

Pained by his dismissal but accepting this is how he needs it to be, you give a solemn nod. After Memphis, you’ve learned your lesson about pushing him.

“Haven’t talked about that in a long time,” he adds with an embarrassed laugh, rubbing his scruff with the palm of his hand. And while there are still tears in his eyes, he looks a little bit lighter. A little bit more free. Your mind flashes to the church in Memphis – Eddie staring up at the missing head of Jesus in reverence, a pistol strapped to his belt.

Searching for something.

You tip forward, the chair creaking as you rest your feet on the ground below you. He looks over at the noise, watching as you lift your bottle towards his in an offering.

“To doing things on your own terms,” you toast quietly, a small smile on your face.

He blinks at you a few times before a small smile tugs at his own face again. Eventually, the bottom edge of his bottle gently clinks against your own.

“To doing things on your own terms.”

August 25th, 2016 – Three Corners, Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma

It’s with a lot of difficulty that you blink your eyes open from a dead sleep – heavy lids and crusty corners protesting the smallest movement. Warmth surrounds you, coaxing you back to rest and away from the headache that is already starting to appear behind your eyes. It must be very early based on the blue toned light that comes in through the window, which you’re not even conscious enough to realize is not in the same spot as it was yesterday.

Barely aware of anything other than how comfortable you are right now and how much you have to pee, you groan softly before attempting to move.

You freeze up when there’s an answering groan from behind you and the weight around your waist tightens to pull you back in.

Shocked fully awake now, you take stock of your surroundings. You’re in a bed you’ve never seen before. There’s a half empty bottle of liquor on the floor beside you. Your pants are gone. And there’s a tattooed forearm wrapped tightly around your torso, belonging to the warm body lining your back. Hot air coasts along the back of your shoulders, the slightest hint of scruff on your skin, and the rhythmic rise and fall of his sleeping chest.

You’re in bed with Eddie. And you don’t remember how you got here.

Heart starting to pound in your chest, you try to calm yourself from spiraling with questions, many of them starting and ending with why am I not wearing pants–

He shifts behind you and you hold your breath, waiting to see if he’s waking up. You remember he drank a lot more than you so, with any luck, you’ll be able to extract yourself from this situation before anything too horribly awkward happens. When he falls still again, curled tight to the back of you, you cycle through your options.

First and worst, make a scene. Scramble out of the bed, shouting and hiding the fact that you’re half undressed, and mortify both of you in the process. Absolutely not.

Second, try to slowly and carefully remove yourself from his hold. Maybe you could replace yourself with a pillow or something, give him something else to hold onto. Or maybe just remove yourself and make a break for the door, hoping he doesn’t wake up in the 5 seconds between and realize what happened.

Third, accept this is your life now. After all, it’s really comfortable. He’s warm and holding you tight – comforting and safe. Feeling his breath across the back of your neck. You feel like you could drift right off again if not for the slight pressure of something against your lower back…

You need to get up. Now.

Like you’re the worst secret agent navigating the worst bank vault ever seen, you somehow manage to extract yourself from Eddie’s surprisingly tight grip. He moans in disapproval but remains asleep, bringing a pillow in to tuck against his chest in a poor replacement. If it wasn’t for the nearly empty bottle on his bedside table, this surely would’ve gone a whole lot worse.

Taking a few moments to admire his sleeping form in the early morning light – the crows feets beside his eyes only noticeable as tan lines, the harshly indented wrinkles between his brows smoothed over – you rush out of the room when he adjusts again just in case he’s waking up.

You make a pit stop in the room you stayed in the previous night, grabbing a pair of pants from the piles of clothes on the floor, and lock yourself in the bathroom.

After a quick wee, you appraise yourself in the mirror. Your hair is a mess. As messy as it normally gets with sleep, you tell yourself. You don’t have any hickies or other noticeable signs of something less “friendly” happening. In fact, it really just feels like you had the best sleep you’ve had in years, not including the rapidly progressing hangover you’re experiencing now. Still, you think back to last night, trying to remember how you might have ended up in Eddie’s bed.

After he told you about Wayne, the two of you ended up reminiscing on other people you’d both lost along the way. Your school friends, his band mates (other than Jeff), both your parents, a few of the friends he made in high school. A little bit of pondering where you both would be now if the world hadn’t gone to shit. He talked a little bit about Memphis and what he’d lost, which you listened to intently. Then… Nothing.

Resting a hand against your forehead as you stare at yourself in the mirror, you’re terrified to realize you can’t remember what happened between the two of you sitting on the porch and when you woke up in his arms this morning.

What the hell did you do?

-

-

-

-

i bet you thought you'd seen the last of me!!!!! well guess what!!!! you haven't.

i obviously went a lot longer than i wanted before updating this but i have never, ever stopped thinking about it. i still have it all fleshed out in my head and i will finish it if it kills me. i appreciate your patience in the meantime.

and let me know what you think!! comments and reblogs mean the world <3

[mushroomnoodles]

tw bodily fluids

was simons pregnancy more painful than any other ones?? was there a gigantic mess of like blood and "other stuff"?? like.. birth takes soo long to do seriously like 4-8 HOURS on average or are we just gonna like not include this for the sake of not being nauseous ( + old mans remaining sanity )

tw/cw for sfw and non kink mpreg, as well as labor, water breaking.. and discussion of birth details + injury while trying to keep it vague.

ill go into it once- yeah, it's pretty safe to say simon had a rough time with the labor. i've stated this before, but he was experiencing labor pains for a few days before he went into active labor- see, he didn't think much of it because every now and then his body would try to have morrigan and be unable to because of the seal, so braxton hicks and actual false labor was.. not something he was unfamiliar with.

it wasn't until the contractions got so bad they were nearly debilitating and he felt morri shift inside him to get ready to be born that he went, oh no, oh no no no, he's having the baby.

more under the cut, there's art down there too but like heed the tags. i'm still trying to keep the discussion.. not super heavy.

we all know what happened next, with marceline bringing him into the woods and not being able to make it. because like, right after she set him down, his water broke.

blah blah, they run into finn, explain simon is like, pregnant and about to give birth, set up a location, and then simon (and marcy) are faced with another problem.

it's pretty obvious to everyone that simon's bump was huge. morri is huge. the actual place they'd be born from.. not so much. but that doesn't dissuade morri, who has been trying to get that gd seal off them for months, and is not going to waste another second hiding in their old man. things are going super fast.

and things do not look great down there. marcy is totally winging this delivering a baby thing. simon kept going from silence- just trying to ride through the contractions, to screaming like a dying animal. marceline was terrified the whole time, especially when simon said he felt like he was gonna rip open.

(pretend the fallen tree is behind simon.)

so yeah, it was pretty messy. simon did not make giving birth to a twelve pound baby out unscathed, he definitely tore. when morri was out marceline gave him what little medical attention she could, which honestly wasn't a lot- pb had to do some quick fixing when she showed up, and i don't think he would've made it if not for the cosmic energy radiating through him from carrying morrigan.

it was a good while before simon recuperated enough to be moved, and it sorta spooked everyone when he just.. got up like he didn't just finish pushing out a 12 pound baby. those pain meds were a godsend, by the way, simon was never happier for them in his entire life.

victory! they got him home and in bed with his brand new baby, and marceline stuck by for a few weeks to help take care of morri while simon healed. simon was zonked out but very happy to have a baby in his arms, his baby.

also bonus: simon wakes up the next morning

he feels like five trains ran through his entire lower half. homedawg lived on those pain relievers from that point on

[transidbillzo]

congrats to those who guessed i was bait/an anti

in all honesty, i didnt get any weird messages with people trying to like groom me. but there is a few really weird fucking identities and my friend got someone who i will not @ or say who, in their dms talking to them vaguely sexually and just in a very uncomfortable way. absolutely not okay and i dont think that a safe space for many many minors should be treated like that

me and my friends arent really into dsmp and that ptwt bullshit was 100% a lie although i am a recovering paraphile . i am one hundered percent anti contact. absolutely in any context. i believe that many radqueer ideals paraphilia etc is the root of genuine mental illness.

in a way i absolutely infiltrated this community, which appears to be some peoples 'safe space'. but seriously this is insane

as a osdd-1b system, person with chronic pain, adhd , and autism all diagnosed. just dont bring that transid shit around people who are 'cis' disabled (not entirely sure how to describe it..)

no hate. absolutely. i dont think anyone should be exposed to literal death threats and suicide shit thats fucking insane,,

i guess i have no room to truly judge but i hope this community grows as people, and to people who are struggling i am so sorry. i hope you are able to move on in life past anything going on and if you need to vent this account will stay up , just not as a radqueer blog .

so anyway sorry for this, it was out of genuine curiosity but its actually nauseating pretending to be rq

im pro recovery, in every way -- even if that takes time for you

watchers collective signing off

(tags are just so yall see it, sorry)

[perpetuallypottytraining]

(im the anon that said regression is not nsfw)

oh okay i get it kind of :thumbs_up:

do u talk abt potty training stuff on ur main age regression acc too or is it just this one? cuz if u do i might follow idk hehe

okay, I thiiiink these are the same person? Probably? Unclear. I'll answer both here, for clarity.

1 - No, I don't talk about potty training stuff on my main, not anymore. I moved those posts here a couple of years ago. The only content that's there are maybe some reblogs from other regressors.

2 - Okay, first of all, age regressors did NOT come up with those terms, nor do they have exclusive rights to use them. Those terms have been used by people for, like, ever. Parents calling their kids "little ones", family members calling out "littles, come over here!" to refer to any younger members, the obvious origins of "mom" and "dad" and their variants, and "caregivers" being tied to both people who care for babies, children, the elderly, and those with disabilities.

If anything, age players have more rights to the terms "littles" and "caregiver" in the context that we're using on this site. They're the ones who originated/popularized them. I know this because I was here, on this site, in 2016, when age regressors decided to split off from the sfw age play community, and there was legitimately tons of discourse about who had the "right" to those terms.

(who here remembers the chire and the other handful of communities that attempted to exclude anyone who liked the parental nicknames and the usage of the word "little" in their regression? I do. god, do I remember. this is the main reason that a lot of old regression blogs specify that they're "community free regression")

Second, I... don't? Tag anything here as ageplay? Everything here is just tagged with omo tags, then with assorted organizational tags - there is nothing here tagged with agere or ageplay - just posts that use the very vague term of "little" and the other term of "caregiver" within the post itself.

(which, I just feel the need to repeat, is a word that even normies use!! my own parents, aunts, and uncles call me and my cousins littles!!! Outside of that, "Littles" is a shared community term!! Littles and Caregivers, as we use them, originated from Dominant Daddy/Mommy and Little Boy/Little Girl - it's the gender neutral version!! Cg/L! Regressors are the ones who decided to keep it!! Because it's vague!! That's intentional!!)

But, yeah, you're allowed to feel your feelings, and, honestly, the fact that you're uncomfortable with the "playing grown-up" tag is something that I anticipated when I made that tag - that it might make people uncomfortable! But, I've been working on making my own boundaries and enforcing them, while not immediately catering to make other people comfortable at the detriment of my own comfort/space.

This is my blog. People didn't like when I put non-sexual omo on my agere blog because it helped me regress. That's okay, and even I became uncomfortable with it after a while, so! I made this blog! It's not my agere blog. It's my soft omo blog. It's nsfw and for adults only. And, only just recently, I decided to take advantage of those two facts and put some other nsfw posts here. I do not want to make yet another sideblog for the handful of "icky" posts I'd like to reblog, especially when this blog is already here.

A nice thing about Tumblr is that tags are now blockable, so if, for some reason, you wanted to follow me still, you'd still be able too view all my other posts while excluding that specific tag. Or you can block me, if you wanted to - you curate your own online experience, and I'll hold no ill will towards you for making sure that you're comfortable and safe.

As for saying thats someone can't be both an age regressor and an age player? Literally what are you talking out????? Huh???? Do you think that adults can't age regress and slip into the mindset of a child while also being capable of, while in adult headspace, in a consensual relationship, roleplay as a child for sexual gratification??? Those are two different things!!! Ageplay is roleplay, and as such, one is capable of adult things! Agere is someone slipping into the headspace of a child!! Healthy communication with one's partner makes it clear what's okay in one headspace and what's okay in the other!!!

I'm not even an ageplayer and even I know that it's possible to do both 😭😭😭 and I just read fanfiction and people's actual blogs!!

As for your sign off, um. Okay? I don't even interact with a.geredips posts and blogs.... even if they're very relevant to me and my regression! Not even with my main!! (I'm also very shy and timid and a bit scared to interact) And, on my main, if people who follow me start breaking people's DNI, I literally softblock or block them - if they can't follow people's boundaries, then they can't interact! I'm just one blog, and I doubt that if anyone wanted to demonize age regressors, they need any help from me - people who deliberately mistag are probably more than enough tbh.

Ageplay and age regression, like it or not, was cut from the same cloth - a cloth made out of a gradient from black to white, with shades of grey all in between. Like a baby blanket! Black/ageplay and ABDL on one side, white/agere on the other, with you and me and my friends and mutuals somewhere in the middle, all spread out across!

Plenty of adults don't think anyone should return to the comfort of childhood things, and look at the whole blanket with scorn and disgust. Cutting off more and more of the blanket, because you think that my grey isn't as palatable as your grey, is not going to change these people's minds. Both of us live in the grey zone, and I personally think that by accepting more of the grey, our baby blanket will be strong enough to handle anything - even and especially people who think our blanket should be torn to shreds.

[boy-gender]

Im a very big proponent of lying and/or withholding information on the internet, ESPECIALLY if you belong to a marginalized group. This entire blog is about trans men and i purposely tag my posts to get as much spread as possible. This blog is not private; it's huge and very public facing. And that invites the usual bigotted assholes; transphobes, mostly terfs, weirdly a lot of the forced pregnancy crowd. Those people are dangerous in their own right with doxxing, mass reporting, and stalking irl. Thats why I keep shit vague. Sasha is not my name, is not related to my name, and is not a name i have ever gone by. My age is 21+ and that's all you get. I'm in the northeast usa, which is hugely populous but relevant to my posts about medical care which is why it doesnt just say "american." When I post pictures of my top surgery results, my face is never in them, and I censor identifying scars and tattoos.

Now personally im not uber worried about run of the mill bigots. I block preemptively. I have code in my blog that allows me to see who is viewing it, when, and where from. I feel safe enough with the precautions I take that this kind of harassment doesn't bother me.

What *does* bother me is pissbabies who dont know queer history dragging me into pointless discourse, and fandom police. These are not people I *ever* want finding my main blog. This blog is a side project- I saw a hole in the community, a lack of positivity for trans men, and I wanted to help fill it. My main is my home on the internet. I have been on that blog *for longer than some of you have been alive.* I am not risking being harassed and falsely mass reported and having my friends targeted because someone hates my opinions on fucking star wars.

This is a lesson from ye olde internet. LIE. Stop telling people your name and age and birthday and location and mental illnesses and triggers and posting selfies with recognizable locations in the background. Like for fucks sake- you do not *ever* owe anyone this information for anything. Not to be in a discord, not to participate in a fandom event, not nothing.

Stop asking people for this information, and stop providing it. You can never take it back once you do.

[daebraeksan]

Getting triggered in a (pre)sexual situation with Nagi & he is patient and kind about it

contents 

NSFW elements, vague age, could be seen as college student or adult!Nagi, Reader with DID/PSTD (anxiety/depression/mental illness) who has gone to/is currently in therapy [as always anyone can read this, but i provide this extra info for context :) /], reader with past history of sexual trauma, exploring feelings about sexual, physical, and romantic aspects of relationship, height difference (short reader), reader is triggered during kissing and starts crying; some mental health event happens during kissing i don't know, nagi is very patient and respectful; abandonment issues, reader is certain nagi is going to break up with them (nagi will not)

tags 

Everyone is an adult in an unspecified location AU, nagi has his own apartment AU, the apartment is really the only important physical location that matters so like, i don’t really care lol, go wild, established relationship, reader has never dated before, reader little to no romantic/dating experience, implied past sexual trauma,

word count

3045

!#@!@#!@#!@#!@#!@#

Poor Nagi didn’t get any Valentine's chocolates when he was in school. Times when he felt sexual frustration were so few and far between, and when he did, poor Nagi was often too lazy to do anything about it. There’s nothing sad about being a late bloomer; everyone is different. Having fun in a specific way now versus later are incomparable or equal, but not better or worse than each other. 

For various, and some of those were surprisingly similar, reasons, your relationship with Nagi started slowly. Both of you were uncertain whether the other liked you. Both of you were hesitant to admit to yourselves you liked the other. For both of you, it was too much of a hassle at first. Feelings are complicated and you both didn’t want to get into anything that was going to harm or disturb you. It was Nagi who, by inadvertent accident, finally steeled your resolve, and spurred you to make your move, which started the “romantic” (?) aspect of your relationship.  

Hardly anything in your life is “easy” but for all the struggle you go through to live a “normal” life that other people take for granted, Nagi is an excellent partner to go through it all. Your head spins as you are treated with gentleness, humor, love, and respect. Your paranoid brain questions every act of kindness, moreso now that a “romantic” element throws your body in a tailspin. It’s new territory you don’t know. Your friendship with Nagi brought you so much joy, and those aspects haven’t been removed. You are always grateful to have a person who provides a safe space for you in your life. You cherish these people, few and far between, who you hold tightly to your heart, a dragon guarding less than 10 gems which feels like piles and piles of countless gold coins. 

All the work in your life hasn’t been for nothing. You are aware of how distant your insecurities feel sometimes. Their presence remains, memory cells floating in a busy abyss. You're grateful for your coping strategies that saved you. You are grateful for your new experiences and new strategies that can allow you to live the life you want to live going forward. You aren’t quite stuffing your insecurities to the bottom of your brain, the tartarus of your memory, but only because you don’t want any part of you to feel abandoned, lost, or hated. 

The thought of roadblocks and stumbling stones in the romantic (?) aspect of your relationship causes you worry sometimes, and you accept the newness and confusion with as much grace and compassion as you can.

The physical and sexual aspect of your relationship is going to drive you insane. It already is, and it will continue to do so.

Physical touch is already a stressful thing for you. Always. With anyone. You did not have positive physical touch growing up. You went through your childhood and adolescence touch starved, and have gone through your adulthood thus far incredibly touch starved, as well. You know what you want, you don’t know what you want, you know other people seem to be getting what they want (and what you want), and you don’t know how. Whatever they do won’t work for you anyway. You’ve tried and failed, with results ranging from unfortunate to disastrous. You can’t handle any more worst case scenarios. (You can, and will if they ever emerge. But you will not put yourself in those situations on purpose, and you will always leave a dangerous situation because you are capable of protecting yourself.) 

“Nagi is permissive.” This is one way to describe an aspect of his personality. That word stresses you out. You are so scared of hurting people (the way you were hurt.) You have long isolated yourself because you didn’t think you could get your needs met and keep people safe at the same time. (You were very hard on yourself and when you let people be responsible for their actions instead of taking the blame, you can learn that you were trustworthy all alone, and people, your loved ones, already trust you!)

“Nagi is too lazy to care either way.”  This is another way to describe Nagi in many situations. This also causes you pause, worry, and sends you in a tail spin sometimes. While your communication in other aspects of your life has improved drastically through your dedication and hard work, communication about physical touch causes its own problems because of the subject matter. Mainly, you can’t ask for what you want. You’re too protective of yourself (well, you’re alive, so it worked) and you don’t want to throw yourself in situations where you could be rejected and disappointed if it’s going to cause you so many problems.

Yet, you want emotional and physical intimacy, so you have to accept the fact that you want opposing things at times, sometimes at the same time. And it’s very frustrating and confusing. And, you’re not going to lie, in your worst moments, your insecurities about being too much, and too much trouble, emerge regarding this aspect of your relationship with Nagi. You only have one option, which is to work through it. You’re not giving up, and you’re not giving up on your relationship with Nagi. You're not giving him up for anything. (Unless he wants, but he doesn’t, so you don’t have to go through that qualifier. But you’re you, so you still splatter your disclaimers on anything and everything, because you don’t want to hurt people like how you've been hurt.) 

All of this is to say, with help from your loved ones, you were able to figure out that Nagi is okay with you cuddling with him, and he was okay with that before you started your romantic endeavors with him, too. You can’t hold his hand when he’s gaming, but sometimes he’ll still let you lean up against him. 

All your romantic firsts with Nagi are special to you, and all your first time experiences in general with him (or to be fair, anyone) are special. First time going to the amusement park together, watching a movie, cooking together (he is mostly moral support, but you still count it <3), first “date.” You cherish your first kiss. Your first and every subsequent makeout session excites you. You have days where it’s all you think about. Your sex drive is far higher than Nagi’s, but he’ll play with your pussy almost whenever you ask. Sometimes his full attention is on you, gaze hot and excited, enraptured with your pants and sounds, and sometimes he’ll play with you while he’s watching his shows or streams, something casual enough to where he’ll throw in an occasional deadpan observation of you that flushes you with the kind of humiliation and desperation that is so exciting to feel (the kind you only feel safe enough to feel with Nagi.) You can’t pick a favorite. His attention and praise fills you with white hot pleasure and your brain feels overflown in the present moment with him. The feeling of being carried away safely, because it’s Nagi, allowing you to be solidly grounded in the moment, because you don’t want to be anywhere else except overwhelmed by Nagi. 

Excited at the thought of experiencing these feelings again, you close the door to his bedroom and stand on your tiptoes and you still can’t reach his face. You cling to his shirt, pulling to coax him down to where you can reach. He towers over you, a hand over your head. You stare into his beautiful eyes and let out a tentative whine. 

“No patience at all.” Nagi’s lower, rough voice sends a jolt through you, and then he’s kissing you. Finally. 

There’s no pressure for Nagi to be creative when he touches you. For as bad as you think you are at communicating, you give him just enough to fill in the blanks that your body language leaves. Your body and voice are so expressive, and he doesn’t know how he knows what you want, but he does. You also seem pretty happy with anything he does. It makes him feel so powerful to make you so happy without even trying (that hard). Especially as time goes on and you get to know each other’s likes and tastes more and more, he likes the way you make him feel like in these moments, he is your whole world. He is all you need. Your enraptured expression, completely taken by him, the way your attention can’t be dragged to anything else makes him feel seen, and he likes the feeling. He wants you to see him.

He knows how to make you happy. When he doesn’t feel like putting in effort, but still wants to spend time with you, he knows how to make you feel good. He knows how to get results. 

But the way you motivate him surprises him every time. He knows you like it sometimes, when he pretends he’s more focused on his streams than you. You like it, so he lets you believe he is more focused on his streams than he really is. But making you feel good is like no game he’s ever played. It’s a fun game, an exciting game, riveting, all-consuming, to try and read you, try and figure out what it is you want him to do, what your body language and whines are leading him to do. You’re so easy to read, it feels like you were made for him. When you whine louder and louder, he wants you to feel like he was made for you, too.

He has to let you catch your breath eventually. He uses this time to feel proud of himself, smug at his handiwork, as he looks down at your dazed expression. You look like you miss him already. Your shy, worried expression you get as you feel better and better with the sinful way you move against his body, begging for more.

He feels protective of you and never wants to let you go. He never wants you to feel hurt again and he wants to be the one to make sure of that. He wants to be there to support you through everything and he wants you by his side always, too. 

He crowds you to the bed and you scramble up, and he crawls after you, and looms over you, the only image you want to see. 

He descends, body heavy on yours, kisses you more. You never would have thought you could like the taste of someone’s mouth like you do Nagi’s. You can’t get enough of the way his tongue feels, the strength of his hands when he grips you. You’re so loud, which Nagi loves, and is fun for you, too, but the moments when you’re about to hear his noises, grunts and gasps and exhales, makes your tummy swoop, and you cling to him tighter. You tangle your fingers in his beautiful hair. It calms you to touch it. You like holding his head like that while he kisses your neck. You hate that he has to stop kissing your lips in order to kiss your neck because you love both so much.

Nagi is patient and attentive. He can’t get bored when he sees and hears how much you are enjoying it. 

The silence has dragged on a bit too long, much longer than you need to catch your breath, and he knows you’re impatient. You act like you don’t care about breathing anymore when you kiss him, which makes him feel like king of the world, of course, but also, he wants you to breathe. 

He pulls away to assess the situation. Your fingers are still in his hair, which he loves, but your body is heavy, a lot less pliable than normal, and your gaze is frozen somewhere else, expression not dazed and needy like he likes seeing you. You look like something else. Lost in thought or somewhere else in general. 

“Baby.”

You twitch your fingers in his hair, but don’t look at him or say anything. 

“Angel?”

You remove your hand from his hair and squirm under him. He rolls off you onto his side and watches you.

“Are you okay?”

You curl away from him slightly, so he adjusts his body too, giving you some more space. 

He’s really worried, but he doesn’t want to worry you more, if something really is wrong. He knows and trusts you will tell him eventually, even if you can’t right now. 

“I love you,” he says.

“I love you, too,” you say quickly.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

You look conflicted. 

“I don’t have to. I just want you to know I love you. What do you need right now?”

You’re frozen. You don’t even feel like you can bury your head in the pillow like you want to. Well, actually, what you really want to do is bury your head in Nagi’s chest, but you definitely don’t think or feel like you can do that.

“Do you want me to go? Do you want me to take you home?”

“No,” you choke out. “I want to stay.”

“Okay,” Nagi says. “If there’s something you want me to do, when you can, can you tell me?”

Horrified, you feel tears welling in your eyes.

“You don’t have to do anything.”

“Okay,” Nagi says. “I want to help you, and can if you want me to, but I don’t have to do anything, either, if you don’t want.”

As focused as you were when you were kissing him and into it, you are now equally and opposingly scattered. Of the millions thoughts and anxieties and worries freefalling in your head, what a lot of them boil down to are: a) you are horrible; and b) he’s not going to like you anymore.

“I’m here for you,” he says. “It’s okay if you want to cry, if you feel like it.”

The sobs escape your mouth without you feeling like you let them. 

He hands you tissues and stays with you quietly. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, which doesn’t feel good to say. It feels like you are betraying yourself. But there was no way you were going to win the fight to overcome the urge to say it. Not right now. 

“I don’t want you to say that,” Nagi says. “About crying to me ever again.”

“Sorry,” you say, because at this point you’ve given up, and have fully accepted that Nagi will probably most definitely never want to see you ever again.

“You can say sorry, and I’ll tell you it’s okay, but I just want you to know. I want it on record that I don’t want an apology for you sharing your emotions with me. Thank you for trusting me with them. I am honored.”

You cry some more, hiccupping and loud. 

Once you have a tiny pile of tissues, which you push off the bed into the bin Nagi got up and retrieved for you, you feel satisfyingly empty, like how one does, after having a good cry.

“I love you,” Nagi says promptly.

“I love you, too,” you rasp out. 

He gazes at you calmly.

You and him are opposites in some ways. One important way is he is never in a rush and you are always in a rush. So even though you know he would never rush you into anything, whether it’s talking or sex or leaving the house for some event or activity, your own traitorous brain yells at you, guilts you, warns you that he’s going ot leave no matter what anyway, so what are you even doing?

“Can I stay?” you ask in a small voice. 

He blinks at you. “...what?”

“Can I still stay here? Even though we’re not.” You gulp around nothing. Your throat convulses. “Or I can go,” you say quickly because you don’t want to cause trouble or be shameless or assume or any of the horrible things that you could do wrong.

“You should always do whatever you want,” he says. “But if you’re asking me, I’d like if you stayed.”

“Okay,” you whisper, searching your chest for the relief you think you should be feeling. A win! Right? You don’t have to do something you’re scared of, and you get what you really wanted in the first place. All you ever want is Nagi. 

“Can I still.” You wish words weren’t so hard. For all that everyone makes fun of you for constantly talking, why can’t you when it really matters? You search for the extroverted part of you, and you feel tumbleweeds where a peppy, bubbly personality should be. 

Great. Abandoned. As per usual. 

Nagi doesn’t rush you. He never rushes you. Logically, you know this, from past experience, and he continues in this moment. He’s so still. The opposite of your racing thoughts. The opposite of the fight or flight response pumping your body up to prepare for maximum danger and threat levels. He’s so still as he watches you, with his ever lidded eyes, eyes you usually feel so secure staring into, and would for hours on end, if you could. 

You know these eyes are open to you. They demand nothing. You try to remember that he would never implore you for anything, and the only person rushing you is you.

“I want to stay,” you say. 

“I want you to stay,” he says.

“I want.” Why is it so horrifying to ask for things? To ask for anything. “Can I touch you?”

“Yes, please,” Nagi says.

This time, relief crashes through your system, louder this time, bursting through a window, the sound of glass shattering cascading through your veins. 

He opens himself up to you, like he always does, and you slot yourself against his body, like you’ve been wanting this whole time. You try to calm yourself down. You try to stop trying. You try to let Nagi take care of you, like he is so good at doing. 

He kisses the top of your head, and he waits with you until you feel better. And you do, eventually. You always do.

[stickytm]

carrd || playlist || pinterest || headcanon || art || memes

a study in: intention vs. attention, always getting back up , guilt, processing grief, life behind a mask, self-identity, the weight of responsibility, living a double life, learning how to share that weight & how the person you become affects the people around you.

under co. very duplicate friendly. minors dni.

**MINORS DNI** if you are under 18, i dont want to talk to you! i do not want to talk to children on the internet. if you hide your age & i find out about it, i will block you immediately.

hi! i'm xan, i'm 25 & i never learned how to fucking read. jokes aside, i've been writing peter on & off since 2018. i was formerly at spiderwebbed & boywebbed, but i thought it was time for a fresh start. i've built a mixed canon timeline that cherry picks from my favorite peters & headcanons alike. there is a lot of information to take in & i don't expect anyone to know all of it! I will be highlighting the most important parts of his story on his timeline when i am done reworking it. the last time it was updated was 2022 & there is a lot to add & rearrange. i do ask that if you have any questions about the progression of his story, feel free to ask. i prefer to talk things out than leave any questions hanging.

on that note, tumblr rp is a social hobby as much as it is a creative one to me & i love keeping in contact with my mutuals. however, on this blog it is especially vital to building long-lasting relationships ic & ooc. my availability it not always consistent because i am Literally Insane & need to be away from tumblr sometimes, but that doesn't mean i value the friendships & relationships i make here any less.

i do not practice exclusivity. nothing against anyone who does, it's just not for me! i do, however, have mains. what are mains on this blog? they're characters written by friends who i will go to first for plot ideas. my mains will usually be woven into blog canon, one way or another whether or not that character is written in tumblr! if that is not something that appeals you, that's okay!

i have notoriously spotty activity. it's part of my flavor . it stems from a mix of mental illness & blanacing life, but this is just a hobby to me & it utilizes any energy i have leftover from everything else i have to do to live. this being said, if i don't respond to you ooc right away, again, it is nothing personal. i prefer having friendships & building them up over time, but it does take time & it is not always easy. active on the dash = / = active ooc& if you try to guilt me about this, i will block you <3

i do not have any triggers. i have a few icks, but nothing that triggers a huge emotional reaction from me. i will do my best to be mindful of any triggers that might appear on this blog, but if there is anything i fail to tag please feel free to point it out to me. i would like to maintain a safe space i can share with my friends!

if i'm following you, i absolutely want to interact with you. i want to write with you. i want to plot with you. i reblog a lot of memes & try to send a lot as well. this being said, i do not expect you to respond to everything i send you & vice versa.

i prefer to plot & send memes over starter calls starter calls are fine & dandy, i just become overwhelmed by them quicker than i care to admit & usually do not finish them. i prefer plotted starters & memes with a place we can start already defined.

if we have any problems, i would rather talk about them than leave them hanging between us. if it's worth unfollowing me over, please block me instead. i hate softblocking, I've never understood it & would rather just be blocked. i know this is not always possible because there are sooo many reasons someone might softblock me, but if you don't hardblock me i will probably refollow you without thinking about it.

don't be an asshole. it's easy, it's simple. treat people the way you would like to be treated. if you vague, i will block you. if you bring drama onto my blog, i will block you. i am here to play barbies not mean girls.

i do make art for peter, but it will always be tagged as my art. whether i post it here or on a personal blog, it will be tagged as something i made. if anyone wants to use my art for any reason, just make sure to dredit one of my blogs!

i am so duplicate friendly. i am so thrilled for the opportunity to discuss & share thoughts on peter parker with anyone willing to do so. i do understand, however, that not everyone shares this sentiment. do what you need to do to keep your space safe if you write peter & need to avoid other peter blogs, but if you ever want to talk shop i am sooo super game.

[janokenmun]

hell yeah pinned post time

basically i will post about: Whatever I Feel Like

if we're mutuals send me a dm and i might (not guaranteed) send u my discord so we can keep in contact in case site go explodey

cw: venty mental health stuff, relationship stuff, nsfw stuff, wack and hard kinks (also this blog uses unconventional nsfw tags! see below for details)

this may include:

-toki pona -english posts with toki pona translations -noitaposting -venty stuff (esp. relationship stuff) -hornyposts (filterable; see below) -non-venty relationshipy posts -rats -way too many memes -whatever randomass thoughts are on my mind at any given time -any brain contents i havent dumped on my friends already

feel free to dm im open to making new friends also feel free to send asks! also also please tell me if i rb something from a terf or otherwise-problematic person, BUT PLEASE LINK THE POST!!!!!! i rb like hundreds of things a day and i don't have the energy to filter through everything ive posted in the past day to see if it matches the vague description in a callout ask i got

also if u follow me or even just interact i WILL be looking through ur blog. this is a threat

also fair warning i post a fucking lot (mostly rbs) so if u follow be prepared for that (i assume theres a post limit since theres been multiple times where ive posted so much that tumblr cuts me off and refuses to let me post and gives me errors if i try to post)

btw im not comfy with kisses or cuddles from people im not dating!!

also if you're wondering about some personal details, im (cis) male, mostly straight, autism, possibly adhd, and open to play stellaris or warframe or mtg commander or other games

ill be trying to tag my own lewd posts with #janokenlewd, others' with #janantelewd, and cnc posts with #jancnclewd, so if you don't want to see that (or are a minor) absolutely block 'em!!!! i'll also be using #kenlalewd for things that i'm unsure on (like suggestive but not explicit stuff), im not gonna enforce that minors block that but it is recommended! please tell me if i don't appropriately tag nsfw (which likely will happen on occasion)!!! i'm trying to keep this a relatively safe space for minors, so i don't have to ban them completely, and having minors block those tags is an essential part of that! (additionally! i may leave sex ed or kink ed stuff untagged, as safety and education is important; if there's enough demand for it i might make a tag for nsfw education stuff).

basically this blog is just. My Brain

enjoy

BTW IMPORTANT NOTE: if i do/say something bad, tell me unambiguously! i will have genuinely no idea otherwise

nsfw stuff under the cut :3

more details about me are that im strictly top/dom, single, and open to doin lewd stuff with friends (and possibly boys! i have no idea!!!)

kinks include a bunch of like hard-dom stuff; cnc and brat tamer stuff are my favorite (especially cnc!!! <3<3<3), but i tend to like a lot of dom stuff tho! basically like just ask, there's also a bunch of kinks i have that i'm not comfortable stating publicly! also, i use the word "rape" here a lot; please block the cnc tag if you are uncomfortable with that!!!

limits include like gore/blood (tho a little blood is ok), and any of the like "unsanitary" kinks! also DO NOT TREAT ME LIKE A SUB OR TRY TO DOM ME IT MAKES ME VERY UNCOMFORTABLE, also don't misgender me or anything but that feels like a given! there might be other stuff but that Should be most of it, feel free to ask before sending if you're unsure

feel free to message and/or send asks (esp. if you're sub/switch girl)!!! best practice is to just ask directly before doing stuff, i.e. "hey do you mind if i send nudes" or "hey do u want to talk about kink stuff" or anything like that! tho sending nudes/porn/fantasies that *don't involve me* out of nowhere is likely okay ;3 (if u wanna be safe then ask first tho!! and specify the relevant kinks in case any are a turnoff)! i only rarely rp, i have to trust u first, so don't expect that immediately!

if you're a dom, top, and/or boy, i might still wanna talk about stuff, even if i don't wanna like rp or anything directly!! i'm super interested in human sexuality and hearing in-depth stuff about what kinks people have and why they have them is fascinating (and very hot) to me (and could give me ideas ;3), so if you wanna talk about that stuff please please please message!!!!

this is a paraphilia-safe space!!! if you have paraphilias, including the big ones, you're safe here and i accept you :). depending on what it is i might not want to talk about it, turnoffs are turnoffs, but i still accept you for who you are :) also relatedly id probably be considered proship tho im not really in that community so i may not understand the full nuance and ramifications of that term

also obviously. if you're a minor then don't interact lewdly with me?? you shoudlnt even be reading this and you should have #janantelewd and #janokenlewd blocked as well, that's the compromise i've made so that i don't have to just block every minor that follows me since i post a bunch of sfw stuff too, violators of the contract will be obliterated with the force of a thousand suns

[quiet-admirer]

Hey!

I was wondering about the difference in SSC and RACK kink approaches… and if I misunderstood something there or if the framing of it has changed since I’ve first came in contact with it 5+ years ago. If you want to check out my tags on the post I reblogged and want to talk about that I’d be curious and happy to chat :) If not, then sorry for the interruption. Wishing you a good day!

Hello, hope you're having a good day, too ☺️ Essay incoming, but there are a couple issues with using "safe, sane, and consensual" as a way to approach practicing kink.

[The tl;dr is that the SSC terminology is subjective and not specific enough to be useful.]

Firstly, it's vague and subjective. What does "safe" mean? I mean, vanilla sex isn't "safe" in the sense of being devoid of any risks. It's all relative; there are risks inherent in any activity, and that just means we educate ourselves about harm reduction strategies (wear a seat belt, use condoms). "Risk-aware" is more useful; it gives you an action to take: consider what you're going to be doing and make yourself aware of the risks involved in the kink you're practicing. Then you can decide if you'd like to do something to mitigate those risks or if you're okay with accepting potential consequences.

"Safe" just sends the message that if you can't make the activity safe, don't do it, which isn't very realistic. People are going to get off the ways they want to get off, but as communities, we can empower people to make informed decisions about their own sexual health without judgement if someone decides they are willing to assume certain risks. I think of it as RACK promoting critical thinking skills about engaging in your kink in the way that works for you, whereas SSC is prescriptive, assuming there's one definition of what "safe" is that works for everybody and that this definition is obvious and that to do kink "right" you have to be making sure it lives up to that definition of "safe."

Feedism and weight gain kink in particular are kinks that typically aren't given the green light under the SSC model in our culture. The Internet is full of tired, boring commentary about "who would ever make themselves fat on purpose, that's insane, you're destroying your health and killing yourself for a kink, get psychiatric help." SSC legitimizes this kind of thinking, or at least doesn't do anything to discourage it.

I'm much less generous about the use of "sane" in this acronym. "Sane," and correspondingly, "insane," are pathologizing and pejorative words used to dehumanize people who experience mental illness/mentally ill people. I disagree with the term "sane" being used in regards to kink in both directions: mentally ill/insane people (I'm using it as a reclaimed word here, hi, I'm mentally ill and insane) are human beings who deserve sexual autonomy, and kink practices should not be pathologized as indicating insanity just because the mainstream thinks they're weird.

I've also seen "sane" used to mean two different things. One is capable of giving consent, but isn't that already covered by "consensual?" And that definition, like you brought up, also often views substance use as something to be avoided, but intox and chemsex are established sexual practices that can be practiced with a RACK approach just like any other sexual stuff. "Sane" is also sometimes used to mean "woah there, let's not get too wild," but, like, why constrain sexuality to things the majority labels as "sane?" Why not get too wild? I would love to get more insane in how I express pleasure in my life! Fuck "sane," give me that risk-aware, consensual, insane shit please 🤲

In a practical sense though, it's another case of what is "sane" even supposed to mean? Some people think anything other than heterosexual post-marital missionary is insane. It's just so subjective that it becomes a useless metric.

Neither "safe" nor "sane" are cases of "you know it when you see it" when it comes to the wonderful diversity and depravity (affectionate) of human sexuality.

All right, now that I've said all that, I'm going to start sounding alarmist here, but bear with me.

A year ago my answer would have stopped there, but unfortunately, we're in the middle of a huge upswing in fascist, terfy, anti-sex purity culture that's been getting a little too real lately in the US (think banning public drag because it's "sexually obscene" with a dash of "but think of the children!", and regardless of the fact that drag performance... isn't inherently sexual performance, we're seeing demonization of non-normative sexuality being successfully used as a vehicle for suppressing non-normative gender expression).

Basically, when SSC leaves off at the vague "safe" prescription, it opens the door to anti-kink arguments of "but [insert kink] is dangerous, that means it's bad and evil!" With the way "kink-critical" arguments are a major way that fascism is making inroads into ostensibly leftist queer spaces, we gotta be deliberate with our language and fight that shit in every tiny (and big and direct) way we can.

"Sane" is even worse with the way the word "degenerate" (literal and actual 1930s German Nazism) is making a huge comeback and being applied to anyone with non-normative sexualities among other groups. So, sorry if this seems dramatic, but tying sanity in with sexuality in any way, and by extension labeling some forms of sexuality as "insane," isn't just a 'well, it's not the nicest way to phrase it,' situation when the cultural context is that freedom of speech and healthcare access are being systematically removed under the guise of arguments that equate and conflate gender nonconformity with non-normative sexuality and insanity.

I'm not blaming SSC for any of this, it just isn't doing anybody any favors in the antifascist department....

As a Mentally Ill, SSC has always rubbed me the wrong way, but it's an extra-special sore spot for me right now!

[thedragonagelesbian]

For the OTP asks: 5, 13, 22, and 26 for Cyrus and Wyll

yaaaaaaaaaaay

5. What activities do they enjoy together?

Cyrus socializes like a cat, so he's happiest just being nearby for whatever activity Wyll wants to do-- snuggling while Wyll reads or listening him play his flute (or his cello once they're moved in to their estate post-game). Wyll similarly insists that his greatest creative inspiration comes when he's with Cyrus and loves to compose in Cyrus' garden, drafting sonnets and serenades while Cyrus is tending to his plants.

As for things they really do together, they love planning outings into the woods around Baldur's Gate. Romantic picnics, hunting, foraging, birding, just getting away from the bustle of the city

13. Name something they would never do for the other person. 

Cyrus for Wyll: I think Cyrus outright refuses to do the Champion/Ansur/whoops bitter gay exes quest. Not even in a reluctant 'I'll tag along to make sure you stay safe' thing, drags his heels to the very edge of the chambers of trials and is straight up like 'we shouldn't do this. I don't care how helpful the dragon will be we should Not Fucking Do This please don't do this i don't want to lose you to some impossible bullshit test you're already enough please don't make me watch you do this'

Of course there's no vindication in being right.

Wyll for Cyrus: Hmmmm Wyll is so accommodating it's hard to think of what he'd refuse… Of course there is the classic "you don't have to be the Blade of Frontiers" for me early on. No matter how many times Cyrus tells him that he doesn't have to perform for him, it's so hard to let go of a technique that has allowed you to cope with & make the best of such horrendous circumstances

22. If their lives were what was originally intended at birth, would they have still fallen in love?

Oh boy the 'at birth' specification is interesting, I've never really thought about what this version of Malcolm and Leandra had planned for him… He grew up on the road because Malcom was being hunted by his archfey patron who ends up killing him when Cyrus is very young (tho I have some. Extremely vague ideas about a post-game adventure involving Malcolm actually still being alive & Cyrus & his LI needing to save him). Presuming Malcolm doesn't die and is thus still around when Leandra passes from her illness, I could see him raising Cyrus as a much more well-adjusted rangers, mayhaps even of the fey wanderer variety as they work to free Malcolm from his patron

(…..i dont know how i've gotten this far without realizing before that the first loss in cyrus' life was to a vengeful warlock patron but it sure. Uh. Adds some Something to this dynamic…)

Wyll more obviously grows into a young lordling, but even without Mizora, I think he goes through life about 5 terribly repressed seconds from a nervous breakdown having grown up knowing absolutely nothing but his father's rigid expectations

And while I can't think of any self-evident way for their paths to cross, the notion of Wyll meeting a more fey version of Cyrus who whisks him away from the pressures of noble life for a whirlwind adventure straight out of the fantasies and fairytales Wyll grew up reading and dreaming about but had given up experiencing himself… well i think it FUCKS immensely

26. What are their favorite parts about physical affection/sex?

For both of them, the best part about physical affection is feeling safe. It's so new for them, but being able to melt into each other's arms and let all of their past disappear into the sound of the other's breathing and pulse is just one of their favorite things about being together, period.

For Cyrus, his relationship to sex is different than other iterations of the character because of his history with Meredith. Generally, Cyrus has two somewhat contradictory things he wants out of sex: to please his partner as much as possible, and to know himself and his body in relation to them. Contradictory because that first desire always trumps the second one and can even foreclose it entirely, depending on the partner, or make him vulnerable to someone who wants to control his sense of self.

Whereas ranger!Cyrus is pretty adamant about not relying on anyone else for that external validation/appraisal/identification. That just leaves "trying to give Wyll a religious experience every time," and that is something Cyrus adores immensely. (And his favorite part of /that/ is any indication of incoherency-- babbling and whining and stammering. Any sign that Wyll is trying sooo hard to be the calm & collected Blade and failing miserably turns Cyrus on a Lot; he refers to it playfully as 'making Wyll sing')

And as hard as it is, Wyll enjoys being made to let go and get out of his head and into his body and being taken care of and treated with a level of slow, gentle tenderness that is almost too much to bear (but he does and Cyrus praises him throughout to tell him he's doing a very good job bearing it)

[welcometohell09]

As a fanfic writer, I think we’re all limited by the way hanahaki is centred around love (even when authors don’t purely focus on romantic attraction).

(TLDR at the bottom. TW for vague discussions of transphobia/gender dysphoria, although it’s brief and not detailed.)

It’s fairly widely acknowledged (at least as far as I’ve seen) that hanahaki isn’t really romantic, because of the horror of A) the illness, and B) not being able to reject someone for fear of killing them. Some authors work around this by making it a curse, or making it so a confession of feelings (regardless of whether it’s requited or now) is enough to expel the disease.

A lot of other authors have also dealt with the weird centralisation of romantic relationships by making it so hanahaki isn’t a strictly romantic disease, and can occur with any type of romantic love.

But frankly, why stop there?

The part of hanahaki that’s always fascinated me is its portrayal of repression as body horror. The idea that if you feel/believe something that’s hurting you, and you refuse to do anything about it, it will eventually strangle you. There’s no easy way out of what’s going on in your head without hurting the people around you. Making love—romantic or otherwise—the only way that that can be explored squishes so many opportunities to explore other topics or feelings.

For example, take a closeted transgender character; for symbolic purposes, let’s say they’re transfem. Trying to repress her femininity/gender identity doesn’t work, even though it would be easier (or safer, but that’s a nuance you would need a longer post to explore) to just pretend she wasn’t a girl. But due to her repression—not her being trans, but her repression of that part of her—flowers bloom in her lungs.

Symbolically, using hanahaki in this case works. You have body horror (which is a very common thread in a lot of trans media, due to the inherent horror of gender dysphoria) in the form of the flowers physically growing in her lungs. You have flowers, while are typically considered to be feminine (although if you picked the flowers carefully you could definitely make it masc), literally growing inside and bursting out of a character who is trying to hide her femininity. You have an acknowledgment that something has to change in order for her to be safe/ok, but that could also be opposed by the societal stigma or violence that keeps her under wraps.

Hanahaki works for other themes too. Mental illness in particular (mainly depression) would absolutely work with that kind of exploration. I’ve been considering writing something like that for a long time, but frankly I have no idea how I’d tag it.

TLDR: Hanahaki is under-utilised as a symbolic device and should be used to explore a lot of different themes, rather than just unrequited love (in its various forms) due to its ability to communicate both strong emotion and nuance.