#my teachers in high school when they saw my self harming

[shiggybrainr0t]

shouto todoroki x reader

word count: 2k

warnings: reader has hair that can be tucked behind their ear, reader is bullied, forced self-harm (forced to pinch their cheeks)

a/n: this is my entry for @bloompompom ‘s “to all the fictional boys I’ve loved before” writing collab!!! the rom com I chose was ‘Ella enchanted’ because I instantly knew Shouto would fit perfectly ❤️ thank you for letting me join!! i love this but I also think it is not my best work and kind of cringey 💀 this was also inspired by many kdrama cliches djsjsks

summary: you have a quirk that makes you obey every command you are given. if only there was a prince who could come save you? or better yet, help you save yourself.

You're six years old when you develop your quirk. Your parents had taken you to the doctor, scared that you were quirkless, which in turn made you scared as well. The doctor reassured them that everything seemed fine, and your quirk should develop soon. Who would have thought that being quirkless would have been better.

It happened one day in kindergarten. Your then best friend was mad at you because you didn’t want to play dodgeball, and instead wanted to sit in the sandpit. In the heat of her anger, she screeched at you to “go eat rocks!” only to be shocked whenever you stiffly got up and did just that.

Your teacher was horrified when she was dragged over by your friend to see you, with gravel filling your mouth and tears running down your cheeks. When asked why, all you could simply muster was that you had too. You ended that day with a trip to the ER, multiple cuts inside your mouth, and a broken tooth.

Looking back, your quirk probably had already developed. You were known to be a very obedient child— it just took something extreme to clue everyone in. And it would only go downhill from there.

Your parents didn’t mean to take advantage of your quirk. Normal parental comments like “eat all your vegetables” and “go clean your room” just meant that you couldn’t talk back and had to follow the commands instantly. It became a habit almost to voice their requests as demands instead of suggestions or requests. You couldn’t fault them for it really. Especially not whenever they praised your good behavior in front of others, always so proud of their perfectly behaved child. Eventually, when you stopped talking as much and began secluding yourself more to avoid the feeling of your body and mind being forced to do something, they didn’t really seem to notice.

It was a day in your last year of high school that you met Shouto. You had always noticed him of course. Your general studies class and his hero class had been keeping the same lunch time for your entire high school career. He was princely in his stoicism. Perfect face not marred by his scar, only enhanced. He moved like an elegant dancer— every move calculated and on point. It would be no surprise to anyone that you had started harboring a crush on the fellow student. Who hadn’t had a crush on him would be the better question.

Alone at your table in the corner, you’d admire Shouto and his friends at lunch. They always looked like they were so close— the whole class did to be honest. Deku and the others were the only ones who you ever saw crack that perfect facade. A tiny smile here, a barely wrinkled brow there. It was magical to watch. The prince and his court.

You were glad he had made friends. You couldn’t say the same. Try as you might, you just couldn’t keep your quirk a secret. And once one person knew, it wasn’t long until there were many people taking advantage of it. You had gotten by relatively unscathed so far. You mostly got orders to do others homework and class chores. Many afternoons it was only you left in the classroom working away without choice, trying to finish the class chores before dark.

Your only reprieve came in the home room teacher of said prince: Aizawa. He had learned of your quirk, and it only took him one afternoon seeing you doing the chores alone for him to figure out the bullying. You refused to tattle, knowing that it would only make things worse, but he was able to release you from the power of your classmates’ demands.

You were given a strict suggestion, not an order though this time you don’t think you would have minded, to come find him anytime you needed his help. No adult had ever helped you like this before. All of your parent’s friends fawned over your quirk, and lamented about how they wished their own children had developed the same quirk. They had no idea.

It was an afternoon where the sun was shining brightly. A perfect day for something ugly to happen— especially to someone with luck like yours. There was one girl in your class who always had it out for you. You didn’t know why, you had never even talked to her. Your attempts to remain unseen unfortunately did not work this day, because for some reason the most popular boy in your class had decided he thought you were cute and voiced that to his friends.

Enraged, the girl hissed at you after class in a voice filled with venom, “He won’t think you’re cute if your face is full of bruises. Pinch yourself and don’t stop.” As your body filled with syrupy static and your hand raised to your cheek to grasp it in a hard pinch, you fled to try and find the only man who could make you stop.

By the time you made it to the hero department, your cheeks were sore and tears had filled your eyes. You didn’t even notice the prince you had always admired from the top of your tower pause as you sped by, face marred by a frown at your distraught expression.

The pro hero was obviously unamused by how you refused to tell who had made you pinch yourself. A trip to Recovery Girl however had you right as rain, and you were honestly ready for the day to just be over. The last thing you were expecting was Shouto to be standing outside the nurse’s room waiting for you. His face serious and his large arms crossed over his chest. His uniform fit him perfectly, you noticed, like it was tailored just for him.

“I’ve heard about you.”

Your mouth dropped open without your permission . His voice, deep and smooth, glided over you like water and cooled on your skin.

“You have a quirk that makes you do what people tell you to do.”

You had heard about his blunt nature, but hearing it for the first time in person shocked you. At your timid nod, his brow furrowed, and his eyes gave you a once over quickly.

“You can come get me. If you ever need help.” With this statement he pushed off the wall, and without a goodbye walked away.

You tell yourself that it’s just in Shouto’s nature to help people in need. He is in the hero course, so naturally he would follow you whenever he saw you were distress. Shouto being, well Shouto, makes it very hard to keep this in mind.

After the pinching incident, you seemed to have become a target for your classmates’ anger and frustrations. One classmate failed an English test, and to make themselves feel better they ordered you to jump on one foot until you couldn’t anymore.

Eventually left alone in the hallway, your jumping not being entertaining enough to them anymore, your saving grace came in the form of your prince. You don’t know why he was in the general studies section of the school, but you couldn’t complain— multiple students had walked by you with barely a glance. He walked over to you quickly and put a hand on your waist.

“Stop.” His voice cleared the haze in your mind making you obey, and his cool hand kept you steady as you wobbled, unstable after jumping for so long. Shouto straightened your uniform jacket with nimble fingers before walking away, leaving before you could even say thank you.

The next big incident came in the form of you being told to dump your glass of water over your head in front of everyone in the cafeteria. You quickly ran off afterwards, and your prince followed only a few feet behind.

Staring at yourself in the bathroom mirror, your shoulders dropped. The bathroom door opening suddenly made you whirl around, heart racing whenever you saw the signature two toned hair of Shouto.

You had never seen this much emotion on his face before. He looked angry as he stalked over to you. He grabbed the paper towels you were using to dry yourself, and his hand raised up close to your face. The air around you turned warm. Steam surrounded you as he evaporated the water from your hair and down to your shoulders. You were reminded of how you would sit in front of the heater after playing in the snow as a child, defrosting contently.

“Why don’t you tell the teacher who does this?” His voice was soft, a contrast to his angry demeanor.

You looked up at him, and saw how genuine he was. He cared so much about the wellbeing of a stranger. A prince indeed. You decided to take a big step, and tell him something you’ve never told anyone.

“I-I can’t.”

Your voice was meek, and his face turned stoic as he took in your answer.

“You can’t, as in someone ordered you not to.”

It wasn’t a question but you nodded nonetheless.

“You know there is a loophole for this, yes?” He said it so simply, no judgement in his voice, only the same warmth.

With a sigh, you begin to explain. “Their dad is my dad’s boss, and somehow they figured this out.”

With a hum, Shouto grabbed a strand of your hair between his nimble fingers. He twirled it around before tucking it behind your ear and smiling. It was like looking at the sun.

“I think I can help.”

He held your hand as you both walked back to the cafeteria. It was his fire side, and the warmth radiated up your arm and into your heart. Before you both entered the cafeteria, he spoke.

“I know you can’t verbally tell me who is responsible for this, but whenever I point them out I want you to squeeze my hand. I already have some idea.”

To show him you understood, you gave his hand a shy squeeze. This made him send a small smile your way, and you could feel the breath physically leave your lungs.

Shouto confidently walks you to the right table, leaving a quiet room after him. Everyone seemed shocked to see you both hand in hand, except his friends. Glancing over quickly you could see that Deku and Ochaco had large grins on their faces, while Iida was nodding in what you could only interpret as aggressive approval.

Your classmates stared at the both of you in trepidation as you and Shouto came to a stop in front of their table. Without saying anything, Shouto quickly pointed at the girl who had always had it out for you, and made sure the rest of the class began to feel the same way. Surprised he knew so fast, you squeezed his hand, heart beating furiously.

“I see.” Was all he said, and you watched as the girl’s face turned pale in the glory of his ire.

The next few days seemed to happen in a blur. Shouto had taken you straight to Aizawa to tell him who your tormentor was, as well as the concerns that held you back from using the loophole of your quirk sooner. The next day, the girl and her family met you in Nezu’s office to apologize.

They bowed to you, and the father told you that he was relocating himself and his family to South Korea, so there would be no worry of any retaliation against your father. Your father might even get a promotion. You noticed how pale he seemed as he looked at the tall figure looming behind you, icy hot eyes staring the man down.

Later that day, you stood shyly in front of a stoic Shouto, trying to put into words how grateful you were.

“That wasn’t the first time I had noticed you, you know.” He spoke first.

“What?”

“I’ve um. I’ve always thought you were really pretty.”

Shouto looked away from you suddenly, bringing a hand up to scratch the back of his head. A soft pink highlighted the tips of his ears.

“I’ve always thought you were really handsome as well.”

Shouto’s head snapped back towards you in surprise. Before he speaks, his eyes focused over your shoulder and his expression crumpled. You looked behind you, shocked to see Deku, Ochaco, and Iida peeking out from behind the corner. Deku was exaggerating his expressions and mouthing “ask them out!” They spot you looking and quickly popped back behind the wall.

You laugh brightly, and find your confidence.

“Will you go out with me, Shouto?”

[sillygoblinantics]

Can I trauma dump for a second?

Personal essay by Bri

Can I be vulnerable with you all for a brief post? You don’t have to read what’s under here if you don’t want to hear about dark thoughts and events from my childhood. So take this as a content warning going forward, especially if you are not in a good state of mind I want you to ignore this post and check out my other light hearted stuff in the meantime. 🩵

In the past month spanning the duration of September, Lily Orchard has made several posts answering self asks where she makes various and progressively worse than the last threats on many people who she labels are stalkers.

Each of these posts were said throughout the month that is a very particular awareness month: suicide prevention month. The amount of ways she’s phrased it are just heartless and reckless.

Today, being no different than the others has struck a cord to me personally.

For context:

I was transferred to a school for kids with learning disabilities when I was 9 in the middle fourth grade. At this private school I would receive proper education and resources that would help me excel but in less than four years at this school I would be the target and victim to one boy’s torment and abuse. Let’s call him Pepsi, because he wouldn’t shut up about bragging about how his mom was ceo of the company’s local branch. Pepsi had been a troubled boy who had bullied kids before I arrived and because of his parents the school couldn’t do anything outside of suspension. I being prone to teasing and not understanding tone or jokes due to being born autistic was the perfect target for Pepsi. So he would harass and pick on me: tripping me in hallways, flipping me off, calling me names and messing with something I showed interest in, standard bullying stuff. During this time I was slowly driven into high stress/anxiety and shortly following I would have depression. I would hurt myself by scratching my arms with paperclips which my mom would eventually request the school have a teacher escort me to and from the bathroom just so I wouldn’t self harm. This was between 4th, 5th and 6th grade.

It was around here that I begun having suicidal ideation… I tried asphyxia: belt, infinity scarf and even a cats-in-the-cradle toy. These attempts were always at home and would be stopped by my parents… at one point my old dog came bursting in to check on me when I was crying my eyes out and wouldn’t leave my side until she made sure I was ok.

(I’m tearing up over that specific memory as I type this out… she was a very good dog…)

Seventh grade Pepsi would do something that began my ideations and planning that would go into effect the next grade. During a school dance, I decided to invite my brother and his two friends as I didn’t know any guys or really thought someone liked me. I tried to hangout with my brother on the bleachers in the gym. While sitting on the bleachers one of my peers approached and asked if I’d slow dance with them. No boy ever did this and I thought it was genuine I was so happy until at the other side of the gym, under the basket ball hoop against the wall, surrounded by other boys (who weren’t goons) I saw Pepsi, laughing. Laughing and pointing and I still remember the feeling I had as I could feel my lil heart shatter into pieces in my chest.

I ran to the bathrooms tears running down my face. My brother and his friends saw this and were about to beat Pepsi up but the school chaperones stopped them. I wish they didn’t.

From then to eighth grade I was barely myself and would sit in class staring out the windows down the long uphill half mile long driveway that cut through a small bit of woods and opened to the busy road. I’d watch all kinds of cars pass: big cars, small cars, pickup trucks, suvs, eighteen wheelers, buses and all sorts of vehicles pass by between the tree line. I’d watch and imagine myself being hit, thinking of the day I’d enact this plan.

I was excited for eighth grade, not only would I be graduating and headed for high school but it was the year our grade would get to perform one of two Shakespeare plays! The class before us did Romeo and Juliet and our class would get to perform the Scottish play. I was excited even if I was a narrator. My mom made it clear to the school and teachers to make sure that Pepsi and I were kept apart at all times. At. All. Times.

The one time during rehearsal, when me and Pepsi were in the same room, the one moment that a teacher stepped out for just a few minutes. Pepsi took the opportunity and berated me, said every nasty thing he could at me.

I can’t remember most but what I know is something about my weight and that no one would love me and that I should die.

I felt a switch go off and suddenly I was speed walking towards the door of the gym (the stage was in the gym since the art and music classes were connected to the gym) and as I was walking I could hear my teacher calling my name but I didn’t look back. Once I got out the door I ran, I ran so fast.

I ran down the hill, the sound of my shoes hitting the pavement echoed in my ears still and the only thing in my mind were: the plan but also the hope that I was still being chased by the teacher, I kept running and running and by the third Italian cypress tree that lead to the small forested area and up the driveway of the school I skidded to a halt. I caught my breath and with a glimmer of hope for a hand to grab me I looked behind me:

…

The teacher wasn’t there… they stopped chasing me. Why did they stop chasing me? Weren’t they suppose to care?! Why aren’t they here?! I looked back at the road now crying for a different reason. I flaked out… I couldn’t go through with the plan. ‘No one would care’ I thought… so I turned around and ran back up the hill and past the school buildings and near the back where I waited and cried for the day to be over or for someone to notice me. The advisor or some type of teacher; who would take his class on nature walks behind the school on the old trails where an amphitheater was; found me. I didn’t tell my mom at pick up. I told my first therapist about it and later was sent to a hospital and then five days at a literal hell where it only instilled fear of being vulnerable and honest about my mental health stayed. I had to stay out of school for a few months until I could graduate… I missed my chance to be a narrator for the play, I fumbled my science fair… I would forget about this day until I was a junior in high school with a new counselor and my mom. I only had dreams of running down the hill of my middle school and I never knew why until my mom told me and my counselor… those dreams stopped after the revelation.

I was twelve years old when I tried to kill myself via being hit by a car.

Lily orchard, you have no fucking right to act like the bigger person because you’re trans or native or whatever bullshit you spew.

It’s been two or three years since I’ve had any suicidal thought, a year since I’ve self harmed and I refuse to relapse now.

I don’t wish any horrible thing on you, no one does, no one has or will ever wish harm or ill will on you. And the people who do have something to say about you are validated after putting up with your abuse that has been documented on so many occasions.

I don’t wish what I have gone through on my middle school bully, I wouldn’t wish the worst thing ever on him. I wouldn’t wish the worst fate even on you.

The only thing I wish you get: is help. Actually human help.

And Lily, if I see you talk smack about anyone’s mother or father like this again, there’s nothing I can do in my power to act; because you’ve already done it to yourself.

———————————

Thank you to those who aren’t Lily orchard for reading this, it’s a heavy subject for me that as I share and open up about becomes much lighter and helps me get the strength and confidence to be able to be honest with the people I care most about outside of the internet.

While I can say I’m in a better place it’s always changing but it’s gotten easier to manage and recenter myself.

Stay safe everyone (ówò)

[eds6ngel]

hiiiii omg can u do one where robin and afab reader are happily seeing each other. one day, reader overhears some people talking badly about same-sex relationships and saying what they'd do to a same-sex couple if they saw one in public. scared, reader tries to break up with robin without explaining why. it's an emotional and tense moment, but robin won't let reader leave until she explains. finally, reader tells robin her fears, leading to a gentle, comforting conversation and moment that brings them closer

one day, we’ll be free ᰔᩚ

robin buckley x fem!reader

summary: you and robin had been seeing each other for two months in private, praying for the day that you could move to a more liberal area, but how would you react when jason carver makes his violent opinions known about lesbians?

pre warning !! this is a very heavy chapter, so make sure to read the tags carefully. if you find anything that triggers you, please go ahead and skip this fic. please do let me know if i have missed anything!!

warnings: ANGST!! fem!reader. lesbian!reader. closeted/hidden relationship. heavy 80s accurate homophobia. use of d slur in a derogatory way. rape & pedophilia accusation against a lesbian. gun mention. threat of hurting/killing lesbians. robin’s parents are homophobic. r tries to run away. allusion to self harm. break-up attempt. lots of crying. death mention. pet names (my love, baby, honey.) food mentions. slight fluff. [2.7k].

a/n: thank you for requesting, lovely! i did make this chapter very heavy and accurate to the time period (at least i hope close enough!) so i hope that this is suitable to what you can read and enjoy the fic ♡

You had met Robin in your French class in your junior year. You had found her to be the most stunning girl in the entirety of Hawkins High, and in an ideal world, you would’ve been asking her out in the middle of the damn hallway.

But… it was 1985, and you could’ve been ostracised, hurt, or even killed by another student or teacher if you even attempted to do so.

However, luckily for you, privacy was something that could be maintained. You successfully asked Robin out in a secluded area of Lover’s Lake extremely late at night, and to your delight, she said yes.

And for the past two months, you and Robin had been happily seeing each other in your own time. Whereas you would’ve loved to have publicly showed off your girlfriend like any of the other couples around Hawkins did, some a little too much, you still found comfort in the dates you organised in your bedroom or a nice, private spot during early hours of the morning.

However, your ultimate dream was to escape to the city. New York, LA, San Francisco, anywhere where you could go to a gay bar and just find like-minded people. Maybe there were more gay people in Hawkins, but how would you ever come to find out?

You loved this town, you grew up in this town and made so many memories here, but it just wasn’t safe for your future. Nowhere was really, but at least the cities had a community. Here? It was just you and Robin against everyone else. Against every other likely homophobic asshole that graced these streets.

You were sat at one of the lunch tables, patiently waiting for your girlfriend to join you from her Biology class. Unfortunately for you, it seems as if Robin’s class had been let out later than usual, so you had to grab a table before they were all taken, and that table just so happened to be to the right of Jason Carver’s designated spot. It wasn’t even designated, but everyone in the school was too goddamn scared, or simply agreed that that space was now his.

And just like always, he was being an absolute nightmare.

The daily Eddie Munson vs. Jason Carver shenanigans had already taken place, and since Jason’s table was obnoxiously loud about their talking points, you were subject to every word they would utter throughout the rest of the lunch period.

You spotted your girlfriend entering the cafeteria, giving her a huge grin and a wave, to which she returned, grabbing a tray and lining up in the lunch queue.

Your worries had settled for a few moments, glad that Robin was safe and healthy, but, that’s when Jason’s conversation definitely caught your ear.

“Dude, apparently one of the local dykes around here raped a teenage girl a few weeks ago.”

The whole table erupted into a roar of laughter at one of the other jock’s words, you purposefully holding back your tears. Not only were they being extremely homophobic, but they were laughing about a girl in her age category getting hurt. Gay or not, how could you even joke about that kind of thing? It’s so vile.

“Not even shocking, man. You know, if I saw one of them lesbians around here, I would be the first person to take them out. My dad owns a few guns, I could easily shoot them down from a mile away.”

That level of violence from Jason made you instantly terrified for your life. You were lucky you presented feminine, so everybody assumed you were into men, but what if he caught you and Robin in your safe space at Lover’s Lake? You could be shot dead and he could justify it with some horrible accusation of pedophilia.

And you couldn’t out Robin like that, no way. Her parents already spouted the same-old religious, homophobic talking points. She was already considered a ‘band geek,’ you couldn’t outcast her more than that and put her life in danger.

You had to go. You couldn’t do this to her. No way in hell.

Retrieving your bag from under the table, you step out, leaving your half-eaten lunch tray on the table as you quickly walked out of the cafeteria and to the parking lot.

Tears were blurring your vision as you drove through the misty rain, unsure of which was blocking your line of sight at what point, the two fading into one. The melancholy of the atmosphere continued as you parked in your driveway, throwing off your seatbelt, and bolting into your bedroom.

Your parents were fortunately at work, the loud clamoring of clothes being tossed around your bedroom echoing through the four corners of your house, your body frantically searching for everything you may need.

You need to get out. You couldn’t stay here any longer.

You were about to throw your journal in with your unorganised, messy clothes, when a sudden thought struck your mind. No matter how much you wanted to escape the world you lived in, you couldn’t leave your love like this. Robin deserved some form of closure.

So, ripping a page scruffily from your notebook, the edges uneven and jagged, you collected the closest pen from your bedside table and ripped the cap off with your teeth.

Your handwriting was scruffy, almost unintelligible as you poured your heart and soul onto the page. Small droplets were staining the page, smudging the ink and creating little tears in the thin material. It was chaotic and tangled, but it needed to be done.

Once finished, the journal itself, along with a few of your stationery items, were shoved into the suitcase, the letter folded in half as it was placed at the top of your rucksack, just above the cassettes and books.

Towing your suitcase behind you, rucksack hanging off one shoulder, you made your way back out into the torturous heavy rain. Luckily for you, Robin only lived a ten-minute walk away from your house, and since it was only 1:30pm, assuming she hadn’t rushed home out of worry for your wellbeing, you could open her bedroom window and slip the note onto her bed.

You felt bad for leaving her like this, but it was the best thing for both of you. You would never live a peaceful life if you willingly put your girlfriend in danger. Even worse if she got physically hurt.

This wasn’t just exclusive to Jason’s group of hooligans. They were terrifying enough, but what about the rednecks and rich, snobby business owners who would shoot you on sight? Who you definitely couldn’t put up a fight with?

If you wanted to live a sapphic life, you needed to do that in a somewhat safer place. And that place was definitely not Hawkins.

Robin’s worries had been flying high ever since she saw that lonely half-eaten lunch tray reminiscing in the absence of you. She had to eat lunch alone for the first time in forever, and it was honestly torture without your presence around her.

As soon as that last bell rung signalling the end of the school day, she was out in a flash, shoving all of her books in her bag, not even bothering to switch anything out in her locker. She could organise that tomorrow. She needed to find you. And she needed to do it quickly.

The moment she noticed your car had disappeared, she was hopping right onto the school bus, praying that the journey would be fast, at least fast in her mind. She couldn’t let her concerns invade her brain much longer.

She practically sprinted into her bedroom, only saying a quick “Hi!” to her mom as she burst into the room.

Her plan was to head to the phone, immediately dialing your home phone number and impatiently waiting for you to answer on the other end.

But, the note was impossible not to spot. She knew it wasn’t hers. She keeps everything in her journal nice and neat.

She was nervous as hell, carefully picking up the piece of paper between her dampened fingertips and lifting up the top, revealing your disordered handwriting.

“Hi, my love.

These last few months have truly been amazing with you, but I really can’t be with you any longer.

This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me. I just need some time to myself to clear my thoughts, and I don’t think having this many burdens on my shoulder is helping our relationship in any way.

I’m sorry for putting all of this on you like this, and I’m sorry for being so much of a fucking coward not to say this to your face. I hate to have to end things like this.

I’m sorry, and I hope you find someone who is good for you one day.

Your Y/N.”

Robin couldn’t believe what she had just read. Did you really think that your problems were causing harm to her? She would listen to you talk and ramble for hours on end about anything from a life-changing major event, to a minor thing that ticked you off at school. In no way were you causing her life harm. If anything, she would happily sacrifice her own problems for yours. You were the most important thing in the world to her.

She couldn’t end the relationship like this. She didn’t want to end the relationship at all.

She needed to find you. She would search to the ends of the Earth to find you.

Shoving the note in her back pocket, she left the room she only entered a few minutes ago. It was her mission to find you. With a quick, panicked yell of “I’m heading to Y/N’s!” to her mom, Robin was dashing back out the front door with her bike helmet and riding off down the street.

She was not letting you go. She was gonna talk about this with you. She was going to find out what was truly wrong.

Robin felt as if she checked everywhere. She tried your house, Lover’s Lake, even the goddamn mall, yet you weren’t there.

Her worries were increasing, and she needed to find you fast, making sure you weren’t hurting yourself in any way.

The main roads in Hawkins seemed to be getting busier and busier as the end of the work day came ahead, so she decided to use one of the quieter routes to get back to her house. It was a dumb thought process, but she was just going to keep calling and calling when she got back home in hopes that even by the 100th ring, you would pick up and speak to her with that gorgeous voice of yours.

She was carefully riding down the road, trying not to let any of her emotions visibly show. She wasn’t that great of a rider, she couldn’t risk falling off her bike and scraping up her knees again.

But, that is when she saw you. You were cuddled up in a ball on the bus stop bench, the lack of shelter meaning your rain jacket was soaked through, your body practically shivering in the cold February rain. Beside you was your purple suitcase, seemingly packed to the brim, and your rucksack sat perched on your lap, desperately attempting to protect you from the harsh weather.

Robin basically fell off her bike, letting it crash to the ground, the wheels still spinning as she yelled, “Baby! Oh my God, are you okay?”

She tried to reach out for you, but your body immediately flinched away from her, your wrinkled fingers hugging your knees closer to your chest. It was now that Robin could see the stains of your teardrops creating violent patterns through your foundation, making themselves known to anyone who had access.

“Why are you crying, honey? What’s the matter?”

You remained silent, a few echoes of cries escaping your lungs, many sniffles seeking to recover from the intense emotion.

Robin felt as if she had no choice, reaching for the piece of paper that was in her back jean pocket, now a soaked mess from where the downpour had attacked her clothing.

“What is this?” she questioned, holding it in your line of sight, knowing that you could see it in your peripheral, “Why are you trying to escape me, baby?”

A few moments of silence pass, before a low whisper states: “I just can’t be with you anymore.”

Robin feels her mouth become instantly dry. What does that mean? Were you telling the truth in the letter? You couldn’t be… No way…

“Why not?” she delves deeper, “Because what you said in the letter doesn’t bother me at all, baby. I would listen to every worry on your mind. Don’t think you’re ever a burden to me, my love—”

“I just can’t be with you, okay?!”

The sudden outburst makes Robin’s heart break, but not more than the sound of the bus approaching, and you seemingly gathering up your things to flag it down.

Not even thinking, Robin grabs your jacket sleeve, almost touching her fingers to your palm, “Honey, wait a second.”

“Let go!” you yell in total fear. There were likely people on that bus, and obviously the driver. Why was she being so risky? You were gonna get her killed.

Robin’s eyes begin to well up, your sudden emotion really striking her off guard, “Talk to me, baby. Please! I can’t lose you!”

“I’m gonna get you killed!”

Robin’s stunned, lost for words. As if subconsciously, she waves her hand for the bus driver to continue on, not stopping for you. She doesn’t care if that was your plan, you obviously weren’t thinking logically and you were both emotionally and physically overwhelmed.

“What do you mean?” she says softly, almost at a whisper.

You sigh, using your sleeve to wipe away the tears before Robin could reach her own hands out to catch them herself, “A-At lunch today… Jason’s table were talking about a lesbian around here raping a minor. A-And of course that’s wrong if it’s true, but it’s what he said he would do to people like us which scared me…”

Robin shows a slight nod, encouraging you lovingly to continue, “H-He said he would hurt us. Attack us with his dad’s gun. K-Kill us. And I just thought about him or another person around here finding us at Lover’s Lake at night and me having no way to protect you, a-and I just couldn’t handle that, so I wanted to run away…”

Robin was about to reply, but you interrupted her once more, “Sorry, I just— I don’t think I can do that to you. I can’t put you in danger any more. I can’t change the fact that I am a lesbian and neither can you, but I can actively decide our fates. And I want you to live a happy and fulfilling life in the future.”

“But honey… I’m living that happy and fulfilling life right now,” Robin admits, taking a deep breath, “I love you.”

You shake your head, “You can’t! I’m gonna end up getting you hurt! You deserve to be safe!”

“I feel safe when I’m with you! Before I met you, I was scared more than ever!” Robin begins to raise her voice in pain and anguish, “And now, you make me feel so much safer, because you give me hope that everything is going to be okay someday. Yes, we may need to hide now, but in two years, I promise you we will be in a safer place, baby.”

“But what about Jason and the other homophobes around here? What if they hurt us?” you question in distress.

“Baby, I’d rather die tomorrow with you in my arms than die alone at ninety knowing that I let you go as a goddamn teenager.”

You slowly start coming to your senses, nodding as the tears continue to fall. You close your eyes as Robin checks her surroundings, before she cups your face and leans her forehead against yours.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, my love.”

“It’s okay, baby,” Robin whispers softly, “I love you. Two more years, okay? Just two more years of completely hiding.”

You nod, smiling weakly, “I love you too. Two years…”

taglist: @agxxb @robinsno1lesbian @agenderrat (no pressure for you to engage if this fic is too triggering for you <3)

[autism-alley]

augh found my old post abt pjo and disability from before the show came out but it was on ye olde blog so i’m literally just gonna copy and paste, 3, 2, 1—

ok now that i’ve got it on the brain, i want to talk about disability in pjo and specifically how calling percy jackson dumb or treating him as such is not only a mischaracterization, but ableism. as a quick note, i’m keeping this to just percy to avoid having this already long post be even longer, but there are other disabled characters in pjo worthy of discussion, though i hit many of the same points in this post. i bring up percy specifically because he is mostly the character i have seen people treat as stupid.

percy is a dyslexic teen with ADHD who comes from a low-income family, raised by a single mother, and deals with an abusive step-father. i cannot stress enough how much of his character is shaped by that experience, but as hard as it is to single out any one part, i am going to focus on his ADHD and dyslexia. this kid has nightmares of being forced to take tests in a straightjacket as teachers ask him if he’s stupid and withhold him from recess with his peers. he is constantly labelled as “troubled” and blamed for things he didn’t do or aren’t his fault. he is told, over and over again, even from trusted adults, that he is “not normal” (othering him). he bounces between schools. he struggles to make friends. he deals with bullying. he has difficulty studying and reading, even when invested. teachers struggle to connect with him and tend to just give up on him. these are real disabled experiences, and rick does a good job at presenting them in the pjo books. sometimes, it feels like everything is a struggle. you are living inside a system that not only is restricting, but actively works against and punishes you.

in contrast, CHB is a great example of how when environments meet the needs of disabled people, it hugely changes how disabled we are in that environment. demigod brains are hard-wired for ancient greek, not english, and they’re born impulsive, with high energy levels that help them survive battle—but aren’t very good for a classroom setting. but by having them read books in ancient greek, regularly do lots of training/physical activities, and have genuine opportunities to express themselves...they function pretty damn well. percy discovers that while he struggles academically, he is brilliant in combat and capable of saving the world numerous times—he is a hero. do you know how important that message is for disabled children? disabled adults, too? that we can be heroes?

it is here, in camp half-blood, that percy finds a place he belongs, that shows him his worth—finally, somewhere is built to not only include him, but to nurture and genuinely prepare him for the world outside its boarders. however, i think people forget that just because percy functions in the world of CHB and the gods, that does not mean he doesn’t face ableism in the mortal world—and that there is an entire group of people who see ourselves reflected in his character.

i could talk on for hours about how much being disabled shapes percy’s identity and how he interacts with the world—like how percy’s humor revolves around coping with his environment and actually displays a very low self esteem after being looked down upon his entire life. this kid doesn’t even have to say anything and he screams i had a neurodivergent childhood. but about 5-6 years ago, when i was more regularly tuned into the fandom, every time i saw someone call percy jackson dumb or an idiot, even jokingly, i raised an eyebrow, and now that the series is getting fresh coverage from disney+, i have wanted to make this post. so much of this kid’s life and personality comes from being treated like he’s dumb or incapable, so it’s troubling to watch part of the fanbase reflect the harmful parts of this character’s upbringing. i truly hope it does not become common again. it’s also one thing coming from a neurodivergent/disabled person with similar experiences (and even then i personally find it a little uncomfortable), it’s another to be said by a neurotypical/able bodied person.

percy jackson’s experiences make for very important representation, and for people to characterize him as just a goofy, unintelligent guy is not only an insult to his character as a kid who is intelligent, but previously lacked the environment to show it, but also ableist. so in the dawn of the new tv series era, i ask that we cut that shit out. rick riordan did not create rep for neurodivergent and disabled kids for them to be called stupid by the fanbase. even jokingly.

[hwaseonghwasworld]

Double life Part 1: Vengeance

Summary: Her whole life she was split from her twin sister and was adopted a mafia boss who taught her how to fight at a very young age to protect her, he died when she was 16 and killed the whole group that killed him and also my boyfriend, what happened when she finally meets her twin sister?

Yeosang x Reader

Word count: 2.05k

Genre: High School au, Fluff, Angst, smut

Warnings: Cursing, Smut, Violence, Mentions Of Suicide, Murder, Severe Torture, Mentions Of Bullying, Mentions Of Sexual Assault, Mentions Of Self Harm, Mentions Of Mental Health

Updates: Maybe Friday 7pm BST

Im So Y/n I’m 18 years old and I’m the leader of a mafia group my adoptive father used to own. My biological mom didn’t want me so now I’m the daughter of a highly dangerous mafia boss. I was split from my sister at birth since the woman didn’t want to deal with twins as a single mother so she gave me up. My boyfriend that was killed by the same group is the father of my baby that is now almost 2 years old. My son’s name is Minjun and I will always protect him no matter what.

I have people that check on my twin sister Mi-joo because I want her protected since she’s a very frail girl, I recently found out that our mother has been abusing her for every little thing she does, and she’s been getting bullied by four girls their names are So-min, Hajun Jiyun and Chae-yoon, they had beaten her tho the point where she was put in the hospital.

I was with her as she was passed out in the hospital bed “I told you guys to watch over her, by that I mean stop ANYONE that tried to hurt her!” I cross my legs and put my index finger and thumb in the bridge of my nose, I beckoned them to leave and that’s exactly what they do.

Mi-joo woke up and looked at me in shock seeing that I’m the exact copy of her except that I have short hair and I have long hair. “W-who are you….?” I look at her and held her hand “I’m your twin, and I’m here to help you get your revenge” “what do you mean?” I look at her determined to keep her safe “I’ve seen the videos of those girls bullying you and I know your mother also treats you badly so please let me do this for you” she nodded and my body guard bought me the school uniform and I was ready to go to the school tomorrow.

I took Mi-joo to my home and she saw my son with my secretary and smiled “who’s this cutie” she smiled and squished his cheek, “he’s your nephew” she looked at me shocked “you had a child?!” “Yeah it’s a long story, the father died…” “do you wanna talk about me” she looked at me with sympathy “not right now, because right now is for you to tell me who else has been hurting you” she sighed and nodded “the girls names are-“ “So-min, Jiyun, Hajun and Chae-yoon, I know… I found all their details and information, is there anyone else” she looked surprised and nodded “there’s this teacher. He keeps touching me and I keep trying to tell him that I’ll call the police but he won’t leave me alone and he gets aggressive.”

Hearing that made my blood boil, I wanted to kill that man and I wanted to do it painfully. “And then there’s mom as well” I look at her and held her shoulder “Mi-joo shii, don’t worry, I’ll make sure they all get what they deserve” Mi-joo nodded and smiled at me. The next day I got ready and made my way to the school.

Everyone looked at me and I gave them all a cold look, I didn’t come here to make friends so I didn’t care about being friendly, I walked into the classroom and looked at the desk that had Mi-joo’s name on it but it was written in pen and had horrible things on it. The 4 girls walked up to me and I immediately knew that So-min was the leader of those bitches.

“Do you like what we did? It’s a little get well soon present…. Just. For. You” she laughed and that laugh was the same one as the girl that was videoing my sister getting tortured. I grabbed her head and slammed it into my sisters desk, I watched as the three girls tried to get me off her but instead I kicked them away causing So-min to scream for me to stop. I look at her and pull her hair.

“You know what? Since you like laughing so much, why don’t you laugh for me!” I took my phone out and pinned her head on the desk, she was scared but I push it harder causing her to do as I say, she finally laughs and I video it, I let go of her and as I was walking to the back by the door to sit in that seat and as I was walking a male student walked in at the same time, we looked over at each other for a brief second but my eyes drifted away as soon as I sat down I airdropped the video to everyone in the class and everyone but the group of bullies were laughing.

The walked in and everyone stopped laughing “what’s so funny?” Everyone stayed silent making her introduce the guy I was looking at who is knew and his name is Kang Yeosang. The whole time in school I was following the rapist teacher, I found out that he had asthma, and seeing his schedule I found out that he’s usually alone during homeroom and lunch, after school I decided to meet with mother dearest.

I’ve never been inside of the house but I wouldn’t have never thought that she was the cause of Mi-Jo’s depression and that she was one of the reasons why Mi-joo was cutting herself. Knowing this made me angrier and angrier. As soon as I stepped into the house the toxic bitch slapped me. “Why haven’t you been at home and what did you do to your hair!!” I started fake crying and apologizing to see if she will have some sympathy for her own daughter but she just slapped me again making me laugh.

“What the fuck is wrong with you” she had said to me and I cross my arms, “you hurt my baby sister… now it’s your turn” she looked at me confused then she realized “Y/n….” the people in my group appeared behind her and knocked her out, they picked her up and tied her arms together behind her back and tied her leg to the leg of the chair. I decided to make her feel what Mi-joo felt, I slit her wrists and I wanted her to wake up so I pored freezing cold water over her head causing he to wake up and cream in pain, I held a lighter close to her face and put it down to her hand and burnt her finger tips.

“Why did you even have kids in the first place?” She looked at me and smirked “are you wandering why I put you up for adoption? It’s because i didn’t love you both, twins were too much to handle and I needed a child so they can help me clean up” I looked at her and sat down on the chair opposite to her “hmmm I should kill you right now” I looked down at the gun that I took out and started playing with it, her smirk turned into death as she begged me not to kill her and started going on about how she loved me and Mi-joo which made me laugh. “But that’s too easy and I don’t want you to give you the easy way out” I looked over at the guys “guys leave her here until I come back”

I drove home and as soon as I got there I saw my Minjun playing with my sister. As soon as he saw me he ran to my arms and I smile kissing his cheek. “What happened today?” I looked at her as I sat on the couch “I beat up those girls tortured our evil mother and now I’m thinking about slowly killing that teacher” she looked over at me “are you gonna kill our mother…?” “Do you want me to?” She shook her head and I nodded “okay but I’ll make sure she stays quiet” Mi-joo nods.

The day flew by quickly and I was getting ready to go to school, I kiss my sons cheek and hugged my sister telling her that I’m torture the girl and the teacher which she disagreed with but my mission and her sister is to help her and keep her safe. As soon as I got to the school I immediately went to go find the teacher. I had my knife with me and once I walked passed the teachers lounge he knew to follow me. Went into the classroom and I sat down on the table crossing my legs.

“Whats wrong Mi-joo? You’ve gotten better now, so we can carry on-“ I tilt my head and acted like Mi-joo “I don’t want to carry on….” I looked down and he walked to me and put his hand on my chin, “well it’s not your choice” I glared at him and punched his face making him groan in pain “see that’s what I like to hear, since you decided to hurt my sister I’ll gladly watch you suffer” he starts getting an asthma attack and I walked further away from him sitting on a different table “oh… right you need your inhaler?” I had the inhaler in my hand as I had gloves on, he was slowly walking to me and I put the inhaler next to me watching him collapse on the floor as he was slowly loosing air. I giggle as I watched as he was slowly looking his breath as he was getting closer and closer to the inhaler “come on, you can do it. Just. Keep. Crawling” I smirked as he lost all his breath and had died practically right besides me, I stood up and left the inhaler down on the floor breaking it.

As I was walking out Yeosang came in “is he dead?” I looked over at him acting like I was upset “y-yeah, he was getting aggressive so I punched him and fell on his inhaler… I guess he had an asthma attack-“ “I know who you are” I looked at him with a cold stare “I’m like you… Y/n” I sighed and approached him pulling my knife out and had it to his neck, he smirked grabbing my arm and slowly putting my arm down.

“This school is boring and I want to help you” I step closer to him “what do you mean” “you’re one of the most powerful mafias who inherited all the money and power from your adoptive father, who taught you how to fight and kill at a young age, and is only and this school for one thing…. Revenge. Am I right?” I glare at him “how do you know so much about me?” “I have my ways… anyway can I help you?” I look at him now wanting him to help cause I’m not doing it as a proper mission “it’s for my sister” “I know, so please can I help” I look at him unsure if I can let him join “I’ll think about it”

The bell had rang so I walked back to my seat, I watched as everyone ran out after someone had said that teacher is dead in a classroom which people wanted to see the scene sing the police were on there way. “Y/n you have to leave” “why?” He held my had and was trying to get me out of the school “the police are on there way, there gonna think you did it” I looked at him and he genuinely looked worried so I reassured him that I didn’t physically kill him”

“He had an asthma attack” “then how would you explain the bruise on his nose?” I sighed and sat in my seat “he tried to threaten me and hurt me so I punched him so I could run away, he fell onto his inhaler and he had an asthma attack and died, see and anyway if they think they got me, I have connections on the police force” I said this to him with a straight face and just tickets my head and smiled.

“Y/n….” I turn around seeing someone that I thought I’d never see again.

🥀

Next part

Main Masterlist

[creationcitystreet-em]

Foolish One

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Latina Reader

Summary: You are pining after Eddie as you two get to know each other post high school. AU, could be modern but I don't think I get specific enough for it to matter so it could also be 80s

A/N: This was supposed to be shorter, but really it's just an incredibly self indulgent post high school AU with Eddie. It's not my best work, but I'm going through some stuff in my personal life and it was cathartic writing it out pretending it's about Eddie and not a real person, so that's what I did and I thought sharing it could maybe be fun

Warnings: angst, (mutual?) pining, fluff (if you squint), not a happy ending (I'm sorry, if I have to suffer with my feelings than so do all of you)

Also kinda based on a Taylor Swift Song: Foolish One (TV, From the Vaut)

words:~2200

Masterlist

You knew of Eddie while in high school. How couldn’t you? It was a small town where almost everyone knew each other. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t in your class or that you had never spoken a single word to each other, you knew of him because everyone knew of him. Since you didn’t really know him, you never had the highest opinion of him either. All you saw was the trouble making metal head who was terrible at school and sold drugs on the side. Not that you were one to judge, you didn’t know his life and he never seemed to cause anyone else harm. You just knew you never would have clicked and your friend groups never crossed paths anyway. It wasn’t until two years after you graduated high school, attending a college in Indianapolis and working a job on the side to support yourself that you finally officially met Eddie. He had transferred stores from your hometown to the location in Indianapolis. You were an assistant manager at this store and it just so happened to be that Eddie was an assistant manager as well. When you heard the announcement of his transfer, your ears perked up at recognizing the name. 

“I know him,” you had said to your work friend. “We went to high school together.”

“Oh nice, is he good at his job?” your friend asked you. “I’m not sure. I mean he didn’t have what I would call the best work ethic in school so I’m surprised he’s a manager now. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes.” You were less than enthused, hoping your job didn’t get harder because someone on the team was a notorious slacker. 

However, as it turned out, Eddie was an amazing coworker. You worked a lot with him, and got to know him for the first time. He was smart and funny and an overall good person. He was in Indianapolis building a fanbase for his band and also earning more money so he could go to a bigger city and hopefully make it big. The two of you shared a lot of similar interests and cared a lot about the same things. You both had this drive for justice, Eddie was a big attendee of protests in the name of different causes and organizations, and you were planning to become a lawyer one day to work for an organization that would help immigrants in situations where they couldn’t afford one. 

He expressed concern for you when you were overly stressed with school and work and tried his best to help alleviate that stress where he could. You also became friends outside of work as he invited you to a few protests he knew you would feel passionate about, and you had enjoyed some nights out with him and some other managers at your store. And it only took a few months to realize that you had developed feelings for Eddie, but that wasn’t a revelation you were very happy about. 

It just so happened to be that Eddie was already dating someone else, and they seemed very happy together being they had been together for about a year already. She had also gone to your high school but while Eddie was only a year younger than you so you had at least known of him, she was a few years younger and you didn’t even recognize her name. Turns out she was living in Cincinnati attending college to be a teacher, and he tried to spend any free time they had to go visit her. 

It made you sad, but you tried to brush it off quickly, scoffing at the absurdity of you dating Eddie anyway. He was friendly to you because he was friendly to everyone at work. You guys had become friends, but it was clear he loved his girlfriend, and you would never be one to break a couple up. Besides, you were too busy to date anyway. You had tried a few times since starting college and they never lasted that long. 

However, no matter how much you tried, you could not stop the bubbly feelings you got every time the two of you spoke about your shared interests, or when you joked about the mundane parts of your job, or when you felt a sense of calmness, happiness, and acceptance whenever you were around him. And with the way he increasingly spent time with you and seemed to feel so comfortable and happy around you as well, you began to see patterns that maybe indicated he felt the same way for you. Like whenever you caught him staring at you while the two of you worked on paperwork in the office, or when he would blush at a compliment or a daring tease sent his way.

“Oh so you’re like a nerd?” You teased one day at work when he had told you about DnD and all the time he’s spent running campaigns. He gawked at you in fake offense.

“Excuse me? Those are strong words coming from someone who got straight As all through high school.”

“And how do you know that?” you asked, surprised because you assumed he never gave you a second thought in high school.

“Are you kidding? How could I not?” he looked at you like you were the crazy one in this situation and not the other way around.

“What are you talking about? It’s not like I went around bragging about my grades to the whole school.”

“No,” he said with a smirk. “But anyone who paid any attention to you could tell you were smart and cared a lot about school. But it makes sense, you have a lot of dreams you’re working towards. Need to do well in school to achieve those.”

“You paid attention to me?” You asked in a brief moment of curiosity overriding your nerves. Now it seemed to be his turn to get flustered.

“I mean, like I said, it wasn’t hard for most people to notice.” The conversation died down as the two of you went back working, but your mind could not focus on anything but Eddie. You felt stupid for constantly convincing yourself that he might feel the same way you did. You wished you were better at deciphering other people’s feelings and that you had the confidence to confront him about it. Your hopeless romantic feelings were just going to end up hurting you more in the long run and you needed to stop letting yourself dwell on something that would never happen. 

You got better at it by focusing more on school and work than before. That was what you needed to do anyway to accomplish your goals. Silly thoughts of whether a boy liked you or not was just a distraction, especially when that boy was already clearly in love with someone else. You thought you had gotten better at pushing down your feelings for him, but you were proven wrong when it was a little over a year after you had been working together and your work best friend realized what was going on. 

“You like Eddie!” She exclaimed as you tried to shush her down so nobody else heard as you were taking inventory at work.

“Ok, yes I like Eddie, but you gotta keep it down ok? I don’t want anyone else to know about it.” 

“But why?! You two would be perfect together, everyone else should know about it so the two of you can get together! It’s obvious he likes you too!”

“What? Are you crazy? He doesn’t like me, we’re just friends. Besides, he’s been with his girlfriend from back home for over two years now. It’s not going to happen.”

“I heard they aren’t doing well right now,” she said.

“What?” You froze at the news, not having heard that yet. But it wasn’t like he talked about his relationship to you often. Maybe something had happened and you didn’t know about it. “Where did you hear that?”

“Kim said she overheard him talking to Brandon last week about it. They’re both really busy with work and school and his band, they don’t see each other enough anymore. It’s causing problems in their relationship.” You pondered over this information for a bit, not sure how to take it. You hated how it gave you a glimmer of hope, maybe they’ll break up and something could happen between you two. You shook your head at the thought. Eddie was your friend, how could you hope he gets his heart broken by ending his relationship.

“It doesn’t matter, I’m sure they’ll work it out. Besides, I’m too busy to start a relationship either.”

“Okay, whatever you say,” she gave you a knowing look and you sighed as you felt your heart continue to hope for something to possibly work out in your favor. 

Months later, when you were spending time with Eddie, you gave into your curiosity and brought up his relationship. You pretended you didn’t already hear about the problem, and just asked how his girlfriend was doing. He confessed that things were rough as they barely had time to see each other anymore. Seeing him so upset about it broke your heart and made you feel guilty for wanting them to break up. It was obvious that the distance was making it difficult for them. 

You swallowed your feelings and tried to give him some advice. He seemed grateful for that, but it sounded like the two of them were just too busy to make each other a priority anymore, and it also even seemed like they didn’t want to make each other a priority anymore either. It made you wonder if maybe they would be better off just breaking up. Not for you to swoop in and date him, but maybe they both would be happier apart. It sounded to you like they were just together out of familiarity at this point. They had been together for years now, it was hard for them to picture themselves not together so they just ignored how unhappy both of them were. You didn’t tell him these thoughts though, not trusting yourself to be seeing it from an unbiased perspective. And so they stayed together and you stayed pining after a guy you probably would never get to be with.

Sooner than you expected, graduation came around and you were preparing to move to Chicago in pursuit of your law degree. You were excited for this next big step, but also very sad to have only one summer left in Indiana with the friends you had there, especially Eddie. 

Despite your efforts, your feelings for him had only grown more and more over the two years you two worked together. But logic had to win over feelings. How could it even work out for you two even if you did end up together? You weren’t going to stay behind just to stay with Eddie, and you wouldn’t ask Eddie to go with you to Chicago. If by some act of god, the two of you actually got together over the summertime, you would just be split again by years of law school and it would have ruined your friendship for nothing. 

Sometimes you wished you were the type of person to do anything for the chance at love, but you weren’t. You had a plan and dating Eddie didn’t work in that plan, so there was no point in even trying. That’s not how your friend saw it though.

“You’re gonna tell him how you feel right? I mean your chances are running out, you have to at least try!” As much as you wanted to agree with her, you just couldn’t. 

“No, I already made up my mind, I’m not gonna do that.”

“But you two are meant for each other!”

“Maybe,” you sighed in exasperation. “But let’s say you’re right. Let’s say he leaves his girlfriend of 3 years for me. Then what?! I leave for law school at the end of July, we’d be living almost 4 hours away from each other, and we’d be having the same issues that he’s having with her right now.” She gives you a sympathetic look and it’s enough to cause the tears to start forming in your eyes. You let the last bit of romantic hope in your heart out as you continued to explain “I have to hope that what we have is special enough to come back to. Maybe one day it’ll be the right time and place for us. But that’s not right now. So I can’t ruin what we have by telling him how I feel, I just can’t.” 

And with that, it was over. You left for school, kept in touch with your old friends, but distance was hard on any kind of relationship. Of course you couldn’t help but think “what if” with Eddie, but it didn’t matter anymore. The two of you had grown apart and that was that.

[idontplaytrack]

MY CHARMED ONE [1]

Capri Donahue x Harper Sibling!fem reader

Warnings: Mentions/descriptions of death, implied self-harm & eating disorder, mentions of smut, coarse language.

First of several parts. Tells the story of how reader and Capri’s relationship began.

You remembered the day of Capri’s accident like it was yesterday. It was Tuesday morning. You’d just finished your last class before lunch, so you were headed from your Social Studies classroom down the hall from the school gymnasium to the gym. You made your way to the bleachers and sat down, greeting your sister Darby’s gym teacher on the way. It was like clockwork- the two of you had lunch together every Tuesday and Thursday. Those were also the days you were closest to Capri Donahue, the girl you’ve had a crush on ever since you started at Frederick Douglas High. Your sister Darby, and Capri were a year older and you hadn’t been able to see Capri for several years after they stopped being friends following the passing of your mother. Capri used to hang out with Darby every other day- they were best friends, until they weren’t and became enemies. Right up till the day she died.

You hear Darby asking where her clothes were. Then Capri says something, which you couldn’t hear. But then Darby gets her clothes back. Barely a few seconds later, the bloodcurdling screams you could never forget rang through the whole gym. You ran the mere few feet to the locker room, and Darby screamed for you to get out. But it was too late- the fear had you paralysed, as it did the rest. Youcould only watch. You watched Capri get electrocuted. From that point on, it was as though you blacked out- everything was a blur. Everyone who saw the accident was sent home early, but you were too anxiously waiting for any updates. And Darby outwardly judged you for it, finding it strange.

And then, the news came from your Dad. He’d just received a call and told you both that Capri’s barely made it to the hospital and despite their efforts to resuscitate her, she’s was gone. She was gone and never coming back. And you held onto what possibly was the biggest regret- you never got to tell her how you felt, and she even asked you out but you thought it was a prank after mentioning it to your sister. You felt like you were getting crushed from the inside out, your heart harshly ripped from your chest as you tried so hard to breathe. You don’t hear anything from Darby but you knew someone caught you in their arms. Your Dad. He held you as you sobbed.

Soon, it was nighttime and you were in bed. You’d been in your room for the past 10 hours. You were writing in your journal when a bottle of your perfumes got knocked off your desk. You gasped, startled as you looked up. The window was closed. As you repeatedly told yourself you were imagining things, it happens again. And again, and again. Every bottle of your perfumes were now on the ground. Darby barges in and told you to quit it, and you told her you weren’t doing anything.

“Then what is all that noise?” She sighed. You pointed to the bottles on the carpeted floor. “I didn’t do that, Darby.” You told her, getting a chill down your spine abruptly, smelling a familiar scent in the room. You shared a look with Darby, “Do you smell that too?”

She nods and closed your door. “That’s Capri’s perfume,”

“I know that.” She chided in a whisper.

You shut your eyes, too scared to continue looking and when you opened them, you got an even bigger shock. Capri Donahue, sitting at your desk. Were you thinking of her that much?

She turned to look at you, giving you a cheeky smile and wave. Strange. You wanted to scream, but nothing comes out of your mouth. You pointed at the girl, Darby’s eyes follow your finger. “Why- why is she here. Why can I see her? Darby, Darby, why-”

As much as you were totally freaked out by Capri’s presence, you couldn’t look away. You two locked eyes…she was sad, almost too sad. Darby was just as bewildered as you were. All along, Darby’s been the only one able to see dead people. “Capri, why can I see you?”

“I don’t know.” She told you with a shrug, “But the rumours are true, huh? Darby? You can see the dead.”

“And apparently, so can my sister.” She scoffs, a hand rubbing your back. “What do you want?”

“You need to help me. I don’t know why I’m still here.” Capri revealed.

“Can you two please carry on this conversation in your room, Darby? My head feels like it’s about to explode and me seeing a ghost is not helping how I feel about this whole day.” You begged, looking between the two of them. You feel Capri’s gaze linger on you, then a twinge in your heart. You glanced back at her and saw her face- there was a frown, as though she was hurt by your request…but it couldn’t be. She didn’t like you. No, that’s not possible. She hated people like you. The nobodies, the nerds, the freaks…

“Okay, y/n.” Darby got up from her spot beside you, “Let’s go, Capri. Let her have a minute.”

————

The rest of the night flew by peacefully. Well, you did cry yourself to sleep as her accident kept replaying itself in your head, but you made it through the night and eventually woke up after a dream that felt way too real- a freaking montage of what could’ve been yours an Capri’s relationship.

“How are you feeling? After last night?” Darby asks when she sees you walking down the stairs.

“Huh?” You asked her in return, looking around the house. “Dad’s left for work.” Darby answered. “Oh.” You sat down at the dining table.

“Capri didn’t bother you last night, did she?” Darby questioned.

“What do you mean?” You asked again.

“Oh, my God.” Darby huffs, “Capri.”

The dead girl appears right in front of you, like she just spawned in. “Holy shit. That wasn’t a dream?” You stared at your sister, wide-eyed. “Nope.” Darby tells you, “You don’t remember?”

“I know she died. I remember crying, but I don’t even remember how I ended up in my room and asleep. I must’ve been way too out of it.” You sighed, rubbing your eyes. Capri died. Right. There was that twinge in your heart again. That look on her face again. She was sad, but doesn’t say anything. “Can you see her?”

“I can. God, why?” You asked to no one in particular, “I can’t help.”

“I cannot move on and I can’t figure out why.” Capri said, “We stayed up all night to figure it out, but nothing.”

“I think you mean me. I stayed up all night. You’re just a ghost.”

“No!” You exclaimed, you didn’t even process what you said.

“Okay, you have been acting weird. Especially for the death of someone you barely knew.” Darby scoffs.

“I cannot help what I feel. It’s like if she feels said, I feel it too.” You stated.

“I have no idea why that’s the case, but-”

“Help me, please.” She actually said please, tears brimmed at her eyes. You feel the same way she did, you watch her. Wondering why you were feeling everything she felt.

“Darby, I feel terrible. I’m feeling everything she’s feeling on top of my own emotions. You have to fix this.” You informed your sister.

“I’ve been trying to do that for the past seven hours, y/n. I don’t know how to do that yet, whatever it is.” Darby sighs, “Have your breakfast first.”

“I’m not hungry.” You answered flatly.

“I don’t care, you need to eat. It’s been more than half a day since you ate anything.” Darby insisted. So, you gave in and ate what she’d prepared: a bowl of oatmeal with chocolate chips, peanut and honey. As you hesitantly ate, the more you began to feel something else, something completely new. Knowing the culprit, you turned your head to look at Capri unhappily. But it wasn’t like she could help it. “Capri, stop it. I don’t like this feeling.” You warned. Alarmed, Darby watched the two of you, “What the hell’s going on?”

“You ask her, she’s getting aroused.” You shrugged unfazed.

“Ookay, didn’t know that was something I’d be hearing today, but alright.” Darby nearly chokes on her water as she unsteadily puts down the glass. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“Who are you asking?” You and Capri inquired, almost in unison.

“Actually, both of you.” Darby decided. “It seems you two have been hiding a little something of your own.”

“Don’t you think it’s fucking weird that I - I saw her first?” You blabbed, you spoon falling back into the bowl from your hand with a clatter sound.

“Harsh.” Capri exhaled sharply.

“Okay, before you break anything in my house. I’d have to say it’s quite strange. She’s never had this ability, so why now? With you?” Darby glares at Capri, “And my sister feels everything you feel. Even I can’t feel anything- not from you, not from any deado ever.”

You shifted in your seat uncomfortably as you felt the heat rushing through your body, and Darby seems to have noticed, urging either of you to speak up. “I…may have a crush on your sister.”

Your eyes felt like they were going to bulge out of your head, while Darby feels the colour drain from her cheek as that piece of information rang through her mind. “What?” She mumbled.

“Awhile ago, like, I dunno. Six months after James dumped me, I started having a lot of times on my hands…not just being focused on a boy anymore. I noticed y/n, how flustered and shy she got around me. I catch her stealing glances and she bolts. Like I’d kill her.” Capri quite literally spilled her guts out to you and Darby. You never would’ve guessed this would happen. “So I asked her out, just to hang out. It wasn’t a date or anything. I mean, it couldn’t hurt to get to know someone and see where things lead…but now, that’s not possible and it fucking hurts!”

The last words- she screamed it. Darby’s glass shatters because of it, she rolled her eyes. “You’re on the news…” Darby says, pointing towards the TV. “Turn the volume up.” You sniffled, telling Darby. But before Darby got ahold of the remote, Capri was the one who increased the TV’s volume with a flick of her fingers.

“I thought you were dead.” Darby said, to no one in particular.

Capri scoffs, “Ugh, I look terrible.”

“Capri, that says you’re not dead. You’re just unconscious- your heart started beating again.” Darby continued.

“Hello? We’re hearing the same things you are, Harper. I don’t get it. Why am I…this? What, am I? A spirit?”

“Whatever, I called Alex to come over to help me out with this.” Darby was annoyed, but also equally befuddled.

“I like Capri. I like girls. And I’m scared and uncomfortable as fuck, Capri would you please just stop-!” you rambled. She interrupted you, kissing you on the lips to act on her desire.

“Oh, my fucking God.” Darby laughs, sitting down on the couch, away from you two. But as soon as she sat down, the doorbell rang. Darby scurries to the door, but not before shoving you and Capri upstairs. “I’ll fill him in, and stall him. We’ll uh, stay- stay away from upstairs.” Darby said awkwardly.

————

“You finally said it.” Capri smirked, “You do like me.” As soon as you walked into your room, Capri shut the door with her telekinesis, then pushed you onto the mattress the same way, slowly. It was bizarre. You could see her and you could feel her, but yet when you reached out to touch her, you couldn’t feel a thing. Your hand just went right through her…like she was a hologram.

“Oh, God. What the fuck did I do? What the fuck am I doing?” You sniffed, eyes brimming with tears once more. You were feeling a shit ton of things, making your mind an even bigger mess with Capri inevitably turning you on. You weren’t sure what to feel. So many emotions at once…all you could feel was the overwhelming urge to scream and screw your eyes shut, hoping all of this would magically disappear. But you know it wouldn’t. This was real life.

“Capri, please. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please- please leave me alone. I can’t take it and I don’t know how to help you.” You pleaded tearfully. Her face softens, “Why are you doing this to me?”

The waterworks began once you notice her start to weep, then came the twinge in your chest. Again. Capri sits down on your mattress. “y/n, I don’t know why you can see me like this. I did not choose for this to happen, for you to be able to feel what I feel. You have to believe me.”

“You’re supposed to be lying in the hospital. I just- I don’t get how I’m supposed help you, i don’t get how is it that I can feel you but not touch you. How is it that you can touch me, or kiss me. I- I- just, I’m sorry nothing makes sense and I feel like I’m losing my mind.” You continued crying.

“I should’ve noticed you sooner.” She brushes the hair out of your face and you jump in your seat, startled. Capri cups your cheek, “I let the power of being popular ruin me. I failed to properly see the world as it is, and not just the version I curated.”

“You really like me?” You asked meekly, feeling the snot dripping out and causing you to quickly sniff.

“I do. I like you, and if you’re willing to give me another chance, once I wake up from that coma…we’re going on a first date.” Capri smiles, her usual bitchy demeanour was gone in a split second.

Your emotions were still mirroring hers but it was no longer overwhelming. Was it because her arousal died down and more importantly, that what needed to be said was finally said? You weren’t given too much time to think before she kisses you again. You didn’t even have to say anything now that you could practically read her mind, giving her a nod, you reciprocated her advances as she turned the lock on your door with ease, again, without even going up to it.

Quickly, the intense heat and desire for her returned. She was making you feel this way, but not entirely a knowing that you had a big fat crush on her and that you had her in your bedroom was making your heart race like crazy…you wonder if she could feel that too. Or if your new found gift was one-sided. Capri grabs your hand and places it on her chest, “You feel that? You’re the one making me feel like my heart’s about to leap out of my chest.”

You squirmed beneath the girl, gnawing onto your lower lip, “Forgive me for sounding totally crude, but you know what we’re both feelings and what you want is what I want, so for the love of God, take me now. I feel like I’m going to explode, Capri.” You rattled on, “As weird as this is, it’s the only way we’ll be able to feel any relief unless we can magically just not feel anything.”

Capri chuckles smugly before she attacks you with another kiss, this time one far from gentle. Here’s the thing, though, the more you saw her, the more you were reminded that she wasn’t an actual person with you right now. So what did you do, you shut your eyes and let her take control. You’d been dreaming, no- fantasising about this happening one day but it never did seem remotely possible till right now.

Holy fucking shit.

[catboybiologist]

Holy fuck this got long.

@glorhatransgal asked about my "queer timeline", and I'm making a separate post for reblog control. Feel free to engage in the replies or my DMs, though! I'm a pretty open book, except some stuff I would rather leave to DMs.

The tl;Dr is that I think I knew from the time I started puberty, but I had a weird commitment to suppression and misery. I've only managed to tackle that feeling in the past year or so, and I still need to socially transition.

Long long thing under the cut with mental health CWs!!!!!

I'm pretty sure the first awareness I had of queerness was when California proposition 8 was a thing, in the 2008 election. I was ~10 or 11 at the time, and asked my mom what the big deal with letting two men marry was. She explained a bit, explained that "you'll like girls when you get older but you shouldn't judge what other people do" and then emphasized that I shouldn't really ever worry about dating or relationships ever because I should focus on school.

That was a HUGE underlying theme, not just from my parents, but from the area I grew up in overall. Very high academic pressure just kinda.... Oozed out of everywhere, without any one specific parent or teacher particularly overemphasizing it (with notable exceptions). This came up a lot, and made me feel stupid or vain for engaging in any other aspects of my personality, including queerness.

I remember having some semblance of trans thoughts back in Middle School, without ever learning what trans people are explicitly. None of the adults in my life wanted to discuss the subject, mostly brushing it off as "it's something other people do and you shouldn't judge them". Very little explicit hate, to be fair, which is good. But a lot of changing the subject. So to me, it felt like basic vanity- eg, a shallow desire to be "pretty" that everyone had, of course, that I just needed to get rid of to focus on academics.

And of course, on top of that, I was more tech literate than the average kid. So my head was stuffed with the.... Unique.... Perspective on queerness, particularly trans people, provided by the unrestricted wilderness of the 2009-2016 internet. Since no adult in my life would really address it, it gave me a lot of really bad perspectives on the whole thing.

I'm not quite sure when bisexuality entered the picture, but I called myself "straight with exceptions" from the ages of 14 to 21 at least. My earliest clear memory of being attracted to a man was when I saw Aragorn in LotR for the first time (can you blame me?). If you want to make fun of my little nerd ass more, my first distinct attraction to a woman was probably Padme's midriff outfit in Attack of the Clones. Again, since my head was stuffed with weird ideas of queerness, gayness was often portrayed as a disgust or lack of attraction to women. I didn't have that, so I couldn't be queer, right? "Straight with an asterisk" it was.

Dysphoria kinda crackled in the background and grew as I went through puberty. The way I've described it is that my "resting state" was never happy pre-HRT. I could easily make myself happy and distract from it, but I didn't "come home" to a good feeling. Not an overwhelming feeling, not a suicidal one, but just being miserable in the background if there wasn't something to make me happy.

So when I hit a wall with my mental health in high school, it ended very poorly. I was in mostly advanced programs until then, but couldn't keep up due to things I *now* realize were ADHD symptoms. I had ongoing physical health problems that meant orthopedic surgeries, multiple extended times on crutches, limping around a lot, and ongoing pain and lack of physical ability that most people couldn't see, making me feel hopeless about my body and future. Add in a nice little dysphoria bundle in the background of all of that…and yeah. That's the self harm and suicidal period of my life. I was very weird in high school, oscillating between AP classes and almost failing out. I was also really just... Nasty to a lot of people around me, as a shield for how miserable I was. So uh, if you knew me in high school and stumble across this somehow... I am truly sorry. But I made it through, mostly through the patience and good graces of friends and teachers.

Anyways. I'm on a tangent.

Undergrad wasn't that memorable for my queerness- I lived at home while attending a local state college, and dated one cis girl for about a year there. Years later she told me that she realized she's bi, so that was kinda validating. I dove a lot into a academics, research, and volunteering to distract myself, and was academically successful.

I was asked out by a gay guy at one point in undergrad. He was someone who I had talked about my uncertain sexuality with and helped me work towards calling myself bi. When he asked me out, I got a bad vibe, and told him I actually thought I was straight. He was later arrested for rape. So uh... Bullet dodged? After his arrest, I started openly calling myself bisexual, but didn't really do anything with it- no dating and no community. It was a long time coming by that point, and the experience made me realize that I didn't have to be attracted to *all* men to say I'm attracted to men. After all, I wasn't attracted to all women either.

I graduated from undergrad in 2020 and stayed at the same uni for my MS. And this is where we enter "how much do I say" territory. My MS was instrumental in figuring out my transness, but was also a fucked up ongoing situation that involves several other people's dirty laundry that I don't necessarily want to air. I can talk a bit more about this in DMs if I know you and trust you, I guess. Sorry OP. So uuuhhh... Let's just say that I was extremely miserable and living mostly alone, so in the Fall of 2020, I ordered my first skirt to try and alleviate that background misery. I called myself a femboy as a last ditch effort to “just be a feminine man”. It was a key part of figuring myself out, though, and I loved the online community I made that way. About a year afterwards, I was having a shit time, and started the CatboyBiologist account on reddit to distract myself from it. I worked more and more from home, and would dress up as a "femboy" as I did.

I graduated from my MS in 2022 in a miserable state, probably worse than I was even as a teen. But it made me realize three things: one, some kind of mental illness made it really easy for my life to derail, two, my dysphoria made it such that *when* my life derailed, I had nothing to be happy about, and three, my weird standards growing up gave me the subconscious sense that I HAVE to be miserable, otherwise I'm not "accomplished" or whatever.

That's kind of the theme of my queer experience. I always knew it was there, but I excused it as "stupid" or just ignored it because I thought everyone was supposed to be miserable by default.

When I entered my PhD, I made a promise to myself to get rid of my weird connection to misery, and actually work on the first two. I joined a grad student queer group and started therapy almost immediately. At first the focus of therapy was essentially immediate trauma support. Slowly, however, I was able to tackle the underlying issues in therapy. I also brought my "femboy" fits to events organized by that queer org, and social events with the friends I made there. I fully engaged in my bisexuality and had a hot girl summer last year, dating men, women, and enbies for the first time since my undergrad GF.

Oh, and btw. Being a feminine man gets you laid. I'm sorry, it's just how it is. Take notes, alpha males, and put on the fucking dress.

With that support, I finally started HRT in August of last year, at the age of 25. I'm still a mix of boymode and girlmode- I girlmode around queer friends, and boymode most of the time otherwise. I've also told several people that I'm transitioning, but just to treat me as a man for now and wait for me to come out more publicly. My plan is to take a hiatus from my PhD this summer, and use that to travel and socially transition. So that's my upcoming landmark experience.

Up until this past month or so, I was the happiest I've ever been. Some out of the blue bad things happened this January. But I realized something- for the first time ever, bad shit happened in my life, and I didn't derail. I was sad. I cried. I was frustrated. I yelled. I had dynamic emotions and handled it. That's never happened before.

Obviously it's always an ongoing process, and it's linked to so many details of my life that it's really hard to say things about “just my queer experience” but uh yeah. Idk if anyone read all that and I'm taking multiple passes to trim out details that got too personal, but fuckit I'm already extremely doxxable at this point.

[sugoi-and-spice]

Chapter Two - Dream a Little Dream

Pairing: Bully!Dabi x Fem!Reader, (3rd Person)

Summary: If a boy is picking on you, it means he likes you. She could almost laugh. By that logic, Dabi must’ve been fucking in love with her. That thought was what finally made the tears start to spill. Not because of how ridiculous it was or how isolating it felt.

But because it was exactly what she wanted.

CW: Alternate Universe - No Quirks (My Hero Academia), Dubious Consent, Unhealthy Relationships, Bullying, Manipulation, Humiliation, Childhood Friends, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Power Play, Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Drugs, Alcohol, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Attempted Sexual Assault. Future Tags: Rough Sex, Hate Sex, Smut, Porn With Plot, Explicit Sexual Content, Angst and Porn, Sadism

Read Full Chapter on AO3

[excerpt]

She skipped cleanup duty. The second the clock on the wall hit three, she was bolting out the classroom — not even waiting to hear if the bell had rung or for her homeroom teacher to ask her to hang back and talk about today’s “incident”. 

It was the sort of thing she never did at her old school, in her old life, but she had no choice.

Dabi hadn’t come back to class.

Of course, it’s not like that was uncommon. Dabi was a serial skipper even by this school’s standards. It was a strange day when he and his friends actually stayed in their seats for a whole day. She should’ve been used to it by now. And yet, every single time she couldn’t help but panic, couldn’t keep her mind from wandering. 

What if he wasn’t just skipping? What if he left the city? Ran away and changed his name a second time? Erased himself from her life for good? 

No, she couldn’t stand the idea of losing him like that. Not again. The thought was just too much for her to bear, especially on days like this, where he wasn’t just skipping gym or rolling into English late and high. Where he just took off for the rest of the day. It had her wondering lately if on days like this, she should just skip class too.

Panic filled her chest when he wasn’t in his go-to spot on the roof. It boiled higher and higher when the other spots — behind the P.E building, the defunct gardening club’s abandoned tool shed, the convenience store across the street — all turned up equally empty. 

That panic was threatening to spill out of her mouth by the time she’d finally found him and his friends holed up in an alley about halfway between school and the train station.

She nearly collapsed from relief when she saw them, grabbing her knees and doubling over so she could catch her breath, “Th-Thank God…”

The two blondes looked thrilled to see her — Jin with entertained glee, like his favorite trashy reality show just came on — and Keigo with an air of something else entirely, something she really couldn’t discern. But she knew she didn’t like it.

Dabi was the only one who didn’t look happy to see her. He didn’t look especially unhappy either. There was almost a sense of boredom in those heavy-hooded eyes.

He looked at her like she was nothing.

“See, aren't you glad we picked a new spot?” Keigo nudged Dabi and turned back with a grin, “Look how cute and worked up she is.”

Breathing steadied, albeit still a bit flushed, she rose back up to try and plead with Dabi not to scare her like that again, but the words caught in her throat when she saw the joint in his hand.

She looked back towards the traffic of students on the main road. Truth be told, they weren’t that deep into the alley, and there were still a lot of people out, including what looked like a teacher or two.

Just what were they thinking?

“Oi.”

She jumped, attention back to Dabi. He motioned for her to come towards them. With one last nervous peek over her shoulder, she obeyed.

“You look nervous.”

“O-Oh really? I-I’m not, um, I mean—”

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” Dabi taunted before taking a long hit.

“Of course I am!” she cried, quickly catching herself when he scowled at the volume. She dropped her head submissively. “I… I just don’t think you should be doing… that . Especially out in the open like this—”

She held down a gag as he blew a long, steady stream of musty smoke directly into her face, trying to ignore the sting it brought to her eyes as his friends snickered.

But her resolve was rewarded, it seemed, when he reached forward and caught her chin between his long, sturdy fingers.

“Awww ,” he purred, “Is someone worried I’m gonna get caught?”

Her heart jumped straight to her throat as he tilted her up to look at him, completely gripped by the endless sea in his eyes just inches away from her. She’d dreamed for so long to be this close to them again. And yet now that she was here, she could barely handle it. There was an intensity to them that was almost too much to look at. 

She squeezed her eyes shut and nodded nervously.

“Well, in that case...”

Her eyes flew back open as she felt his thumb run slowly up her chin and bottom lip. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see. The hopeless romantic in her had hoped it would be his own eyes closed as he leaned in to kiss her. The realist expected a painful flick on the nose to punish her for having such childish daydreams. But the actuality she was met with wasn’t either of those things.

It was the joint.

“...I guess you better smoke it for me.”

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[arcielee]

Interview With a Writer

Time for another installment of my series Interview With a Writer with the talented, the wonderful @inthedayswhenlandswerefew. Thank you as always for your time and allowing this self-indulgent series to continue!

Dividers by @saradika 💜

Name: inthedayswhenlandswerefew

Story: Comet Donati

Paring: modern Aemond Targaryen x female!reader

Warnings: 18+ mature themes. Sex, drugs, boy bands. Be mindful of chapter warnings.

What inspired the plot for Comet Donati?

I think it will surprise absolutely no one when I say that Comet was born out of my love for One Direction. While I’m at work (I’m a high school teacher), I’ll often put on a Spotify playlist for me and the students to listen to. I like to change it up…for a few days we’ll listen to 80s rock, and then Beyoncé Radio, and then classical music, it’s always something different. At the very end of last school year in June, I got in the mood to revisit my love of One Direction. As I was listening to and falling in love with those songs all over again—History, No Control, Heart Attack, etc.—the idea of the HOTD characters being a boy band occurred to me, first as something ludicrous but then as a weird but potentially viable fic plot.

My long-time readers know that the first specific scene I envision is always one of the last scenes of a story, and while I was listening to that One Direction playlist one afternoon I saw the very end of Comet Donati: a girl on a farm looking out a kitchen window and watching Aemond return to her after a very fraught, magical, horrible, amazing summer touring with the band together. The very first sentence I wrote in my Word Doc was the last sentence of Chapter 10.

And thus, Comet arrived on Earth! :)

So the scene that inspired the rest of Comet Donati…

It was Aemond on that damn Gold Star motorcycle, which is another astronomy reference!

Are you always aware of how your stories will end? Or have you ever balked and changed something?

I always know the ending from the very start, and I’ve never changed one. Because I start writing with the end so clearly in mind, changing it would undermine a lot of the foreshadowing, themes, and character arcs that were present throughout the story, and would honestly feel totally disorienting to me. With that said, there are occasions when unexpected details pop up (ex. in Comet, Aemond clicking so well with Stargirl’s parents wasn’t something that I foresaw or really thought about before writing Chapter 9), but generally I have it all set it stone before the first chapter is ever posted.

Can you give us some insight on your interpretation of Aemond and Aegon?

Aegon and Aemond both have a lot of trauma (clearly), but they have adapted to survive it in completely different ways. Aemond is a brooding, perfectionist, desperately insecure person who lashes out like a wounded animal when he feels wronged. Aegon is the opposite. He directs his anxiety and self-loathing inwards harming only himself, and rarely shares it with anyone else (Stargirl of course is a massive exception).

While Aemond wants to be taken seriously, Aegon dives headfirst into his lackadaisical nature and exacerbates it, largely out of spite for Viserys and to a lesser extent Alicent and Otto. He is lazy, bombastic, rootless, chaotic, an unrepentant addict…and, in perhaps his greatest act of rebellion, someone who is genuinely affectionate and nonjudgmental. Aemond is fangs and claws and storms and wreckage; Aegon has this warm, contagious glow that distracts from his profound inner darkness.

Aemond is someone who always felt uncool, unloved, and unremarkable. At home he was mostly ignored by Viserys (despite Aemond’s attempts to bond with him). Alicent, while well-intentioned, was often distracted by her own marital unhappiness, and furthermore was emotionally closer to Helaena and Daeron than Aemond. At school, he didn’t make friends or get girls in the same effortless way that Aegon or Daeron did.

Like Aegon said in Chapter 3: “I had friends. He had grudges.” But when Aemond masterminded Comet and became an international popstar, he finally got the camaraderie and recognition he always craved, and for the first time in his life felt worthy of love. Losing all of that after the accident at the Budokan was psychologically devastating for him.

When he meets Stargirl, Aemond wants her in a way that is immediate, overpowering, and completely unlike anything he’s ever experienced before…but his fear of losing her—and his lifelong, intense phobia of rejection—sabotages their relationship over and over again.

Was there anything in specific that inspired Stargirl?

Stargirl is, and I say this with nothing but love, the most Hot Mess Express reader insert that I’ve written so far. She is very smart and intuitive, a natural therapist, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t routinely make questionable decisions while touring with the band.

She’s able to help others but struggles when it comes to protecting herself. I think that’s extremely relatable. I also love psychology as a discipline. I’m definitely not a professional; I’ve taken college-level psychology courses and taught it as a high school class, but I would never consider myself to be an expert. However, my interest in psychology (and in redeeming Sigmund Freud!) certainly bled into this fic.

As far as Stargirl’s backstory… I think that unfortunately, most women have had experiences when we were made to feel ashamed, unworthy, unlovable, immoral, etc. because of something related to our sexuality. It’s incredibly frustrating to see this repeat generation after generation. Stargirl has put a lot of time and effort into reprogramming herself from her fundamentalist Christian upbringing/community, and shedding that heartbreak and cynicism as much as possible. I think she’s an inspirational character, and a manifestation of my hope for our society’s future.

How does Stargirl complement Aemond? How does this compare to her relationship with Aegon?

Therapists have to be natural optimists, I believe. They have to be able to look at someone who is struggling and see the best in them, to envision a better path forward. When Stargirl meets Aemond in Rome, she genuinely—from the very first moment—cannot fathom thinking that he is unattractive or pitiful. She thinks he is fascinating, intelligent, talented, charming, and of course fine af (and we all agree!).

Her very first act is to put him at ease by addressing his scar/blindness immediately and in a way that is lighthearted and teasing without being cruel. Aemond is used to people either ignoring the accident entirely (awkward) or outright pitying him (even worse). Stargirl does neither.

Aemond is a source of strength for Stargirl; he is protective of her in a way that can override his own paranoia and resentment (ex. when he notices that she is crying on the jet in Chapter 5 or when he banishes Shelby in Chapter 8).

They share an organic chemistry and respect for each other that—over and over again—they have to fight their way back to. Both Stargirl and Aemond want to make the world a better place, albeit in entirely different ways, and I definitely see them turning into a bit of a power couple in that respect.

Stargirl’s relationship with Aegon is easier (as his demons present differently than Aemond’s), but also isn’t something that could ever become a stable, marriage-like partnership. Stargirl doesn’t desire Aegon in that way, nor is he equipped to be in a committed relationship with anybody (not even Selena Gomez!).

Yet fundamentally—no matter how many years or miles are between them—Aegon and Stargirl feel safe with each other. Aegon knows that Stargirl can see that he’s wounded and yet loves him unconditionally anyway. Stargirl knows that Aegon would never think less of her because of her sexuality or any other choices she might make in life. I think of them as platonic soulmates, which is a little bit inaccurate because they aren’t literally platonic. But they love each other in a way that is entirely separate from if/when/how they have sex and without ownership or expectations.

In the past, you created OCs that might prickle underneath our skin but we ended up loving them. Except for fucking Shelby. What inspired her?

I’ve had a few experiences recently that got me thinking about influencer culture and social media obsession. I think we all know people who put a ton of effort into crafting an online narrative that is radically different from their real life. Shelby is someone who rode the early influencer wave to stardom and now is kind of stuck. She doesn’t know how to create authentic experiences because she’s trained herself to manufacture them for years; similarly, she doesn’t know how to nurture genuine relationships. But Shelby also doesn’t know what comes next in her life. Aemond’s accident gives her a valuable rebranding opportunity: she can shift from “early-twenties hottie” to “self-sacrificing caretaker,” eventually evolving into wife and mommy blogging content. She clings to that so fiercely because she honestly, horrifyingly does not know who she is without a label her millions of subscribers/followers agree upon. And Shelby is willing to do some pretty deplorable things to try to keep Aemond away from Stargirl.

I think my own understanding of Shelby is actually a lot more compassionate than Comet readers might suspect. I don’t feel that she has any desire to harm Aemond, and on the contrary does care for him in the way that she knows how to. She’s definitely wrong for him, and she unintentionally massacres his mental health on a daily basis. But she really, truly thinks that she’s helping him by hiding his “humiliating” disability. She is so engrained in the shallow, deceptive, trope-conforming influencer lifestyle that whoever she was before has been entirely forgotten.

Were there any other characters in your story that you enjoyed writing?

Obviously, I adore the dynamics of the whole band. It was a nice change to write Team Black characters as good guys for the first time: Luke admiring and supporting Aemond in that worshipful sort of way, Rhaena being gentle and intuitive but also increasingly brave, Baela figuring out how to harness her natural assertiveness into advocating for her own ambitions.

Cregan’s dysfunctional childhood hits home for me in a lot of ways, and I absolutely loved him coming into his own as a good father both literally and as a father figure for Comet (especially with Aemond as he prepares for his own fatherhood journey!). Poor Criston definitely needs Cregan’s help parenting this boy band of feral raccoons. Criston is TIRED! Let the man rest!

Finally, I would like to shock everyone by announcing that Jace was one of my favorite parts of writing this fic. He’s a tool, but he also has lines that he won’t cross; way down deep somewhere, he has a fundamental and irrevocable love for Comet. Jace will taunt someone until they hit him, but he rarely hits back. Jace will poke fun at Aemond, but he is also sincerely disturbed by Shelby making Aemond so miserable. Jace body shames Aegon constantly, and yet he’s the one outside the hotel room in Chapter 8 frantically asking if Aegon is okay. Additionally, Jace is really into Stargirl in a way that is completely shameless, sometimes creepy, but also randomly insightful.

There are a lot of little moments of him being concerned about Aemond/Aegon/Stargirl throughout the fic if you look for them. Like, he breaks the awkward silence for Stargirl at the Vegas buffet. Jace is only 90% evil 🥰

I’ve also never gotten to write Jace like this before and I might never get to again, but I really enjoyed it.

As a writer, I think it is safe to say we constantly daydream. How do you know what stories need to be told?

I’ll use Comet as an example. So when I first started kicking around the HOTD boy band idea while listening to One Direction songs, I fully intended to save the potential fic for when Season 2 airs next summer. There was an essence of a story, a general vibe…touring, comets, drinks, smoke…yet it wasn’t urgent or tangible. But as soon as that last scene hit me out of nowhere—Aemond returning to the farm as a better man, riding his motorcycle with displaced snow billowing out behind him—Comet Donati as a story became vivid and real and all-consuming.

As soon as I see a scene like that, I know I have to write the story, and I usually begin immediately planning out chapters that same day. Ideas and vibes flit in and out of my mind all the time, but scenes demand to be written.

Would you ever want to revisit a story for an epilogue?

I won’t say I’ll never write an epilogue, because I suppose inspiration could strike unexpectedly. However, for me, where a story ends is truly the ending. I might have vague ideas about what happens next for certain characters, but I don’t usually see scenes or hear dialogue beyond the last chapter, so trying to write an epilogue would feel forced to me. If anything, I’m usually already in the mental headspace of a new story by the time I’m finishing up the current one! With that said, it’s super heartwarming when readers ask about epilogues, because I know that means they’ve grown to love these characters and aren��t ready to say goodbye yet.

If a reader has a question about what comes next for a character, they’re always welcome to send it my way, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability. 🥰

What is next for the wonderful Miss Maggie?

So, as usual, too many things to possibly keep up with! I have a few original novel projects floating around. But… most relevant to Tumblr… I also have two (yes, TWO!!!) new House Of The Dragon fic ideas that I’m really excited about.

Just last week, one of these ideas turned into a must-write-immediately type of story when I saw the final scene while driving home from work and listening to Fall Out Boy’s second album, From Under The Cork Tree. I’ve had that album on repeat ever since!

It’s always daunting to start a new series; the time commitment is stressful, and there’s a fear of rejection as well. I remember being absolutely terrified to post the first chapter of Comet Donati because I felt like it was so different in tone from NICIY, and I worried that my readers wouldn’t connect with it. But Comet ended up working out in the long run, so I’m trying to use that lesson to talk myself out of any self-doubt.

This new series is going to be very different from Comet in both setting and tone. It’s going to be long, around 15 chapters.

And for more details, you’ll have to check back on Sunday, September 10th! :)

[canaidliafail]

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streamer ellie Williams x dancer reader 🌿

Id call this an excessively long shitpost. It is in the same timeline with staygrounded but I wrote it down for self indulgent reasons such as -to no ones surprise- venting. It ain’t good btw but its getting better I think.

CW: first of all, reader is a dancer/ dance teacher || short mention of self harm || MDI: there are sexual themes if I remember correctly || Ellie being very gay

If you by any chance do enjoy this concept I don’t mind writing a part 2 tho. Requests are open ✨

“you blame it on the drugs I dont give a fuck cause the damage is done,

and you talk about suicide, its the way you manipulate”

1:35 ───ㅇ───── 3:47 ↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

gossip, rumors, spreading a false narrative and falling in love with being a victim of life and most importantly a victim of you.

So many things that could have been said about her. So many and yet all sat stale at the tip of your tongue. You wanted to rip her to shreds, put a curse on her and considered spending life in prison for premeditated murder. Then you cried and just prayed she would leave you alone and that she would find happiness and that you would never hear anything about it. You scratched your arms, the stitches holding your flesh together getting irritably itchier day by day. flesh that you so willingly sliced a week ago and regretted right after.

It was fucking embarrassing to fall to such depths of despair and misery cause of love. In life we allow things to happen to us. Saying that was comfort of some sorts. It gave you control over a situation that you were dragged around like a puppet.

Could truly another person's venom poison you this irreversibly?

And while you did crave love and attention you refused to humiliate yourself by asking for it,let alone admit to it.

“she didn’t love you, she loved the idea of being with you. You have to realize it baby, You are a known figure now…People will do that to you. This is a whole new world you just entered”

You shook your head and dully stared at the screen playing lo-fi on loop

“New world ? Feels like I'm back in high school”

You sat on the other end of the couch numb and mute. It had been a week since you spoke to your roommate and two since you last saw your whole friend group. You warned them

“I can’t talk but I really need you”

and they came and would chime in to whatever little but you were willing to share that night.

You all woke up around the same time the next day, exam season not really willing to cooperate with your mental breakdown and started getting ready. You had already failed 2 subjects. shit was not going your way so on the fourth day you just gave up and decided to go with the flow

“how bad can it get”

bit of advice fellas, never fucking say that cause it CAN get worse.

While initially you were well prepared for exams, You mixed up the days when you were supposed to submit assignments and the days when you were taking a written exam.

2 failed subjects, 4 more to go.

4 failed subjects… 2 more to go

Hot girl summer just doesn’t feel the same once you hit your 20s it seems.

_________________ 𓆩♡𓆪 _________________

You were aimlessly watching one story after the other,barely there and hardly caring what exactly you were looking at. Abby had just posted one cryptic photo with a girl you saw around in the community and smiled. You could tell something was going on with her and that other streamer girl and you smiled. You thought they were a good match and quite frankly you were just glad to see that some people were doing better in their love life than you ever could. It gave you hope that things like that still existed even if you weren't meant to experience them. Ellie had also just posted and you took a minute longer to appreciate her slender form dressed in tights and a top while horse riding. She was hot and she knew it and you liked that attitude of hers. You checked the next story which was a black screen with a text

*I fell off my horse two minutes after taking that pic*

And chuckled. Your eyes drifted off to the green square mark and cocked a brow

Oh?

So you were in her close friends ?

You sat up

“Wait since when has she-” You asked yourself out loud and noticed that indeed she was following you. In the midst of working on new content and getting out of your depressive slump you started checking your social less and less too busy with dance practice and trying to enjoy life and it seemed like in the middle of your subtle break things…. Happened

Maybe a few months ago when you were down bad for her this would’ve affected you but now you just shrugged and closed your phone. You need to get back to practicing a new dance combo for a video and you couldn’t be bothered. Your ex had scared you off from dating public figures for good. Dating was a strong word…You hardly wanted even a fling at this point.

You got dressed up and put on a wig, fixing your makeup in place and making a movement test before you went to the studio to record the new choreo so that you could only worry about the variation and not have any unnecessary technical issues. The studio was a few minutes away from your place by bus and you put on the songs you planned on rehearsing to get in the mood on your way there humming softly and tuning out any other thought polluting your mind.

There's was a text notification from the user

Elliefuckingwilliams

Which you forced yourself to ignore refusing to entertain whatever she could have texted you. If this was a month ago maybe you would have but now you didnt want to.

_________________ 𓆩♡𓆪 _________________

Ignoring her was your plan until you posted the new video of your dance which admittedly you did look good and may have been one of your best videos up to date. Ellie Was the third like on that post and she had shamelessly double texted you. You chewed on your lip nervous and uncertain

“She texted me again”

Ophelia, your roommate, peeked her head from her iPad and looked at you curious

“Who?”

“Ellie”

“ELLIE?! WAIT THE ELLIE?!” She jumped up and for a moment you for sure she came for your throat but instead clutched the blankets on your couch

“And what do you mean again ?! When did all of this happen ?”

“Relax it all started today and you know I wanted to tell you once we had time to properly hang out” You said fighting back a smile knowing that this was a victory. Ophelia had suffered you for months crying over your ex, then thirsting over Ellie and then back to square one. You owed her an update on your emotional affairs which you swore that they would stay stagnant.

“So what did she say ?”

You opened the Direct messages

Elliefuckingwilliams: Hey I have a question

Elliefuckingwilliams: Is your studio in Seattle ?

Elliefuckingwilliams: I have a project and am looking for a dance instructor. Let me know if you would be interested in a collab

“Ah. Just work stuff it seems”

“EXCUSES SHE JUST WANTS TO EAT YOU OUT AND IS LOOKING FOR A EXCUSE”

“You are shameless”

You stared at each other with a smirk fighting to break through, wanting to seem equally serious despite the ridiculous situation.

“She does not”

“She does. I’m betting 50 dollars”

Oh fuck off ill just roll you a blunt”

“A WIN IS A WIN” she said with her hands in the air “No come on! Respond already you are driving me crazy”

You rolled your eyes and considered her offer. You were taken aback cause Ellie didn’t seem like she would do anything with…dancing. However you weren’t new to influencers trying new things to get back on the algorithms favor so you brushed it off as her chasing new heights to her already growing fame.

-Hey, I’m not sure where you are exactly and it isn’t my studio. I am just renting the space but I could give you a lesson or two

Elliefuckingwilliams: Sweet! When are you available ? I have a gap next week otherwise it can be next month

You stared at her immediate response and quirked your brow in approval. Professional and straight to the point. You could respect that. Not what you were aiming for. You tried to ignore the previous conversations you two had that showed above her new messages. Your fruitless attempts at getting her attention in the most stupid of ways. Can’t blame a girl for trying. Shoot for the stars they say. You’ll land on dirt but hey, at least you gave it a fair shot and therefore no one could blame you for trying.

-This week is good. Say Friday ?

Elliefuckingwilliams: Yeah yeah cool! I'll text you the day before so that you can tell me your location and everything

You pursed your lips and turned to look at Ophelia who was on all fours on your couch desperately trying to steal a glance at your phone screen. You tossed it on one of the floor cushions

“Not a date. I’m just gonna be her dance instructor so looks like you owe me that blunt”

“Nu-uh. Bet you’ll be raw dogging in the studio. We will see who wins on Friday”

_________________ 𓆩♡𓆪 _________________

“And the dance floor is filling up with blood, But oh, Lord you’ve never been so in love”

ELLIE’s POV

Ellie was convinced that God had specifically hand crafted her body to be incapable of dancing. She had no coordination and perhaps was even tone deaf which was ridiculous for someone who played the guitar and sang. Not that she was a pro at that either but who creates a musician who doesn’t understand how to step on notes in any way other than with an instrument ? So now that she had texted you she was frantic, bouncing her leg up and down and chewing on the flesh around her fingernails.

“What's gotten into you?”

Dina asked while folding clothes. She was at her and Jesse's apartment for the night and she had yet to tell them about her new crush and her impatient attempt at getting to see you as soon as possible. Ellie was aware of you as a creator. Be it from a post-share on her friends stories or you falling on her timeline she would see you here and there. She vividly remembered a month where you peaked and she went from seeing you once every two months at best to seeing you every week. And she was curious as to why was everyone going crazy over you and your content. You seemed to interact mostly with Abby’s girl.

That’s how Ellie referred to the girl Abby seemed to be crushing on. In a game of broken telephone and who told what, Ellie planned on seeing how close Abby was with her girl and if that was close enough for her to ask if she could…well ask her about you and then somehow for that information to get back to you.

But all that plan failed the second Ellie asked

“So is Cotton dating anyone?”

And Abby took that horribly wrong and now was set on gatekeeping her. Ellie was awkward and a mess and couldn’t communicate properly what she wanted because to her, what she asked was obvious and had no hidden meaning or intention but the world around her didn’t work like that and she struggled so fucking hard with it.

Ellie’s second grant failure was when she followed you back. She was sure that you wouldn’t have missed it. But the silence was so loud it was deafening. You were still posting but you were otherwise quiet everywhere else. You rarely even watched her stories at this point so Ellie decided to grow a backbone and some balls and directly message you.

She flinched at the dry responses she gave you to your previous interactions which back then seemed professional but now they seemed…So distant.

Finally, she texted you.

and you responded.

“Dina I did a stupid thing”

Dina tossed the clothes in the wardrobe and kicked close giving up on tidying Jesse’s shit

“Ok, stupid how? Like speaking money or-”

“I texted my crush-”

“You have a crush?”

“Yes and so I texted her and-”

“Who is she ?”

“A content creator, anyways so I texted her”

“WHo?”

“Dina can you let me talk?!” she said frustrated and Dina grinned. She went to the kitchen aisle to grab a bottle of water and tossed another one Ellie’s way. She leaned against the counter listening to her friend endless yawping about this new crush. she called her twice a day until Friday, and would recite every move and gesture she planned on using to seduce you. Dina would turn each one down by saying

“You do realize that when you see her you will just shit your pants from excitement and won't say anything right?”

So ellie would hang up and call a few hours later with a new plan that aligned more with how she typically acted.

When Friday came she showered twice and changed outfits over and over again, as a result she was late. She was proud of her fit since the sleeveless turtleneck did a nice job at hugging her slim, well built frame and showed off her toned arms that took years of calisthenics to build and paired with a baggy pair of sweatpants she felt like she had the biggest dick in the city.

But once she parked outside of the studio you mentioned cold sweat ran down her spine and her hands felt clammy and sticky from anxiety.

what the hell am I doing

she questioned and rested her head against the steering wheel. She drummed her fingers on the soft leather and hummed a melody to ease her nerves till she heard light tapping on the window. She lifted her head and looked up and there you were. hair loose, shorts and a baggy graphic T that had a faded graffiti-like artwork of spiderman.

She hated how much she loved the sight in front of her.

she opened her door and slid out trying to gather her stuff in a hurry

“Hi sorry, were you waiting long? I missed the bus and had to wait a bit until the next one came…”

“no no! Its cool I was just, ugh trying to calm down cause I'm nervous”

you smiled and lowered your brows in empathy

“I assumed you would. You don't have experience in dancing right? Or at least you haven’t mentioned it anywhere”

She winced at how obvious her lie was and she didn’t know how to answer to that

I don’t dance but If that’s what it takes to fuck you then sure I can learn how to do a Ronde de Jambe

“ah yeah you got me there, I’ve never danced before”

“That’s cool with me. Just curious on what piqued your interest to start now. New hobby or…?”

“yeah new hobby!” she hurried to answer, glad that you inspired her on what lie to use for the day.

You nodded while checking her out head to toe and before she had time to boost her ego and assume that you did because you found her hot you said-

“Hm. I will need you to wear tighter pants next time so that I can see what you are doing with your legs. But for today it's fine”

and took the keys out of your duffel bag

“Well. Ellie williams. Ready to start?”

“ah yeah just, be gentle…? I've never done anything remotely close to dancing with my body and I might be pretty stiff”

“Don’t worry about it. I've had every type of student and all of them managed to pull a few cool moves in their second month. If there’s a will there’s a way”

she smiled more nervous than before. You were formal and professional leaving little close to no space for her to get flirty and she was at a loss. She should’ve done more research on dancer etiquette so that she wouldn’t have looked like such an uneducated swine but there was no point in getting angry over that now.

“We will start with basic breathing exercises and a warm up just to get you in the swing of things. We will start with body isolations”

Ellie stared at you from the mirror as you showed her the first few basic motions

“Alright so for the warmup just follow my lead”

you grabbed the remote and put on “never ending song” by Conan Grey which had a pretty standard rhythm and was easy to dance along to. Ellie was in awe with the plasticity of your body, every move being a continuation of the previous one all like a rolling tide of emotions complimenting the beat and the beat complimenting you.

On the other end, Ellie was too embarrassed to look at her own reflection

“alright so first to isolate your hips from your chest” you said and let the next song play. You laid your palm flat on her back and pointed a bit below her collarbones holding your fist in the air

“move with me, breathe in” you said and she tried to copy your move watching your chest rise. You shook your head

“no, I need only your chest to move. Relax your shoulders love” you teased with an easy smile and Ellie by now was a mess, from the proximity and from the simple exercise of trying to move your breathing pattern

You were oblivious to it all going from one body part to another occasionally fixing up her posture and tapping the part that she had to focus on, but all hell broke loose in your brain when you laid your hand on her stomach asking her to clench and unclench her core hunching within herself.

“You were so dramatic before, look at you Els. You just needed a little basic guidance “ you encouraged and she smiled and looked at you in excitement, oblivious to the fact that when she turned her head she was a breath away from accidentally kissing you

“ah! I-“

you smirked and pulled away

“I've been rehearsing this one choreo, best way to understand these exercises is through a dance routine. How do you feel about that?”

Ellie agreed and while dancing she kept being thrown off balance at the sharp turns that she had to take which in return slowed her down and she would miss a few steps. You let the music play in the background and let out an awkward chuckle

“Fuck ok this is my fault see I forgot to tell you about spotting”

“Spotting?”

You nodded and you pushed her back by her shoulder freeing up a line for you

“See when we turn, we always have a spot” You said and stepped into the appropriate preparation to do 8 simple turns, your head always snapping the back to the invisible mark you held with your eyes

Ellie pursed her lips. Seemed like such an obvious trick but one that went completely over her head

“Now I see that you struggle to look at yourself in the mirror, Which is fine. I’m sure you'll get used to it eventually, so instead try taking a few turns while holding eye contact with me, yeah ?”

You offered and she took a couple steps back

“Ugh…what were all those moves you made before spinning?”

“Oh don’t worry about that,thats ballet stuff. Just spin. Bent your elbows and hold your arms against your chest if it helps”

Ellie started off slow, picking up the pace as she neared you, eventually losing sight of what was in front of her

“Wow-wow-wowwww I got you” you said and steadied her by her shoulders and held her in place. She looked up at you taking in deep breaths, cheeks flushed and eyes wide open with her lips parted in a soft smile

“That went well, How do you feel?”

You said and you gently rubbed your thumb against the naked skin of her biceps.

“Great, I… I liked this it makes more sense now”

She said filled with excitement

_________________ 𓆩♡𓆪 _________________

Every time Ellie liked your story you felt your heart skip a few beats. You were in the studio for your solo dancing practice and kept bouncing from one leg to the other to keep your muscles warm while you scrolled through your phone to find some inspiration or a pic that you could post and in return give Ellie an opening to respond to. The image of her timidly trying to follow along through your every move, her flushed cheeks and her voice shaking did things to your brain chemistry, re-wiring its entire structure and flow. Every time she posted a story with a smug smile and pants lower than her boxer briefs you just laughed remembering what a shy and soft mess of words the girl was and felt an unhealthy amount of endearment. A spark re-ignited in your dead heart and you liked it. You liked ellie when you didn’t know her, and you liked her even more now that you did.

By now it had been…a good two weeks that consisted of 4 dance practices that you had with her. The first time you saw her up close all you thought was a “huh”

And then a “she is shorter than me-“ which for you was dangerous. You had an incredibly soft spot for masc lesbians who were shorter than you. Unfortunately they were never attracted to you though. You had always attracted the exact opposite of what you wanted and you blamed that on your overly dominant attitude.

On the second day you both had the same idea of treating each other to a coffee and so you ended up with 4 paper cups of iced almond milk lattes which you laughed about for a good 10 minutes

“We are so in sync!” You commented and she nodded excitedly, blushing all the way to her ears.

On the third dance practice you purposely pretended to assist her and correct her to find an excuse to touch her and when you saw how positively she reacted to it you pushed on the advantage that you had, heavily , which made you believe that maybe there really was some kind of ulterior motive as to why Ellie was so set on having you as a dancing coach.

On the fourth day there was a shift in the tide and something was in the waters. Ellie had her hair gathered and decided to wear the sluttiest outfit on earth ( aka a white top and grey sweatpants )

She went to greet you with a hug and you noticed her perfume, subtle but there to make you lust after it. She asked if she could record the Dance you were rehearsing for a post and you felt alright with that. And she excelled. She was a fast learner and her body had a good flow. It did need polishing but she wasn’t half as bad as she claimed to be. The fifth video take was close to perfection and in her excitement she yanked you towards her and wrapped you in a tight hug which you immediately reciprocated eager for the contact with the sex God standing before you. You took in the blended smell of her perfume and her sweat which had you feel insufferable discomfort with how tight your pants were. Something about her raw scent had you horny like a dog and you had to clench your jaw in patience not to act out of instinct and try to get closer than needed.

You both laughed and she yelled in excitement “I fucking did it”

And then your voice followed, a bit quieter “I told you, you could do it” she pulled back her arm still on your waist, her thumb caressing the skin as she watched the video a second time in excitement. You took the chance to stand a bit closer to her while she in sync wrapped her whole arm around you and leaned her head against your chest enjoying the dance and pointing out things that you could do differently next time, all in the comfort of each other’s embrace.

She posted the video and in the daze of the excitement of seeing what you two looked like next to each other you forgot to worry about the fact that you were yet again getting entangled with a public figure. An actually big one. While your previous relationship was just your ex leeching off of you and your success, this one…it had to be different. Ellie had nothing to gain from you and you put your trust in that and in the fact that the two of you seemed to genuinely get along

You decided to text her first

“You impatient fuck. We could’ve filmed a better take tomorrow”

“You are such an ass, let me enjoy my accomplishments”

You started tidying up the studio and decided to leave your bag with your ballet clothes and pointe there since you would come tomorrow for Ellie’s lessons anyways. You chatted back and forth all the way back and you almost tripped on your staircase too busy typing a response. You banged your head against your door though thinking you had unlocked it to find that you didn’t. Ophelia opened it for you

“Girl?”

You looked at each other and you immediately broke into a smile the split your lips

“Ellie posted our video. And she left in the part where she hugged me”

“Oh-hooooo” she exclaimed and rushed you in. She tossed the mop on the side of the wall and nudged you to the couch abandoning whatever housework she was in the middle of to listen to you

“Aaaand we are still talking” You said smiling and Ophelia clapped cheering for you while you swung your way inside the house and fell dramatically on the couch.

“Oh my, I’m so glad the Gods heard our prayers cause I was sure I was about to send you off to priesthood”

“It wasn’t that bad”

You said with an offended gasp and she scoffed

“Honey, one more month and you were about to grow back your virginity. I’m just happy to see you back out there and not just with anyone but with The Ellie fucking williams!” She said getting louder with every word. You joined her cheerful demeanor hopping on the couch and you both started bouncing on it like kids in a playground

“I can’t believe this. I wanna wear something good for our practice tomorrow”

“Shorts and that nice red bodysuit!”

“But-“

“No buts! I know it’s uncomfortable but she will see you and rip it off right away so how much will you really suffer, you know?”

Ophelia coming through with the obvious answer to any and every world known issue was exactly what you needed to finish off your day. Though to be fair, if there was anything you should have listened to regarding -making a move on your crush- that would have to be her. She had a banging record of pulling every single guy she set her eyes on and one night standing them for her own satisfaction. Of course now she had her sights on someone specific but that didn’t change or erase all previously acquired skills in the flirting department. Despite all of that, You ended up rejecting the bodysuit idea because that would be a hassle to actually get off if things would go anywhere and even if they wouldn't, anything that tight during summer was a nightmare in general.

“Hey can I borrow that white top you have?”

“Borrow whatever you want and do whatever you want just never let me know about it”

_________________ 𓆩♡𓆪 _________________

on the day that you fully planned on making a move a couple things went wrong. First and foremost well, It decided to rain down which meant you had to run all the way from the bus stop to the studio in a hopeless attempt to preserve your hair and outfit. It didn’t do much since you ended up like a drenched cat either way but you refused to let your mood falter.

You tried texting Ellie to ask if she could bring coffee for you two.

Few minutes later she came in with two iced coffees, not a drop of rain on her which you were awfully jealous of. Her cropped hair was once again all gathered in a short ponytail and she wore two sports wristbands around her arms which did unimaginable things to you. It was good sight with her sleeveless baggy tshirt. Ellie just knew how to dress plain and attractive.

“Looking good” she teased when she found you furiously trying to dry the ends of your hair with a towel

“Shut up. Please shut up”

“So sensitive” she said and rolled her eyes making her way to you and taking the towel from your hands

“Let me help” it wasn’t so much of a request as it was a demand when she pulled the towel out of your hands and moved behind you, wrapping your hair in it and squeezing it to get most of the water out. You felt your body temperature rise at the awfully tender gesture and unsure of what to do you just fidgeted with your hands looking at the floor

“ I can drive you back to your place if you want”

“No, it's fine. Ill wait it out”

“No no, I insist. Let me drive you back and look cool while doing so”

A soft chuckle escaped your lips as she rounded you up to give you the towel with a small shy smile, her cheeks a shade of pink now.

Practice was good if you were to ignore that Ellie seemed a lot more focused on your assets rather than the moves you were showing. You knew the biker shorts you were gave her a 4K view of your ass but you didn't expect her to be this obvious about it. You stepped back after a moment and just watched as she rehearsed the dance on her own and you were in awe on how much more comfortable she seemed with her body now

“Good. This one was very good. Want me to film you so that you look at yourself?”

you asked and she shook her head satisfied with the progress. You slouched on the ground, legs spread and ankles on your knees wiping the sweat of your brow carefully as not wipe your brow completely off with it and looked at the time

“Well we are pretty much done then for today. Unless there’s anything you wanted to ask me or anything else you wanna try doing?” you asked and Ellie followed your lead walking over to you across the room and crouching down on her knees in front of you

“Oh yeah I did wanna ask something”

“go ahead then” you said dreading having to get up. You didn’t have to though

“Can I take you out on a date ? for coffee perhaps?”

[nothing0fnothing]

My mother was told multiple times to put me into therapy or counselling. The abuse at home was pretty intense and by the time I was thirteen I was reacting to it pretty strongly.

Starting from about age eleven I would cry uncontrollably in class until somebody would fetch me and give me a space to calm down. My mum tried to convince my teachers that they were actually reinforcing the behaviour, and they should let me cry at my desk and I'd get better. She was told she'd need to get that recommendation backed up by a licensed professional, she decided it didn't matter that much and chose to let me suffer.

Then when I was twelve I was cutting myself. It had quickly become my favourite coping mechanism I was doing it multiple times a day. I was hiding sharp objects everywhere in my school bag, in my clothes, in my bedroom. The thought of needing to do it but not being able to brought me so much anxiety I was sure I'd pass out.

Obviously with the frequency I was doing it was caught eventually and my mum was furious. I won't go into what she did but it was disgusting and violent and not the way you treat a child who is struggling.

To basically anybody who had eyes, it was obvious that when the "crying in class for no reason" thing wasn't properly addressed, it metastasized into the self harm. This is what happens when you put children under undue stress, like abuse, and then don't let them see somebody who can teach them healthy coping strategies. They fall into unhealthy dangerous coping strategies that become addictive.

My mum didn't want to believe this though. To her she had ignored the crying issue and it went away, all she needed to do was ignore the self harm and that would go away by itself too. It didn't matter that it was significantly more dangerous, or that the risk was high that I'd fall into something worse if I wasn't treated soon.

To her this was stuff I was doing intentionally to specifically make her life worse. She didn't believe I was actually struggling, even though she lived in the same house as me and saw with her own eyes what was going on. If you asked her she'd tell you I was doing it all for her benefit. To make her life more difficult, to make her look like a bad mother.

So basically I stayed untreated until my adulthood.

[meraki-yao]

An exchange student from Canada saw me crying and gave me a tissue. We talked. He's really nice. I'm sane now.

This is going to be a full vent. This is my full story on this situation. Only read if you want to and if you're okay with it. Also warning, this is long as fuck, I really trauma dumped here.

tw: suicidal thoughts, self-harm

Backstory: High School

I was labelled as a jack of all trades, master of none. I'm naturally a more art/social science/emotion/humanities person, but I took STEM subjects in high school (Physics, Chemistry, Information & Technology/ Computer, and Calculus & Algebra), partly because these subjects had objective, standard answers, which supposedly makes getting marks in exams easier, partly because I felt like I had to as my parents are both PhD in engineering, and at that point I still thought I had to be "my parents' daughter".

So throughout high school, all my external achievements were humanities/arts related while my studies were STEM orientated. But I struggled a lot with my STEM subjects (except for Computer because a lot of that is just stuff you would know if you use one a lot), and I mean, a lot. As in failing quizzes, fucking up assignments. Thank God I had really kind teachers who cared more about my mental health than my grades and were willing to help and accommodate my needs. But there were many times when I straight up broke down during a lesson and ran off to the social worker's. I skipped several lessons because I just couldn't go to class and try to listen when voices in my head were all yelling at how much of a useless piece of shit I was. I would spend three hours on a single question, and still get it wrong. It always felt like no matter what I did, I would go nowhere. And it didn't help that when I asked for help from my parents, their response would always first be "How can you not know something so simple". By senior year I gave up and started asking my friends and the internet.

On the contrary, I thrived in my language classes and liberal studies class. Even if I initially sucked due to the change in the system, I asked, I studied, I worked and I improved. I got somewhere. Effort paid off in a fair ratio. I never needed to ask my parents anything about that. I never needed to ask anyone other than my teacher. I loved doing my homework in those subjects. My writings were printed out as examples for the whole class. It was great.

Backstory: College Selection

By the time college choices rolled around I had no idea what to choose. At the same time, my mother was also suggesting I go to mainland Chinese universities for my undergrad, and I didn't want that. Going to the States or the UK wasn't affordable for my family, so I opted to stay local, to the dismay of my whole extended family.

So in the mess of all of this and no parental support because they are Chinese stereotypes who think the only courses worth studying are doctor and lawyer, my school's career counsellor suggested Bachelor of Arts and Studies to me (here's their website) a new personalized interdisciplinary degree in HKU. And I was so happy. It felt right. It felt like putting a on tailored dress. And despite my parents' protest, I put that as my first choice.

College entrance exams came and went. Overall I did pretty well. Got top scores in Chinese, English, Liberal Studies, and Computer. Got average for Chemistry, Math and Physic despite spending most of my study leave on these subjects. Just passed Calculus.

So the way the local system works (it's called JUPAS if you wanna look it up) is that by the end of November, you need to submit your 20 university programme choices, but after the public exam result is released, you're assigned 24 hours to change your choices.

And this is where everything started going to hell for me.

My parents, who in the first round of selection, compromised and let me put what I wanted, looked at my marks, and my choices, and vetoed everything. They said I'm not gonna get a job with an interdisciplinary degree, there's no career path for psychology, that the arts and science degree was created because the art, social science and science faculty didn't have that many people.

A different advisor, one who didn't know me personally suggested my current programme: biomedical engineering, which basically combines medicine with engineering. They said it's a lucrative career since health service is in demand, and with my basis in STEM subject I would do well, and that it's easier to go from a science subject to humanities if I want to do something different in post-grad than vice versa. By this time I had 2 hours left before confirmation.

If we were to completely ignore me as an individual, they're right. This would be the logical choice.

But at that point, I already knew it felt wrong. But unfortunately for me, all I could say is it felt wrong, which isn't a strong rebuttal.

With no "logical" rebuttal, two yelling parents and a fucked up head, sobbing, I changed my first choice to this programme. I cut my arm with a cutter over the myriad of scars I gave myself over the years. I told my best friend who was asking if I was ok, that I'll give it a go, and if it doesn't work I'll find a way out. I told the rest of my close friends that my undergrad will be me paying a debt to my parents, and I'd figure out my own dream in the future.

I shouldn't have caved in.

Back Story: University

University started. Immediately it felt wrong. Save for my elective (HKU has this really cool thing called Common Core, look it up if you're interested but essentially it's compulsory electives) I felt so detached from my engineering courses. I couldn't explain, just an inherent feeling that I don't belong here.

It didn't help that it was at this time that I realized I straight-up don't like biology.

Managed through year 1 first semester with average grades. Semester 2 I didn't have any courses directly related to the programme save for a probability & stats course that I fucked my way through. The rest of my grades were pretty good, even got two A- s. The feeling that I didn't belong persisted but popped up a little less.

Now: Breaking

Year 2 came, and from the moment in August when I had to sign up for courses, the feeling of wrongness came back in full force, amplified, even. It felt all-consuming.

This is from my diary:

"I don't wanna be here. I don't want this degree. I don't want this career God I don't want it. It's doesn't fit. I don't fit in this space. This isn't mind. It feels like dysmorphia. It feels like tar, black and toxic and vicious, sticking to my skin, trying to mould my body into something I'm not, to seep into my skin and dye my blood a dull shade of grey. I wanna fucking run away. I wanna fucking die. I don't fucking know what to do."

You guys kind of know the rest, because that's when I met you guys and started feeling safer here than anywhere else, and vented here. But for reference

September

October

November

December

January, January, Fuck you January

I skipped class. I got antidepressants. I binge ate and became overweight. Failed three classes. Parents didn't find out anything until the grades came out. Then they lost their mind.

Now: Not Enough

They blamed me for not trying hard enough.

They said oh failures happen, you have to learn from your mistakes and try again.

I have to set up a proper routine. Dedicate all my time and energy to staying physically healthy and studying. Spent my "free time" thinking. I even got berated for listening to music with headphones on.

Dad asked me why did I fail biochemistry. I said it was hard, the pace was fast, and I don't like the subject. He said there's no point in not liking it.

Mom said I needed to get rid of the idea that this degree is against me and accept it, that I shouldn't dwell on what-ifs from the past, and all the reasons they convinced me to choose this still stands, that learning is a fun and interesting thing that I should take joy in, that I won't be able to handle being a psychiatrist, that I used to be such a star student what the fuck happened to me, that each path has their own difficulties and I'm already on this road so why won't I just keeping going for the next two years, that if I quit and start over I'll be older than my cohort and my friends will all graduate before me and why won't I just follow the normal path dammit

SO EVERYTHING IS MY FUCKING FAULT HUH??

I don't fucking know anymore.

Now: The present

The reason I was crying earlier, was that I went to have a meeting with an academic advisor to ask about the possibility of transferring to a different programme.

There are two ways.

One, apply for an internal transfer by June. But that requires exceptional grades, and I don't have that.

Two, quit university and re-apply with my college entrance exam results. But then none of the credits I earned in the past two years will be transferred. All will expire. I went through shit for nothing except to confirm my mistake is a mistake.

I might figure something out when I'm not crying my brains out but right now neither option sounds like an option to me.

I could barely ask anything intelligent afterwards because I was trying so hard to stop myself from breaking down immediately.

Now: How I feel

I'm not supposed to feel like this. This is not normal. This is not how my university life is supposed to go. It cannot be normal to want to die every day.

The moment I realised this was fundamentally wrong was when I looked at my high school friends' social media, and saw them living their best lives: dating, joining the committee of societies, getting awards and scholarships, jobs and internships, travelling, going to parties, everything a young person should be doing. My best friend is chasing her dreams to became an actress at NYU TISHC, already getting paids acting jobs at year 1, going to prominent events, maintaining a 3.9 GPA, goes out partying all while maintaining a long distance relationship with her athletes boyfriend who is the best of the best in Asian youth, handsome, and just a great guy in general.

I'm supposed to be on the same level as them.

I'm from an elite class of an elite school in an elite city. I've been on city radio four times and city-wide broadcast television once. I was on four department/society committees, two of which I was chairlady. I wrote and directed my own play. My name was followed by seven internal awards when it was my turn to get my diploma during the graduation ceremony. I aced my classes. My drawing and writing had been in my school's anthology and yearbook. I genuinely enjoyed learning.

I'm not supposed to be this.

I'm not supposed to be this depressed, overweight person who can't get out of bed and skips classes and fails courses. I'm not supposed to be this stagnant, I was always moving. I was always giving it my 100%. I'm not supposed to not make any friends and want to stay in my bed all the time. I'm not supposed to be insomniac, or sick, or depressed, or overweight.

I was always fighting.

I don't have any energy in me anymore to fight.

I'm not supposed to turn out like this. This isn't who I want to be/ I hate whoever I am now. This isn't right.

But I'm fucking stuck, I don't know what's the truth, I don't know how valid "I don't like this" is.

A lot of people tell me to just ignore what my parents say but it's really not that simple. I only realized they can hurt me despite loving me and it's not my fault last year. And even then it's hard to stay firm on this belief. Because truthfully, I don't know what's right, I only know what feels wrong.

Fuck this. I want to fast forward until the day I figure shit out. I want to live here on Tumblr.

Fuck everything.

[anothd]

Fur some reason i now remembered some situations from school. So hy not tell them.

Tw. SH, abuse, CSA, bullying mentioned

First one. There was a talk about self harm in our school. Basically teacher tould us its bad and there was a student who cut his wrist and now because of this he wont get a dream job. So we shouldnt cut ourself cause we wont find a job :33

Also about self harm, but not primary school like previous. In high school for biology we could listen to live university lectures. The first one was about mental health and psychology. The "professor" told there that there is now a "fashion" (idk if translating properly) among teenagers, especially girls to cut their thighs. Also that because of this they ask for permission to not be at PE and they are stupid and dump.

The fact that one teacher told us we should love our parents even if they abouse us.

When a boy tried to molest/rape me in primary school in one of the changing rooms for PE girls from my class called me "agressive" and "aggressor". Teacher couldnt care less.

The amount of homophobia and transphobia i saw.

Fact that i was discriminated and they tried to make me Catholic. No, not teachers. My classmates. They bullied me cause i didnt believe in God.

How school psychologist called my parents cause she thought I had depression (she was right) and parents took me early from school to beat me up and make me work. Also how they screamed and hit me for cutting myself. I don't care if that was their way of "caring" and being "worried". The same woman told me i had great parents and they care so much for me. The same parents made me quit going to psychologist (other) and psychiatrist after getting diagnosis and prescripted meds. Never saw or took these meds.

That one homophobic transphobic girl who hated anime one year after graduating primary school texted me. Now nonbinary bi anime lover. And yeah, after being LGBT wasnt popular enought she was again a homophobic transphobic anime hater. How i hate 2020.

Seeing the guy who traumatized me and made for some time get panic attacks nearly always in class be the teachers favourite. Or they trying to make me work with him.

Sorry if its messy and badly writen. Just wanted to get all of this outta me.

[astragreenwoode]

The Spitfire Curse - Chapter Four

Previous: Chapter Three • Next: Chapter Five • Masterlist • AO3 Version

Rating: Explicit (18+ ONLY)

Pairings: Billy Hargrove x Fem!OC (Only Mentioned)

Warnings: Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-Con, Non-specified Mental Illness, Self-Harm, Drug Use, Hypersexuality, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Hearing Voices

Genre: Adventure, Thriller, Horror, Slow-Burn Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort. Smut, Fluff, Slight Canon-Divergence, Fix-it fic

As always, thank you @take-everything-you-can for your beta reading and all your feedback!

Chapter Four: Filled With A Distrust In Authority

Word Count: 8,374

Chapter Warnings: Disembodied Voices, Police Brutality, Anxiety, Self-Deprecating Thoughts, Assault, References to Murder and other Criminal Activities, Mentions of Drug Use, Self-Harm, Mental Illness

Chapter Summary: Maeven reflects on her relationship with cops before her nerve-wracking meeting with the police chief of Hawkins, who turns out to be the complete opposite of what she expected.

June 1982

Billy and I had our fair share of run-ins with the cops. I can count on both hands the times we were caught smoking weed, trespassing in abandoned buildings, or fooling around in his Camaro. We were only arrested or put in a holding cell twice, but it was twice too many times. Mom and Dad gave me hour-long lectures that ended up with me running to my room and slamming the door on them as I yelled back, “I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

I never used to do that before.

I wasn’t always frightened of cops. Up until I learned about the Gay Liberation Movement from my uncle, I saw them as people I could trust with my life and safety. But even then, I always felt some uneasiness shaking up my body. Even though I knew I was supposedly ‘safe,’ their presence filled me with a fear similar to the kind when I would get in trouble with a teacher when I didn’t even understand what I did wrong. 

After my uncle told me his story of being in so many protests and what cops did to people like him, like me, my seemingly pointless fear of authority figures was validated. This wasn’t long after I had my first kiss with a girl in Middle School.

Even if this sudden realization made my life feel on edge from there on out, something that was constant during this period in my life was my Dad; I never felt unsafe with him. And I had a better understanding with him about why he’d have Max and I favor him instead of the cops in terms of our safety. The waters of doubt became clearer after I was arrested for the first time.

My friend, Emily Bernard, was my first ever kiss and almost girlfriend, but we were awkward with each other whenever we weren’t making out. Her brother, Jordan, was my first-ever boyfriend. He was my first everything. On one hand, being his girlfriend kept me safe from the possible bullying I’d get if it got out that I liked girls. On the other hand, I genuinely did like Jordan. Being with a guy could be just as charismatic and breathtaking as being with a girl.

Sure, he was a bit clueless and headstrong, but he meant well. He was reckless with himself for fun, and I was always the one to talk him out of making bad decisions. It was exhausting at times, but we really enjoyed each others’ company. I was naive enough to think that maybe, just maybe, we’d be together forever. Maybe it was my inner child still trying to hold onto that fantastical hope that disappeared the older you get. Maybe it was my brain telling me how much I needed close bonds like this in order to survive, the way animals do in the wild. But I wasn’t a princess. I wasn’t an animal. I wasn’t in a fairytale. Life wasn’t perfect.

When I was a freshman in high school, two years into our relationship, I found out that Jordan cheated on me. He was my first heartbreak, the last first he’d ever be to me. Even when he tried to deflect my anger toward the girl he hooked up with, I stayed mad at him. He was the one in a relationship. Jordan could’ve simply told her that, but he didn’t. It was the fact that he chose not to that made me so mad, and it was insulting to try and make himself out as the victim.

After a week of burying my heartache in ice cream and horror movie marathons with Max and a month of avoiding eye contact with Jordan at school, I went to his house to drop off a box of his things we kept in my room. I was also hoping to get my stuff from his room in return. It was what adults did; it was the mature thing to do. I had come to terms with our breakup and was ready to move on.

But we weren’t adults; we were kids. And more often than not, kids are villainously petty. The day I came back to the Bernard family home to return Jordan’s things, I went from mature to petty in a flash. It was a cool summer night as I was about to ring the doorbell, I heard Jordan curse out in the backyard.

“OW! GODDAMIT!”

When I trailed around the house, I found him tripping over a bundle of tree branches. He was really good at building fires. We used to camp a lot. As soon as I saw I box with all my things I left with him next to the roaring fire pit, I lost my shit. It was the first time I heard the jumbled voice that taunted me with intrusive thoughts and impulsiveness.

They told me, “Fuck being the bigger person! He’s about to burn all your shit! Are you gonna let him get away with that, Maeven?”

Without even realizing it, I snuck up on Jordan so that the next time he turned around, he’d scream and fall backward. 

“What the hell are you doing?”

He screamed like your average horror movie victim; it was probably the reason he didn’t like to watch them with me. Jordan could be tough and headstrong in certain situations but was a clumsy scaredy-cat once he stepped outside of them.

“Oh, hey, Mae-Mae! Hi, uhmmm, what. . .what’re you doing here?”

“You don’t get to fucking call me that, Jordan! Not anymore! So, I’ll ask you again; what the hell are you doing?!”

As he awkwardly looked me up and down, he frantically gathered the branches and threw them into the fire pit with some old clothes I didn’t recognize. It must’ve been for kindling.

“What’re you doing here?”

I rolled my eyes. Did he honestly think I was that stupid? Did he not see the completely obvious box of his things I had in my hands?

“I asked you first,” I sneered at him. He jumbled on his words momentarily, making random vowels and sounds before straightening his train of thought.

“Spring cleaning?” He gave me a nervous smile that said ‘please buy it,’ as he began sweating.

“It’s June, and that’s a fire,” I pointed out.

His pupils dilated with panic as he stood up before a lame attempt was made to hide my box of stuff behind his dumbass legs as if I hadn’t already seen it. One of my worst pet peeves of his was how he refused to admit when he was cold. I rarely saw him out of shorts.

“My turn. What’re you doing here?”

“I was gonna be the bigger person and return the stuff you left at my house before proceeding to never speak to you again.” I gestured to the box of his things in my grasp before placing my hand on my hip and tilting my head.

“Good for you, Maeven. I’m proud of you,” he said so matter-of-factly. I could tell he was bursting with the energy he needed to make a run for the house.

“Yeah. But now. . .now I’m having second thoughts.”

The closest thing to Jordan shitting his pants was his heart dropping into his stomach. He had never seen me this angry before, but I had been bottling up all the bullshit he made me endure these past two years.

“Really? Why is that?” 

If it were possible, he’d fill a barrel of nervous sweat like an old cartoon.

“Because you’re burning my shit, Jordan! That’s why!” I almost cut him off, my intrusive thoughts and instinct response jumping against his verbal attack.

“No I wasn’t,” he defended himself, surprisingly calm. “Can I have my box back now?”

Yes. This was the hill I was willing to die on.

“I don’t know, Jordan! Can I have my virginity back?!”

The world around us suddenly went deadly silent and laced with tension. Jordan’s eyes widened in shock, but he remained speechless. If I’d been able to see beyond my anger at his betrayal, I would’ve noticed the small changes in his body that indicated when his heart split in half.

“I didn’t even burn it, yet!” he whined.

“But you were going to,” I clarified. His eyes widened as he realized he was caught red-handed in a lie.

“. . .shit.”

As if he was an animal using its defense mechanisms, he took one of the branches out of the fire pit and swung it at me, hitting my arm as the flames burnt my skin. It felt like someone pushed me into a hot grill.

“Are. . .you. . .SERIOUS?!?!”

My face scrunched up in anger as I subconsciously threw his box on the fire pit. I didn’t feel the pain in my knuckles until after it collided with his face; at least it didn’t hurt as much as my arm burned. It shouldn’t have felt as good as it did to see him clutching his face on the grass like that as he pinched his nose to stop the flow of blood. He was pathetic before, but he looked even more so now.

“What’re you two idiots doing??” Emily yelled at us as she stood on the porch.

“I’m not an idiot!” Jordan and I yelled in unison.

“Right,” she rolled her eyes. “Hey, Idiot and Maeven. Knock it off.”

I let out a laugh so unnecessarily loud, making me feel even better than before now that I knew at least someone was on my side. . .for now.

“Whose side are you on??” Jordan whined again, getting up to walk towards the porch to his sister.

“Let’s see who wins first, then I’ll decide,” she replied.

“She burnt my stuff, Em!” he yelled, using his now blood-covered hand to point at me like a tattling toddler. “Skating and rock music have driven her to violence!”

I walked right up to him as he backed off like a cornered rabbit. I got up right in his face as I narrowed my eyes.

“You were gonna burn my stuff first, Jordan! And the only thing that has driven me to violence is you, you small-dicked son of a bitch!”

At my last syllable, he stumbled backward on his feet and knocked the back of his head on the wooden railing of the porch.

“HA!” Emily laughed before covering her mouth with her hand.

Jordan got up almost immediately and towered over me, ready to defend his honor.

“I told you never to mention that!” he yelled, shoving my shoulders, forcing me to step back from him a bit. I turned my eyes toward Emily.

“Will you please talk some sense into your lunatic of a brother!?”

She exhaustedly groaned, tilting her head up to the sky.

“You’re both acting like lunatics! And if you don’t knock it the hell off, someone’s gonna call the cops!”

In her defense, we were pretty loud.

“Fine. I’ll go as soon as you apologize and give me back my stuff,” I said, turning my head to Jordan. He had gotten what he deserved. I burnt his stuff, gave him a bloody nose, and announced the size of his dick to his whole neighborhood. That should’ve satisfied me, I should’ve known when to walk away, but I didn’t.

“Apologize?!” he laughed in my face. “I don’t have to apologize for anything, Maeven! You punched me in the face and burnt my shit! And technically, you don’t get a say in what I do with ‘your’ shit. You left it at my house, therefore, it's mine.”

I considered punching him again, but I didn’t. It would’ve landed me in more trouble than I already was about to be in.

“There she is! Right there!”

I turned around to see Mr. Bernard pointing his finger at me, two cops behind him as they stomped their way toward me. One of them took out their set of handcuffs.

“Dad?” Emily asked him. “What’re you doing?!”

“Oh, shit-AAAHH!!”

Before I knew it, one of the cops shoved me in the chest and sent me falling backward on the grass. My head collided with the ground and made my ears ring as I tried to find my bearings.

The one without the handcuffs aggressively turned me over onto my stomach before proceeding to push his knee into the small of my back. It forced the air out of my stomach and lungs. My brain tried to force my body to move, but I was frozen in place. I understood now that it was my body’s way of keeping me safe; it knew better than my head that I couldn’t fight this situation.

“What the hell!? I didn’t do anything!”

He shoved my head into the grass with his hand as his partner bound my hands. They hauled me up by the chain of the cuffs as they dug into my wrists, roughly grabbing my arms as they dragged me away.

“You’re under arrest for domestic violence and destruction of property. You have the right to remain silent-”

I blocked them out and turned my eyes to the Bernards.

“You’re arresting me for a bloody nose and a bad breakup?!” I scoffed. “Are you fucking kidding me?! He’s the one who burnt me!”

I couldn’t prove it, but I swear that one of them dug his fingers into the fresh burn on my arm. My feet refused to move as they dragged me along the grass from the backyard to their squad car; it was hard to believe this was really happening. It certainly wasn’t necessary for them to be this aggressive with a 5’4 fifteen-year-old girl.

“Dad, what’re you doing?!” Emily yelled behind me.

I could hear them trailing behind us as one of the cops kicked at my feet, forcing me to stand and walk with them.

“She assaulted him! It’s the least she deserves!” Mr. Bernard replied to his daughter.

“Dad, it’s just a bloody nose! I’m fine! Just let her go!”

That was certainly a surprise. It was the first time I heard Jordan show any type of courage. Even after I burnt his things and punched him, he wanted to help me.

“Maeven, it’s gonna be fine! I’ll call your mom!”

“What?! No!” I turned to Emily as the cops pushed me into the back of the car. “She’ll kill me! Call my Dad!”

“I don’t have his number!”

“Fuck! Okay, just. . .just don’t worry about it, Em. Okay?” I yelled through the glass. “Don’t call anyone. I’ll call him when I get there.”

As they drove me away to the station, I wasn’t certain of it, but I thought I could see Jordan mouthing ‘I’m sorry’ to me. I shut my eyes and did my best to put my mind anywhere else but here. I wasn’t being arrested. This wasn’t happening. I was with my Dad and my sister in the woods. We were having fun. Everything was fine. It felt like heaven.

That trick never worked, but I still try it to this day.

A week later, I found my box of stuff returned to me on the front steps of my house, along with a note I didn’t have the strength to read. Jordan was officially the bigger person in this equation.

. . .

Without his morning cup of coffee, Jim Hopper couldn’t comprehend the busy sounds of the police station; the ringing of the phones, Flo’s daily notifications about his upcoming meetings, and the occasional pats on his back for just being present before noon. The small coffee machine was a gift from God, he convinced himself. A sip from the strong, fresh-brewed cup of coffee melted away all his sleep deprivation, muscle tension, and lingering hangover; as well as the headache from taking care of a certain little girl whom he shared his cabin with.

Taking a seat at his desk, his vision cleared and focused as he stared into his cup as he added his desired amount of sugar and a splash of the thick creamer. Hopper faced the tower of manilla folders, stacked as high as they could go without tipping over. He flipped open the folder on top before being interrupted by a rapid knock at the door.

“What?” he groaned out. There was never a moment of peace around here.

“Well, good morning to you, too, Hop. Or should I say ‘afternoon?’” Flo let out a laugh. She flopped yet another Manilla file on his desk right in front of him, almost tipping over his coffee. The digital clock on his desk read 3:26 PM in red letters.

“Flo, why would you do that? Can you seriously not see the big stack right next to me?” he whined, palming his face and rubbing his eyes with both hands. Flo rolled her eyes.

“This might just be my personal opinion, Hop, but if you didn’t spend most nights drinking and your mornings nursing your hangovers, maybe that damn stack wouldn’t be as tall as the Empire State Building,” she retorted back at him, hand on her hip.

“You’ve never been out of Hawkins, Flo. How do you know how big the Empire State Building is?”

“Just read the damn file, smartass. It’s the most recent one, anyway. You got a meeting with them in about a half hour, so study up.” Flo had worked with him long enough to know he needed a playfully harsh nudge to get his ass going in the morning. She wasn’t gonna let him get off that easy after showing up late and only working for a couple of hours. And Hopper thought it was the coffee that did it.

Before strutting her way out of his office, she turned to him once more for a final note. “Also, you’re four o’clock is running behind, so don’t expect to be out of here before five tonight, you big oaf,” Flo added, one hand on the doorknob while the other pushed up her glasses. Hopper softly banged his head against the top of his desk in response, pointing to the hot cup of coffee in his fist.

“You want this open or closed?” she laughed out.

“Closed.”

Flo left the door halfway open; a compromise.

The Chief picked his head up and let out a long and therapeutic groan, blindly opening the folder in front of him. He kept his eyes closed for a short moment of calm to officially prepare himself for the rest of the day, however long that ended up being. The contents of the now open file caught his eye, as it was faxed to him all the way from San Diego. How did someone end up in the back-forty of Indiana from the busy city streets in California?

Margaret Maeven Mayfield, it read, a month away from turning eighteen. Hopper could’ve sworn he had heard ‘Mayfield’ somewhere before. It sounded like a distantly blurred name of someone from his military days. Now wide awake, he actually took his time to thoroughly read it in all its details instead of just skimming over the fine print to get each case knocked out as soon as possible. ‘Maeven’ was certainly a unique choice for a middle name. He wondered what it meant.

Despite being reported as being intimidatingly smart and well-behaved by all the staff at her old school and the San Diego police, Margaret had made quite the case for herself as a rebel. Her first arrest was when she was fifteen. The charges, in order, were Domestic Violence, Destruction of Property, Drug Possession, Vandalism, Public Indecency, Public Intoxication, Assault, Inciting a Riot, and Manslaughter. What was even more enticing was that most of all these charges were dropped against the girl, and she was sentenced to community service instead of jail time. Apparently, she was very enthusiastic about her punishment and was rewarded for her work by the community. Who does that? Certainly, not anyone Hopper knows.

Her mugshot emanated an unsettling tone of both heartbreak and terror. She was randomly splashed with blood as she held her name up in front of her, her eyes sunken in. They were dark, both in and under, but still wide as if she had just come face-to-face with the devil himself. She looked so scared. Margaret had a past as wild as Hopper’s entire life had been, and she hadn’t even finished High School yet; expelled from School after her assault, a history of fighting and drug problems, and three months in an In-Patient Mental Institution was enough to grab anyone’s attention, let alone a Police Officer’s. 

He knew appearances could be deceiving, but the known victim and suspected criminal looked nothing more than a scared little kid. It reminded Hopper of the Munson boy; practically stolen after his mother’s overdose, both done by the hands of his father, Al Munson. Poor little Eddie just got dealt the wrong cards and had no choice but to accept his place in society as the future resident burnout, both put in place and enforced by the league soccer moms in Hawkins. Hopper wasn’t sure any kid deserved that, even if Munson and Maeven weren’t really kids, anymore. How could someone so young and full of life be accused of so many horrific things?

Jim let his mind wander for a moment back to the times when he himself was a dumb teenager who didn’t know any better. Under the young girl’s circumstances, he could definitely see how and why wrongful accusations could be made against her. He saw himself in the file; a misunderstood kid from the other side of town guilty of nothing but defying their ‘destiny’ and tainting their reputation as a straight-laced good kid. In small towns like Hawkins, you cross a certain street and it’s like a whole other world; divided between the shabby cabins and trailer parks with the so-called ‘town bums’ and the suburbian paradise the soccer moms and their nuclear families shielded themselves within.

The ringing of the phone interrupts Hopper’s thoughts, and he’s suddenly now aware of how he’s been studying the Mayfield file for so long that the red digits on the clock suddenly read 4:32 PM. He huffed out a long sigh before picking up the phone and pressing it to his ear.

“What d'ya got for me, Flo?”

“Mrs. Hargrove and her daughter are here. Should I send ‘em in, or are you still nursing that hangover?”

“Yeah, yeah, send ‘em down. . .smartass.”

. . .

Maeven missed her long hair.

As a child, she wanted nothing more than to have what she, Max, and her parents dubbed ‘princess hair.’ Rapunzel was always her favorite, and she had complained multiple times that the Walt Disney Company was yet to make a movie about her. But she always pictured herself being a wild princess who runs through the woods with leaves and twigs in her hair.

It took her a while to learn how to properly take care of it. She was always so sad when it had to be cut shorter; a result of her failed attempts to grow it out ending in a barrage of too many tangles and knots. After a few too many cuts than she was comfortable with, Maeven finally grew old and patient enough to settle into a good hair-care routine when she was around ten years old.

She loved having so many ways to flaunt her wavy red locks; ponytails, pigtails, braids, and buns. But her favorite way to wear it was to just let it flow down past her shoulders, below her breasts, stopping at the small of her back, so wild and free. Maeven loved the way her partners stroked or tugged on it whenever she was intimate with them. Billy once told her when he fucked her on his lap that running his hands through her hair felt like he was touching the setting sun. 

Having Maeven’s hair draped across his body like a silk curtain was one of the only places he felt truly safe. Of course, he had never admitted it aloud to her. It was partially to keep up his tough reputation, but he also didn’t feel like he needed to tell her. Maeven already knew, he could tell. She was always good at reading him.

Maeven’s hair was always the first thing people noticed about her. It was the first thing they noticed about Max and their Mom, too. Besides the blue eyes and the freckles, it was the Mayfield ladies’ defining feature. It was why everyone was so disappointed when she cut it all off so suddenly. One night last February, she woke up from yet another nightmare, a flashback, that someone chased her, hunted her down like a wild animal, and caught her by her hair.

New Year's Eve, 1983 ruined a lot of things for her; parties, drugs, nighttime, and outside, just to name a few. But the worst part of it was no longer feeling safe in her own body. It was the feeling that she was no longer safe being herself. So, acting on sheer impulse and instinct, Maeven took the sewing shears from her mother’s craft room and hastily cut off her long ginger locks until her hair ended up choppy, just below her ears. 

She wasn’t sure if she should’ve felt sad at what she had done to herself, or feel relieved now that the cause of her paranoia was severed from her head. All she did know was that she had one less thing to worry about; one less thing that people liked to take advantage of. She didn’t want to be hunted, anymore. She was a little bit safer. . .for now, Even though her emotions weren’t certain, she still cried her eyes out that night.

After letting it grow a bit and finally evening it out, Maeven did her best to embrace her new look. She just decided that she wasn’t going to look at herself in the bathroom mirror unless she absolutely had to brush her hair or put on makeup. It was easier that way; less painful. As the cold, autumn wind passed through Hawkins and made the back of her neck chill that she missed her former length the most. It helped that she never needed a scarf in the winter, as she could always use her hair to cover her neck.

Maeven scratched the back of her neck, running her fingertips over her hairline and short fuzz to soothe herself. She twirled her short locks around her finger and pulled hard; a not-so-healthy way to cure her boredom and keep her anxiety occupied. It was times like this she regretted cutting away her hair the most. The times when she wanted nothing more than to hide her face behind her firey red locks and just sink into herself. 

She had slowly gotten used to the constant presence of police since her first arrest at fifteen and all the times that followed afterward. Whatever name you give them, cops, police, pigs, dicks, every officer of the law was different in their own way. Maeven had met maybe a handful of them who actually seemed concerned for her well-being and genuinely wanted to help her. That didn’t make their looming presence any less threatening to her. More often than not, they were the kind to attack first and ask questions later. 

Since being discharged from inpatient psychiatric treatment, Maeven did her hardest to appear non-threatening and be on her best behavior, especially around the police. She steered clear of them. Even though she tended to steer clear of everyone these days, she avoided confrontation with police especially. With all the charges that had been brought against her in the years following her first arrest, Maeven knew that whatever was on her permanent record, it wasn’t a flattering portrayal.

The treatment program she went to maybe have helped her with a lot of her many mental issues, but Maeven still felt broken. Even if she recovered, she didn’t feel quite like a human again, and she secretly wished she could just change. It didn’t matter what or who. Honestly? She wouldn’t mind being a rock or a dying star, an animal or an insect. It wasn’t important to her. All that mattered was that she wouldn’t feel like this; being a human was a messy, painful merry-go-round of inconsistencies. It wasn’t worth it, anymore.

Maeven wasn’t sure exactly what was keeping her alive. She felt it getting stronger once they moved to Hawkins, and she was determined to find it. But, for now, her life would just be a mundane and painful routine of various medications, her many coping skills that ranged from healthy to unhealthy, visits with cops and therapists, and trying to stop herself from getting in her own way. It was working. . .slowly. But that's the thing about healing; it isn’t always linear.

She didn’t even hear the receptionist call to her and her mom until she felt her grab her hand in an attempt to bring her daughter along to, . .

“Wait. . .where are we again?” Maeven thought allowed, not even realizing it until her mom looked at her with wide eyes, a mixture of disappointment and concern. It hurt to look at.

“The Police Station, Maevey. You have a meeting, remember?”

Maeven said nothing, her brain still catching up with the rest of the world and the concept of time. She dug her sharply manicured nails into her palms, taking a moment to swallow her anxiety down before smiling and nodding at her mom.

“That’s right,” Maeven silently remembered. After the tour of the school, Neil dropped her and Susan off at the police station. Billy took Max to the arcade and he was no doubt killing time by using the back roads of Hawkins like his own personal race track.

“You were disassociating again, bitch,” the voice scolded.

As her mom gently tugged her along toward the Chief’s office, Maeven felt like the world around her was growing smaller. Technically it was; the walls narrowed as Susan led her down the hallway from the front desk. It wasn’t long at all, or even that narrow. But that’s how it felt.

Susan Hargrove, on the other hand, walked in front of her daughter like she owned the place. Another flaw of Neil’s that rubbed off on her. Maeven wasn’t sure if she should feel scared or safe. She hadn’t felt like she needed her mom’s guidance and protection since she was little. Were either of the Mayfield women themselves, anymore?

Her mom stood halfway through the threshold of the Chief’s office as Maeven mentally prepared herself to remain calm in front of him. This man had access to her file; a collection of her worst moments where she was decided to be bad by people who didn’t know her. He had the power to use everything in that file to make her life worse if he wanted to. It all depended on his impression of her, on whether or not she can do a good job convincing him that she wasn’t the person those documents painted her as.

“I take it you’re Mrs. . .Hargrove? I thought it was ‘Mayfield?’”

“That was my last husband’s name, Mr. Hopper. I remarried this year,” Susan promptly corrected him. Hopper’s eyebrows raised as his eyes narrowed.

“Another Suburban Soccer Mom. Go figure,” he thought to himself.

“Alright, then. C’mon in and have a seat, ladies. I don’t bite,” Hopper gestured to the chairs facing his desk.

“Yeah. You might not bite. But what about you, Maevey?”

Maeven didn’t acknowledge the voice this time but crossed her arms around her middle to hug herself. 

She rounded the corner and looked at the Chief. Hopper looked like someone her dad would get along with. Not the sleazy, sexist drunk ones who hovered around him in San Francisco. Out of his police garb, Maeven predicted that he’d be someone’s dad or cool uncle who takes you fishing or cooks you a classic American breakfast. She took a seat next to her mother in her matching leather office chair. The urge to play with and pick at the tears and cracks was annoyingly strong.

Maeven sat so that both her hands were tucked under both her legs, hidden underneath her skirt. She didn’t want her mom to draw any more unnecessary attention to her fidgeting. That was embarrassing.

Hopper couldn’t help but stare at the nervous girl in front of him. She was definitely smaller than he expected, maybe because of the way she carried herself as if she was trying to disappear. No matter how many years he had under his belt as an officer, the cases that involved kids never got easier. In fact, they had only gotten more difficult in the last year. Between Will going missing in a whole nother goddamn dimension and suddenly becoming a parent to a girl again, Jim had a lot to adjust to, lately. And it seemed like he certainly wasn’t the only one.

This girl was too impossibly young to know grief this large. Yet, here she sits in front of him. And even if her files were up to date, Jim had his doubts. He knew that looks could be deceiving, but Margaret Mayfield didn’t look or act like a criminal, much less a bad person. There was just no way.

“So. . .what brings you in today?”

For once, Maeven decided not to count the stains on the carpet or the scratches on the Chief’s desk. Not that she wanted to talk to him, but she just didn’t want to be silent and awkward anymore. In the past, the cops she dealt with before interpreted her silence as a threat, or a confession of her guilt. And she left the school tour feeling oddly confident after meeting Nancy and Steve.

Of course, her mother just had to speak for her. 

“My husband called in and spoke with your receptionist, Flora, to make sure you got my daughter’s file from Captain Daly down in San Diego. We just moved here, and we wanna make sure she has a. . .a good relationship with the law enforcement here so that she hopefully doesn’t repeat her past mistakes,” she explained, finishing with a smile on her face.

Susan grew a little too used to assuming Maeven’s feelings. It was fine at the beginning when she at least asked for her permission via a silent nod, but it was more often than not that she just took over and micromanaged the conversation.

“Well, now she just has to pay. Go on, now.”

“No, no, no. Please just stop. Please.”

It took a moment for Jim to process what just happened. He didn’t blame Susan’s daughter for looking at her the way she did, with such frustration and annoyance as she bounced her leg. The psychiatric evaluation in her file did say she suffered from anxiety. Hopper wouldn’t be surprised if this girl listed her mother as a stressor.

“Y’know, I’d actually prefer to speak with Margaret alone, if you wouldn’t minds, Mrs. Hargrove?”

The very thought of her mother leaving the room for a little while lowered the tenseness in Maeven’s shoulders and the air suddenly return to her lungs. She tried not to let it show too much, though. Her mother developed a tendency to notice the little changes whenever her mood fluctuated. No matter how infuriating Susan acted sometimes, the thought of hurting her feelings still broke the young girl’s heart to think about. It was both an impressive and scary hidden talent, like a lighthouse with a giant eye as the light.

“Maybe you should sketch that. It’d look cool,” the voice suggested. Maeven fought the urge to reach for her sketchbook. She could already see the picture in her mind’s eye.

Susan paused for a moment as she processed the Chief’s request.

“Oh. . .sure! Of course! No problem, I. . .” Susan stood up from the chair and placed her hand gently on her daughter’s shoulder. “I’ll just be waiting outside, okay?” she reassured, her eyes turning sad when she looked at her.

Maeven blinked away her idea for a moment to give her mom a half-smile. 

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m fine,” she replied, her hand squeezing, then brushing her hand off her shoulder. Susan nodded before walking to the door.

“And it’s Flo, by the way. Not ‘Flora,’” Hop made sure to mention before she had a chance to close the door on her way out.

“Yes. . .of course,” Susan stuttered as she closed the office door. The silence that filled the room after it slammed wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable for once. In fact, it was oddly freeing.

“Thanks. I, uh. . .thank you,” Maeven squeaked out as she fidgeted with her hands just itching to reach for her backpack.

“No problem, kid,” Hopper chuckled before continuing. “My wife was the same way with me and my daughter. She just worries.”

Maeven said nothing, but nodded in understanding, making eye contact with the Chief for about two seconds before turning back to her lap. Hopper could already see that his theory about her being misunderstood in her reports proved to be correct already.

“So, Margaret. Or do you go by ‘Maggie?’” he asked

“No one calls me that,” she said softly. “It’s Maeven.”

Hopper’s eyes darted back to her file just out of her sight.

“Oh, your middle name. Alright. Sorry,” he reassured. But, again, Maeven said nothing.

“Okay, then. Well, welcome to Hawkins, first of all. You like it?”

“Yeah. It’s okay,” she muttered, bouncing her right leg while swinging the left.

“It takes a little getting used to,” Jim mentioned, continuing his attempt to coax this girl out of her shell. He couldn’t help her if she didn’t talk to him.

“Mmm-hmm. . .” Maeven nodded.

The Chief exhaled loudly through his nose in contemplation, suddenly noticing that her eyes were darting back and forth between her fidgeting hands and her backpack. What did she have in there that was so important? According to her file, Maeven could be nervous about drugs in her bag. Her behavior was, after all, common for a druggie, but Hopper didn’t think that to be the case. Still, he treads lightly.

“I see you eyeing your bag, there. Do you need something?”

Maeven’s eyes darted back to him for longer, this time, her demeanor that of a cornered animal unsure how to react.

“Sorry. Do you mind if I draw?” she asked, shaking her head as if to bring her back to herself.

“Draw? Why?” he asked.

“It, uhm. . .it helps with my restlessness and keeps me focused,” Maeven fumbled to explain herself, almost defensive about her hobby. Hopper shrugged.

“If you promise to answer my questions, I got no problem,” he admitted. He really didn’t care, just a little confused.

She gave him a soft smile before immediately reaching for her bag and pulling out a black sketchbook and a small pouch of pencils, pens, and markers. Swiftly, she turned to a fresh page and pulled out a red colored pencil.

“. . .thank you,” she muttered before getting to work.

“So. . .I got a call from Captain Daly all the way out in San Diego, and he filled me in on your. . .recent situation,” Hopper explained, pausing every so often to observe Maeven’s movements as she sketched. The way her hands moved the pencil across the page was random, both erratic and calm with no clear order or pattern, but still had a sort of rhythm. 

“Apparently, you had quite a reputation with your school and the law back over in California?”

At the mention of her past, Maeven’s drawing hand came to a dead stop, as if her mind was somewhere else and had to adjust to his words in her own way.

“He knows, Maeven. He knows how insane you are. One toe out of line and he’ll have you sent to an asylum. And you know what’ll happen then, right? You’ll never be seen again.”

“. . .yeah, I guess so,” Maeven admitted, trying her best to swallow her obvious fear of Daly before going back to her sketch. She had finished the basic outline of the lighthouse from a bottom perspective, continuing to draw a giant, graphic eyeball in place of the searchlight.

“Doesn’t sound like you’re too proud about it,” Jim observed.

“I’m not. I never was,” she defended, moving on from the iris to the veins. “I’m the complete opposite, actually.”

She brought the leg she was once swinging up to sit on the chair, almost melting into it. He chuckled softly. Now she was starting to act like a kid her age should.

“Do me a favor and keep your boots off my chair, Maeven.”

He wouldn’t have said anything if he knew that the girl would suddenly switch moods and sit the way a mother would nag her child to.

“Oh! Yes! Sorry, sir,” she apologized.

Hopper mentally scolded himself. She was just started to get comfortable with him and he had to go and ruin it with his big mouth and closed-minded understanding of manners.

“Have you dealt with a lot of law enforcement before, kid?”

“I. . .I don’t have any intention of causing any trouble, Officer, I promise.”

It was clear to him now that Maeven didn’t have an ideal relationship with cops. No doubt due to Captain Daly and his officers. Some of the reports of arrests in her file indicated that she fought(as any other kid would do in her situation) and the officers weren’t exactly.

“It sounds like Captain Daly gave you some hard times. I’m not gonna blame an officer for doing his job, handling your investigation.”

“I know. I don’t either. I know I wasn’t the. . .easiest person to handle,” she confessed, now sketching slowly, moving on to add the details of the lighthouse.

Her attitude toward the situation was delightfully humble, but just as depressing. It was always tragic to see someone so young also filled with so much pain. Jim turned back to her file and skimmed over a couple more pages that mentioned how she gradually started getting into more and more fights throughout the second semester of her failed Junior Year.

“It says here that you’ve had some. . .bad luck with others. And that you’ve dealt with behavioral issues. But you’re on medication now and have been managing your impulses.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she nodded, not looking up from her page.

“That’s not something to be proud of, Maeven. You shouldn’t have to rely on pills to keep from hurting yourself and fucking everything with a heartbeat.” the voice scolded in her ear. 

“I don’t do that,” she argued against it, shaking her head free of those thoughts.

Hopper looked at her list of medications on her medical records, including the trials and tribulations of finding the right pills that worked for her. It couldn’t have felt too good to have to take that many pills so often.

“So. . .why don’t you tell me what happened, Maeven? Tell me about yourself,” he suggested as she relaxed her shoulders and continued to sketch. Jim didn’t want to pry. Even if it’d been a while since her incident and recovery process, she was still clearly fragile about it.

Maeven shrugged as she finished coloring the red roof of the lighthouse.

“What is there to know? You have my file. You know exactly what I am,” she pouted. It was strange to Jim that she could switch from being a mature young lady to a frustrated child so easily and quickly.

“No. I can’t really say I do,” he gently argued with her. After pausing to take a look at her sketch so far, Maeven shut her book, tapping and scratching her nails against the cover.

“Look, I know that I haven’t made a lot of good choices in the last few years. I know I’m pretty crazy, too. And I know that’s not an excuse and you have no reason to believe me, Sir, but I’m very sorry and I don’t wanna get in any kind of trouble again, and I-”

The longer she talked, the more discombobulated her movements became, and the more frantic and anxious Maeven appeared to Hopper. Her leg shakes as the tapping of her nails on her notebook turned more rapid. It became clearer to him that when Mr. Hargrove called in to say this girl was extremely fragile, he wasn’t kidding.

“Woah, okay. Just calm down, kid. Enough with the formalities,” Hopper held out his hands as he spoke as if trying to show an abused house pet that he meant no harm; the act made Maeven suddenly realized she needed to breathe in between sentences. 

“Stop calling me ‘sir,’ Maeven. ‘Makes me feel like a Grandpa,” he laughed, holding out his hand as he awaited a shake. “It’s Hopper. Jim Hopper. My friends call me ‘Hop.’”

“Okay, uhmm. . .Thank you, si-I mean Hop,” she tripped over her words as she accepted his offer for a friendly handshake. “Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Miss Mayfield.”

It had been a while since Maeven interacted with an adult this way; just a casual, friendly interaction between two fellow adults. The chief’s handshake was firm with respect and emanated a familiar warmth. It reminded her of her Dad.

“Don’t worry. I won’t make too big a deal about this. I won’t let your troubles follow you into Hawkins if that’s what you want. But that also depends on you and your choices from here on out, you understand?”

“I do, yes,” Maeven smiled, feeling a small sense of pride that she thought died on New Year’s.

“Thought so. You seem like a smart kid. Took a look at your grades from Newport. Said you almost broke some record at their school for scoring so high on the SATs.”

“Yeah. . .it’s not that big of a deal,” she laughed, humbling herself again as she looked down at her tapping nails on her sketchbook.

“It is in Hawkins, kid. Trust me,” Hopper playfully argued. He wasn’t exactly wrong, either. Even back when he went to High School, a lot of his graduating class was made up of jackasses that didn’t know their ass from their elbow. The more academic ones ended up leaving Hawkins for better opportunities. Joyce could’ve been one of those people, too. But she was happy where she was. That was the kind of future he knew Maeven could reach. She was too good for this place.

 “Not a lot of our kids have that kind of potential. I’m sure you’re gonna be fine,” he finished.

Maeven wanted to accept his compliment, but the voice inside her wouldn’t let her. 

“He’s lying to you. He’s just trying to be nice,” it taunted, disguising it as a warning, she was sure.

“So, we both know what your file says. But I wanna hear it firsthand. You wanna tell me about what happened to you?”

Again, Maeven could only speculate what was in that manilla folder. She remembered a meeting with Captain Daly and her mother where he slammed her case file on the table of the interrogation room. She couldn’t bare to look at it. It was painful enough watching Susan read it through the gasps and sobs. She was sure that reading it herself would tear her very soul apart more than it already had been.

“He already knows. Stop buying pointless time and just get it over with. It’ll be easier.”

Chief Hopper wasn’t Captain Daly, though. He wasn’t like any of the other police she dealt with in the past. The ones who blamed her for her fate and tried to turn her into the villain. The ones who didn’t hesitate to draw their weapons on her when they found her bleeding and begging for help in the forest.

No. Hopper was different. Maeven knew he couldn’t fully comprehend what she went through. She lived through what most people would find unimaginable. But Hopper at least had more empathy and a sense of emotional intelligence than any cop she’d crossed paths with.

“Uhm. . .I’d rather not, if that’s okay? Not yet, at least.” she asked, hoping her instincts were right, switching from tapping her sketchbook to scratching the back of her hands

Hopper frowned at the sight. Maeven’s nails were so sharp that her hands were red and threatening to break out in blood.

“I get it,” Hopper said to her. “It’s the first meeting. You’re a little on edge. I have you back here next Sunday, right?”

At the sound of his voice, Maeven ceased her scratching.

“Mmm-hmm,” she nodded, letting out a sigh of relief at his understanding. Hopper returned her nod before handing her a slip of paper he had just signed; a weekly attendance sheet that she would eventually show to her mom and Neil so they’d know she was ‘improving.’ She would probably get another one from the school counselor tomorrow.

“Just focus on getting yourself adjusted to Hawkins for the next seven days and then we can talk about your. . .situation,” Jim told her, once again treading lightly.

“I can do that,” Maeven agreed, tucking the piece of paper beneath the cover of her sketchbook.

“Alright, kid. You’re dismissed,” the chief said with a small wave of his hand. “Besides, I’m sure your mom’s probably anxious not having you around,” he joked, sure of himself that he wasn’t overexaggerating.

Maeven slipped her book and pencils back into her backpack before zipping it shut, scrambling out of her seat as she walked towards the door and pulled the knob. Before exiting, she took one last look at the Chief, still glancing at her file.

“Officer Hopper?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. I. . .I really appreciate it,” she stuttered out.

“Anytime, Maeven,” Jim smiled back at her. As he watched her leave his office, he couldn’t help but be reminded of the little girl who awaited his return at his cabin in the woods. El and Maeven would get along well.

. . .

A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter coming out. I had to split it up so it wouldn't be too long. That doesn't necessarily mean that I don't like writing chapters at a longer length, but 20-25 pages is my comfort zone. I usually start by just outlining a chapter with all the dialogue I want to include and build the actions and descriptions around that.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! The next one shouldn't take as long as this one did as I already have all the dialogue written out for it. I'm writing both chapters five and six at once. Please be sure to leave some kudos and comments, as they are my lifeblood and are incredibly helpful whenever I need inspiration. I'm glad that people seem to be resonating with Maeven. She's definitely the hardest I've worked on when it comes to all the characters I've created over the years.

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[ststriogyofficialblog]

Oh hello void! I am here once again to yell about my children, except its more specific this time.

Warnings for this post: mentions of past self harm (fictional) and mental illness (also fictional)

We're doing a deep dive on Aisha, who for some reason is the character I find most interesting to write.

So backstory eh? yeah, she didn't have... the ideal childhood. Raised by her single mom, she never felt like enough, always in her mother's shadow. Her mother, the well known scientist. The respected head of the research department at one of the best medical facilities in the world. The girl who came from nothing, and ended up with everything.

She wasn't like that. Neither was her sister. They were inseparable. From an early age, her mother treated them more like test subjects than daughters.

This uh... fucked Aisha up. A lot. She started viewing not only herself, but other people as lab rats. things to be curious about. To poke and prod until something in them finally snaps.

She found bodies fascinating. Such complex things. One could only wonder what were the limits.

She started... testing on herself. Seeing how much blood she could lose before passing out. How high she would have to fall to break her legs. Eventually one of her teachers found out what was happening, and of course being concerned, contacted child services. She was mandated to take therapy. She got better, at least in terms of taking care of herself.

Time skip, to high school, where her sister decided to persue a career in education, going to college for it and all set. She wasn't so sure about what she wanted to be. So when asked if she wanted to be an intern at her mother's work, she felt compelled to accept.

She's 18, and an intern at one of the medical research centers that held the first samples of the infection when an 'accidental' contamination of her food ended up turning her. She mainly found out something was wrong when she realized there were some gaps in her memory.

At this point the news of the new 'magic ptsd curing pill' actually holding an infection had broken.

2 weeks. It took two weeks for society to completely fall apart. large buildings were repurposed to be holding centers. People were arrested for even interacting with the infected. Buildings brought down. Innocent civilians killed.

She managed to hide her infection during this time, but one day after waking up and seeing herself in the mirror, she saw her hair had become a light blue silk-like colour and consistency. Her eyes were a sunny yellow, and there were small growths on her neck. She ran away.

(that's where our story starts)

For appearence, she's fairly short, with dark brown skin. Blue hair, yellow eyes.

She's a flora variant. She's based on the Leucocoprinus fragilissimus, also known as the fragile dapperling.

Images of the fragile dapperling below

Her playlist