#not often but sometimes i hear someone say my name or yell something unintelligible but no one's around me

[mxpseudonym]

Just Good Business IV

Pairing: Tommy x Reader

Reader Gender Expression: She/Her pronouns, “wife”

Summary: After Tommy has to put down his horse, you want him to lean on you for once.

Length: 2080 words (allegedly)

Warnings: animal death, cursing, and as usual, underlying tones of forced/arranged marriage

A/N: It’s my bday so I decided to post this part today! I hope you like it, it’s been a journey. I’m going 

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part V

--

You weren't what your mother would call nurturing or sentimental. 

Not that you didn't know how to love or take care. You'd just rather live life as freely as you could and not be tied down by attachments to those who don't love you as much as you love them or worrying about keeping a house. Your mother said it wasn't becoming, and men would be turned away. You wished she would have warned you instead. That when there was the right person, one you'd do just about anything for, you can be the thing you never thought you could be, just for them. 

It had been the better part of a year, and you were still learning that marriage was simple in definition, but by no means easy. Tommy only made that more accurate. He was driven and focused at work, which made you better at your job as well. You were making a name for yourself as a partnership, and things were as thrilling as ever at home. Tommy talked to you and let you in little by little. It wasn't something you asked for, but it did make you do the same. Even after knowing each other for a mere year and a half, you knew each other reasonably well. Which was why you were pacing in your bedroom, arms wrapped around yourself to stop you from biting your nails. You had asked Tommy not to leave earlier,  but he wouldn't listen to you or anyone. 

"Tom, please," you pleaded, placing yourself between him and the door. 

"Y/n,"

"Just let them do it. Let the stable hand take care of it, okay?" You asked. You thought you had him for a moment, but his eyes lowered, and he stepped around you.

"She's my horse, y/n. My horse that got sick, my horse to see through 'til the end." 

It had been hours, longer than was necessary. But it was in Tommy's nature as Romani man to go deep into the land on your property when he was upset. He'd done it before. Johnny Dogs was the one who told you that there wasn't anything to worry about, even if Tommy spent the night out there. It didn't take a professional to know that Tommy could only bottle so much up before he erupted, though. You were on a secret mission to get him to come to you instead sometimes. 

The echo of the door slamming knocked you out of your head and nearly sent you running to the foyer. It only took a few moments for him to be at your bedroom door. 

Tommy came in with just his socks, the muddy boots in hand were placed by the door. He looked you over but said nothing as he went to the restroom, closing the door behind him. You sighed and hung your head. So it wouldn't be straightforward. It didn't take long for him to wash up. You were just finishing putting on your own pajamas when he finally sat on the edge of the bed.

"How did the meeting with the Commissioner go?" Tommy asked. You walked up to him, ignoring his means of changing the subject by silently wrapping your arms around him tightly.

"I'm sorry, Tom. I'm so sorry you had to do it," you told him in his ear. He tightened the hug and buried his face in your neck. "Whatever you need."

"I need," Tommy began, pulling out of the embrace after a few long moments, "I need to know how your meeting went." 

Your comforting eyes met his desperate ones. This was how he was, and there was how you had to take him. You made your way across the room to where your notebook sat on the side table. 

"Of course. It went well, and I took notes for you this time."

It was 3:30 in the morning when you were sharply woken up by Tommy's yell and shooting straight up in bed.

"Fuck," you swore and placed a hand over your thumping chest. You turned on your lamp to see Tommy wide-eyed and sweating. 

"It's fine," his voice was hoarse as he ran a hand through his hair. He put a shaking hand on your leg to stop your fretting. You stroked his cheek anyway. 

"It's not fine, love, and that's okay," you assured. "I'm going to run a bath." 

"No," he gasped, still coming down from his terrifying high. "It's late." 

"It'll be good, promise. Let's just try, alright?" 

The steam of the bath filled the room, and swirled around the curls of cigarette smoke. The French lullaby you sang bounced off the white tile walls, pausing only momentarily when you took your cigarette in your mouth. You continued, reaching your hand forward to place it between Tommy's lips. He took over smoothly like it was what he was meant to do, and stroked the legs you had wrapped around him in gratitude. Asking for a bathtub you could swim in really came in handy, you thought with Tommy's back pressed against your chest in hot water. When you finished the tune, your arms wrapped around Tommy's shoulders, and you buried your face in his neck. 

"What do you dream about?" You asked. There were nights when his mumbling or twisting and turning woke you, but it was all brushed away with "the war." This wasn't the first time you'd asked, but it was the first time you had an advantage. If stopping Tommy from driving out into the darkness meant pulling him into the bath and wrapping your limbs around him to keep him there, you'd happily oblige. 

"I hear the shovels coming for me. They're loud, and they keep me up at night. When I sleep, I'm digging. I hear the shovels, the men, I see the darkness. There's nothing, no end or beginning. I'm somewhere between being alive and dead, but I don't know if I'll wake up again," he said it like he said everything. Straight to the point and methodical. "Today with Thunder, putting an end to her like that, just put my mind in a bad way."

"Is it the same dream every time?" You asked. It was. Which was a shame. Tommy, one of the most capable people you knew, was to live out his life as a terrifying metaphor. 

"Always will be," he concluded. 

"Always and never, they're liars more often than not," you told him. "And you belong to me now, so if you can talk to yourself in those dark tunnels of your mind, remind yourself that if you open your eyes, you'll have someone waiting for you." 

"Gonna fight my demons for me, are you?" Tommy chuckled. You couldn't help but join.

"Of course, if I get the chance." You kissed his cheek, and Tommy sunk even deeper into your embrace. 

"I don't know why I can't shake it. Seeing horses die stays with me." 

"You don't know?" You peered down at him. "It's because you're one of them."

"How can you tell?" 

"You're gallant like a horse, even who you don't want the medals. You've shown me how strong you are without using your hands. You're as much fire as you are ice, which is beautiful, like a horse."

You slid your hand over Tommy's chest to rest over the tattoo there. Under your palm, his heart thumped away.

"Your heart beats like a horse, a wild stallion who's made himself race. But a stallion that only races himself doesn't know when or how to stop. He will run so hard and so fast for so long that his heart will burst if he isn't careful."

"I don't know how you can see things in me like you do, y/n. I just know you're making everything better." Tommy clasped your hand and pressed his lips against your wrist.

You kissed his shoulders and any part of him you could reach for the short remainder of the soak. You were more than willing to stay up with Tommy, but your body was so tired it made you sick. With Tommy's head on your chest, however, you slept fully to the next morning. Your eyes fluttered open as you registered the light stroking sensation on your cheek. 

"Good morning," Tommy greeted you. Your groggy voice delivered an identical, albeit near unintelligible reply. Part of you wanted to tell him to sleep more, but you could feel Tommy hesitate. You allowed your eyes to flutter open to reveal Tommy resting on his elbow next to you. He looked down at you, clearly lost in thought behind those blue eyes. 

"I love you."

You could feel your eyebrows crease. Was this a dream? The words hung in the air, impending and waiting for you to reply with something just as sweet.

"What?" You asked, no room for elegance. 

"Fuck 'good business.' I don't care about any of that. I love you."

"Oh," you eventually stammered. "Why would you say that?" 

You tried to find the words, but in your sleepy haze, you chose the first words that came to mind. Tommy leaned forward, disappointment evident in his eyes, and kissed your forehead. 

"It's alright. I just want you to know," Tommy said, then climbed out of bed. You heard him head out of the door, which shook you awake enough to get up. 

"Thomas Shelby!" You yelled from the top of the stairs, just as he'd reached the foyer. He turned in his dressing gown and raised an eyebrow at you, only in your pajamas. "What the hell? Thomas, I," 

"It's alright, y/n. You don't have to say anything." 

"Would you stop? You know I hate it when you interrupt me," you scolded him. Tommy mumbled an apology then waited for you to continue.

"Listen, you surprised me. I just woke up for christ's sake. I didn't ask why you said it because I don't feel the same. I just wonder if you'd say that if we weren't married." 

"What do you mean?" He asked with his own brow creasing. 

"I don't cook or clean. I'm not sweet or easy to swallow. Believe me, I do enjoy myself quite a bit. But sometimes I wonder, if you hadn't been made to marry me, would you have found on your own that," you sighed, "I'm not someone you'd want to be with." 

You looked to your bare feet and took a breath. Being this emotional so early in the morning was not your speed. After a moment, you heard a soft chuckle growing in volume to become a full laugh. Tommy stood in the foyer, shoulders shaking and cheeks flushing. He made his way up to you on the landing and pressed the back of his hand against your cheeks then forehead. 

"Are you ill, Mrs?" Tommy asked, making you roll your eyes. 

"Tom, please." 

"You're talking nonsense, y/n. Polly told me to find a wife, but I'm the one who suggested it be you, alright? Your reputation proceeds you, love. Stepping into negotiations for your brother and conducting impressive business. That night we met only confirmed it. Every day since that dinner, you have kept me on my toes, and I love it. I love you."

You felt your cheeks warm, and you let out a laugh. 

"I fucking knew you liked me."

"Unbelievable." Tommy rolled his eyes, but let you throw your arms around his neck and plant a proper kiss on his lips.

"I love you too, how's that?"

"If you're just saying that to appease me, you don't have to." 

"When is it that I go around saying things I don't mean?" You asked firmly then kissed him again. 

"Good, then I have something to ask." Tommy lowered himself on one knee, anchoring himself by holding your waist. "Will you, with no deals or debts on the table, marry me and be my wife?" 

It occurred to you that you hadn't gotten a marriage proposal at all, especially not one from the heart. Who said Tommy couldn't be romantic? "I don't know how my husband is going to feel about that. I've heard he's quite in love with me," you said, hands running through his hair. Tommy smirked but nodded in approval. "Yes, I will marry you. But only if you'll marry me too."

"I'll have to ask my wife," Tommy said, standing and wrapping you in his arms. You reached up and kissed him once more. 

"She approves." 

..

Tommy Tag List: @soleil-dor;  @amysteryspot​

JGB Series Tag List: @biba3434 ; l0tsofpennies

[tetrakys]

idk if someone send you that request but it obviously matches Armin: 43, 42 & 52

42. “Just let me finish this/this level and I swear I’ll go down on you until you cum at least three times.” & 43. “If I have to stop what I’m doing, you won’t be able to walk for the next week.” & 52. “I’m not jealous! It’s just…you’re mine!”

I’m sorry honey this took me only what… four/five months? 😅 hope it was worth the wait.

I needed something quick and dirty with UL Armin and I remembered this prompt request. I know there’s probably only 3 people here who may be interested in this, so @itsmymindspeaking and @fuckyalllifes this is for us 😂

.

I chugged my drink in one go, a little dizziness coming to my head. I had spent good part of the night drinking and I was feeling just a little tipsy. It wasn’t like I was bored, I was out with my friends after all, but I wasn’t having the time of my life either.

I looked at Alexy and Morgan kissing passionately without a care in the world, and then at Rosa and Leigh, looking at each other with a complicity that anyone would’ve envied.

Then I looked at the empty seat right next to me.

“Is everything all right, Candy?” Rosa asked, sensing my discomfort. “It’s about Armin, isn’t it? Where is he, anyway? It feels like I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“Where do you think?” I replied without managing to hide the annoyance from my voice. “In his dorm room of course. He’s been holed up in there since the beginning of spring break.”

“Wait… he’s not… no it can’t be… is he spending the holidays playing video games 24/7?”

“Of course he is!” Alexy replied before I’d time to say anything. He must’ve caught our conversation between one kiss and the next. “Yesterday morning I left him sitting in front of the tv playing that stupid co-op game he likes so much, and that’s exactly where I found him this evening before we came here. I’m not even surprised, I gave up on him years ago.” He turned back in his seat, looking at Morgan adoringly. “Luckily, I don’t have to suffer through the night because of his constant jabbering with his geek friends, I’ve found a more comfortable accommodation. If I’m kept up all night is for completely different and more pleasurable reasons.”

After those words he started kissing Morgan again, abandoning the rest of the conversation.

“Well,” Rosa went on, “this isn’t right. You can’t let him take you for granted, Candy. Do something!”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know… try to make him jealous.”

“Ha! You know that won’t work. He’s the least possessive person on the face of the Earth.” I replied a little defeated.

“Then remind him what he’s missing out on by spending the whole time in front of a screen instead of his girlfriend!”

“Meaning? You know that I won’t be able to tempt him with a date. The times we go out, he does it just to please me, if it were for him we would spend the whole day in his room playing games. And don’t get me wrong, I love playing with him, it’s just that sometimes I need more, like…” I hesitated, “I don’t know, I feel like a spoiled child just saying this but… sometimes I just want his undivided attention.”

“Then take it!”

“How?”

She looked at me like I was stupid.

“You’re a woman, it’s not that hard to figure out. Do I need to check your underwear like in high school?”

“There’s no need. But… are you suggesting using my body to beg him for attention? Isn’t it a little too desperate?” I asked biting my lip nervously.

“Aren’t you? Desperate?” she replied ironically. “Look, it’s not that big of deal, really. Even I… you know how Leigh can get sometimes,” she looked at him queuing at the bar to get us a refill. “He’s so passionate about his work. Sometimes I need to remind him to take a break,” she laughed.

“Mmm…” I replied evasively. Her words weren’t completely unreasonable. I was a strong, modern woman, if I wanted something, I just had to take it. I’m a woman hear me roar and all that…

Maybe… maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

—

 “Be careful…  On your right! No! Fuck! It’s a grenade!”

I was leaning against the doorframe as I stared at my boyfriend, willing him to take notice of me. He was sitting down on the floor, back against the bed, wearing only his boxer shorts and a t-shirt. Controller in his hands, his eyes fixed on the big screen in front of him. I could hear the muffled voices of his teammates coming from the headphones he was wearing.

I’d let myself in thanks to my spare keys ten minutes ago, and since then I’d been waiting for him to strike a conversation with me. A distracted “Hi babe,” was everything that I’d gotten so far.

I thought again about Rosa’s suggestion. Was I really going to do this? Yes, yes I was. It was time to send the message through.

I started from my shoes, removing one at the time, then it was my t-shirt’s turn. I thought it was going to take longer for him to take notice of what was going on, but he must’ve caught the garment dropping to the floor with the corner of his eye, because he sent me a quick glance, surprised, and asked, “what are you doing, babe?”

“Just making myself comfortable,” I replied, as my hands went to the zip of my jeans.

I continued undressing seemingly without a care in the world, and he kept playing, but I could tell he wasn’t as focused as he’d been before. He kept throwing quick glances my way whenever he had a chance.

Soon enough I was left in just my underwear, but I didn’t stop, and went for the clasp of my bra.

“Fuck!” he cried out, he’d clearly messed up something in the game the moment my bra had come off and he’d stared at my breasts one second too long. I could hear irate voices coming from his headphones. “Just let me finish this level and I swear I’ll go down on you until you cum at least three times,” he said in an almost pleading voice.

I simply shook my head as with slow, calculating movements, I slipped my fingers under the hem of my panties and let them fall to the floor.

A horse groan came directly from his throat. “If I have to stop what I’m doing, you won’t be able to walk for the next week.” He tried to sound authoritative, failing miserably. “Please…”

“Keep playing, Armin.” I said walking towards him.

Without giving him any time to realise what I was about to do, I kneeled on the floor and forced my way between his arms, straddling him.

“Candy,” he cried out a little panicked, his hands almost losing their grip on the controller, “what…”

“Shhh…” I whispered in his ear. “Keep playing, not a sound, otherwise your friends are going to figure out something is going on.”

After these words, I started languidly kissing his neck. From the stiffness of his body, around which I was completely enveloped, I knew he was shocked and didn’t know exactly what to do. His shallow breaths were also an indication of his nervousness, and if the angry voices I could hear yelling at him from his headphones weren’t indication enough of the fact that he was pretty distracted, only half concentrating on the game, the hard length pressing against my core would’ve definitely been a telling hint.

“Fuck!” he groaned the moment I lowered the hem of his boxer briefs and took him in my hand. A couple of short, tentative strokes.

“MadHatter what the hell!” I heard someone yelling, and I knew Armin was finding more and more difficult to concentrate. Without wasting any more time, I lowered myself onto him, filling me to the hilt.

“Shhh…” I whispered again, as he started making a series of unintelligible sounds. “Don’t even think about muting the mic. Eyes on that screen and play, I know how important it is to you.”

I started riding him slowly, almost excruciatingly slow. I knew I was making him go completely crazy. My hands where at each side of his head, holding the bed frame. No other parts of our bodies were touching, except for our cores, and my nipples rubbing against his still clothed chest, every time I moved up and down.

“Candy… Fuck… I can’t… this is too hot…”

I knew he’d dropped the controller the moment I felt both of his hands on my ass, as he started guiding my movements faster and deeper. The irate protests of his teammates coming from the headphones signalled he’d just left out of the blue in the middle of the game. Everyone was probably getting slaughtered by the other team, but he didn’t seem to care. He took my lips with his and gave me a hungry, mind-blowing kiss.

Our movements got wilder, the pace almost brutal, punishing. I was throwing all my anger into it and, at the same time, he was taking everything and demanding even more, his fingers probably leaving ten small bruises on the skin of my ass cheeks. I was sure we would either pass out soon due to lack of oxygen or seriously hurt ourselves.

A few minutes later, when he took one of my nipples in his mouth and sucked it roughly, I came completely undone, crying out his name as he spent himself inside me.

“I don’t know what I did to make you so angry,” he said after a while, as we both caught our breaths, “but I should probably do it more often.”

“Or maybe you should just pay me some fucking attention,” I retorted. “Instead of playing with your online friends all the time. And then, maybe, you would get fucked senseless more often.”

He moved his head so that now he was looking at me in the eye with his signature jokester smile. “Are you jealous, babe?”

I grabbed his hair, pulling maybe a little more roughly than necessary. “I’m not jealous! It’s just…you’re mine!”

“That, I am.” Without losing his hold on me, he got up and threw me onto the bed.

“Armin what the…”

“I told you, didn’t I? If I had to stop playing, you wouldn’t be able to walk for a week.” He cheekily, replied as he took off his t-shirt and underwear and joined me on the bed.

He didn’t go back online until the end of spring break.

[kuningannasansa]

A musketeers rewatch (that nobody asked for) 1x07

Here we go, my least favorite episode of the whole show excluding season three which I didn’t watch! If you have even a passing fondness for Ninon, I suggest you look away :)

We start with a royal procession through the crowd and there are quite a lot of waving people there. If they can fill the streets with extras for scenes like that, why can those same extras not be used for the court scenes?

Priest whose name I have forgotten is being robbed. The musketeers rush in to help. 

Meanwhile, a crazy girl tries to get close to the queen and ends up being ran over by her carriage. If this is meant to be some Emily Davison analogy, it sucks!

The dead lunatic’s name is Therese and she wanted to give the Queen a note. Constance takes it and says “Fleur, what does this mean?” Am I supposed to take from that that she cannot read for herself? Cause a merchant’s wife definitely, definitely would know how to do that. 

Fleur is nowhere to be seen, however.

“This is an age of glorious discovery!” says Ninon. “Galileo observes the moons of Jupiter... But what is the role of women in this age of wonder?” - well, gee, i don’t know Ninon. Maybe you could have mentioned some female scientists of the era in addition to Galileo? Catherine de Parthenay, anyone? Or Marie Fouquet? Hell, Ninon de l'Enclos, my atheist queen, for whom this Ninon is doubtless named, was a notable woman in her own right! But no, we have to make women look more oppressed than they actually were to make this waste of space look more awesome. 

“My women of Paris, seek your own enlightenment!” - wrong era!

Therese, an orphan from a humble background, wanted to hand a petition to the queen about women’s education.  

“If she was an illiterate orphan she could not have written this. It is misguided but not unintelligent.” - says Richelieu. And indeed he turns out to be right. She didn’t write it. Which is fucking bizarre. 

Anne asks him if he doesn’t favor women’s education and he replies: “I admire learning wherever it is to be found, but this amounts to an attack on the authority of church and state.” Any French history buff know what the actual Richelieu’s thought of women’s education? @tatzelwyrm​? I’m gonna start a biography on him soon, but not until I’m done with this rewatch.

Ninon barges in past the guards and yells “stay out of my way, I will address the King!”. I’m sure this is meant to make her look badass, but she just comes across like a complete idiot who doesn’t understand that she would do better to follow court protocol, no matter how much she might dislike it, if she wants to achieve her goals.    

Luckily for her she’s pretty, so the king doesn’t mind.

“I want to know why this tragedy happened. If your guards are to blame I want them punished.” And then she gives Treville a dirty look! How dare you, you waste of skin and oxygen! Don’t you dare blame Treville for this mess! 

“You knew this lunatic?” - lmao, Richelieu!

Therese was the daughter of Ninon’s servant whom Ninon decided to educate. So she was educated, she COULD have written the petition herself. But she did not. Because when Richelieu says “she wrote this and was killed trying to give it to the Queen” Ninon screeches: “Don’t be ridiculous! She didn’t write it, I did!” And I mean, who exactly is looking down on servant girls here and saying it’s ridiculous to expect them to write something intelligent. It’s not Richelieu. 

But more importantly, WHY?? If Ninon wrote it, why couldn’t she hand it to the Queen? Why did this poor girl have to die? This is so, so stupid! I mean, okay, maybe Therese heard Ninon speak well of the queen and got the idea to hand her the petition on her own, without being told by Ninon to do so. But why did she have it in the first place, if it’s Ninon’s petition?

“Apparently the Comtesse de Laroque believes herself above the normal laws and conventions of society.” ´- well that’s an understatement.  

“The treasury is bankrupt and the country needs a new navy. Ninon has the wealth to provide it.” And that is why Richelieu sends Milady into the salon to find something to use against her. These two are so good in this, I love their scenes together! Pity about the rest of the episode. 

Richelieu is now freaking out about lesbians and Milady is just like “really, dude? really?”. I love her!

“Ninon must pay up or face destruction, I want every last penny from her!” - so it was not his intention to kill her, just to get the money. Interesting.

Fleur’s father is Bonacieux’s cousin. I love that, the commoners having family connections and support circles of their own.

The robbed priest is called Luca! Richelieu is “delighted to see him”, apparently, cause they’re old friends. And Louis isn’t, because he wrote a pamphlet arguing that Kings should bow down to the Pope’s authority. 

“We can’t have a comtesse abducting young women and spiriting them away to her boudoir!” - Oh, Richelieu! Do calm down.

It’s odd watching Richelieu try to use homosexuality to take Ninon down while shipping Trevilieu thou. 

Athos barges into Ninon’s salon, demanding to know where Fleur is and Milady very discreetly hides behind a pillar. Lol! 

And Ninon starts hitting on Athos immediately. She tells him that she’s often thought he’s handsome but the “melancholy aspect” to his looks is “probably only mental vacancy”. Who taught you how to flirt? Why must you be so abrasive and confrontational all the time? Like really, I get she’s meant to be a Strong Woman Who Don’t Take No Shit TM, but she just comes across like a loudmouth. 

Athos likes it thou!

“Forgive our intrusion-” “I will not forgive it!” - Jesus Ninon, it’s just a figure of speech, a polite gesture. People use these in conversation sometimes. She’s so unnecessarily rude smh.

Aramis says he “gladly acknowledges the superiority of the female sex” and I throw up in my mouth a little. That’s not feminism, that’s slimy!

D’artagnan: “If that wasn’t flirting, I don’t know what is.”  Porthos: “Rubbish! She can’t stand him.”  Aramis: “One day I’ll sit down and explain women to you.” - cause we’re all the same and no means yes, right writers?

Luca: “His holiness is concerned about the direction of French foreign policy.” Richelieu: “Well the pope is Spain’s performing monkey.” - he really is so funny! I know I keep saying that, but he is!

Also, YAY politics! Intelligent dialogue! I love this scene so much!

“In matters of religion I defer to Rome, in all else I am my country’s servant” - lol, Richelieu inventing the separation of church and state

Luca: “Is this your final word on the subject?” Richelieu: “It is.” - and that right there is where Luca decides to kill him. The actor plays it really well, knowing it’s coming I can see the briefest moment of regret in his eyes, but without hindsight I wouldn’t notice anything. And he gives Richelieu the poisoned gift. 

Also, isn't it the same guy who plays Margaret’s new man in Harlots? 

Athos says that Therese and Fleur were so far below Ninon in status that they were not in a position to make choices of their own free will. Which is fuckign stupid. But Ninon saying that she views all women as equal regardless of their birth is equally moronic. I mean, sure, they should be, but in reality they’re not and ignoring that doesn’t help anyone. And Athos does point out that Ninon’s money and position gives her certain privileges, but it sits wrong coming from him and not from Porthos or Milady or Constance, who are from poor/less wealthy backgrounds. That said, this is still one of the few semi intelligent scenes in this whole episode, so whatever. At least someone said it. 

Now she kisses him and invites him to dine! And he just looks sad.

Luca tells Richelieu to “deal with” Ninon “firmly”, cause the Pope is dying and Richelieu could be the next Pope if he shows himself a strong defender of the church against “heresy”. What heresy thou? Women learning to read? Lol, that’s so cartoonishly evil and ahistorical, but whatever. This at least explains where Richelieu’s desire to have her burned came from.

Richelieu: “I wouldn’t go so far as to call her a heretic.” Luca: “A woman who openly defies God's laws, what other word is there?” - what laws thou? what has she done, other than hold some salon meetings, as every other noblewoman was doing at the time?

Richelieu promises to consider his options and Luca tells him to pray to the poisoned bone for guidance, lol.

This right here is Richelieu letting personal feelings cloud his judgement, thou! Which he said he has learned no to do. But he allows himself to be carried away with visions of becoming Pope and honestly I don’t see how he can possibly believe that could happen with his foreign policy and how hated he is by the Vatican, as stated in this very scene.  

Milady and Ninon! I love that scene! Ninon clearly thinks she’s super special because she “takes the initiative” by kissing men instead of waiting to be kissed. She’s so damn smug about it! And Milady is just like “oh I could never be so bold” and I swear I can hear her laughing internally! 

And she very cleverly charms Fleur’s location out of Ninon!

Athos’s idea of a first date is the morgue. Charming.

Athos saying that Ninon is responsible for what happened to Therese because she gave a lowborn girl an education doesn’t sit well with me. Classist ass! But she is responsible for not thinking of Therese beyond how daring and adventurous and fun and positively scandalous it would be to educate a servant girl and then not bothering to care for her when she got bored. Cause if she had done, Therese could have come to her with her plan and she could have prevented her death. Because yes, regardless of her education, her background predisposed Therese to be naive about the King and Queen and how petitions work. Where was Ninon in all this, when a girl under her charge decided to do this foolish thing that cost her her life? Because if you want to be someone’s teacher you do have a duty of care. In short, Ninon is a classist ass as well! They’re perfect for each other!

So Luca’s stolen bag is in the morgue with the body of the thief who stole it. And Athos promises to send for it in the morning. I know it’s CSI: Musketeers and all, but why was it not delivered to Luca the moment it was found, lol? He’s a pretty important guest at the palace and it’s his property. 

Athos agrees with Ninon that marriage is a curse. LOL!

Ninon’s reason for not marrying is that she does not want a husband to own her wealth and body. Makes sense and that’s why many independently wealthy women chose to stay unmarried. Just pointing out the few things that make sense.

“You are a rebellious woman” - oh good, we managed to squeeze the title of the episode into the dialogue! 

Aramis just tossed a red guard out of Ninon’s house. Can’t tell if he’s dead or not, but certainly unconscious. 

There’s fighting. The red guards have swords, the musketeers have books. Athos screams “where is your authority for this!?!” - well, the Cardinal, I’d assume, since they are his guards. Oh bear of very little brain!

Fleur and some other runaway girls are found sleeping in a secret chamber and Ninon is arrested for abducting them.

Athos is all like “you said she wasn’t here” and Ninon tries to explain that Fleur did not want to be found and begs “make them stop” to which Athos replies “sorry, I can’t”, his voice and face making it very clear that he doesn’t want to. Because a woman lied to him! This is the worst crime! Really Ninon is lucky she’s being arrested right now, otherwise she’d end up swinging from a tree.

“Four young women! In their nightwear! I can only speculate as to the horrors they have endured!” - Richelieu really has a bee in his bonnet about lesbians. The days before p*rnhub must have been hard for a catholic cardinal. 

Luca is even worse thou! “Your majesty is joking but Satan is real! And his female familiars are everywhere amongst us.” Jesus christ guys, calm down! Have a wank or something!

“She had the girls, she lied, she brought her fate on herself.” - Oh shut up Athos! Not everything is about you and your relationship issues! As Aramis points out. Thank you, Aramis! And I never believed I’d ever say that.

Ninon/Aramis  > > > > > > > > > > Ninon/Athos

Aramis gives Ninon the cross Anne gave him. This is quite sweet!

“It’s not so easy when you don’t have money” Constance says and she is right. But it’s like the show is saying that the only way women can be independant is if they are independently wealthy like Ninon. But that’s not really true, Fleur could get a job such as a seamstress or pharmacist or grain merchant or actress or even as a secretary now that she knows latin and greek thanks to Ninon. Women did have jobs in 17th century France and even belonged to guilds etc. Not saying that Fleur would not be more financially secure still with a husband, but if she really doesn’t want that she has options and I don’t like how this supposed “feminist” episode constantly erases women’s actual history. 

Fleur’s father rages “what does she need an education for? She’ll be a seamstress until she’s married and then she’ll be a dutiful wife and mother.” But if he is Bonacieux’s cousin then they are in the same social class, that is to say, the merchant class. And merchant women had to keep their husbands’ shops when their husbands were away. They needed to know how to read and write and do sums. They needed this to be an attractive marriage prospect to a husband of their own social class! 

And the father wants to hit Fleur and D’artagnan all heroically threatens him. How boring!

Richelieu: “Many of our young women are educated. It’s not something we’re ashamed of.” Fleur: “Not just embroidery and sewing.”  Me: “WELL OF COURSE NOT!!!”

Then Fleur says Ninon taught them the “secrets of our bodies” and Richelieu is a hound on the scent!

“Be quiet or you’ll be gagged!” - Again Armand, this is neither the time nor the place to indulge your kinks. 

ENTER MILADY! 

She does such a brilliant job of her testimony! This is again her lying about rape and I talked about before why that is bad, but in this case I don’t mind cause it’s for state reasons and doesn’t in any way invalidate her own story the way the thing with D’artagnan does.

Athos completely LOSES HIS SHIT!! Not doing the defence any good there, buddy!

The look she gives him as she walks out is priceless!

Queen Anne to the rescue, bringing clemency from Louis! Clever girl, must have manipulated it out of him! Season 1 Anne was intelligent.

And Ninon ruins it by saying: “I have never consorted with the devil until this moment. I am looking at him.” To which Richelieu replies: “Condemned from her own mouth.” As any person with half a brain would. Jesus christ Ninon, you should have been gagged! For your own safety! 

And then Richelieu stops breathing! And we get Treville’s reaction to it, thank you camera people! Thou Treville mostly just looks confused, like “what is that drama queen doing now?” 

Now he’s twitching! And I’m sorry but it looks hilarious.

Aramis carries him to bed on his back and puts a hand over his mouth. I’m not sure that helps with the breathing issues... 

Louis pushes Aramis out of the way and cries “please don’t die! please don’t die!” aawwwwwwwwwww!

Aramis really saves his life here, huh.

Anne is briefly jealous about the cross and asks Aramis if Ninon is his lover. Lol! She never expected him to stalk her for the rest of her life, she fully expected him to keep lovers.  

Luca: “Satan turned his blood to acid at her command!” Porthos: “We’ll add Satan to the list of suspects.”

Fleur: “You think I poisoned him?” Constance: “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard even by musketeer standards.” - THANK YOU CONSTANCE!

Fleur is to be married to a 40 year old butcher. Poor girl!

“Was it you?” - LOL!

“Half the doctors say you’re doomed, the other half claim you’ll make a full recovery. There’s a lot of professional pride at stake.” - Milady is very funny too! But I’ve always known that! 

“Whatever happens to me, I want you to extract this confession from Ninon.” - translation: it doesn’t matter if I die, the main thing is that France gets that navy. For France, always. I’m amazed by how much he trusts Milady here thou.

Milady thinks the kneebone of St. Anthony is gross and “as much use as the doctors”. Bless her!

Constance very sweetly talks Fleur’s father out of forcing her to marry. Go Constance!

Ninon: “There is nothing worse than a woman who betrays her own sex” Milady: “I can think of a few things, but let’s not argue.” - THIS!! This is my favorite part of this whole miserable episode, because yes, with her background she can think of things Ninon couldn’t possibly imagine. It’s also a fuck you to that “don’t encourage girl on girl hate” line terfs and white feminists always hide behind when they get called out on their bullshit, though this wasn’t the point here. I love how she doesn’t even explain, too. Let’s not argue, cause what’s the point. You’ll never get it.

I do want to stress that Ninon is not wrong for educating other women and she has been unjustly condemned (althou I would argue that she might not have drawn Richelieu’s ire if she went about it in a more subtle, less smug way, for the safety of the girls she teaches if not for her own). But Milady is employed by the First Minister of France and is doing her job here, a job which she depends upon for her own independence and safety. As she says, Ninon didn’t do anything to her, she’s just a victim of circumstance. 

“If you don’t confess, the women of your salon will burn in your place. Surely you wish to save the lives of your accomplices in Satan?” - Milady does a good job of selling it, but if you think about it, that makes no sense. These women have already been publicly proclaimed Ninon’s victims. And if they have legal trouble with burning her alone, how would they manage a whole bunch of them, most of whom are also high ranking noblewomen?

Ninon falls for it thou. Fail!

Richelieu orders Ninon burned and Milady says that the Queen and King won’t like it. Richelieu replies that: “she’s irrelevant and a new navy will soothe his dismay.” He’s really underestimating season 1 Anne here. But season 2 will prove him right, sadly.

“The kingdom of heaven is a dream. Our only life is here.” - Go Milady!

Richelieu says he won’t burn her for heresy but to be careful cause “one day someone else might” and idk, but it comes across like pretty friendly advice, considering what he’s currently doing with Ninon. 

Now he worries he might go to hell! And Milady says he’s already there, lmaoo! I LOVE THIS SCENE!!

They go to the morgue to retrieve Luca’s bag and discover that the thief was poisoned in the same manner as the Cardinal. Thus the plot is uncovered.

“Open his mouth!” “You open his mouth!”

Luca kills a red guard and is about to kill Richelieu (who fights him with a fork!) when the musketeers burst in. And Richelieu curses them for being late!

Richelieu had apparently worked out that it was Luca who was trying to kill him at some point during the night. No idea how. 

Athos begs for Ninon’s life while the pire is already burning. And Richelieu agrees cause burning her is all very “dark ages”, like he said to begin with. He says he’s not a cruel man, just a practical one. But practicality sometimes requires cruelty. He’s not a sadist thou, that’s what he meant and that’s true. 

Athos drags Ninon off the burning pire. So the great feminist character got duped by Milady and then had to be rescued by her love interest. So good, much feminist. 

“As far as the world is concerned, Comtesse Ninon de Laroque died on that pire today.” Richelieu takes her lands, her property and her money and sends her into exile. Then he threatens to execute her if she ever tells anyone the truth of what happened.

“My voice will never be silenced, but I promise you will never hear it.” - the stupidest line of the whole episode and that’s saying something. Seriously, what does this mean? Your voice was silenced! Richelieu got your wealth which you could have used to educate more women. You were completely defeated. Like really, who is the idiot who wrote this? And what made them think this is in any way empowering or even just a satisfactory conclusion to Ninon’s acr?? Ughhhh!!

I do love Richelieu and Milady getting a rare victory thou! 

“Nothing, no person, no nation, no god will stand in my way.” - HOT!

Aramis gets his cross back lol. Otherwise it would have burned. 

Lmao, Richelieu sends Luca’s ashes to rome with a threat to the Pope.

And Capaldi pronounces “Richelieu” in a very strange way. 

Milady: “You do realise you’ll never be Pope?” Richelieu: “It’s an Italian club and largely a clerical position. I prefer something with a little more influence.” - L! O! L!

Ninon plans to open a school for poor girls and be a teacher. Well, idk, I hope she does a better job of it than she did with Therese.

Athos asks Ninon if “Madame de la Chapelle” ever told her anything about herself. And Ninon is like “so you did know her after all?” and he says “in another life” and she warns him to be careful because she has the cardinal’s protection so “a blow against her is a blow against him” and idk, does she realize that Milady was Athos’s wife here? Is that how I’m supposed to read it? He did tell her before that he used to be married.

Then she kisses him and tells him she could have loved a man like him. And she’s just way more into him than he is into her.

Lmaooo, Fleur is not forced to marry and can continue with her education and she’s “sure” that the woman who convinced her father was Ninon. And Constance doesn’t correct her and doesn’t even want the credit, but I’m mad lol, as if Ninon even remembers you exist Fleur!

D’artagnan gives Constance the credit, at least! And then comes his declaration of love, which is actually very sweet and I really liked them together in season 1! Constance is so beautiful in this scene too! It’s very well lit and she’s wearing that lovely dress!

Aaaaand we fade to black on some PG13 kissing and groping! Sorry, this was very long, but there was a lot to complain about.

In conclusion, awful! Like, the thing that bothers me the most is that this token girl power episode would not even have been radical in 1970, never mind today. The message is simply that women should have an education, which no sane person today would disagree with. It’s very safe and bland. And erases women’s real history in the process. It’s almost as if these male writers are congratulating themselves “weren’t things ever so bad Back Then, we are so much more progressive now”, instead of doing the truly radical thing and showing women’s real history, showing women in positions of power running their literary salons and not getting burned for it, showing women as independent businesswomen with an education! Why not give Bonacieux a female rival in the cloth business? Why not go deeper than “women are human beings” and give the episode a truly radical message that still resonates today. After all, we might be ever so educated now but it’s not like women have achieved equality. More on that in this old post: https://kuningannasansa.tumblr.com/post/126434697304/the-problem-of-ninon 

Anyway, I really hope the next episode will be better! 

Red Guards killed: 1 or 2, impossible to really tell

Ladies killed: Therese

Best Dressed: Ninon. She did have some pretty dresses. 

[poisoned-chicken-marsala]

September 18, 2001

Ok so here is the first chapter of the diary fic, which does not have a name yet RIP but I’ll worry about that later. Please tell me whatyou think!

I ran out of pages in my old diary a little while ago and found this one by chance while cleaning a out a cabinet. There was a grocery list in the first page. I’ll tape it here, it has some funny stuff on it. There isn’t a date on it so I wonder when it’s from. Anyway. I was going to hang out with Tommy today but when I called him to ask if he could meet me on the beach, he told me he was sick. His voice sounded funny over the phone. I let him know this.

“You’re the worst.” He said and sniffled.

“I’ll try to find some pretty shells or glass to give to you when you feel better. You’ll like that, right?” I asked, fiddling with the end of my braid.

“Of course I will. I’m going to take a nap now, my head hurts like a bitch. Goodbye Kara.” I wished him a restful nap and hung up. I wrote my dad and my grandma a note telling them where I was going in case they got home before I did. Dad was at work and grandma was hanging out with one of her friends.

I locked the front door and began the walk to the beach. It was the fall, so of course the sky was grey. I don’t think the weather forecast called for rain, but I wore a jacket just in case. You never know, the weather could change in an instant. It wasn’t too cold out in the town but I knew the closer I got to the water it would be much different. Eventually I reached the road to the picnic area on the sand dunes. The scraggly grass waved in the slight breeze as I walked past them to the water. To my surprise, there was a family? utilizing the picnic benches. Usually people don’t come down to eat at the beach in this weather, unless you fancy sand in your food from the wind. It didn’t look like they were eating though. Just hanging out and watching the water, I guess. The longer I looked at them, the more I realized I didn’t recognize anyone in the group. I think I would know if someone in town had an extremely tall, silver flat top. I’m amazed this person was able to style their hair that high and not have it be ruined by the wind or something.

I stopped staring like a fucking weirdo and turned my attention to the sand and went to work looking for anything in the sand that might be of interest to Tommy. I hope he feels better soon… Work will be boring without him. I found some nice pieces of this bright green sea glass for him, which I think he’ll like. We both have collections of sea glass and other stuff we find that’s been washed up. He mentioned a while ago he’s been looking out for more bright colored glass.

My walk along the shore took me to the ship wreck that’s partially buried in the sand. Not much of it is left, only the curved boards at the bottom of the boat. Somehow it ended up completely straight up and down in the sand and got cemented there. Everyone calls it the ‘sand ribs’ because well, it looks like a pair of ribs. It looks really spooky at night, according to my dad. I don’t come to the beach at night very often, but when I do, I usually go towards the marina where all the boats are. It’s got a lot of places to sit, watch the sun in the morning and not get your clothes covered in sand.

There’s also a lot of driftwood around the sand ribs that are too big for people to take. My dad says he’s watched people try and do it when he comes down to the waterfront, but they never get far down the beach before they drop the wood. I’ve never seen anyone take a huge piece, only little ones for decorations or making a fire on the beach. That’s illegal but Tommy and I always find a few makeshift fire pits every time we go to the beach and I haven’t seen any recently though. I think it’s too cold out for that, especially at night by the water with the wind and all.

I stopped walking down the beach after I reached the sand ribs and looked back towards the dunes near the road. The group at the picnic area had gotten up and moved towards the water and it looked like they were taking a picture. Kind of shitty weather to do that, but I digress. One of the shorter people in the group broke away after the camera was lowered and ran towards a group of gulls in the sand, yelling something unintelligible and scattered them into the air. I stopped to watch the cloud of birds rise and fly to a different section of the beach, squawking. Someone scolded the kid? but they just laughed and turned their focus to another person in their group in a dark red beanie, who handed them some rocks. I saw the white flash of quartz briefly as it was tossed into the air and it hit the water with a splash, which I couldn’t hear over the breeze. I did hear them cheer though, and toss another. Eventually they ran out of big rocks on that part of the beach and the kid started down the part I was walking up from. They were picking up a piece of wood from the sand and straightened out, getting ready to call to their companion, when they noticed me walking up. I felt their eyes on me and stopped to stare back. I definitely didn’t know this person. Part of their features were obscured by the dim light from the sky and from some of their hair in their face. Someone called to them, the person with the beanie waved from a rock formation where it seemed everyone else had gone too and we hadn’t noticed. The kid casually tossed the driftwood aside into the water, causing a small splash and jogged over to their waiting people, turning back to look at me once.

When I got home, grandma was there, having just returned from the store. She had finished putting all the groceries away and was sitting down to watch a soap opera. I took the bag of sea glass and shells I’d gathered out of my messenger bag and put them next to the sink. I didn’t know what was happening in the movie, but I still watched some of it anyway while I washed my finds. It took way longer than it should have.

Later

We had potato soup for dinner after dad got home, with a store bought baguette on the side. Nobody felt like talking during the meal so it was pretty quiet. It started to rain while I was doing dishes and it’s still coming down as I get ready for bed. I laid on my bed for a little while and listened to a movie from the TV in the living room. Grandma’s hearing is going, so she cranks things up to be quite loud. It’s a bit hard to sleep with it going sometimes but it sounds like she’s turned it off and is going to bed, so I think I will as well. Good night

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Please comment and subscribe! (4 of 4)

Being with Tony was amazing. Bucky hadn't felt so happy in years. They now talked about everything and nothing, not afraid anymore that there was some line they could cross that would ruin everything. They often talked late into the night and sometimes morning, much to Steve's chagrin. But even Steve was happy and didn't tease Bucky as much about his love-struck face when he looked at pictures of Tony.

There was, however, still one problem between them and that problem was about the size of the US with Bucky living in New York and Tony in California. Despite Bucky's desire to see Tony in person and finally be able to touch him, run his fingers through Tony's hair, hold him and kiss him, he was scared.

Tony seemed to have resigned himself to waiting until Bucky was ready, he mentioned it casually on occasion but he never pressed the issue. Bucky was thankful for that but it didn't make it any easier for him. It wasn't just meeting Tony in person, thanks to Rhodey's assurance he wasn't scared of rejection anymore,  not as much at least. He still hadn't told Tony and there was still the low-key fear hanging out in the back of his mind that once Tony saw him, he'd just laugh and throw the door in his face.

But more than that it was traveling that terrified him. In the last couple of years, he had barely left the apartment, let alone the city. He had relied on Steve to go grocery shopping and run errands, the only times he really went somewhere was when he had a doctor's appointment and even then Steve usually accompanied him.

The thought of traveling alone was terrifying.

Of course Tony had offered to visit Bucky, but that would have meant he had to reschedule meetings with game developers, charity live streams etc. Bucky didn't want Tony to go through that effort just for him.

But Tony was suffering, Bucky could tell.

"I wish you were here," Tony mumbled sleepily. They were doing their nightly video call and both had already settled into bed with their phones.

"Me too, babe," Bucky answered. "Me too. I'm sorry. I'm such a bad boyfriend. I should just get my shit together and - "

"Hey, no, don't beat yourself up over it, cupcake." Tony prompted himself up on his elbow and adjusted the phone. "I can understand, Rhodey doesn't like to travel either, it's a fucking nightmare for him."

Bucky nodded somberly, beating himself up over it nevertheless. He had never specified the reason why he didn't like to travel and yet Tony was so understanding without even knowing what it was all about.

Flying across the country wasn't fucking rocket science, thousands of people did it every day. It wasn't that big of a deal, but the thought of going through security alone, people patting him down, made Bucky nauseous.

"Hey, stop that."

Bucky looked up at the phone, Tony was so close to the camera the screen was only showing his eyes and nose. "Stop what?"

"You've got that look on your face that tells me you're worrying too much and I don't want you to break your brain over me, okay?" Tony moved the camera even closer so only his eye was on the screen. He tried to sound serious but failed miserably. Bucky had to laugh. Tony's antics never failed to bring him out of a depressive thought spiral. "And now show me your neck so I can pretend to nuzzle you."

Bucky happily obliged.

(More after the break!)

----

Over the next couple of days, Bucky made a decision. He would face his fears and fly to California and he wanted to make it a surprise for Tony.

He talked to Rhodey who was fully supportive of his idea, to figure out a good date and then booked a plane ticket. He tried to ignore how much he was shaking when he was clicking on the confirm button to finalize his travel plans.

Steve freaked out that evening which did nothing to calm Bucky's nerves. He would only be traveling in a few weeks but Steve was bouncing around the apartment and putting together a travel kit with Bucky's medication, figuring out which bag to take so that it was allowed as carry-on and so on and so forth. When Steve asked him if he had all the necessary vaccines Bucky had to put a stop to it.

"It's fucking Malibu, Steve, not Malaysia."

"Oh."

Something good came from Steve's overzealousness, however, Bucky started to pack early. He kept the half-packed bag next to his desk and added stuff now and then. Preparing everything for his trip over the course of a couple of weeks helped Bucky keep his cool about it and when the day came he was ready. He had debated whether or not to take his prosthesis, it would make people stare less but it would also make the security check immensely more complicated. Bucky rarely used it at home because it was useless for gaming and a hassle to put on just for one or two things and he had Steve for that after all. So he had decided to leave the prosthesis at home in favor of a hopefully smoother travel.

Keeping the whole thing a secret from Tony had been difficult because despite Bucky's best efforts to appear casual he couldn't quite hide his giddiness and Tony was just too fucking smart. He definitely knew something was up but Bucky was pretty certain he didn't know what exactly and he had sworn Rhodey to secrecy.

The worst part was that Bucky had to keep up the facade while traveling as they rarely stopped texting each other these days.

When the day came and Steve drove Bucky to the airport Bucky didn't know whether he was more nervous about actually traveling for the first time in years or meeting Tony in just a few hours. He had barely slept that night and he had to fight the urge to run straight out of the airport when he saw the number of people there, but he pushed through and got in line at the check-in. He distracted himself by texting Tony sweet nothings and looking at cat memes on his phone. The security check was less of a hassle than he had anticipated and a nice security lady helped him pack his laptop again and before he even knew it he was sitting in the plane and was off to California.

After landing at LAX Bucky quickly spotted the person Rhodey had sent to pick him up. A middle-aged man who went by the name Happy and politely led him to a fancy car Bucky remembered from one of Tony's vlogs.

"Tony doesn't know I'm coming, right?" Bucky asked after he had settled into the comfortable back seat of the car. Now that the anxiety from the flight had left him his nerves were all Tony related.

"Not as far as I know, he has a stream today and should be finished when we arrive." Happy replied.

"I am fucking nervous," Bucky mumbled and watched the Californian landscape pass by his window. The trip from the airport to Tony's house took about 40 minutes but within this time his nerves had multiplied tenfold and he was shaking when he got out of the car and walked towards the front door. This was the moment, there was no going back now. He dropped his bag on the ground before he rang the bell, he wanted to have his hand free.

Bucky didn't hear the doorbell but he suddenly heard yelling behind the door.

"Someone get the door!" That was definitely Tony.

"No, you get it!" Rhodey yelled back and then there was some cursing and footsteps and then the door opened and Tony stood before him.

"Hey, Tony," Bucky said unoriginally and waved a little awkwardly.

"Bucky..." Tony checked Bucky out with wide eyes, letting his gaze run over his body from his head to his feet and then back up. Bucky noticed how his eyes only minutely lingered on his empty left sleeve and then he suddenly had Tony clinging to him, squeezing him tightly and he automatically put his arm around the other and held him close.

"You're here! You're really here!" Tony mumbled almost unintelligibly

Tony was smaller than he had thought and the top of Tony's head just reached past Bucky's chin and the way Tony nuzzled against Bucky's chest meant he could rest his chin on top of Tony's hair.

"Yes, I'm here. Tony."

They stood there for a long time, Bucky felt Tony shake against his chest, slowly hiccuping a few sobs, always mumbling how he couldn't believe it.

Eventually, Tony let go and stepped back, but kept his hands on Bucky, one resting on Bucky's right arm, the other against his left side.

"I am so happy to finally see you. I... I don't know what to say." Tony was still trembling.

Bucky stepped forward, all nervousness forgotten and cupped Tony's face and leaned down. "Don't say anything, babe." He whispered before he pressed his lips to Tony's and gently kissed him. Tony responded immediately and grabbed onto Bucky's jacket pulling him closer. Bucky thrust his hand up into Tony's hair and holding him tight. They kissed for an eternity, trying to make up for the lost time.

"Gross, get a room you two." Someone suddenly said behind Tony and that finally made them break their kiss. Bucky looked up to see Rhodey in the hallway, sitting in a wheelchair and suddenly everything made a bit more sense to him.

Tony turned around and wrapped his arm around Bucky's waist, pressing himself against Bucky's left side, resting his head on his shoulder and almost giving Bucky a heart attack with this simple gesture alone. "Rhodey, this is Bucky, Bucky, Rhodey, my best friend."

Rhodey nodded to Bucky. "How was your flight?"

"Good, uneventful, thankfully." Bucky grinned, his face still flushed from the kissing.

"Wait, you knew about this?" Tony suddenly asked gesturing between Bucky and Rhodey.

"It was his idea. I just helped with the planning." Rhodey shrugged and turned his wheelchair around. "Now, do you want to stand in the doorway all day or do you want to come in?"

Tony laughed, picked up Bucky's bag with one hand and grabbed Bucky's hand with the other and dragged his boyfriend inside.

"Wait, Tony...", Bucky hesitated and held onto Tony's hand without moving. Tony turned to him, tilting his head questioningly.

"Yes?"

"You -...about my arm."

"Oh god, I am so sorry. Was I too forward? Fuck, I didn't know, I should have asked. Fuck, just tell me when I need to fuck off next time, I-"

Bucky stepped forward and brought their joined hands up to Tony's mouth. "I just wanted to know how you knew."

"Oh.." Tony blinked a couple of times. "I didn't... I mean, I kinda figured you had something going on with your left arm, but yeah... I figured you were going to tell me when you were ready."

Bucky cringed and looked away. "I was scared, didn't know how you would react. I'm sorry. I should have told you."

Tony dropped the bag and reached out, he gently turned Bucky's head towards him again. "No, you shouldn't have, but you need to tell me when something I do makes you uncomfortable, alright?"

Bucky nodded and smiled. "I don't think anything you could do would make me uncomfortable." He leaned down and stole a soft kiss, which Tony deepened without hesitation.

Somewhere in the house, they could hear Rhodey yelling.

"For fuck's sake's guys! GET A ROOM!"

-----

Three months later Tony was getting ready to start his usual stream only this time there was no docket, no games planned. Bucky was sitting next to him, a bundle of nerves. He had his blanket around his shoulders and was hacking away at his laptop.

"Are you ready?" Tony reached out and tickled Bucky just behind his ear. Bucky made a surprised noise.

"Gah, stop that." Bucky waved at Tony's hand.

"Are you ready, I asked." Tony continued to try and tickle him.

Bucky finally turned and caught Tony's hand in his. "And I said stop that." Bucky bit the tip of Tony's finger and made a nomming noise.

"You're not ready, are you?"

"How can I be ready? Your stream is viewed by 10.000 people. I am not ready. I'll never be ready."

"It's going to be alright, I won't tolerate any bullshit. My moderators are ready to block people who are going to be rude and we're just going to talk a few minutes, introducing you and then we'll play some Minecraft. Later Rhodey is going to join us for some Don't Starve Together. It's going to be fine, once we start playing nobody is going to mind."

Bucky intertwined their fingers and held Tony's hand tightly. "I hope you are right. I am still not sure about all of this. I mean... I'm fine just staying in the background, you know that."

Tony used his other hand to slide under Bucky's hair and pull him closer by his neck. "I know, but I want to show my amazing boyfriend to the world." He fell silent for a moment. "But if you really don't want to, I understand, we can cancel. I don't want to pressure you."

Bucky shook his head. "No, I'll do it. Only so the unsolicited advances towards you stop. People need to know you are taken." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Tony's lips. "I'm ready."

Tony let go and turned to his computer and the webcam, making sure Bucky's left side was mostly off-screen. "Going live in a minute now. I'll let the intro run." He heard Bucky take a deep breath and then felt him sneak his hand into his, out of view of the camera.

The intro finished and the view of the webcam went live.

"Hello everybody. This is Iron Man with the Iron Man Live Show and today we have a very special guest. You might know him already, please be nice to him. This is Bucky, aka, The Winter Soldier. My boyfriend."

The chat went wild.

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

my life story continued..

In the winter of 1999, our hot water heater broke, and we had to heat water in a bucket on the wood stove. Which was also our only means of heat, so we all got bunk beds – except him and we all slept around the wood stove in our bunk beds. When my mother left, she also took every one of the antique toys I played with growing up and cherished, and also all my antique golden books that are worth hundreds, my specialty 80's toys, my goosebumps collection and she had my uncle Rusty who owns a successful second-hand store in Kellogg Idaho, pawn them for her so she could take the money and spend it on meth. So from then on until I was about fourteen, I didn't have many things. I ended up just keeping every piece of homework I got back from the teachers, and I collected rocks at the creek. Those were my things. My friends would come in my room sometimes, and they would be absolutely baffled because unlike them, I didn't have things. I just had boring rocks and sticks on my shelves. My father bought me a learners guitar that Christmas, but I made the mistake of taking it to my mother's house where her boyfriend went and traded it for something and I never saw it again.

So when I wasn't at my mom's horrible place, I was freezing to death at home, or suffering from anxiety death in school. This kind of pressure was probably good for me, but I will never know because I've only done it once and do not care to do it again.

Mrs. Brammer, my 4th grade teacher, probably getting the let-in from my 3rd grade teacher, that I was an exceptionally 'stupid' child decided that I was a slow learner. So in fourth grade, they got me started on reading Dr. Seuss books. It was kind of made known to me that I would never evolve past children's books. It didn't help that my nose was constantly bleeding out of nowhere or that my hair was super frizzy. Sometimes in class I would push my eyes as hard as I could till I saw really great colors. I would do this for most of classes sometimes, just to avoid having to be where I was, or be who I was.

My reading score was atrociously low, I will admit that. I am not sure why that was. Years later when I went to college for a brief time, they skipped me past English I to English II because I when they gave me my aptitude test I tested perfectly. Anyway, I am in a sense not sorry I appeared so unintelligent, because I ended up reading all the Shel Silverstein books, and I read The Lorax, which is such a progressive book, it probably taught me more than three years in class at my dumb elementary did.

That winter I had the misfortune of permanently fucking up my knee pretty good. I didn't break it or anything,  but I had a real crash with my bike that fall. Then when it just started to heal, I fell down a flight of stairs, which reopened the scab and made it even worse and infected. And just when I thought I was done with the misfortune, I ended up slipping as I walked down the hill to go home after school, and I fell knee first into hard cement that was graciously sprinkled with monstrous hard little pieces of spiky basalt, and there was a strange burning tickling sensation like no other, and when that knee finally healed, the skin looked pretty awful and to this day it's kind of shimmery.

Because I talked to myself a lot, I guess someone reported me to the counselor. So for a short period of time I saw a counselor named Mrs. Friedburger? Something like that. Doesn't seem right but that's what I remember her name being. She came from Arkansas for some reason, just to be a counselor in this tiny little elementary school in north Idaho for some reason that I will never know the reason for, and she had a very thick accent. She was actually a really nice lady. But sometimes she would ask me these amazingly frustrating questions that nobody could answer, especially a 4th grader. She would ask me how I felt, and I would tell her. And then she would ask me what I felt underneath that. And I didn't know what on earth she meant. I was not aware that there were two or more feelings going on at the same time. I tried to explain to her that I didn't have any other feelings, but she persisted till I gave her what she wanted to hear. But then she would ask me for another feeling underneath that, which, if the second one had any grain of truth to it, the third feeling was a complete and total fabrication. I was not sure what she wanted.

She ended up assembling me, and two other girls in my age group, a girl named Nicole, who would end up having a reputation as being a pretty loose girl who was always drunk – even in school and now lives in a camper in a North Dakota oil field, and a girl named Casey, who always seemed frightened and always dated druggy rednecks who treated her rudely even though she seemed very nice herself, though a bit dull. She now is a waitress, and if for some silly reason you ever want to go visit the small pointless town of Kendrick Idaho, you can surely be guaranteed to be served by her if you so fancy.

Mrs. Friedburger called this group The Children Of Divorce. We played this board game based on divorce. Which was like bingo and candy land mixed together kind of. Then we would go around the room and we were forced to answer questions and open up about our feelings about our parents divorcing. Listening to these other girls talk, I really got the sense that, as bad as my life was, I felt like I had something else within myself I could turn to. These girls were very much like sponges. They just openly figured they would do exactly what their mothers did. They had no opinions, and their lives actually seemed rougher than mine. Both of them had rotten stepfathers for instance. They had to worry about these stepfathers in a way that I didn't have to worry at home. And I didn't even have it good at home.

I got the feeling that this wasn't really helping me at all. It probably wasn't. I got frustrated too, because Mrs. Friedburger really wanted to believe that the source of my instability and eccentricity was due to the sorrows of my parents divorce. I tried to explain to her that I just didn't like going to my mother's house, but my parent's separation was a huge relief. She just didn't buy it. In her mind, I think she really believed that all children react the same way, which they do not.

My father wasn't all that great to me though after awhile. Still didn't compare to what these girls had to go home to, but it wasn't good either. My father is incredibly talkative. He often times will talk to someone for three straight hours. Many people have said it is somewhat abrasive. He doesn't really like listening. He gets this openly annoyed look on his face if you pipe in at all. So, him going through a divorce and whathaveyou, he had a lot to say about my mother and about life in general, and I was there to hear the whole thing, but I never learned how to have an actual real conversation from him. He would talk to me until I was exhausted. I was happy to be getting so much of my father's focus, but there was a large element of this that simply wasn't fair. I had no voice, and he was making up in his mind who he thought I was. I don't think my dad can help this, but if something isn't all about something he can be doing, he really doesn't seem to genuinely understand it. I mean, he's a smart guy, and curious.

He listens to people more now that he is older, and he reads a lot and I think in his way tries very hard to understand other people. But he fails in many regards. He really just doesn't get anyone he has ever known, never had a single friend who stuck, girlfriend, and he rarely talks to his family, and this is partially because he's a total sucker. And partially because he talks and talks to people and doesn't really empathize with them. He means well most of the time. He's capable of empathy, but this empathy has to be spelled out so clearly in the sky, being broadcast from speakers repetitively, that it made him a very difficult parent for someone like me to have. He also has something kind of off about his memory. Every single day, he will kind of repeat what he said yesterday, or even a few hours ago. Growing up with it, I got used to it. But when I got older, I realized there was something kind of weird going on.

Anyway, once a month too, he flies into a rage and has to take it out on someone aggressively and with complete hatred. It's something you can mostly always count on.  And that someone was generally always me. He would randomly be very cruel to me. I became extremely mistrustful of him. Because he would be very nice to me, and very focused, and then he would yell at me, call me stupid, demand things from me, scare me, shame me. And when he had me to the point where I was crying and could barely breath and didn't know up from down, he would get in my face and mock me till I felt like I was nothing. This must have made him feel better. For the life of me, I don't know what he did this for, but it had to have served some kind of purpose. After crying myself to sleep, my face stung from the salt of tears, I would go to school, be treated like nothing by my friends and teachers, go to my mother's for the weekend, be treated like nothing, and then by the next week, my father, my one and only friend would have mysteriously lost his anger and be very chipper and want to talk to me. And I think my younger siblings would watch these fights happen, and they in a way would grow to look down at me at times, internalizing the concept that I was somehow a polarizing human being. Because they were very little and did not understand what I had done wrong, but they knew it was bad.

I remember one time he repeated to me over and over that I was stupid just like my mother. And I was ugly. I was having some troubles with spelling. Which is funny because my father can't spell

apple' and I actually nearly won the spelling bee twice. He ended up throwing the spelling book at me and told me he couldn't stand looking at me anymore.

Everything is moving towards it's end, and to a new beginning, kind of. At school, I just could not keep following ten feet behind Samantha and Sarah Mae as they pretended to be Spice Girls on the playground anymore. I wrote a letter telling Samantha that I didn't want to be friends with them anymore and that neither one of them cared about me. Of course this became GIRLFIGHT! And Sarah and Samantha would gossip and look over at me. I was told that I didn't do enough to hang out with them, and I was actually the one that was isolating myself  by being such a weirdo, returned in a letter under more fourth grade girl terms. Then Catherine, who I had never liked, but who was also being left out by them decided to jump on my bandwagon and separate from them as well. She then decided that I would be her new best friend.

I was sitting by myself under the shade in the corner of the playground, when Catherine started throwing rocks at me. This was always the kind of thing that I didn't like about her. She demanded that she would not stop until I became her best friend. So, I meekly agreed to be her best friend eventually. Which I hated saying. I didn't want to be her friend, but it was kind of hard for me to feel comfortable sitting in the lunch room by myself, so I took her up on terms of convenience. She then told the school counselor, Mrs. Friedburger, who was happy to see I had made a new friend and we were both sent to the counselor's room to tell her what good friends we were. But it felt like I was getting married with someone I could barely stand. I wanted her to go away, but she wouldn't.

Then, in the midst of this whole thing, Mrs. Brammer randomly assigned everyone in the class with a planet, and we had to be randomly teamed up with another student. And low and behold, they teamed me up with precious Sarah-Mae. We had never really formally hung out. She was always either hanging out with Catherine, or Samantha even though we were in the same group. It was pretty awkward to be teamed up with her while I was hashing it out with Samantha, and having an involuntary marriage to Catherine. I was great at not doing homework, but I wasn't so good at throwing other people under the bus if I could help it.

Then, that same week, my father met Sarah-Mae's mom at the store, Carol. Carol had been my dad's first serious girlfriend. He dated her when he was in the rock band for three years. Then he cheated on her, twice. And it broke her heart, and then she moved to Hawaii and New York City and Seattle where she had really interesting jobs, and she got a few degrees in college that she had trouble ever applying, and eventually she had Sarah-Mae, but then Sarah-Mae's dad went crazy, and they moved to Kendrick, which was where of course I lived. Sarah and I had actually met once before, in Zany Graze when we were three years old. I have no memory of it. But she had randomly came over and sat next to me, which was unlike her since she was a shy child.

So my father found out I had this project, and as he saw Carol as someone he could talk and talk and talk and talk at, he decided to bring me over so she and I could work on it. There was no way for me to avoid her, much as I wanted to. We were destined to be friends.

It turned out that Sarah-Mae and I had a lot in common. We were both really invested in drawing. We liked the same shows. I thought Sarah's room was really neat. She had a fish tank in her room. Her mother had built her a giant dollhouse for her barbies. She had a dog named Bear Dog and a cat named Precious, who hissed at me when she saw me in the house. Carol made us popcorn, and she listened to the radio. I thought she was definitely a cool mom. Their home was cluttered, but in a neat orderly way. Like, the fridge was covered in magnets and there was a lot of antique things and plants about, but everything was where it should be just the same. Sarah had a lot of knick knacks. She liked to skateboard, and play super Nintendo.

I will admit, we didn't hit it off as well as Rachelle and I did. Rachelle and I had been almost too good of friends. We just sort of became the same person after awhile. We were inseparable and we tended to cause damage and chaos everywhere we went. She had the same inner wildness as me,  only Rachelle could actually show it, where as I have always been a secretly wild person who has trouble finding outlets. Sarah and my friendship has always been different because even while we are close and very similar, there is always a distance and a strong sense that she is she and I am me.  It's not a bad thing, it actually kind of fosters an appreciation you might not be able to have if you were to not have boundaries, but it makes for a completely different kind of friendship. There were rules with Sarah-Mae that you had to kind of go by. Which made me feel awkward because I didn't have any rules at all. She was a much more existential friend than Rachelle had been.

She didn't have rules to be mean most of the time, it was just part of her nature. She had stomach issues so she could not eat certain things or she would become horribly nauseated. She had to carry around crackers all the time in case she would get sick. This was I think something that burdened her life so much it actually became part of her personality. Till well into junior high, she rarely ever went to her friend's house, with a few exceptions. We all had to visit her. Part of it early on was that she was so attached to her mother that she felt bad if she stayed the night somewhere else. This always baffled me. I was always looking for an excuse to get away from those lunatics at home. But even so, after her mom wasn't the reason anymore, that's just kind of how she is most of the time. You have to kind of work around her a bit. It's something you get used to. She has to gauge everything cautiously before she jumps. And I have occasionally had to push her out of her comfort zone I think.

Her room had to stay in a certain order. When you stayed the night, you had to make sure your feet were clean, I have always felt weird if I overate in front of Sarah too, even though I am sure she doesn't actually care – especially now. In a way, for me at least, I always kind of wanted to make her a Rachelle. There is something a little bit lonely at times about being Sarah's friend. But we really just love each other a lot. Sarah was actually a very nice person at home. She was always a fantastic listener. She didn't have the same taste in destruction that I did. So I learned to kind of suppress my inner anguish and delightful need for chaos at least a little bit, though she seemed to appreciate, at least in theory that I was that way. I wouldn't say that Sarah isn't that way herself. It's just different somehow. She is a very pleasant gentle person who harmonizes with people, and studies them in a way that is very pleasant to be around. There is a level of thought to things she does that most people put no thought into whatsoever. I think that being around her probably offset a lot of traits I would have otherwise picked up from my family that I would have been a lot worse off for having.

So after learning that doing the Venus project wasn't so bad after all, we just started hanging out everyday we could. It became almost a daily routine. We would get off after school, go to her house, share a bag of popcorn, watch Pokemon, and then we would both draw alien girls together. We bonded over this. Sarah for the first few years lied and said that somehow she had come up with alien girls first, though she later admitted to me that this wasn't true. She just was envious of them and wanted to draw them without feeling like she was copying me.

This made my life a lot better overall. Catherine was not too happy about it. There was this big fight over who get's to have 'The Renee' in the playground. Sarah grabbed one of my arms and Catherine grabbed the other. I remember both of them were tugging on me. I felt pretty annoyed. I had told Catherine to go away. She was crying, and saying I broke my promise. And she's right, I did. I had forged a friendship with Sarah-Mae, which made me an in-disposable member of 'the group' again. Catherine was kind of mean. I know she was just a little girl who's family was messed up. And she's grown up to be a pretty nice person from what I can tell. She avoids most of her family. She's married to this guy who I actually work with. They are both kind of dullards by my standards. But they seem to really love each other and they have some kids. So I am glad that Catherine went on to have a somewhat good life.

By the end of the school year, I still had a lot of issues. But I was sort of adjusting to Rachelle not being around anymore.  

Then I had another really horrible worst day of my life – at least to me back then. We were going to have picture day at school, and my father, in a rare moment of empathetic realization thought that perhaps I might like something to wear for picture day that year.. He talked to Carol – who had already grown weary of him (and probably still didn't like him from the times he cheated on her when they were young), and she was going to take Sarah-Mae down to the really atrociously horrible clothing store that was in Kendrick. Basically, it was a store that had overpriced 80's clothes in it, before it was realized in the 2010's that 80's was actually fucking awesome and we had forgotten. So Sarah and I went together to this dumb store, where years ago my sister Maria had the cops called for shoplifting.

Sarah and I both struggled to find something acceptable for school, but we eventually both wanted the same shirt. I was a lot heavier than Sarah. The shirt fit me, but not spectacularly well. It fit Sarah very well. I remember going into their changing area, which was basically part of the room, and for some reason I will never understand, Carol started talking about how much prettier and more petite her own daughter was than me with the snotty woman in the store. I had up to that point, not really compared myself to Sarah in that way. But it became obvious to me that in that moment when most people saw us hanging out in town, they probably just saw a cute skinny girl hanging out with a fat scraggly girl who's clothes didn't fit.

It really was too much. Me now – I would have said something snarky and made everyone uncomfortable. Or I just might not care. I have an extremely exquisite sense of aesthetic. I also don't value life in this way. But to have an adult ultimately talking about how fat I was, was really hard for me to take. To be fair, I think the store lady was the one who really was emphasizing my weight per say, but Carol was using it as a launching pad to talk about how lovely her daughter was compared to other girls. I was too afraid to come out of the dressing room at that point because my entire body was shaking and I was weeping silently. Eventually I found the strength and held it in and came out. Sarah looked extremely guilty. I don't think she really liked what they were saying about me, but didn't know what to say. She was trying to pretend it didn't happen. She certainly wasn't going to go against her mother. Carol then superseded my decision to get the shirt that I wanted, and instead I ended up buying nothing and I felt totally horrible. Sarah got the shirt, and she wore it for picture day. Looking back at the pictures, I wasn't all that fat at all. It was just that Sarah was still 70 lbs. I was probably 105 lbs. And I was pudgy. I was at that stage where you have to stop shopping in the kids section, but I didn't know it yet. And actually, that shirt sucked. The shirt I ended up having to wear was way cooler.

I held my breakdown in somehow for the rest of the evening, even though it felt like a golf ball was jammed in my throat. When my father picked me up after work later that evening, even though it's a bad idea to cry in front of him, I did so anyway. I lost control and started wailing. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I think the outburst shocked him to at first have sympathy. He tried to comfort me. But then I think the notion that other adults saw me as less started making him feel insecure as well. Like, in his dumb little head it was like I had lost him an award. I could not stop crying. Eventually after twenty minutes of this at home. He began screaming at me. He told me I was fat and ugly and that everything Carol said about me was true. I wasn’t like other girls. I was an ugly freak. He told me to shut up. He told me to shut up a lot growing up.

I cried until three in the morning or so.  Before finally mercifully passing out from exhaustion.

In case you want to read the first parts of my personal tale here are the links to the first, second, third and fourth parts.

PART 4

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160729982054/being-10-in-1999

PART 3

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160399693214/about-me-the-third-part-i-did-it-after-all

PART 2

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160333575899/life-story-part-2

PART 1

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/160186590059/about-me-life-story-part-1

[u-f-o-no]

it's 1:30am. I'm tired I guess but not tired enough to really sleep. I meant to go eat something a couple hours ago but I haven't felt like it since my dad crumpled up my dinner and threw it off the porch because he was mad at me. I'm really lonely I guess but I also hate everyone right now so I don't know what that means or what to do. I was trying to get over a dislike of someone but then today i got back a peer review by them and all of the comments were the things I hate about myself. I don't feel like living anymore and I don't think there's anything anyone can do about it. I miss Sam. I hope he's doing okay in the hospital or w/e. I wish I could be with him. It'd probably be good for me. Today I was talking to Emily and everyone else in class heard me but her bc she never listens to me and she was probably texting Rachel. I don't know why I'm not good enough for these people?? They're not good enough for me so why the hell am I not good enough for them? I'm so tired and sad. I doubt my depression is a chemical imbalance anymore. I think my life just sucks ass. Which makes me feel ungrateful bc I'm not dying of typhoid fever or malaria or w/e. The comments he put weren't even like bad things you just don't understand what I was thinking you don't fucking know what it's like to be me. I have so many thoughts all the time and you may not have had an original thought in your life. He still gets into better colleges than me. People like him. He's not fucking depressed or dysphoric or a coward. He didn't drop out of ap physics. I should have taken a shower. I don't even know what I did today. I have no clue. I really should go to the hospital but I'm so scared of missing school and not graduating because I know I'm not going to kill myself because I'm scared which will make things worse. I have flashbacks to unsettling surreal dreams all the time now. It knocks me off my feet for a moment but I'm good at not letting it show so no one knows. I don't want to dream anymore. Some of them are cool but mostly they're bad. I downloaded a dream journal app but I've only made one entry because my dreams are so weird and multiplanar that I can't write them or even really describe them. I should have therapy twice a week at least but I feel bad because they're paying so much money. The only way for me to get real honest to God attention for my illness is to make an attempt on my life. I'd love to personally but I hate pain. I have enough of it as it is. I'm so guilty what the fuck. I don't have anything to be guilty about but I am anyway so I'm angry All the Time. No one cares enough to tell me it's not my fault and even if they did would I believe them? I don't even know what It is at this point but it's my fault. That doesn't even make sense why do I feel like this???! because I'm not going to kill myself I feel like I shouldn't be hospitalized and I'm guilty about faking being as bad as Sam or something like that. All my dad ever does is tell me I'm hurting him even though he's hurt me for years. Whenever he asks me what he's done wrong I forget everything like when someone asks you your favorite book and you suddenly forget everything you've ever read. That makes me feel guilty because I can't find anything bad that he's done and so I internalize his words and I have a little voice now that's his voice that screams Your Fault! every second of the day. I want it to stop. I want them to stop yelling at me. When I say this it sounds like I'm some kid who thinks being psychotic is cool and is like "yeah I hear voices" and that makes me feel guilty. idk tho bc I don't like think they're hidden spirits or anything i know they're coming from somewhere inside me but I didn't choose them so? I just want to fucking know what it feels like to be supported. No one person knows both the depth of my mental illness and the lengths of my identity. I allot different tidbits to different friends so that I never have anyone know me fully. I feel so guilty about being trans. Like I'm crazy or losing my mind or that it's just another mental illness I have. But I know it would be worse if I told people because they would think it's a mental illness. My mom would say "gender confused" and I would cry because that's how I felt my whole life until I realized I was this way. My dad would never look at me the same again and pray for me to go back and still tell me he loves me more than all the stars in the sky. And that would really fuck me up because for years all I've been shown is hate in the name of love and it's fundamentally broken me as a functioning human being. I can't stand physical contact because I'm so nervous. I'm so scared I'm going to mess it up and they're going to hate me. The other day my dad moved really quickly and I went into shock because I thought he was going to hit me. He continued like nothing happened but I thought I was going to cry. I was just in the car on the way to church. I rip whole tufts of my hair out now. We're almost at the two year anniversary of me asking to get my hair cut. It took a lot of courage to ask which shows that i really wanted it. I was shut down so quickly and with such contempt I've been scared to share anything about myself ever since. If he wouldn't let me style the dead protein strands on my head the way I want, no way was he going to be accepting of anything in my life besides what he wanted. I hate myself so fully now it's incredible. I used to be the most confident kid in class and now I just radiate self loathing underneath my suave exterior. And by suave like, doesn't have it together but is cool with that. I don't know. I guess I just wish people could see all this about me, but also I don't because I'm already so vulnerable this would make me ashamed and easily exploitable. Shame and guilt are things I should not be feeling and I know it. I'm so angry that the people in my life have driven me to this kind of state. But nevertheless I can't get past it. I'm just a scared kid. In fact, while many are fantasizing about getting old or married or what have you I'm fantasizing about getting to relive my childhood as my "new" or "preferred" or whatever the fuck You want to call it gender. I dream of being adopted by two nice men who love each other and teach me how to love. They are always supportive of me no matter what and comfort me when I need it. What's really fucked up is sometimes this is the only thing that gets me through the day. It's exactly like mr robot. Elliot creates a mental image of his dead father to comfort him because his body cannot handle the loneliness. It's 2am now. I guess I've vented a lot. I can't seem to make myself do anything. I'm in a rut. And I felt good on Sunday. That makes me feel like a fake too. Like I'm just being dramatic about school but I'm fine all other times. Which still isn't true but these things haunt me. No matter how many times I hear "you're valid uwu" I'm still going to hate myself and I'm still going to question. Crazy thing is I'll probably still go to school tomorrow. I'll sit in band class and stare blankly at the other wall dreaming about what my haircut might look like, or things that I'll wear when I look more like a boy. I'll smile at people around me and make sassy comments. I'll pay attention to all the crazy things nick says and think about playing trombone. Alyssa will laugh at something I say. I'll try to make eye contact with Emily when something happens even though I'm mad at her and she hates me. She won't notice and I'll feel stupid and unloved. Mr flood might give me a compliment if I do something well and it'll be the highlight of my day. He'll make a funny joke or say something odd and Alyssa will laugh again and I'll smile fondly. My heart is filled with such love it's absolutely horrible that anything like this has been allowed to happen. On the underneath of the rotting cool girl is a little boy who just wants to be held. Sometimes I call mr flood dad when he's out of earshot. I do that for mr Higdon occasionally too. They smile at me so bright and tell me I'm wonderful and delightful and compliment me on silly things that somehow make my day better even though I don't really care about them. I have dreams where I'm maybe three feet tall with fluffy blonde hair and I'm sort of hunched over trying to be small and unnoticeable and I'm crying and the tears are running down my face but I'm only sniffling, because I taught myself not to cry loudly a long time ago. I rub my eyes with my little child's hands and look up hesitantly to where I see a man standing, bending over slightly to talk to me. he looks sad but understanding and opens up his arms. I'm not sure if I'll go but then I think about being held above the ground away from my problems and I just run straight for them. As I land, I am lifted it up into a string, warm embrace. I feel safe for the first time I can remember. My arm is around his neck and one clings to his back. I bury my face between his shoulder and neck into the soft fabric there. And then I cry. I cry for a long time as the man plants gentle kisses in my hair and whispers soft unintelligible things. He rubs my back carefully and I feel myself relax. There is no tension in my childlike body. Bliss. My wildest dream is to have a loving father like that. Which makes me slightly sick. I understand Harry Potter visiting the mirror of erised so often now. Those desires are truly powerful, and those who already have strong relationships may avoid its allure easier. It's almost 2:30 I think my dad came home but that doesn't sound right. I never know when he's leaving. I'm scared just sitting here. I'm afraid he'll come in I'm afraid of the rodents in the ceiling falling on me and I'm afraid of the endlessness represented by the passing train. This whole existence feels like a cycle I can't break. Every day is blurred together. Every moment. I don't even know now if I've already written this. I do know I hate the noises of the nighttime. It is a time when we are more keenly aware of our aloneness and of all the tiny noises that lurk behind every day bustle. Humans have long been fascinated by the night. It stands as a place of unknowing, where danger can lurk easily. It used to be my greatest fear. Not the night it's self I told my mother, but the robbers in the dark. I'm so much more paranoid now, and I'm told it may be a side effect of the depression manifesting in a sort of pseudo-psychosis. Good to know not even my psychosis is real. Which makes me feel like I'm faking it. Seriously I'm about to go out of mind these squirrels sound like they're going to pounce on me at any second and while I'd like to die; not like that.