#one month in. dozens more to go!

[feathered-serpents]

I cannot wait for Aziraphale and Crowley’s season 3 blowout

Crowley screaming at Aziraphale that he gets it. He gets that they couldn’t be forever. Aziraphale could never truly want him while he’s still demonic and dirty. Hereditary enemies. So be it. He understands, he just wishes he figured it out earlier

Aziraphale screaming back at Crowley that he’s made it clear he could never love anything more than he hates Heaven. And Aziraphale is Heaven so how could he ever stand to be with him? He understands, Crowley is what he is and Aziraphale can’t ask for more. He just didn’t think he was

And that declaration strikes them with agonized horror, and at first it’s just more anger. How dare you believe that? How dare you think so low of me? If you think that then you never knew me.

But they can’t keep it up. That anger, slowly starts to give way to reveal the heartbreak underneath. No less painful then the day they separated. They can’t keep the walls up anymore, they don’t have the strength

You are the best of us, Aziraphale begins. Yet heaven failed you and hell hunted you and the thought that either might hurt you. I couldn’t stand it. I still can’t stand it. I thought I could make Heaven the place that saw you for what you are. I wanted you to be safe.

Me? Says Crowley. Ten million angels up there and if god took them and mashed them all together what ever paragon it made still wouldn’t be worth you. Heaven couldn’t deserve you. And you certainly deserved better than their cage for eternity. I thought that could be me. I wanted you to be free.

They look at the other as the reality of what they both failed to understand settles in.

I wanted to build you a world

I wanted to give you the world

I never needed that, they tell the other. I had you.

You are my world.

[vimbry-moved]

"likes don't do anything" they do

"there's no algorithm" there is

"well nobody uses the for you tab" I do

"reblog all art and fics you see" there's no thought put into that. if this does work on people, then it's just pity engagement borne out of guilt rather than genuine interest, which is arguably worse than having none, because it's totally hollow.

[diamondrib]

fun fact all those people who talk about how type 4 hair and dealing with it sucks are right but in a nuanced way where it’s actually systemic racism’s fault and not anything about our hair itself making it uniquely shitty

[mariyekos]

Btw for anyone who's never visited my blog and/or doesn't use desktop, I just want you to know that it's a relic blog with an audioplayer, the old tumblr format of indented posts, and a custom floating gif that walks up the right side of the page. I put my love into this theme and I'm going to share it!

[madaraservingcunt]

Love letter to madara 💌

Dear Madara,

You have given me endless amounts of creativity and introduced me to fellow Madara enjoyers, many of whom have become the dearest of friends. This blog was dedicated to you as a place for me to share all my silly ideas as an outlet for my own enjoyment. Now, it has become a place where strangers on the internet interact with me for Madara content. An infinite tsukuyomi dream come true!

I'm glad I survived hundreds of episodes of filler and flashbacks so I could be rewarded with your character. Thanks to you, I get to be inspired by anons like these who are so funny and sweet.

Yours truly,

madarascumslut

[thedrotter]

i can't believe its already july what do you mean half of the year is already over... you're saying ive spent nearly 7 months constantly drawing re:kinder— it has felt like 3 months?!

genuinely stunned it seriously has felt like 3 months to me... I was just so redoing some turnarounds i did for yuu very early on and was thinking. "wao ive really gotten more of a grip at drawing him in these last 3 months!!!" only to check the date of those early drawings of him I made to see the month DECEMBER 2023. HUH???

[braceletofteeth]

tag someone you want to know and/or some of your besties.

I was tagged by @fourth-quartet 😊 Thank you!!

favourite colour: Gray but I'm currently in a brown phase

last song: I've got recently reacquainted with Beginner by AKB48 😄

last series: The Kidnapping Day. It was a lot more wholesome than the name suggests.

last movie: Saw X (surprisingly also a lot more wholesome than you'd expect????)

sweet/savoury/spicy: Sweet :3

currently watching:

Koisenu Futari

Chains of Heart

The Golden Girls (season 1)

Love in the Air (2nd rewatch)

other stuff I watched this year: Not listing all of it here (I've never watched so much stuff as I did in 2023), but I'll mention the ones that I enjoyed watching the most from each month so far (*not including rewatches):

JAN: Wednesday

FEB: GAP

MAR: Not Me

APR: Tick, Tick... Boom!

MAY: Utsukushii Kare

JUN: Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938

JUL: Takin' Over The Asylum

AUG: Marry My Dead Body

SEP: Utsukushii Kare: Eternal

OCT: The Sandman

shows I dropped this year/didn't finish: I barely remember the ones I watched till the very end 🤡 But ok, let me see...

Eve (dropped after one episode; Rich People and their Rich People Problems™, I think was the reason)

A few straight GMMTV shows that I didn't really catch the name (I. Well. I just. I just couldn't make myself give a fuck, ok 😔)

+ Currently deliberating whether or not I should drop Chains of Heart. All the subtitles I've found are lacking in terms of coherence, and the story itself is already not the most straightforward, so I can only hope I'm understanding what's going on at all? 😀 And I'm also not feeling the main couple from either the present nor the past (? I suspect they are the same (but I may never know))... HOWEVER, I like the acting of the main, and the Thai scenario that is not Bangkok for once. That's always refreshing. And sometimes the cinematography is pretty too... Decisions, decisions...

currently listening to: Back for More by TXT & Anitta (I went after the link for it and distractedly searched for "banger" instead of the title 😆)

currently reading: Codename Villanelle (it's a small book but I'm. ..struggle)

current obsession: I'm not obsessing over anything at the moment 😟☹😫 Have been too busy with mundane adult life problems (therefore, as you can imagine, I'm just about going up the walls here :))

tagging: @eatprayworm @thisautistic @hyp-no-tic @visualtaehyun hi 👋

[pyrriax]

ANYWHO goodnight tumblr i'll be back on the art grind tomorrow i think 🙏

[mimicteruyo]

We re-arranged my furniture on Friday, and now I can see a whole murder of crows on the roof of the next building while sitting at my desk.

[miniatureliterature]

The universe can stop now. It can stop. I’ve had enough now, it can chill out. I’m good. It can stop.

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

In light of Brian Thompson being shot dead on my birthday (🎉🥳🎂) I'd like to share a personal story about UnitedHealthcare.

During the peak of COVID, my family all got sick. I couldn't be on my parents' insurance because they were both older and on Medicare. So, I had insurance through my University: UnitedHealthcare.

For some reason, rather than roll-over each year, I got a new plan each year that ended after May and didn't start until August, so I was uninsured for the summer months, but it was a weird situation that the university denied, and told us we were supposed to be insured year-round, it was messy.

Both of my parents went to the hospital, and I got sick too. I had to take care of my pets, and myself, and try to stay alive and keep my pets alive when I was so weak I could hardly move. When my parents came home, my condition got dramatically worse (I think my body knew it couldn't give out, because there was nobody to take care of me, so once my parents were okay, it completely crashed and failed.)

I started experiencing emergency symptoms. It was a bit hard to breathe, my chest hurt, and I was extremely delirious. I wanted to call my insurance to see if I was covered (this was during the summer) and I was connected to some nice person, probably making minimum wage, who told me with caution in her voice that my plan was expired. I had no active insurance, but she urged me to go to an emergency room. I remember saying something to the effect of "You just told me I don't have insurance, I can't go to the hospital, I can't afford it."

She sounded so genuinely worried and scared. I remember she said "You really don't sound good, you sound really sick, please call 9-1-1" and I think I just said "I can't afford it without insurance, don't worry, I think I'll be okay."

And she paused and said "I don't want to hang up the phone with you like this." And it sounded like she was holding back tears. And I don't remember what I said, I think that I would be okay, and I hung up.

I still think about her. I wonder if that phone call haunted her, or if she had dozens of calls like that a day. I wonder if she thinks about it at all, if she wonders if I died after she told me I didn't have insurance and therefore couldn't go to the hospital without incurring a tremendous financial burden. I wonder if she feels guilt or blame-- of course she shouldn't, it wouldn't have been her fault if anything had happened to me. Maybe it's self-centered to wonder if she thinks about it. I'm not the main character and it was just her job. But, still.

I think about how evil it was that we were put in that situation. Because offering year-long continuous coverage through the university plan would maybe cut into profits, maybe not benefit shareholders enough, maybe cut into Thompson's $10 million salary. While his minimum wage administrators have to feel afraid to hang up the phone, because on the other line someone might be dying, and they wouldn't know. While his patients hang up and decide to take their chances rather than put their family through that trauma.

This is UnitedHealthcare. This is Brian Thompson's legacy. This is why, understandably, an entire nation is jubilant that he was gunned down like the vermin he was. I don't care about his widow. I feel pity for his children, despite the fact that they will inherit millions, but I feel more pity for the children of his victims patients who are gone because they didn't want THEIR children to inherit crippling debt. Brian Thompson got what he fucking deserved. I pray that he not be the only one. I pray for continued safety, peace , and anonymity for his killer.

American healthcare is a disease.

[reasonandempathy]

One of the most personal, saddest things about living in America is the summertime.

There is 0 reason for American adults not to have a summer break. I can only say this with a full throat so loud, but other countries have policies and laws that give adults summertime.

It is not a joke to say France is kind of shutdown for August. There are over a dozen countries that have enough mandatory, legally required leave available to take an entire month off, or more. PLUS mandatory PAID holidays.

It's Brazil and Russia (ooh scary BRIC countries outgrowing the US and coming for us). India AND China give up to 2 weeks mandatory vacation leave, plus sick leave on top.

It's Afghanistan (20 days). It's Angola (22). It's Argentina(25) and Armenia (25) and Australia (20). It's Cambodia (technically unlimited; you can eventually get 15 or 17 days per month vacation).

That us on top of mandatory PAID public holidays. Cambodia can somehow manage 27 mandatory paid holidays plus upwards of 18 vacation days per year and going up from there, and we in the US can't even manage mandatory paid holidays.

We don't even get paid on Christmas and Memorial Day. And even trying to convince some people, let alone politicians, that everyone should get paid on Christmas is unfair to compare to pulling teeth.

Please. Please. I want to have a better life. I want you to have a better life.

I want you to not miss Summer Break. Because France and Cambodia don't.

[gojocon-main]

❝ BUT, YOU’RE PREGNANT! ❞ — gojo satoru

mdni, fem!reader, suggestive, 0.8k wc, established relationship, satoru’s pregnant wife who can’t keep her hands off him, teeny tiny bit of exhibitionism (reader palms his bulge in public), failed self-restraint, satomi coded cuz i’m desperate for that old man cock :’)

you’re far along now, and he swears that the more your stomach grows with his child, the hornier you get.

he had to keep on his toes around you in order to not get you so worked up. the pregnancy hormones were really getting to you, and you lashed out at him or cried over every little inconvenience. but what he had to be most careful about was the way he touched you.

if his hand lingered a little too long on your waist — the intention wholeheartedly innocent — you’d somehow take that as an invitation to palm his bulge. it’s happened numerous times recently—even in public!

his poor, pregnant wife had no shame nowadays. yeah, he’s done his fair share of groping your ass when others were around, but it was always under a private eye, secret giggles shared between the two of you.

unfortunately, you had picked up the habit of doing it out in the open. he couldn’t count the amount of times people would gawk in horror, all while you continued to browse the baby section, unbothered, as if you hadn’t squeezed his balls like a stress toy in front of dozens of people. maybe you were an exhibitionist?

either way, it was clear your thoughts only consisted of three things as of late: eat, sleep, and fuck.

how could he resolve this? he wanted to cry. this wasn’t fair! why couldn’t you be this thirsty for his cock when you weren’t pregnant? never in his life would he have thought you could out-freak him. and as badly as he wanted to fuck you senseless in return, he had to be gentle—cautious. sex was increasingly dangerous at this stage — according to the doctor after a long night of abusing your needy cunt — and you were driving him to the brink of madness with the way you were acting.

tensions were higher than they’ve ever been, neither of you speaking or acting on it. however, things came to ahead one morning while he was leaving for work. like usual, he stood by the door in his suit, prepared to head out after your usual once-over. it was a domestic routine he looked forward to every morning despite him whining in your ear about how he was going to be late, watching you softly as you “fix” his collar for the millionth time.

satoru wasn’t stupid. he could tell you were stalling for more time with him, not-so discreetly using it as an excuse to touch him. and don’t think he doesn’t notice how you’re practically sniffing him like an animal in heat. he knew just how much you loved the scent of his cologne, and it was as if you couldn’t help yourself around him when you caught a whiff of it.

now, here’s the part where he may have messed up. after your initial aggressive arousal towards him — plus with the advice the doctor gave him on the down low — he made sure to no longer kiss you on the lips in your current state, and instead, opted for your cheek. when you hand him his lunch, he leans himself down to your height, lips puckered to plant a chaste peck on your soft skin.

though, what he hadn’t expected was for you to outmaneuver him, slapping both hands on the sides of his head, tugging him close to the point that he stumbles as you begin to utterly ravish his mouth.

“mff—!”, satoru sputters in protest against your lips, eyes wide open in shock. his lunch slips from his hand, the bag falling to the ground with a thud. shaky hands hover over your waist, your protruding stomach pressing against his hard abdomen as move against him as sensually as you can.

he doesn’t touch you back just yet, but you force him to. gripping his wrists, you bring his large hands up to palm your round, tender breasts that swelled throughout these past few months. your soft, cherry-flavored lips moved against his in desperation, and he finally responds back, moaning into your mouth with just as much fervor, squeezing the plump flush of your soft tits. the whimper you let out to the massage sends a shudder down his spine and goes straight to his cock.

you pull back, and he finds himself chasing after your lips until you plant a firm hand on his chest. his breathing is ragged, pupils dilated as satoru stares down at you through his blindfold. he takes in the sight of your kiss-swollen lips and furrowed brows, certain he appeared just as flustered.

before he can utter a word, you gaze up at him through your lashes, a cheeky glint in your eyes that he knows all too well.

“stay.” you pout, and he almost finds the willpower left in him to say no—

“please?”

you didn’t have to ask him twice.

[authorwithissues]

.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

AITA for telling my boyfriend’s coworkers that he’s lying about his body count?

I (35f) have been dating my boyfriend (32m) for four years. It’s honestly been the best relationship until last Friday when it all went down. I feel like I’m in the right, but now I’m wondering if I overstepped.

For context, my boyfriend has been a professional Slasher for about eight months now. He’s always really admired Cryptids, Monsters, and Nightmares so when his application was finally accepted, he was over the moon even if he was starting in a lower position than he initially applied for.

At his company, being a Slasher requires a lot of travel which we knew when he accepted the position. The end goal is for him to get a promotion to at least regional Nightmare (he wants Cryptid, but that position doesn’t have a lot of turnover) but to get that he needs to be in role for at least 12 months OR meet his goals for three months in a row. Once he promotes, we plan to relocate to his new region and “start talking about our future.”

(Side note: no this isn’t about him not popping the question yet. We are both in agreement that marriage comes after financial stability. I run a small business doing scare consults and, while it’s been growing, I wouldn’t call it stable yet. So neither of us are ready.)

I told him it’s completely normal for it to take a whole year before he’s ready to promote and he really should focus on adjusting to the company before thinking about next steps. I used to work for a competitor (I’ve been retired for five years now) and I know it can be hard to go from only taking the occasional human life to having to take over half a dozen a week. It’s not a light workload, no matter how easy it looks in the movies. One of my best friends Slashes part-time and she still only averages about five lives a week despite having done it for years. Especially these days, it can be really hard to meet quota. Humans are getting smarter, no matter what the Council wants us to think.

Anyway, boyfriend didn’t do as well as he thought he would in his first couple months. Totally understandable, of course, which I told him. I suggested he ask his boss if he could be put on a couple team assignments or even a duo until he got the hang of it. That was our first real fight. He thought I was doubting his ability to kill. He brought up how I told him it would take over a year to promote and how I said that this job wasn’t for everyone (His first assignment ended with a 0% kill rate, but that’s a different story). He said it felt like I didn’t believe in him and he said that if that was the case then maybe we shouldn’t be thinking about marriage so soon.

It got pretty messy after that. I felt like he was forgetting that I’d worked in the same field and, arguably, had a lot more experience (not to brag, but I averaged a 98% kill rate). Also, four years is NOT too soon to talk about marriage. He said I didn’t understand how he needed to focus on his career right now. I told him I thought he was taking Slasher too lightly just because it wasn’t Cryptid. He accused me of not respecting him and then things spiraled from there.

We both said a lot of things we didn’t mean and I’m embarrassed that it turned into a bit of a fang measuring contest. I ended up sleeping under the bed for a few nights until he coaxed me out to apologize.

It was a rough patch, but we talked it out. We agreed that, going forward, I wouldn’t offer advice unless he asked and he would try not to take so much of his frustration home with him. He took a weekend off and we went on a recreational haunting trip in the Montana woods.

Things did get better after that. I tried not to give him consults every time he came back from a work trip. He started bringing me souvenirs like roses and cursed puzzle boxes his work said he could have. It became easier just to hang out with each other and it felt like we were back to normal.

But then, four months ago, he came home super pissed because his boss put him on a PIP. (A performance improvement plan.) Apparently, boyfriend had not been doing better at work, he had just stopped telling me when he had a bad assignment. I saw the paperwork he got (he left it in the dungeon under the house, I didn’t go through his stuff) and he’s been missing quota by a LOT. As a junior Slasher, he was supposed to be executing at least 6 people a week, but he’d been lucky to be maiming half that.

Obviously, I had to talk to him about that. We rent our house and, even though I could have afforded the rent on my own, I didn’t want to jeopardize the investments I was making in my business (I was in the process of hiring an assistant to handle my scheduling). Plus, we agreed from day one that we would be 50/50 on rent and I would take care of the rest of the bills because I earned more. I felt that if his financial situation was in jeopardy, he needed to talk to me about it.

I tried to approach him a bit differently than last time. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help. I told him about my slasher friend and how maybe she could give him advice if he didn’t want any from me. But he said he needed to figure stuff out on his own and that if he couldn’t get himself off the PIP then he would go back to work for his dad’s janitorial company.

I let it go. I was worried but I didn’t want to fight again just after patching the holes from the last blow out. It really bugged me that he thought I didn’t believe in him so I committed to giving him the benefit of the doubt. I said okay and asked him if he needed me to meal prep for both of us that week. He offered me grocery money, but I said it was fine since I’d had to deal with a lot of humans breaking in lately and I still had some leftover in the dungeon.

Fast forward a month. Boyfriend got off the PIP super fast. He worked his way off of it over Spring Break and started taking on a lot of extra assignments. In just four weeks he went to Miami Beach twice, New York City twice, and to three separate summer camps. I missed him and it was hard not having him around but I remembered how he said he needed to focus on his career and I tried not to nag.

It was hard not to nag though. With him gone, all the housework fell on me. We rent a 19th century manor, and its upkeep really does need two people. Doing all the chores plus running my business started to really drain me. Even when he was home, he forgot to banish the ghosts (my chore is to kill all invading humans, and his chore is to banish their ghosts) and he never took out the trash. I think he cleaned blood off the dungeon walls once, but then I had to basically redo it because he missed a lot of spots.

But still, I didn’t say anything because he was doing really well at work and I didn’t want to ruin that for him. Even when Humans started breaking in every week, I didn’t complain even though it interrupted my work day.

Last month though, I did ask him if we could move somewhere that needed less maintenance. There were just way too many Humans breaking in and I didn’t have the time to deal with them anymore. Even if I don’t do all the theatrics I used to as a Cryptid, killing humans through fear still takes a lot of time. He asked me if I didn’t appreciate the free meat, and I said I would appreciate it more if I wasn’t the only butchering it.

He said he didn’t want to move because he was really close to getting promoted to regional Nightmare and he didn’t want to take time off work to move. I was so surprised that I couldn’t hide how surprised I was. He saw and got offended. He asked if I still didn’t believe in him. I said that I did, but it was a huge jump to go from an 8% kill rate to getting promoted.

He got even more mad at me for bringing up his stats and he said that he had nearly 80% kill rate since being put on the PIP. I asked how many humans a week he was slashing and he told me I was being too nosy and that was proof that I didn’t believe in him.

I asked him if we could at least hire a ghoul then to keep the humans out of my office and he said he didn’t want to waste the money that we should be saving for our new house. I asked him what he wanted me to do then? I had to take phone calls for my consulting business and it was really hard to stalk humans all around the house while trying to sound like a professional to my clients.

He asked me to be patient for one more month. He said if he met quota for one more month, his boss said he’d get promoted. So I said fine and let it go.

Fast forward to now, almost a full month later.

Last Friday, I attended the Eldritch Conference. For those not in the scare field, the Eldritch Conference is the most prestigious event in our industry. It’s invitation only and is a chance to network with all the big players in the field. Mothman, the Jersey Devil, Bloody Mary and Bigfoot all spoke this year and both my former company, Grudge Industries, and my boyfriend’s current company, Forgotten Summer Solutions, were invited.

I was surprised to get an invite as a solo contributor to the field. However, my consulting firm has really been doing well and I did land a seasonal contract with the Yeti Co-op which I guess is how they heard about me. Plus, I’ve been a speaker before so I think the organizers knew I would behave myself.

I was planning on telling my boyfriend that I was going, but he was out of town on a co-ed sleepover assignment. He usually doesn’t have his phone on during his assignments, so I didn’t bother calling him. I just figured it’d be nice if we ran into each other at the conference if he made it back in time.

Which brings me to what actually happened (apologies for the long post).

So everything went great for my part of the day. I got to network with a lot of individual businesses and even got to reconnect with Blood Mary who I knew back in my Cryptid days. I told her I was dating a Slasher from Forgotten Summer Solutions and invited her to come with me to check out their booth. I thought it would be fun to grab dinner with her after since I assumed if my boyfriend was there, he’d be going out with coworkers which he often does. Plus, I admit, I was showing off a little. I don’t often get the chance to brag about my Cryptid days.

She agreed and we went over to see if my boyfriend was there.

I introduced myself to the people manning the booth. My boyfriend wasn’t there, but a few Slashers recognized my name and greeted me. They were definitely in awe of Bloody Mary (she came in full uniform) and invited us to look at their displays. They had portfolios for each Slasher on the desk as a sort of preview of what their services looked like.

While Bloody Mary looked through the portfolios, I chatted with my boyfriend’s coworkers. They said they were thrilled to work with him and that, even though he had a really rough start, it was impressive how quickly he started meeting his goals. Something about how they talked about his work kind of didn’t make sense. They were talking like he was killing a dozen humans a week, but he’d told me that he was at 80% on his assignments which typically only offer about ten humans each.

I asked them about it and they said that he’d been Slashing during After Hours which is a new goal supplement program his company launched a few months ago. Basically, anyone can sign up for After Hours and the company counts human kills done in uniform as part of their quota. I asked them if this was available to them while they were on assignment and they said no, it had to be done when they had down time. I asked them how my boyfriend was part of that when he was traveling all the time and they looked confused. One of them said that my boyfriend is still getting one assignment per week and is then supplementing his kill rate with After Hours.

At that point, I was even more confused. It sounded like my boyfriend had been lying to me then, because he told me that he was getting at least two assignments a week. If he was only getting one, then where was he going when he said he was traveling?

Bloody Mary interrupted before I could say anything and asked how their Slashers did their kills. They said that every Slasher at their company is required to use a standard issue weapon (like a machete or axe) for their kills to count. They said their company doesn’t count accidents as part of their quota (like falling or heart attacks).

Bloody Mary pulled me aside and showed me the portfolio she was holding. She said that she was going to give me a chance to explain without them overhearing and showed me the book. She said that a bunch of kills in it looked Cryptid kills. And she said, specifically, it looked like the kills I made when I was a Cryptid. I took the book from her and flipped through it and she was right, they really did look like Cryptid kills. Worse, I recognized a few of the Humans from the past few weeks. They were actually my kills!

Kill stealing is a major taboo in our industry.

I told her I didn’t know anything about this. She looked really relieved at that and said that even though I wasn’t a Cryptid anymore, it would look really bad for me if I was caught helping a Slasher cheat at their job. It could affect my business which she’d only heard good things about.

I’m embarrassed to say that I tried to defend him. He’s new to our industry so I thought it might be a mistake. He might not be trying to cheat, this could be a misunderstanding.

She said she didn’t think so because a mistake would be one or two of my kills mixed in with his, not the entire book.

I counted up how many photos were in the book and, all told, of the 146 kills, at least 100 were mine. I couldn’t really say it was a mistake at that point and I was just staring at his portfolio like an idiot. Bloody Mary asked me what I was going to do because, mistake or not, this looked really bad and could damage my reputation if it got out.

At that moment, another man walked up to booth and asked us if there was a problem. I knew that if I said anything, I would be jeopardizing my boyfriend’s job, but if I didn’t say something, I was jeopardizing my business.

I told my boyfriend’s coworkers that he was lying about his body count. I said I didn��t think that they knew he was doing it, but over half of the kills in his portfolio weren’t his and I suggested they remove it from their display before another Cryptid came by and realized it.

The other man thanked me for bringing this to his attention and asked how we knew. Bloody Mary said that she knew another Cryptid’s kills and I had to tell them that I was that Cryptid, though I was retired now. He asked me if I knew my boyfriend was doing this, and I told him no.

I told him I really didn’t want to get my boyfriend in trouble and suggested that maybe he didn’t know those kills didn’t belong to him because they happened in our house. I was grasping at straws and Blood Mary even looked sad for me. His coworkers looked skeptical but tentatively agreed. The man – who turned out to my boyfriend’s boss – said that they would investigate this thoroughly and apologized personally for his employee’s misconduct.

I was spiraling at that point so I thanked him and said I wasn’t mad, I was just looking out for both of our reputations. He promised to keep it between us and I agreed.

Then I apologized to Bloody Mary because I didn’t feel like eating dinner anymore. She said she understood and wished me well.

I went home and did a quick perimeter search of the property. Sure enough, there were human summoning stones ALL OVER the yard. Which means my boyfriend was intentionally luring humans to our house to get me to kill them so he could take credit. It wasn’t a mistake at all.

My boyfriend came home later that night in his work clothes. As soon he got inside he started yelling. He said he was suspended without pay and that all his hard work was for nothing.

I said I knew he’d been stealing my kills and he almost ruined my reputation. He said they still counted as his kills because he did all the work of luring the humans to our house.

I told him that wasn’t how it worked and he knew it. He said it was the same as setting a trap and I was taking this too seriously. I told him that, as a Slasher, he has to use a weapon to get his kills, not me. He said I was basically the same thing since I had such a high kill rate. I asked him if he was calling me an object.

(My parents exploited me by selling me as a haunted doll through a lot of my childhood and he knows I’m sensitive to being called an object.)

He backpedaled at that point and asked if I didn’t want to buy a house together. He said he was doing it for us and I should’ve understood and not said anything. I told him that when I was a Cryptid I had my pride and would’ve never done this.

He said I needed to tell his boss that he was the one who made all those kills. I said it wasn’t me who recognized them as Cryptid kills and now his boss knew too. He accused me of thinking I’m better than him because I have telekinetic powers and can move through shadows and can possess people, while he’s basically a human himself. I told him of course not and that I worked hard for those powers unlike him.

He got really mad at that and actually charged at me with his machete raised. I don’t think he was going to actually hit me, but I reacted like he was. It was all instinct. I disarmed him and I swear I heard a crack when I grabbed his wrist. I shoved him into the wall.

 He crumpled to the floor and started crying. He said sorry and sort of curled up around his wrist. He said he didn’t ever feel like he was enough for me and he didn’t even know why I was still with him. He called himself a bunch of names and said I would be better off without him.

I sort of awkwardly stood there for a minute. On one hand I wanted to assure him that he was enough and that I loved him, but, on the other, I wasn’t sure I could forgive him. He nearly ruined my reputation, and he embarrassed me in front of Bloody Mary. Plus, I still didn't know where he’d been going all those times he said he was on a business trip and apparently wasn’t.

So I ended up not saying anything. I went to our room and started packing a bag. He followed me. He was still crying as he begged me not to go. He said he would own up to his kill steals at work and he would make it right. He pleaded for me not to leave him and that he would give up slashing.

I told him I needed space to think. He tried to grab me, but I shadow walked out of the house. I heard him screaming from outside and I hurriedly drove away.

Now I’m at my friend’s house and I told her everything. She agreed I did the right thing walking away from him, but when I asked her what I should do she hesitated. She said that my boyfriend wasn’t right to kill steal but, as a fellow Slasher, she understood what he was going through. She said I wouldn’t understand the pressure to meet quota because I was always surpassing mine when I was in the field. She said that a Cryptid could never understand a Slasher.

She also said that nobody would have found out about his kills if I hadn’t brought them to his boss’ attention. She said the only time kills are on display like that is at the Eldritch Conference and by the next one, he’d have had kills of his own. She thinks that if I’d just confronted him at home, he wouldn’t be on suspension.

So now I’m worried that I overreacted when I told my boyfriend’s coworkers that he was lying about his body count.

AITA?

----

Thanks for reading! Several amazing supernatural citizens (aka my Patrons) gave great advice to our poor OP over on my Patreon! Please go check them out here (X)

(I will definitely be posting some of them here in the near future!)

My next supernatural AITA is already up to my patrons!

It's called "AITA for divorcing my vampire husband because he lied about his human job?"

Patrons get to see many of my stories a week ahead! If that interests you please check me out here (X)!

[iknityounot]

(Long post, sorry y'all)

A little more than two years ago now, my grandmother passed away. She and my grandpa had moved down to my home town a few years before so we could take care of them. I brought them groceries once a week, helped them write checks, fixed tvs, and found lost things. I was really close with my grandma.

In addition to her hilarious personality and dry wit, one of my favorite things about her was that she was a painter and a crafter like me! She used to crochet, and I took her to the craft store a couple of times so she could get more yarn and books on crochet. But her arthritis and the shaking in her hands kept getting worse, so she eventually had to stop.

She kept her most recent project, a granny square blanket, safely packed away in a plastic bin. She told all of us she was going to finish it one day.

Her hands never got better, and when she got sick, and we found out it was cancer, she rapidly deteriorated.

After she passed, I went to work helping my mom clean out my grandparents apartment so we could move my grandpa in with her. In our frantic cleaning, I found that bin again:

DOZENS of granny squares, dozens of half used skeins. I asked my mom what she wanted me to do with it, and she said she didn't care. I set it aside and later took it home.

Maybe a month later, that tumblr post about the Loose Ends Project was going around. It felt like a sign--I was never going to learn to crochet in order to finish my grandmother's blanket. But they might be able to help!

So I filled out the interest form. They got back to me SUPER quick. And maybe 2 weeks later, I was paired with volunteer in my state (only 2 hours away!) and the box of yarn, granny squares, and my grandmother's crochet hook were in the mail. That was at the end of January this year.

Over the next couple of months, my "finisher" emailed me regular updates on her progress, and asked me questions on my preferences for how she constructed the final blanket.

At the end of August, the blanket was done!

I had always intended the blanket to be a gift for my mother. So I cleaned it up, put it in the only bag I had big enough to fit it, and drove to my mom's. I gave the blanket to her and she was gobsmacked. I explained to her all about Loose Ends, and how someone volunteered to finish the piece for us. She was speechless. (I was quite pleased with this, because I am not the best at giving gifts, so this was a pretty exciting reaction!)

She said that it was the most thoughtful gift she had ever been given. She said "your grandma would love this". To which I replied, "yeah, I know she really wanted to finish it a couple of years ago". But that was when my mom dropped the bomb of a century on me--she told me that my grandma had started making those granny squares OVER 30 YEARS AGO. She had started the blanket when my grandpa was staying in the hospital, but that was back when my mom was younger than I am now! My grandma had packed them all away, planning on finishing it, when my grandpa was sent home from the hospital. Then it went from house to house, from condo in Chicago to their apartment in my hometown. All that time and my grandma had wanted to finish it, but couldn't. First because she was busy, then because she forgot how to do it, then because of her arthritis, and then because of the cancer. My mom said she had given up on expecting my grandma to finish it. 

She said I brought a piece of her childhood with her mom out of the past.

And really, all of this is to say, if you have seen or heard about the Loose Ends Project and have an uncompleted project or piece from a loved one who has passed away--these are your people. They were so kind and treated my project with such care. That box probably would have been found by my own grandkids one day if I hadn't heard about Loose Ends.

Five stars, absolutely worth it!

(From what I understand, you can sign up to volunteer too! If you have time to share, it might be worth checking out!)