#or trauma that makes certain triggers limit their opportunities

[danothan]

tough pill i have to swallow is realizing that “getting better” doesn’t mean “getting to do more things,” getting better for me means taking better initiative in protecting myself. and THAT means making sure i do LESS things

[goldenherald]

1. Use Non-Linear Storytelling

Technique: Break away from a traditional, linear plot. Jump between different moments in time, using flashbacks and fragmented memories to give the reader insight into the character’s past and present simultaneously.

How to Apply: Instead of following events chronologically, focus on how certain memories or thoughts are triggered by present experiences. For example, a current moment of violence can prompt a flashback to a traumatic past, creating a rich layering of time.

2. Lyrical, Sensory Descriptions

Technique: Emphasize vivid, often poetic descriptions of physical sensations, environments, and emotions. Use rich imagery to evoke a mood or emphasize the weight of an experience.

How to Apply: When describing scenes, go beyond simple actions. Focus on texture, color, sound, and even abstract associations to elevate the scene emotionally. Allow metaphors and similes to paint a more nuanced picture of violence, love, or pain.

Example: Instead of “He was bleeding,” try “Blood flowed from him like molten iron, searing the skin it touched, a silent witness to the battle his body had already lost.”

3. Symbolism and Mythological Allusions

Technique: Use religious, mythological, or literary symbols to add layers of meaning to a character's actions or emotions. These references create a sense of inevitability and weight in the narrative, tying personal struggles to universal themes.

How to Apply: Look for opportunities to compare your characters’ experiences to those of mythical figures or historical events. This heightens the emotional stakes and gives the story a timeless quality.

4. Repetition for Emotional Impact

Technique: Repeat key phrases or images throughout the narrative to create a thematic echo and emphasize a character’s mental state or the inevitability of their fate.

How to Apply: Select a phrase or image that holds deep emotional weight and repeat it at pivotal moments in the story, subtly changing its meaning with each iteration.

5. Character-Driven Reflection

Technique: Place the character’s inner thoughts and reflections at the forefront of the narrative, often giving more space to internal monologues than to external action.

How to Apply: Give your characters room to think, analyze, and wrestle with their feelings. Make their thoughts as dynamic as the physical world around them. Use their reflections to explore the emotional and psychological consequences of their actions.

6. Leverage Fragmentation in Sentences

Technique: Use fragmented, incomplete sentences to convey a character’s disorientation or emotional turmoil. This helps mirror the fragmented nature of trauma or overwhelming experiences.

How to Apply: Break sentences intentionally to show a character’s inability to fully process a thought or feeling. The use of ellipses, dashes, and abrupt stops can create a jarring effect that mirrors their inner conflict.

7. Contrast Violence with Tenderness

Technique: Write scenes where acts of violence are juxtaposed with moments of vulnerability or tenderness, highlighting the complexity of human emotions.

How to Apply: When writing scenes of action or violence, contrast them with softer moments to humanize the characters. Show how the brutality affects them emotionally, both in the moment and long afterward.

8. Focus on Sensory Overload

Technique: Overwhelm the reader with sensory details to convey the intense experiences your characters are going through, especially when they are at the limits of their endurance.

How to Apply: Use multi-sensory descriptions to create an atmosphere of intensity. Include sounds, textures, sights, and smells in a way that heightens the stakes of a scene.

9. Elevate Conflict to Mythic Proportions

Technique: Frame personal conflicts as part of a larger, mythic struggle. This can make your characters’ choices feel more monumental and impactful.

How to Apply: When characters face challenges, compare them to legendary or historical battles. Even small, personal stakes can be framed as part of a grand narrative.

10. Utilize Religious Imagery and Themes

Technique: Weave religious imagery and concepts like martyrdom, sacrifice, or divine punishment into your writing to create a thematic richness.

How to Apply: Subtly introduce religious undertones in moments of crisis, linking characters’ struggles to ideas of redemption, judgment, or salvation. Use religious symbolism to add weight to their choices.

[thelostgirl21]

It's not too late to find some measure of peace and happiness in your life despite your limitations, and learn to adapt to any permanent health issues you've developed as a result of your trauma, either.

While I appreciate the intent of this message, denying that some of us have suffered devastating physical repercussions that have forever robbed us of having a job, children, a richer social life, and/or the same opportunities as people that grew up and had their whole body and brain develop in a healthier environment is not exactly helping.

If the level of stress you've sustained in your developmental years as a child has sadly left you physically disabled and/or suffering from severe chronic illnesses that makes it impossible for you to sustain a job, have and/or raise children, do a huge number of sports, engage in regular social activities, is forcing you to carefully pace yourself in everything you do, has made you severely allergic/hypersensitive to a number of foods and environmental triggers, etc.

Well, you won't have the option to do everything you dreamed of as a kid, nor shape yourself and your life into what you want.

HOWEVER, you can take a good look at what you have left and what is accessible in the NOW, mourn all of those dreams that have been robbed from your life - cry, rage, throw plates against walls to get the unfairness of it all out of your system - and then decide that you're going to play the cards life has dealt you with to the fullest!

What you have left is yours to own, make the most of it, and find happiness in the most unsuspected places.

At the worst of my illness, when all I could do was lie in bed all day in a room with heavy blind (I have severe reactions to direct and indirect sunlight), I trained my brain to have a complete blast and experience intense joy from running my fingers against the texture of my bed sheets for hours!

Happiness, for me, became having access to soft bed sheets!

When I finally got access to a diagnosis for my condition (after 7 years of research and being seen by 24 different doctors), and was able to go to the mall on my own to shop for a gift for my dad's birthday, I almost broke down in tears right in the middle of the shop because I was extremely overwhelmed with joy.

Every day I'm able to just get out of bed and leave the house on my own, without needing someone driving me around or pushing me in a wheelchair, feels like I'm enjoying ride in Disney World.

When even the smallest little thing brings you joy, things that people take for granted: walking, driving, preparing yourself a sandwich, become a miracle and the greatest gift in the world!

And I hate that people tell me that "I have the right attitude" or that they admire my ability to adapt to my condition and the limitations of my life.

Because that level of adaptability is, and I believe this with all my heart, also a biological feature.

Life is unfair. In the set of cards I was dealt, you found a genetic predisposition to developing a severe case of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), that initially presented as Myalgic Encephalomyalitis (ME), under certain circumstances.

HOWEVER, you also found a neurodiverse brain (I've got ADHD with some high functioning autism traits, and was also identified as gifted as a child) that thrives on being alone, can experience the same joy watching the same movie a hundred times, and doesn't feel a need to constantly compare itself to others.

Even my sensory processing disorder seems to play a part as there are some textures / tastes I crave to the point of them bringing me genuine joy, and others I can't stand.

And while I do get moments of despair and what feels like near unbearable emotional pain, experience has taught me that they rarely last more than a few hours or days.

So when I'm having an episode, I've learned not to trust my feelings and hold onto the knowledge that it's a phase that'll go away.

I've made sadness, anger, and pain my "friends". They are emotions I'm familiar with and their job is to let me know that some of my needs and expectations aren't properly being met, and it hurts.

They are encouraging me to pay attention to what's wrong and try to do more things for myself that will make me feel better.

They aren't there to ruin my life, they are there to protect me.

And as soon as I'm back on track, they will go away.

But that is how those emotions work for and with me.

So if you are reading this, please please PLEASE don't you dare feeling defective or like there's something wrong with you for not being able to adapt to your trauma and/or any chronic condition you've developed as a result as well as I seem to be able to.

You may have a predisposition for depression or anxiety that makes finding a silver lining in your limitations a miracle in itself. The efforts required for you to be happy will be greater...

...but perhaps you have access to more energy reserves to get you there than I do.

And perhaps happiness is overrated and your goal should be not to find happiness, but to find another feeling that makes the whole human experience worthwhile.

You can experience a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment in one specific domain that will make you glad you were alive to do it. You may not be "happy", but you'll still be emotionally fed in a sense and feel good in that moment.

In life, there are factors playing against you. Factors playing in your favor.

Identify what they are, take a good look at your own set of cards - the good and the bad - and if you can, then figure out how to make it all work for YOU. Use the resources you have to their fullest potential, be kind with yourself, and give yourself the right and the freedom to live life you own way according to realistic expectations.

Set goals for yourself that you can reach with what you have. Be everything you want to be according to what you are able to be. Have accessible dreams reflecting your own reality.

And if you can, cherish and value those dreams with the same love and intensity as an actor would winning an Oscar! Make those little dreams feel big and redefine the parameters of your world.

For those of you that have the power to reshape your expectations it is going to be one of your greatest ally, so use it.

There is hope, and there is no reason why you should let yourself become trapped in old behavioral patterns of toxic patterns of thought.

If your trauma and/or mental health issues haven't affected your physical abilities as well, then there is indeed time for you to figure out how to enjoy your life and follow some of the dreams you had as a kid.

If the consequences of that trauma and/or mental health issues have permanently impaired certain aspects of you life, then look at what you still have access to, build, and nurture new dreams that may have nothing to do with what you wanted your life to be as a kid, but that will reflect who the person you are wants to do with what they have now.

if you've lost years of your life to abuse or mental illness, please know it's not too late for you. it's never too late for you. you can do everything you dreamed of when you were a kid - there's still time. you have time to shape yourself and your life into what you want. there is no time limit on happiness.

[tarot-by-e11e]

Hii ,here for the inner demon game

My initial G Pisces sun

I feel sirens because of my water dominant in charts

Thankyou so much 💗

Hi G,

Thank you so much for participating in my Inner Demons ask game.

By any chance, you have water in your big 3?

So the cards I pulled are: 8 of Swords, 10 of Cups, Queen of Cups

Could it be that you feel trapped, restrained, or helpless when triggered? By any chance, do you have a freeze trauma response? If not you might be at the time of your life where you feel like your opportunities or resources are limited, scarce, or restricted by an external source? It could also be you feeling stuck, stagnant, or unable to get out of a certain unfortunate situation.

Do you think this is a bit too triggering? I do apologize because this Ask Game topic is meant to be triggering.

First of all, whatever you've felt and are feeling right now is completely valid, and you're not making this up. You are allowed to admit that you are in pain. However, being deprived or restrained doesn't seem like a blessing in disguise. You never got to decide where you are born and on what socio-economic class you are born into. But never forget, there will always be a silver lining, finding it, however, tends be something we have to work hard to find.

With this concept in mind, let's dive deep to find your Inner Demons' silver linings.

Being stuck has this unusual flip side of forcing someone to be resourceful, quick-witted, and adaptable. Being in a place of lack would make you feel motivated to find some way to get out of your current predicament with whatever tools you have at your disposal.

And this made me you think, "Well, Elle, I didn't become like this because I wanted to, I did everything I could for the sake of my survival?!"; but that's the thing G, your current predicament has molded you to have remarkable resilience for the sake of your survival. Because you've been through hell and back, you won't be as easily terrified and demotivated because you have unfortunately started this life in hard mode.

This is in no shape or form meant to invalidate your pain, trauma or suffering. This reading is to help you shift your perspective in the strengths you've unknowingly cultivated for your survival's sake.

If you struggle to appreciate this inner strength of yours, try imagining anyone you know in real life who has lived a privileged life. Could be a schoolmate or coworker, you decide. See how everything comes easy to them? How everything is just handed to them? See how they can just get things without much effort? Got that person firm in your mind? Good.

Now imagine them trying to live life in your shoes.

Do you think they'd survive living just one day in your shoes? Do you think they'd be as resourceful or resilient as you, when dealing with unexpected obstacles popping into your life? Do you think they can handle the scarcity of resources that you've known all your life?

You might not want to vocally admit me but somewhere deep inside of you agrees that they won't last a day living in your shoes. Again, this is not to invalidate your pain or struggles. Nor is it to glorify the trauma you've endured. All this exercise is meant to do is to shift your perspective to that inner strength of yours that you didn't realize that you've had all along.

As we are born in different families with varying socio-economic classes, each person is born to certain situations that can make or break an individual. Granted, we all have struggles and problems, regardless of the tax bracket. And in your specific situation, you are born in a circumstance that trained you to be resilient, quick-witted, adaptable and determined to survive.

Now with the 10 of Cups, this is your dream: emotional stability. To be able to feel safe and supported by like-minded individuals. To have that loving and compassionate community that will always have your back. It could also pertain to having an emotionally fulfilling career or relationship. Feel free to discern which of these interpretations feel most drawn to you and disregard the rest.

Now how are you encouraged to go about this is by embodying the Queen of Cups. In your case, it seems that you're encouraged to emotionally create a safe space for you to exist in yourself and in your life as a whole. This could come in the form of different self-care routines. Maybe you're advised to curate a daily self-care routine that is focused on destressing yourself at the end of the work day? Or maybe have a gratitude journal practice? If you feel called to go on walks more often, feel free to do so. It all depends on what you deem as your version of self-care.

Another way to help yourself achieve that emotional fulfillment through the help of your resilience is being open to seeking out professional help in the matters you can't do yourself. If therapy is needed, don't feel bad for seeking out therapy. If you desire community, then find the like-minded community you desire by putting yourself out there.

The last possible interpretation of this is by being generous and charitable to yourself, as how generous and charitable you are towards others. Think about the scenario where the flight attendants always remind their passengers to put the oxygen masks on themselves first. This is not meant to encourage selfishness. Think of this more from the standpoint of longevity and sustainability. If you enjoy working hard helping others, you need to prioritize your needs and well-being first. If this concept still eludes you, tell yourself this:

"The more I put my needs and stability first, the more I'll have energy and resources to help others."

Your resilience, and quick-wittedness have helped you survival. But this shouldn't be something that we leave you feeling stuck. At the end of the day, you don't want to just merely survive to see the next sunrise. You want to actually live your life in the most emotionally fulfilling way you can realistically achieve it. You, at the end of the day, are a human BEING, not a human DOING.

This concludes the end of your reading. Do let me know how this resonates with you. Feel free to show some support via my Buy Me A Coffee here (This reading is for entertainment purposes only.)

[mentalhealthquestions]

Healing from Trauma: Online Counseling as a Path to Recovery

Traumatic experiences can leave a profound impact on a person's life, affecting their mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Seeking support and professional help is crucial for individuals on their journey towards healing and recovery. With advancements in technology, online counseling has emerged as an accessible and effective option for those seeking assistance in overcoming trauma. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of online counseling and how it can be a viable path to recovery for individuals healing from trauma.

Accessibility and Convenience: One of the significant advantages of online counseling is its accessibility. Trauma survivors often face various challenges that can make it difficult for them to seek in-person counseling, such as transportation issues, geographical limitations, or mobility constraints. Online counseling eliminates these barriers by allowing individuals to access therapy from the comfort of their own homes, removing the need for physical travel. It provides a convenient and flexible option that accommodates busy schedules and allows individuals to choose a time that works best for them.

Anonymity and Privacy: Trauma can be an intensely personal and sensitive experience, and some individuals may find it challenging to discuss their trauma face-to-face with a counselor initially. Online counseling offers a level of anonymity and privacy that can help individuals feel more comfortable opening up about their experiences. This sense of anonymity can be empowering, especially for those who may feel ashamed or embarrassed about their trauma. The digital medium allows individuals to communicate openly and honestly, fostering a safe and non-judgmental environment for their healing journey.

Greater Access to Specialists: Online counseling broadens the options for trauma survivors seeking specialized help. They can connect with therapists and counselors who specialize in trauma and have extensive experience in this field, regardless of their geographical location. This expanded access to professionals with specific expertise ensures that individuals receive targeted and effective treatment tailored to their unique needs. Moreover, individuals in rural or remote areas, where specialized trauma counseling services might be limited, can benefit greatly from the availability of online therapy.

Flexibility in Communication: Online counseling provides various modes of communication, including video calls, phone calls, and instant messaging, allowing individuals to choose the method that suits them best. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for trauma survivors who may have difficulty expressing their emotions verbally or prefer written communication initially. It enables therapists to adapt their approach to cater to individual preferences, enhancing the therapeutic alliance and ensuring effective communication and understanding between the client and therapist.

Enhanced Emotional Safety: For some trauma survivors, physical presence and direct eye contact can trigger feelings of anxiety or discomfort. Online counseling allows individuals to maintain a certain level of emotional safety and distance while engaging in therapy. This can facilitate the therapeutic process by creating a space where individuals feel more secure in exploring their trauma-related emotions and memories. Online counseling also provides an opportunity for gradual exposure to triggering topics, allowing individuals to build resilience and develop coping strategies at their own pace.

Conclusion: Healing from trauma is a complex and deeply personal journey that requires professional support and guidance. Online counseling has emerged as a valuable and effective path to recovery, offering accessibility, convenience, privacy, and specialized expertise. By leveraging technology, individuals can access therapeutic services and find solace in the comfort of their own environments. If you are healing from trauma, consider exploring online counseling as a viable option to embark on your path to healing and recovery.

Remember, seeking help is a sign of strength, and with the right support, you can navigate the challenges of trauma and reclaim your life.

[unwelcome-ozian]

I have an important question. can you have built in "mind sets" that change when you're in certain situations?

For details, I recently managed to (mostly??) get away from a cultic group I was raised in but last week the leader returned and we spent a fair bit of time together. But the oddest thing was was that it felt like my entire way of thinking changed? Everything she said felt true, even when thinking back on it it didn't make much sense. It felt like everything I thought of and did without her guidance was inherently wrong and faulty, like I was a trying to see clear through a kaleidoscope.

It took about a week for it to wear off after she left, but during that mindset it felt so much easier to speak and exist around other people. I knew what was expected of me and I knew how to fulfil that expectations, so there wasn't the anxiety and ???? that comes with social interaction (for me at least). BUT that was only when I was talking to/with her.

Now that it's worn off it all feels gross? Like I can still feel the presence of that mindset in my hear criticizing what I'm doing because I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I finally got my first ever job but it's online and I'm mostly left alone to do things, and I really wish I could go to school to meet people my age but I can't (pandemic made my schooling all online so no meeting people opportunities there). Without her guidance I feel aimless and without purpose, but being stuck in quarantine with her for years really messed me up.

I don't know how to interact with the outside world and knowing how easily I can fall into a mindset of "YES EVERYTHING YOU SAY IS 1000% TRUE AND CORRECT AND YES, YOU ARE THE ONLY REAL PERSON TO EXIST" and more terrifies me. I feel more real in that state, but how can I be more real if I cannot think without influence??

I don't know if you can help but can you please share any insight you have? thank you so much

It takes time to get out of and recover from a cult mindset. This is the reason going no contact when leaving high control groups is recommended.

The recontact can trigger the trauma bond to the leader and the group sometimes leading someone to return.

After exiting a cult, an individual may experience a period of intense and often conflicting emotions. She or he may feel relief to be out of the group, but also may feel grief over the loss of positive elements in the cult, such as friendships, a sense of belonging or the feeling of personal worth generated by the group’s stated ideals or mission. The emotional upheaval of the period is often characterised by “post-cult trauma syndrome”:

spontaneous crying sense of loss depression & suicidal thoughts fear that not obeying the cult’s wishes will result in God’s wrath or loss of salvation alienation from family, friends sense of isolation, loneliness due to being surrounded by people who have no basis for understanding cult life fear of evil spirits taking over one’s life outside the cult scrupulosity, excessive rigidity about rules of minor importance panic disproportionate to one’s circumstances fear of going insane confusion about right and wrong sexual conflicts unwarranted guilt The period of exiting from a cult is usually a traumatic experience and, like any great change in a person’s life, involves passing through stages of accommodation to the change:

Disbelief/denial: “This can’t be happening. It couldn’t have been that bad.” Anger/hostility: “How could they/I be so wrong?” (hate feelings) Self-pity/depression: “Why me? I can’t do this.” Fear/bargaining: “I don’t know if I can live without my group. Maybe I can still associate with it on a limited basis, if I do what they want.” Reassessment: “Maybe I was wrong about the group being so wonderful.” Accommodation/acceptance: “I can move beyond this experience and choose new directions for my life” or… Reinvolvement: “I think I will rejoin the group.”

Passing through these stages is seldom a smooth progression. It is fairly typical to bounce back and forth between different stages. Not everyone achieves the stage of accommodation / acceptance. Some return to cult life. But for those who do not, the following may be experienced for a period of several months:

flashbacks to cult life simplistic black-white thinking sense of unreality suggestibility, ie. automatic obedience responses to trigger-terms of the cult’s loaded language or to innocent suggestions disassociation (spacing out) feeling “out of it” “Stockholm Syndrome”: knee-jerk impulses to defend the cult when it is criticised, even if the cult hurt the person difficulty concentrating incapacity to make decisions hostility reactions, either toward anyone who criticises the cult or toward the cult itself mental confusion low self-esteem dread of running into a current cult-member by mistake loss of a sense of how to carry out simple tasks dread of being cursed or condemned by the cult hang-overs of habitual cult behaviours like chanting difficulty managing time trouble holding down a job Most of these symptoms subside as the victim mainstreams into everyday routines of normal life. In a small number of cases, the symptoms continue.

Oz

This information is a composite list from the following sources: “Coming Out of Cults”, by Margaret Thaler Singer

[vkelleyart]

Thoughts on fandom: inclusion and engagement.

(Art credit to the kindhearted @penpanoply​!)

There’s been some stuff floating around on Tumblr about strife in the CO/WS fandom, and though I haven’t been explicitly named-dropped on anything public, my DMs have been... active. lol Rather than rehash what’s been said already, I just want to impart a little wisdom and perspective in the hopes it may soothe frayed feelings and offer a way ahead for cultivating a respectful community. As someone who has been an active participant in online fandoms since the mid-’90s, which was the advent of online fandom content creation (shout out to my fellow X-Philes!), and who has also spent a chunk of her professional life managing social media for the federal government and for activist groups, I can promise you it’s all gonna be okay.

Here’s some context for why strife happens and what we can do to create a more inclusive and communicative fandom environment. 

1) It sounds cliché, but fandoms go through growing pains. 

In the case of the Simon Snow fandom, what was once a small and cozy space untouched by cataclysmic events (such as the release of *gasp* a sequel) has grown exponentially in a relatively short amount of time following the release of Wayward Son. Newcomers are eager to find a home in this space at the same time as folks who’ve been here a while may be consciously or unconsciously wary about widening their circle, and It’s important to remember that this is not necessarily an expression of bad behavior on either side but just human psychology doing its thing. 

The byproduct, however, is that tension and stress builds over time from the lack of meaningful communication across the divide, which subsequently fuels misunderstandings. Ironically, the interfaces we use to communicate don’t help with this because any existing communication about the tension happens in tiny vacuums until a trigger goes off and bad feelings go public. 

Way Ahead: These moments of destabilization are opportunities to see where we can be more self aware about how we engage with fandom and the kind of community we want to be. Can you promote, support, or befriend someone trying to gain a foothold? If yes, please do! Each person must reach their own decision about what they can do within the confines of their available energy, health, and time, but a little self awareness goes a long way as long as you’re honest with yourself and others if applicable about what you can contribute. Anyone who judges you for it isn’t worth the strife.

2) In a fandom comprised of vulnerable/marginalized people, it’s more accurate to say that cliques are “bubbles of trust.”

This one's important. Just by nature of the source material, the CO/WS fandom includes fans with a wide array of backgrounds and experiences, especially when it comes to those who identify with the characters’ queerness, mental illness, and/or trauma. I really believe––based on individual conversations/group chats––that the difficult lived experiences that so many of our fandom peers have endured has produced one of the most open, aware, and accepting fandoms I’ve had the pleasure of participating in. Our vulnerability is, in a real way, our strength.

That said, a community of survivors also has the side effect of cultivating small circles of engagement that I call “bubbles of trust.” When you’re a survivor of abuse, marginalization, mental illness, fill-in-the-blank, it’s often quite hard to risk casting a wide net and expanding your circle to include new faces––which can subsequently be internalized by equally sensitive and vulnerable newcomers as rejection, judgement, or inadequacy.

Way Ahead: First of all, there may indeed be gatekeeping and exclusion going on. But before internalizing someone’s cagey behavior as gatekeeping or purposely exclusionary, ask yourself if you have all the information. Many people are private (I include myself in this assessment) because life has regrettably taught them to be this way, and so they may insulate themselves to a small group of people who have earned their trust. Some people might also triggered by certain content (case in point: smut triggers my anxiety) so they don’t engage with it. Others might have something in their pasts that define how they handle certain subjects (for example, a person of color should not be tone policed for getting angry when confronted with a racialized microagression, however accidental it was). You just don’t know what you don’t know. 

The solution here is to regularly check your privilege and ask questions in a private space if you sense you’re being treated unfairly by someone. If you go public with your grievances in hopes of mobilizing the mob, you may accidentally find yourself stepping into the role of the aggressor instead of the victim.

3) Social Media is not built to help you get engagement. It’s built to help itself make money off of you.

Repeat after me: Hits/likes are not a measurable indicator of talent or worth. There are ridiculously talented folks on Tumblr and elsewhere who, for whatever reason, haven’t had their viral moment, and it’s not their fault. Loads of factors come into play where things like likes, reblogs, and comments are concerned, among them being posting frequency, subject matter, the time of day, the day of the week, the week of the month, the month of the year, the current administration, the stock exchange, the concentration of middle class users, who just won the Superbowl, a madman trying to steal an election and undermine the democratic process, a PANDEMIC, do you get where I’m going with this?? lol

At the end of the day, my humble successes have been helped along by good luck, good timing, high profile signal boosters, and an absurd amount of work. (This is why I try to signal boost new work whenever I get a chance over at @vkelleyshares.) 

So while you cannot control Tumblr’s interface, trends at large, or your fellow users, here’s what you can do to ensure you give your work the best possible chance of exposure.

Have an image ready to go with your post. Tumblr is a visual platform (no matter what it says about being good for text). Not good with images? Set up a Canva.com account and get access to free graphic software with a gazillion templates to create whatever attractive image you want to attach to your post.

Keep the outward facing text brief and easy on the eyes. Too long and eyes will glaze over. Put excess text behind a “read more.”

You may think you’re being cute when you do this, but don’t put yourself down in your posts. (Don’t put yourself down in general, of course.) Doing so acts as engagement repellant. If you don’t believe in your work, no one else will.

Related: Be your best cheerleader. Confidence is a magnet, and if you don’t have it, go ahead and fake it until you start to convince yourself you are worth the buzz. So promote yourself! You have gifts that only you can impart. Use that knowledge to fuel everything you do from your art/fiction writing to your outreach with other content creators, and by golly, if someone’s done it already, acknowledge that contribution and then tell the world that this is YOUR unique take on it.

Treat your fellow fandom creators as human beings, not art/fiction/content boosting machines. I cannot count how many times I’ve had folks slide into my DMs with offers of friendship only to disappear once they realize I’m not available to draw a picture for their fic. It hurts because it’s manipulative and it makes me want to hole up and not signal boost anyone. Creators who truly support each other will not give off a transactional vibe. I want to help you reach more people, but not if that’s all I’m good for in your eyes. 

The long and short of it: Lead with compassion, do your best with the opportunities at  your disposal, and remember that fandom belongs to everyone in it. ❤️

What saves a fandom made of sensitive and vulnerable souls from imploding when it goes through growing pains is radical compassion from those who can offer it. Begin with the assumption that your fellow fandomers are not trying to harm you, and wade into the water knowing that your insight into the lives of your peers is limited by default and you may need to temper your words or actions accordingly. If you’re a content creator, save compassion for yourself as well, as there are indeed challenges to gaining an audience, and lack of engagement does not mean you lack talent or skill. Be your best advocate, and if you have the bandwidth to lift up a fellow creator and make a new friend, please, go ahead do it! 

And finally, fandom belongs to everyone, and no one has a monopoly on characters, tropes, or themes. Create and consume what you love (with respect for your more vulnerable peers), and bask in the variety, my friends!

That’s all I’ve got in my head at the moment, although I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting. Thanks so much to @penpanoply for letting me use her art for this and to everyone else, hang in there and try not to judge each other too harshly. These are unprecedented times, and most of us are doing our best in circumstances that are pushing us to our limits. 

As always, if you have questions or want to sound off on anything, shoot me a message or an ask, or ping me on Discord. It might take me a second to respond (thanks, Covid) but I’ll get to it! Love, love, and more love to all.

[liliaeth]

Fix it’s for Teen Wolf

I can think of a few things that would have made Teen Wolf better.

1.  I wanted more focus on Scott’s emotional response to what happened to him.  I don’t mind that Scott isn’t the type who complains about getting hurt. The problem for me was that the show rarely dealt with the consequences of Scott’s pain, and thus to the casual viewer often made it look like he simply didn’t mind, that being hurt didn’t bother him at all. Or worse, that nothing all that bad had happened in the first place.

 Doing this undermined many of the hallucination scenes.  For example, in Season 2’s Party Guessed, we get hallucinations for Stiles, Jackson, and Allison which give us a view into psychology, letting us know their issues without spelling them out.  For Scott, we got Allison making out with kanima Jackson.   Compared to the others, it felt shallow and confusing.  The writers couldn’t even bother to give us dialog.  He received the same treatment in Season 5, when they read the book designed to trigger their memories about the Dread Doctors. Stiles gets yet another scene about his dead mother who has been crucial to his story since Season 1.  Lydia sees her grandmother and her connection to both Lydia’s powers and Eichen House, as well as foreshadowing her treatment at the hands of Valack.   Malia about her Mom and sister’s death at the hands of the Desert Wolf, which is her entire arc.  And Scott?  He gets a nightmare about a dog that was never mentioned before and would not be mentioned after.

 2. I wanted more focus on Scott’s trauma in general. In Season 1, Scott was repeatedly mentally and physically violated by Peter, terrorized and abused by Derek, and hunted by the Argents, and it was taken as a given.   Even the recaps at the beginning episodes in other seasons barely show any of that.  For example, Gerard attacking Scott in clear view at the hospital, stabbing him, and threatening his mother, never appeared in any of the recaps, even in episodes where it would have been important to remind the viewers about it.

While the show had no issue showing us over and over again how Stiles or Derek or Isaac or Allison or any white character really was hurt, they did not focus on the pain Scott was put through, and thus let the viewers conclude that those events didn’t matter.

The show literally had Scott try and kill himself, twice in less than two days, first in Frayed, by refusing to let himself heal, and then again in Motel California, yet neither of those suicide attempts are mentioned even once afterwards. And this while it would have been a good call back in s5b, when Scott is once again not letting himself heal after Theo killed him. and yet again, no mention whatsoever.

 3. I wanted more consequences for certain characters.   I liked that Scott and to a lesser extent Derek were confronted with the consequences of their actions. When they screwed up, they got called out on it. When they did something wrong, it wasn’t excused.  Then they made up for it.

In contrast, certain characters, especially Stiles, got to do whatever they wanted and it was either dismissed as funny or used to make them look sympathetic.  Stiles got to be mean and cruel, and the narrative still treated him as if he were the best friend ever.  He got to assault people, hurt them, and it was treated as if somehow he was the victim. 

For example, I would have liked Stiles a lot better, if when he tortured Scott with lacrosse balls, punishing him for who-knows-what, if someone else had called him out on it or if Scott had got to defend himself, instead of just taking it because Stiles was angry.  Scott allowing Stiles to hurt him to maintain their friendship was a pattern between them, just as much as Scott taking responsibility for things that aren’t his fault.  He keeps on doing it over the course of the show, but it would have been nice if the show at the very least had made it clear that that didn’t make Stiles behavior acceptable.

Just like I wish that Peter had actually faced consequences for his actions – and/or shown some kind of true remorse for his misdeeds--instead of the others just letting him hang around after all the horrible things he’d done or reduce it pettiness.

 4. I would have liked more time spent on Melissa and the McCall family in general, especially on Melissa’s initial reaction to Scott being a werewolf. In the show, they barely spent two minutes total on Melissa’s reaction to finding out her son has been turned into a werewolf.  By the end of s6b, she was barely even behaving like a mother anymore. Even to the point where we don’t even get a conversation between her and Chris about his attacks on her son before the two of them start dating.  Now don’t get me wrong, I liked Chris and Melissa in a relationship, but it was missed opportunity to humanize both her and Scott that they didn’t bother to show her finding out about that and her reaction to it.

Instead we got the whole horror reaction, of her being horrified at seeing her son’s other face, the reaction that any LGBT kid fears when they come out to their parent. Which could have been a great metaphor, especially if they had then made it clear that Scott was bisexual.

 5. I would have liked more focus on Boyd.   The production time spent on Isaac and Erica, while Boyd’s arc was treated as almost an afterthought. We barely even got any hint on his past, in the episode before they killed him off.    They started out with Boyd as the one who wanted to be like Scott, and then never explained it.  Why not focus more on that, and their relationship?

(similar complaints go about Mason, and how little we knew about Mason, outside of him being Liam’s friend. Like... what was his relationship like with his parents? What is Mason interested in, what does he want to do with his life... how did he deal with the after effects of the Beast...

 6. I would have liked more focus on Alan Deaton. The show had such huge potential with this character’s backstory, not just with the Hales but as an emissary in general.  There was this whole mythology about druids that they barely even delved into.

To not even start on how little we knew about his personal life? Why did he and his sister have different last names? What was their relationship like?

Does he have any romantic relationships? Friendships, relationships in general?

Or how about more time spent on his role as a father figure to Scott, we got so few crumbs of their relationship when we should have gotten so much more

 7. I would have liked more focus on Scott and Theo’s interaction in Season 6.   I get that in 6a, they had Scott primarily focused on getting Stiles back, but I’ll never understand why they then didn’t use 6b, to deal with the fact that Theo had tried to murder Scott and was trying to make it up to him and the pack for what he’d done to Scott and the others.

I don’t mind Theo interacting with Liam.  Those scenes were great, but they should have at least one scene with Scott and Theo dealing with the issues between them.  For Theo’s sake, as much as Scott’s.

 8. I would have liked a complete rework of Season 6A in its entirety.  If you’re going to focus a season on an actor who isn’t available, then you have to make it about his impact on the others. Show us what difference this character made, by showing us the effects of his absence, rather than just try and make it about a romantic ship. (I’ve written a post about this already in greater detail, so limiting it to that, but seriously, that season was such a huge wasted opportunity.)

 9.  Actual character growth for Stiles. For a character who had as much screentime as Stiles did, it’s shocking just how little character growth Stiles had over the course of the entire show. This contrasts in a really bad way, when you look at how much every single other character grew and changed over the course of the show.

Just look at the last four episodes of 5b, to give an example. After almost an entire season of watching Stiles at his worst, focusing on emotional scene after emotional scene with him, he suddenly got relegated to comic relief. Why? Because they didn’t want Stiles to grow, because unless he grew, there was no way for him to go but down. If Stiles had taken responsibility for his actions, then they’d have had to admit that he did wrong in the first place. And they couldn’t have that happen.

 10. And last but not least. More moments of the kids being kids. Even if it’s just proms and beach parties. Moments where we see the characters spend time together, when they aren’t trying to stop some bad guy. Where we can see them be friends, hang out with kids their own age. Even just to remind the audience just how young these children are. And where the viewers along with the characters can rest in between the horror, because doing so makes the horror hit far more strongly in contrast to the light.

 11. Also, a better lighting budget, pretty please Davies, were a few more light bulbs that much to ask for?

[aeroargonic]

My thoughts on Lore Olympus

Trigger warning: mentions of sexual assault and pedophilia.

I've kinda been getting into the Webtoon scene recently. Out of all the comics that I'm keeping up with, I find Lore Olympus probably gets the most attention here on Tumblr. Obviously, I can see why it appeals to a lot of people; combining Greek mythology, a very popular Greek myth at that, with a modern twist and some really beautiful art. I am not gonna claim to be an expert on Greek mythology because my own knowledge on it is spotty at best lol.

As much as I want to enjoy Lore Olympus, there's a couple of things in the story that jump out at me and are really hard to ignore. This is where we get into the trigger warnings so I'll put this under a cut just in case.

BTW, please keep in mind this might be a one-off thing. I am not turning my blog into a Lore Olympus blog.

The biggest issue is obviously the age gap between Hades and Persephone. I have no problem with them having a big age gap, but she's barely an adult. Even Hades calls her a teenager at points. There's also the fact that she's an intern at his company...where he's the boss. So far, we've seen very little of her actually doing the work she'd be assigned as an intern and Persephone herself even notes that she may not be entirely qualified to do all the work. There's the age gap, then there's the power gap. There's just too much opportunity for Hades to take advantage of a vulnerable Persephone for their relationship to be as healthy as the writers want it to look. For a comic that seems to pride itself on its progressiveness with body types and healthy relationships...

Yeah. Persephone is severely sexualized. Now let me say that there is nothing wrong with her body type at all; everyone matures and grows differently. What I do have a problem with is that a lot of her clothing either just barely covers her butt, or leaves a decent amount of her cleavage exposed. While she is a grown adult and can dress herself however she pleases, please refer to my earlier point where Hades calls her a teenager. A lot about Persephone's appearance and personality seems to suggest a childish sense of immaturity. Legally and physically, she may be an adult. But she looks and acts so much like a teenage girl that she might as well be one.

Then there's what happened to her and Apollo. Personally, I think the writing sexual assault the way it was written in the comic is a sign of lazy writing. By the time it happens, Apollo has been established as having no redeemable qualities whatsoever, and the seriousness of the scene is constantly danced around, as if the sexual assault was only intended to exist for shock value and nobody is too interested in exploring the repercussions and trauma that come from this. There seems to be a reoccurring theme where any male god or character in the story shows a certain amount of interest in Persephone. Obviously, Hades and Persephone are the endgame and Apollo believes that he's somehow entitled to have her. Ares makes out with her, Hermes seems to have a crush on her, and even Thanatos can't bring himself to hate her.

Speaking of Thanatos and those who are against Persephone, I wish we could go a bit deeper as to why Minthe and Thetis feel the need to ruin Persephone's relationship with Hades. Having it just be jealousy is pretty shallow and kinda reduces Minthe and Thetis as characters. So much of both their personalities revolve around being in relationships with their bosses. Again, somewhat lazy writing to me. Minthe had potential to drop Thetis and change for the better, but she just went straight back to Thetis the second the opportunity to get dirt on Persephone came up, which ruined the point of a couple of chapters beforehand for me.

Many of the female characters in this story, I find, seem to get shafted in terms of development. If they're not entirely on Persephone's side, like Hera, they get a negative portrayal of sorts. Minthe and Thetis are jealous bitches, Hestia is a hypocrite, Demeter is controlling, and Artemis is a meathead who is completely oblivious to Persephone's plights. Even those who are on Persephone's side, such as Daphne, are noticeably lacking in the characterization department. But for a lot of these characters, both male and female, a good chunk of their development revolves around Persephone. Granted, she is the main character is a wanted fugitive, but I do think this amount of obsessions is silly and takes up too much personality from a lot of characters.

Am I calling Persephone a Mary Sue? Well, not quite. But she's this sweet and innocent and pure little bean with a bite when she needs it. Obviously, whenever she's mean or snarky or turns someone into a plant, there's always a justification for it. Basically, rarely is anything actually Persephone's fault. She doesn't seem to take a lot of responsibility for her actions and while it might not be in Hades's character to get seriously mad with her for the plant thing, he had no problem yelling at her earlier for a less serious deed. Persephone's anger is a mess storywise. We're supposed to believe that she has limited control over her powers and her act of wrath was an accident (because, as I've established, she's supposed to be this pure and innocent woobie), but she was well aware of her actions and intentions when she turned Minthe into a plant.

I realize that I've been saying quite a lot of criticisms against Lore Olympus, so I'll throw some positive things that I do like about the story. I like the concept of Olympus being much more modern than the mortal realm. It's been hinted at that some nymphs are treated worse than others, and I hope we get an opportunity to explore that further. I genuinely was excited when Minthe snapped back at Thetis to see Minthe get redemption of sorts and learn to change her ways for good. Alas, that potential plot appears to be thrown out the window. Also, I love Eros and Athena. They've got to be some of my favourite characters.

So, here's all my ramblings and rantings about Lore Olmypus. Not to call myself a stan or anti or anything, because I believe you can still enjoy or participate in content while keeping a critical eye on it; the way I see it, you should never blindly follow or hate upon a work. Nothing is perfect and Lore Olypmus is not perfect. There's a lot that could be improved and added or retconned. It clearly isn't going to follow the original myth entirely and I don't feel well-educated or familiar enough with the original myth to talk about how faithful Lore Olympus is. Same with the art. I think the art looks lovely, although there are some obvious oversights with colouring and body proportions. I'm certain someone else can sum that up better than I can.

But hey, if all else fails, Punderworld exists. And that's a really good comic too.

So for now, I'll just follow this work and see what happens next.

[therenlover]

It’s Always Been You (Part Three of Till Forever Falls Apart, A Peter Maximoff/Reader Series)

Synopsis: After a month of adapting to his new universe, Peter Maximoff can confidently say that he likes his new life more than his old one. Sure, he misses home sometimes, but he’s been far too busy flirting with his new roommate to spend time crying over the things he’s lost. Everything is smooth sailing until a strange journal in his roommate’s study leaves him with more questions than he knows what to do with. Now he’s on a mission to discover who he’s really living with before she has the chance to turn against him.

Tags: Angst, Secrets, Exposition, Pre-Relationship, Predestination/Soulmates, Post-Wandavision

Rating: T

Warnings: Mild Language, Brief Mentions of Torture/Past Trauma, Minor Character Death

Word Count: 8600~

This has been crossposted as a two-chapter fic on my AO3 under the same name

------

A/N: For this fic series, the events of Endgame take place in Late September/Early October, so Wandavision takes place in late October. Also, Thor is about 3500 and Loki is about 3000. This has no bearing on their appearance or stories, it’s just older than they are in MCU cannon. 

Peter couldn’t tell when exactly the mirage started falling apart.

It hadn’t come down all at once but instead dissolved in slow waves that culminated into a disastrous reveal when the pieces stopped fitting together. Part of him wished he could go back to living the lie when every day was filled with the sweet rose-tint of ignorance. Unfortunately, there was no way back to the way things were before, only a long road forward.

Not everything had been bad. In fact, most of the first month was quite the contrary.

After his disastrous run-in with the Sorcerer Supreme, a man he now knew as Stephen Strange, Y/N had taken him on a tour of the city, pointing out all of the places he should avoid at all costs. The list wasn’t particularly long, but once he knew where to stay away from he felt fully comfortable to roam the city at his own leisure. That opened up a whole new window of opportunities for Peter to have fun.

The city itself wasn’t as scummy as it had been when Peter was living there at X-Mansion. He still vividly remembered the last time he and Jubilee had taken a trip into the city, watching the prostitutes roaming around Times Square as they passed through on the way to some deli Kurt had recommended to her. Now, everything felt slightly safer and much more staged for tourists. Besides that, though, much to Peter’s surprise, there were very few changes. Of course, there were the massive new skyscrapers run by what he had gathered to be either the rich good guys or the rich bad guys (he hadn’t quite been able to figure out which when Y/N had explained it to him) but if he just pretended they weren’t there, this new New York could pass for his old New York pretty easily.

Strangely, Peter found he enjoyed living in this universe’s New York more than he’d enjoyed living back at the X-Mansion. He had freedom now. Freedom to roam the city with no curfew, freedom to get food from the kitchen at all hours of the day, freedom to spend as much time as he wanted lazing around the house playing Space Invaders in his room… life in the brownstone was paradise. Every moment was crafted to meet his exact needs. Flawless. Picture perfect in every way... Too perfect.

If Peter was forced to pinpoint where things started to go wrong, it would be the first time he noticed how Y/N’s whole universe seemed to bend at his whims.

He hated to say that Y/N was the epicenter of the problem. In fact, she was what, in all honesty, gave Peter the most happiness in his day-to-day life. Sure it was nice to spend time alone in his room binging twinkies to keep his blood sugar up, but that seemed pathetic when he compared it to Y/N knocking softly on his door and offering a plate of whatever delicious meal she had come up with at the time. Some days she would lure him out of whatever project he had taken on to show him new movies he had missed in the time jump between universes. On other days, when Peter was feeling cooped up in the house, she would take him to Central Park for cheap hotdogs so they could spend the afternoon watching the seals (which had been Peter’s guilty pleasure as a local ever since he moved into X-Mansion). No matter what, Y/N offered Peter exactly what he didn’t know he needed at every turn looking damn good as she did it.

Now that was a whole different bag of worms that Peter didn’t like to look into too deeply. Y/N was just… stunning. Everything about her seemed to call to him, a perfect siren’s song luring him closer every time he saw her. She never failed to make Peter laugh. She also took time out of her day to help him learn new things, like how DVDs worked, with all the empathy in the world. Even though she was beautiful to look at and wonderful in every way, Peter found himself attracted to the smallest things about her more than anything else. Her smile, her cooking, the way she danced to her record player when she thought he wasn’t around.

Peter had trouble putting the feeling into words. He could only imagine it was the first stages of love.

The real kicker was that she liked him! Liked him in a way he had never been liked before. It was as if, in her eyes, he could do no wrong. She laughed at his jokes and pulled him closer when he gravitated to her side and came home with little gifts she found during the day that he always found he loved. Peter’s flaws weren’t chided but instead embraced. He always felt cared for at her side.

There were some imperfect things about Y/N, though.

They weren’t large, not at first, but as time passed the small fissures in her facade grew into gaping cracks. They served as the stems from which all of his current problems grew. The biggest original fissure was just how jumpy she was.

99% of the time Y/N was cool and confident. Peter thought she wouldn’t be out of place working as a lawyer or politician. That should have been the first flag in and of itself, but that didn’t matter. What did matter is that the other 1% of the time, which seemed to be triggered randomly by things Peter said or did, she was like a deer in headlights. She would freeze, panic, and only return to normalcy several minutes after Peter either dropped the subject or clarified whatever he said. Once Peter caught on to how strange that was, other odd things about Y/N began to show through in day-to-day life.

Things like knowing facts about Peter that she shouldn’t know.

The first time she brought him home his favorite candy he assumed she had just guessed correctly, but then she brought him a VHS of his favorite movie. And bought his favorite foods when she went out shopping that Peter was sure she hadn’t bought before. And took him to a fancy Manhattan leather store to buy a very obviously custom-made silver leather jacket that she just so happened to see in the window.

He would always thank her profusely, just glad to get things he enjoyed, and remark on how odd it was for her to know him so well after such a small about of time. Y/N would just smile and chalk it up to intuition. Intuition could only count for so much.

Y/N did other, smaller strange things as well, but Peter couldn’t say he noticed them much until after he confronted her. He simply assumed she only ate at certain restaurants because she was a picky eater, and avoided cars because she wanted to save the environment. She could have just been an average person who just so happened to use gilded silverware and have a spectacular, museum-quality collection of odd, assorted antiques sitting around her perfectly-furnished, historical brownstone that she was able to comfortably live in while working a relatively low paying job…

Peter had never been known for his smarts, but looking back, even he was disappointed that he hadn’t seen the signs sooner. Love is blind and it also blinds. His eyes only opened when he found the journal.

The illusion fell apart on a Wednesday afternoon.

It was cool, with the crisp late-autumn breeze leaving a slight chill present throughout the day. The sky had turned grey, not from rain yet, just from the general gloom of the season. Peter didn’t mind. He was looking forward to the first big thunderstorm in his new home.

Y/N had left for work in the morning with a spring in her step and a smile on her lips. On her way out the door, they had flirted a little more than usual, and as a result, Peter had been thinking about her for the rest of the day. He was too busy thinking about the way she had ruffled his hair while she passed him on the couch to do anything of value with his time but much too bored to stand still. His compromise? Snooping.

There was a little study on the first floor that served as a workspace and library for the household. It wasn’t off limit’s by any means, but it was the last place left that Peter hadn’t explored since moving in (besides Y/N’s room, of course). Something, whether it was boredom or suspicion pushed Peter to go inside and explore. He promised himself it would only be for a minute.

Once he stepped inside, his plans changed.

The moment he walked past the door’s threshold it was like a wave of warmth had washed over him. Every bit of the autumn chill that had made its way into the old bones of the rest of the house was seemingly absent from the library. Peter quirked up an eyebrow. Slowly, he stepped back out of the room.

Instantly the chill was present again.

He stepped forward. Warm.

Backward. Cold.

Warm.

Cold.

Warm.

Cold.

To an onlooker he would have seemed crazed, speeding in and out of the doorway with his powers trying to find a logical explanation for the phenomenon. To Peter, though, it was like he had finally cracked the code. This was proof… okay, so a room being warm didn’t prove anything, Peter didn’t even know what it would be proof of, but something about it satisfied the constant anxiety that had been pooling in his stomach in the weeks since he had moved in. From that moment on he was fixated on finding out what was so special about the library and what it had to do with him.

Once he had steeled his emotions, he finally re-entered the room for the final time, letting himself acclimate to the comforting heat that seemed to radiate from everywhere inside while taking a look around.

At first glance, it was just a nicely decorated office. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined 3 of the 4 walls, with the remaining wall opposite the door left free to make room for a small, mahogany roll top desk that sat proudly in the center of the room on the matching wood flooring. There was some decoration on the far wall, though. Above the desk, spanning the entire length of the wall were 5 large portraits of men. They seemed to loom over the room, their eyes boring holes into whoever entered, but something about them seemed more melancholy than threatening.

“Creepy,” Peter whispered to himself as he took another step into the room, gazing up at the paintings, "really fucking creepy,"

The first portrait seemed to be the oldest of the group by far, with the paint piled on thick as if the artist had to correct themselves multiple times over while they worked. It featured a Greek or Roman soldier, dressed in shining gold armor while they bared a wolflike girn and held up a jug of wine towards the painter. It wasn’t period accurate- Peter was pretty sure a typical canvas wouldn't have held up since the greek days, and that realism didn’t really exist in paintings back then -but there was a life in the soldier’s eye that made him wonder what circumstances had inspired the subject to pose as he did.

The next three portraits, in comparison, were a bit bland. They were all pretty formal and seemed to have been done around the same time. All three frames held their own well-dressed dandy with small differences separating them. The first man had a little Gomez Addams pencil mustache, the next wore a military uniform and a sly smile, and the last was dressed in an ill-fitting suit while looking about 5 minutes from death. There could have been more differences, but Peter brushed over them quickly in favor of the final painting.

Portrait number five was, very obviously, the newest of the collection, featuring a modern man, probably 18 or 19, posing goofily on a chair Peter recognized as Y/N’s preferred sitting chair in the living room.  Surprisingly, that wasn’t what caught his eye. Peter found himself gaping at the man’s face.

It was almost like looking through a funhouse mirror. Peter saw echoes of himself in the subject; the silver-blonde hair, the cheeky smirk on his face, the skid marks on the bottom of his worn sneakers. Hell, if it weren’t for the light five o’clock shadow dusting the man’s jaw Peter probably would have mistaken it for himself.

Something about the painting was both hypnotizing and sickening. Its pull was so strong that Peter only noticed he was getting closer when he knocked into the desk, sending a pile of papers falling to his feet. As he gathered them he could feel the eyes of the men above him on his back, urging him to look closer, dragging him into their strange gravitational field. Peter probably would have been more worried about the paintings before he saw the papers, though.

There, written in Y/N’s handwriting with brilliant red ink on the first page of a small, leather-bound journal, was one word: Magneto.

Peter’s heart stopped.

Nobody, especially in a whole other universe, should know about his father except him. It was a secret he was sure he hadn’t mentioned even when the FBI had interrogated him. Hell, Raven had taken the secret to her grave even despite her complicated relationship with Erik.

A deep pit of rage began to burn in Peter’s stomach. Who was Y/N? How the hell did she find out who Magneto even was? Worst of all, why didn’t she mention it to him?

Without even thinking about what he was doing Peter opened the journal to the next page and began reading. He was going to find out what Y/N was hiding if it was the last thing he ever did.

October 4th, 2023,

I returned from purgatory today. “The Snap” has been reversed and Thanos has been defeated, thankfully with little cost. If that was death, I hope I never have to face it again. Tony is still weak, as am I, but both of us will live to see another day thanks to my gifts. I hope Howard knows I fulfilled my promise and protected his son.

While I was in the in-between, the grey place between worlds, I saw Magneto again. He seemed strangely at peace with himself. Hopefully, this means there will be no trouble with him in the future.

Once we hold a proper funeral for the lost the real work begins. Tonight, though, I am glad to be alive.

His father’s name appeared, but the rest of the entry was confusing. Peter kept reading.

October 7th, 2023,

We held the funeral today. I still despise Thor with everything within myself, but he and I held a small memorial for his brother once Clint had been properly buried and eulogized. He offered a poor apology for the hostile takeover of my home, but I accepted nonetheless. It’s what Loki would have wanted. Besides, his bastard father is already dead and his home has been destroyed, so Asgard’s power over Alfheim is nonexistent. Perhaps now that things here have calmed down I’ll visit my mother and father again...

I tried talking to Wanda but she refuses to speak to me. She doesn’t understand that even though I foresaw Vision’s passing, I couldn’t stop it. The same goes for her brother. If I were her, I would hate me too. I’ll try calling her again later this week once she can properly mourn. Until then, all I can do is wait.

Peter’s stomach dropped.

He had to reach out and steady himself on the desk to keep from wobbling when he was reminded of his time in the Hex. His memories of the time were misty, clouded around the edges as he was puppeteered through a charade, but the pain, both mental and physical, was still sharp even a month later. If he pretended it had never happened life was easy but when he accepted the week or so he spent in Westview it took his mind to a dark place. Unfortunately, there was now no way to both ignore his time in Westview and pull the wool out from in front of his eyes.

He trudged forward, stomach in knots, praying that Y/N hadn’t been involved.

October 9th, 2023,

Steve almost destroyed our timeline this morning.

He had originally been assigned to return the stones to their respective places in the past, but thankfully I saw his bullshit plan before he was able to put it into action. It took both Sam and James to restrain him, but Natasha returned the stones and was able to come back to the present before he could escape. He’s still mourning Peggy and has decided to hang up the shield for the moment while he figures himself out, but James is there for him as he has always been. I am jealous in the best of ways.

Wanda still hasn’t taken any of my calls, but Stark insisted I shouldn’t worry.

I will return home today for the first time since I was revived. It scares me. My visions always get clearer when I’m there. I’m afraid that somewhere in the past five years something terrible could have happened that I never even knew about. I suppose the only way of knowing is to wait and see. Hopefully, I will be able to shelf my powers for a couple of decades soon. Seeing and preventing the future is tiring.

October 22nd, 2023,

Pietro visited me in a dream today.

He was dead, bleeding through his clothes as I held him and wept, and yet he was there sitting next to me too. I apologized like I always do. This time, though, he forgave me.

I don’t fully understand what the dream was supposed to signify but he rested his head on my shoulder just like old times and told me he knew. I asked what he was talking about and he said he knew he was going to die when he did, and that it wasn’t my fault.

I turned to ask him why he was telling me that and he was gone. I held his body until I woke up.

Nothing is clear to me yet, but something has changed. There’s been a shift in the energy of the world. Maybe Pietro was trying to warn me… or maybe things are finally falling into place. I can only wait.

October 25th, 2023,

Wanda has a whole town hostage.

She’s wielding chaos magic.

Pietro was an omen

This is all my fault.

Peter clutched his chest as he fought for air. His head was spinning

Y/N could see the future. When taking that and whatever light-based magic she used at the museum into consideration, Peter had no clue what she was capable of. Hell, she might have even more power hiding up her sleeve.

Worse than that, she knew his real name. She had never called him Pietro, not once, and yet she wrote about him like she knew him. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps she was writing about this universe’s Pietro, but he shut it down quickly. She would have told him if she knew something about his counterpart. Right? Right? He pocketed the idea. Y/N could be capable of anything.

Underestimating her could prove deadly.

There was one last journal entry, boldly written in the same red as the others but scrawled much messier as if it had been done in a hurry. Peter had to force himself to focus on the words as he shook from a healthy mix of fear and rage.

November 1st, 2023,

Jimmy called me today. Peter is here.

Well, not here yet, but he’s here. He called to ask if I could take in a superpowered individual who he had in witness protection. The moment the words reached me I could see them walking in, Jimmy and Peter. My Peter. I accepted, of course. Only 5 hours left to go until they arrive. Surprisingly, journaling is doing little to calm my nerves.

I shouldn’t be this afraid. I know the outcome. I’ve been preparing to meet him for almost 3000 years now. Still, I can’t help but think the next 5 hours will be the longest of my whole existence.

His room is already set up, as it has been for a long time, but I should dust before he gets here so it doesn’t look like I was waiting for him. If I know anything, I know that Peter cannot know about what I am or what he means to me. This burden shall be mine to bear alone.

Is it selfish to hope that he never goes home? Even if it is, I deserve to be a little bit selfish.

Four and a half hours left. Just a little more time until he’s home and safe. I’ll be counting every second.

The journal fell from Peter’s hands with a dull thud.

At that moment, the front door opened.

“Hey, Peter! I’m home, and I brought dinner,” Y/N’s voice was bright as she stepped past the threshold, “where are you?”

“The study,” he called back, “we need to talk,”

Peter could almost hear Y/N’s breath hitching in the other room. Then, silence. All of the warmth that had flowed so abundantly from every nook and cranny of the study moments before seemed to drain away, leaving the room lifeless and cold. All the while the eyes of the painted men watched on like sentinels above the world of man.

A minute passed, maybe two, but soon enough Y/N had appeared in the doorway, eyes cast down to the floor where the journal had fallen from Peter’s grasp. She smiled sadly. “I’m guessing you found my journal,”

He didn’t give her the indulgence of a verbal reply.

“How much did you read?” She whispered, walking past Peter and sitting down on the small, rolling office chair that rested in front of the desk.

“All of it,” he muttered back.

Peter had never been one for confrontation. It was in the nature of his power to want to run from things, and run from them fast. He ran from his bullies, he ran from his father, he ran from his universe… this time, though, there was nowhere to run to.

Strangely, he found that even if there were, he wouldn’t want to run from this.

Y/N slowly wrapped her arms around herself, gripping the soft knit of her sweater sleeves. “I assume you have questions… I’ll answer whatever you want me to. Once you know the truth, we can decide where to go from there,”

Peter couldn’t help himself from blurting out his first thought.

“What the hell are you?”

A small laugh escaped from her lips. It was an awkward thing, loud and crass against the quiet words that had been exchanged moments before.

“What am I,” Y/N chuckled. Slowly, she lowered her head into her hands. “Peter, I’ve been asking myself the same question for a long, long time,” She scrubbed at her eyes with her fingers. It was like she was trying to forget something terrible that she’d seen, her hands desperately finding purchase against her eyelids as she laughed at nothing.

Peter gulped. “Are you…. are you not human?”

Y/N gave him a scathing look that told him his question was a stupid one.

“Well, if you’re not human, where did you come from? Are you an alien?”

Humorless laughter continued to ring out against the cold walls.

“Are you going to let me answer your original question first, or are you going to keep speculating?” She sighed, lifting her gaze to meet him. Exhaustion danced across her face, like all of the life had been drained from her in the short time she had spent speaking to him after she got home.

He stopped himself from questioning her further for the moment in favor of deciphering the sad look in her eyes. It wasn’t hard to believe that he had been mesmerized enough by her beauty to ignore all of the suspicious things she did. In all honesty, he still was.

“I wasn’t born,” Y/N started, hugging herself tighter, “but I didn’t spontaneously appear one day either. I was created. My mother and father are… well, to put it plainly, fae royalty. They were the first fairies, high elves who had evolved to become conduits for life energy, but they were lonely. They wanted a child of their own, an heir who would be powerful enough to protect the realm from invaders, so they found the largest source of energy available: the embodiment of the sun, Lugh.”

Her leg began to bounce, her foot tapping ceaselessly against the wooden floorboards. Peter didn’t quite notice, though, too enraptured in her story to notice much of anything else.

“They combined their life forces with Lugh’s light and created a child with capabilities beyond anything the nine realms had seen up until that point. It stored massive amounts of magical energy within its soul and accomplished all of the typical fae magical feats with no problem, but it was also connected to all the life around it. Elves who met the heiress said that they felt calm in its presence, and felt compelled to give her whatever she desired when they looked into her eyes. They named the child Puck. That child was me,”

“So you’re a fairy?” Peter asked.

“Fairy, fae, elf, freak of nature…” Her voice trailed off into nothingness as she closed her eyes, “I’ve never quite fit into any of the labels I was supposed to,”

“But why do you look so…”

“Human?” Y/N’s voice quivered, “Yeah, after living here so long keeping my human face on is second nature,”

Peter couldn’t tell if he should be terrified, enraged, or intrigued.

As gently as he could manage, he padded over to Y/N on her chair and cupped her small, soft cheek in his hand. She leaned into the touch without a second thought, squeezing her eyes shut and letting a few tears fall from her eyes. His voice was soft as he perched down at her level.

“Show me?”

Y/N gave him a short nod before pulling her face away. Both of them winced minutely at the loss of contact. Slowly, though, the glamour around Y/N’s face melted away. Once it was gone, she was finally herself.

Her ears were pointed, sloping in a soft horizontal line through the strands of her hair. Her eyes were different, too. The pupil was larger, more doll-like, but not by very much. The largest difference was, admittedly, the scars.

Y/N was mostly covered, bundled up in her sweater to fight against the cold, but her hands were littered with scars of all shapes and sizes. Most were old, pale divots in her flesh, but there were a few new ones too, trailing pink and red in angry lines across the meat of her calloused palms. The scars didn’t seem to stop at her hands. Specifically, the largest and most wicked of all the scars was a thick gash that ran all the way down from the top of her cheekbone to the base of her neck. The skin looked as if it had been eviscerated, torn completely through, but somehow it had healed up relatively well.

When Peter met Y/N’s gaze, her face was full of shame.

“Isn’t it atrocious?” she muttered, revealing little, sharp incisors hidden beneath her full upper lip, “You can’t blame me for wanting to hide this from you, Peter, not after seeing me like this. This isn’t the kind of face someone wants to wake up next to in the morning,”

Peter had a hard time finding the right thing to say in response.

He was still angry, and rightfully so. Y/N had been keeping the truth about what she was away from him and still had many more secrets up her sleeve about how they were connected. If he wanted to get the truth out of her he couldn’t get away with going soft so early in the game.

That being said, he still felt for her. His heart ached as she hid the scar on her cheek with her hand. She had been so kind, so outgoing, but now she was a shrinking violet doing her best to disappear from his view.

Peter’s gut said to push forward, but his heart urged him to take her face in his hands and kiss her until the pain went away. In the end, he followed his gut.

“I don’t care about what you look like,” he said, standing up and moving to lean on the doorframe, “I care about answers,”

“Of course you do,” With a heaving breath, Y/N’s face morphed back into its human form, “everybody always does,”

Suddenly, a book flew off the shelf to Peter’s right and landed directly in Y/N’s outstretched hand. “How-” he gaped.

“A retrieval spell,” she muttered, “Now where was I…”

She searched through the pages for a moment before landing on an illustration and turning it out towards Peter. It looked ancient, hand done with some sort of brown ink and captioned in a language he couldn’t begin to understand. The illustration itself was easier to decipher. It featured a child in a crown holding up a sword in front of what looked to be an army.

“Because I was created instead of born I was able to skip all the messy parts of childhood, but that meant I had to skip all the fun ones. From the day I was born my parents had me trained to take the throne. I learned combat, diplomacy, etiquette… my parents weren’t equipped for fighting against the Asgardians who always seemed to be eyeing our land, but they were determined to make sure I was. I was a machine of rote motions until I saw you for the first time,”

Peter froze. “Me?”

Y/N cracked a smile. “Who else? I was less than 100 years old then, still a child at heart, and one night when I fell asleep I dreamed of a silver-haired man who looked nothing like any of the elves I knew in a strange room filled with mysterious artifacts. It was like seeing the world through brand new eyes. My gift was so magical back then, so new, a source of joy. I kept seeing you wherever I went, flashes of your life behind my eyes during the day and full prophetic dreams at night… things didn’t stay that pleasant for long, though,”

Her eyes began to well up with tears.

Peter considered reaching out to comfort her, but his confusion held him back. She blinked the tears away before she continued.

“I started seeing terrible things happening to you. I saw experiments, broken limbs… even death. They wouldn’t stop. No matter how much I tried to turn them off they just wouldn’t stop,” her voice trembled and her shoulders shook as she spoke. “That’s when my parents sent me away. They claimed I couldn’t let the citizens see their future leader as someone weak, so I was taken into isolation until I learned how to control what I saw. It took me almost 350 years of silent study and meditation but I was able to master my foresight. I didn’t just see you anymore, I could see anyone’s future if I put my mind to it, and I could control when I had my visions. They only let me out to fight in the war against the Asgardians, who had taken the chance to attack,”

“So you’re telling me that thousands of years before I was even born you just… saw me in the future?” Peter’s voice wavered. Y/N shrugged and turned the book back towards herself, searching through the pages once again.

“Yes and no. It’s hard to explain,”

“Well try!” his voice came out in a sudden shout. Y/N flinched. “I just want to know what the hell is going on here! Because, the way I’m seeing it right now, I got kidnapped out of my home because someone decided I was predestined to play house with an elf instead of staying with my friends and family,”

He regretted his tone the second he stopped shouting.

Y/N, despite her reaction, seemed almost unphased. In fact, she seemed to be shaking less than she had been before.

“Y/N… I’m sorry-”

“Don’t,” she said sharply, “don’t apologize. Not to me. This whole mess is my fault,”

Peter went to open his mouth again, to find something to say, but found himself speechless. He was speechless a lot around Y/N. She turned the book around again.

This time the illustration seemed to be of a woman on a throne. There was red ink on the page too, not just brownish-black like the last one. It was splattered across the woman and at her feet.

“I fought Asgardians for 50 years on the front lines, killing a great many of them in the process. Even Thor, their golden boy with his stupid magical hammer, was no match for me. I saw every move they made before they ever made it, so once I diminished enough of their troops they pulled out of Alfheim and returned home with their tails between their legs. When I returned home I was revered as a great hero and it was like I had never failed my parents in the first place. Their precious progeny was home victorious and prepared to reap the rewards. My teenage rebellion kicked in, though, so instead of taking back my place in the palace I demanded my parents let me go to earth as my reward for winning them their war.”

“Is that how you got your scars?” Peter asked.

Y/N sighed, closing the book and returning it to the shelf with a wave of her hand. “Yes.” Slowly, she raised her hand and touched her cheek where her scar would have been. “Some came later, but the worst of them are from the final battle. I only let my concentration slip for a second, but that was enough time for Thor to summon lightning with that damned hammer of his and get a good hit in,”

“I’m gonna be honest, your whole backstory sounds pretty shitty,”

She barked out another laugh as Peter allowed himself to smile. “If you think that was shitty, the next 2,500 years of history won’t be pleasant to listen to,”

“Don’t think I’m not still mad at you,” Peter said, but it was an empty threat. Sure, the rage he had initially felt was still there, but what had been at a boil when Y/N came home was now just a low simmer.

She offered him a soft smile back. “I wouldn’t dare. Now, that’s enough about my past. If there’s anything else you want to ask, now's the time,”

Peter busied himself with cracking his knuckles. “I still don’t really get what’s so special about me to you. Like, yeah you saw some bad stuff happen to me when you were a kid, but it’s been a really long time since then. What makes me so special?”

The smile fell from Y/N’s face.

“That’s… well that’s a good question, Peter,” She wrung her hands, standing to take a step towards him, “I don’t think I’ll be able to say it… can I show you instead?”

He quirked his head to the side. “What?”

“Can I show you?” Y/N gently tapped her forehead, “with my power?”

A soft ‘ah’ escaped Peter’s lips before he stepped forward, bridging the gap between them. “Do what you need to do,” He didn’t say he trusted her, but he didn’t need to. It went without saying.

She reached out a hand and touched Peter’s forehead without another word. Then, the wave hit him.

Seeing Y/N’s mind was like the first time he had ever run at full speed, an endless barrage of emotions and images blurring as he rushed towards a focal point. It felt like an eternity before the motion stopped, but once it did he found himself looking out at a rolling sea with the weight of an arm around his shoulders. In a trance, he turned his head to look at whoever was there.

“I suppose this is it for us, my dearest Lady Puck?” The man asked, running his free hand through his long black hair. His tone was light yet thoughtful. Peter easily recognized him from the first portrait on the wall.

Without any effort, a response poured from Peter’s… no, Y/N’s lips. “Y/N, Loki. My new name is Y/N,”

“Ah, yes. Remind me again why you’re renouncing your godliness and going to live among the common rabble?” The man’s words were suddenly mocking, “Oh right, you have to assimilate to prepare for your darling Peter,”

“Don’t say it like that,” The Y/N of the past pulled her knees to her chest.

Loki nodded. “Forgive me. I’m just taking this a little harder than I should be. Who would have thought that I would fall in love with my mortal enemy?” He paused, “Will our paths cross again,”

Y/N shook her head no. “You will return to Asgard and remain there for as long as I can see. I think this is where we diverge,”

Peter watched from his position of backseat driver as Loki leaned close to Y/N. “Well, all good things must come to a close at some point,” He stroked her scar, smiling softly, “but don’t think that I’ll let you go to just anyone. I know this Peter is just a puny mortal, so expect me to come back and find you once he appears. Consider me your own personal Mjolnir! I will determine if he’s worthy of your heart,”

Giggles escaped from Y/N’s lips. “Loki! Don’t you dare,”

“You couldn’t stop me if you tried, darling,” He growled back, before capturing Y/N’s lips in a kiss. When he pulled away, he smiled his sharp-toothed grin. “Fly free, Lady Puck. I’ll see you again,”

A deep, foreign ache in Peter’s heart told him that he never did. Then, Loki was gone, blurred into the flood of memories and feelings in Y/N’s mind. The second time was easier than the first, but he still felt an acute nausea as he was thrown into another memory. This time he seemed to be much closer to the present.

Y/N was sketching something on a canvas, penciling in soft, rounded lines as the man with the pencil mustache lounged on a nearby chair, tie crooked.

“So tell me about this Peter,” he asked, taking a long puff from a cigar.

“Well, everyone, where I’m from, says he must be my soulmate. He’s witty, and fast, and has this phenomenal shock of silver hair,”

Peter, despite what he’d just seen in Y/N’s memories, was still shocked at her words. Soulmates?

“But you’ve never met him, so how do you know?” He asked, “Look, sweet cheeks, I’m not one to judge, but how do you know he’s even real?”

Y/N scowled, letting her pencil slip and adding an unwanted line to her sketch. “Howard, have I ever been wrong before?”

“Well no, but-”

“Exactly,” Y/N abandoned the sketch in favor of walking over and sitting at the foot of Howard’s chair. “Besides, even if he isn’t real, I know enough about him that he might as well be,”

“Whatever you say, sweet thing,” He chuckled, offering her his cigar. She accepted it thankfully.

“Anyways, it’s like I can feel him getting closer and closer,” Peter could just feel Y/N’s grin as she spoke, cheeks flushed, “I just can’t wait to finally meet him.”

“I’m guessing that means you’ll have to give up helping me with my little projects,”

Y/N took a long puff, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. “Not exactly. We still have time left, Howard. Besides, I don’t do much to help, I can’t even touch any of your materials,”

Howard snorted. “I still can’t believe you’re allergic to silver and iron of all things. I didn’t even know that was possible,”

“You’re just mad it means you have to buy me expensive jewelry instead of the cheap shit you’ve bought for other women,”  

“You know me too well,”

They both laughed and Y/N handed Howard back his cigar.

In the blink of an eye, Peter was transported again. It was almost like riding a bike after a long time, where the deeper he delved the more comfortable he felt. This time, instead of nausea, there was a strange warmth in his chest.

Y/N stood at the edge of a crowded dance hall as the men from the 3rd and 4th portrait approached, drinks in hand. Peter was beginning to see a pattern.

“A sidecar for the pretty lady,” the bigger of the men joked while leading the group to a small table.

Y/N accepted the glass gladly, taking a long drink. “Thank you, James”

The small one sat across from her and took a long drink of his beer.

“You too, Steve,” she amended, earning a smile.

“Now doll,” James leaned in close, his forearms braced against the table, “Steve and I wanted to thank you for the little favor you did us last week. Didn’t we, Steve?”

Steve nodded quickly. “You really are a knockout gal’ Y/N. You didn’t have to, but you did, and we couldn’t be more grateful,”

Y/N shrugged. “It was nothing. Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me,”

“We never doubted that-”

James jumped in. “We just wanted you to know we were thinking about you, and Steve brought up that it would be nice to return the favor. I was thinking maybe we could help find you a beau, anybody you want, and by anybody, we mean anybody, not limited to conventional partners”

Y/N’s face began to flush as she started laughing, offering each of the men one of her hands. “James, Steve, I love you both to death and I would never want to make you feel like I felt anything else, but no. No way,”

The two men joined her in her laughter, but Steve stopped a little quicker than the other two did, looking down at his hands. “We just noticed that you don’t get out much. You’re beautiful Y/N, really beautiful, and it’s not fair that you have to be alone,”

“Oh, Steve” She gave his hand a squeeze, “you’re incredibly sweet, but my heart already belongs to someone. He…” Y/N’s voice trailed off, the ambient noise in the bar suddenly deafening. Peter could hear his own name, whispered gently from the depths of her mind.

James gave her a look of pity. “Oh, doll… did you lose him overseas? Is that why?”

Y/N was shocked but quickly covered for herself. “Yes, how did you know?”

“You’ve just got that faraway widow’s look in your eye,” James responded.

“Sorry for your loss,” Steve added quickly.

Y/N looked down and noticed her glass was empty. She stood suddenly. “It’s alright boys, it’s alright. Now, which of you is gonna do me the honor of joining me for the next song?”

Peter was pulled from the memory gently the moment James shot her a wolflike grin, drifting through the collage of colors and feelings for a moment before he heard his name, whispered from within the darkness.

There was a strong pull towards the light, dragging him out of Y/N’s mind, but something was calling for him to go deeper, delve further to find… well, he didn’t know yet. In a split-second decision, he threw himself towards the voice only to find himself strapped to some kind of chair, screaming.

No, Y/N was screaming. It was an atrocious, wet sound, and Peter could taste the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. He felt no pain physically, but he could feel the memory of pain, the phantom sensation of torturous, searing agony burning through her veins. Her screaming cut off suddenly, and Peter was once again pulled from the memory and into another.

“Prinţesă?” A man asked, and Peter looked up to find his doppelganger from the final portrait looking down at Y/N. He looked worse for wear, with dirt and dust coating his face and hair. Around them, the sounds of shooting and crumbling buildings rang out in the streets. Y/N was gripping his sleeve like a lifeline. “What are you doing?”

“Please, Pietro, don’t go,” fat tears ran down Y/N’s cheeks and Peter felt a pit of dread drop into his stomach. “You can’t go,”

“I will be right back for you,” Pietro reassured her, “and then once Ultron is defeated we will return to Stark’s compound with Wanda. Things will be good from now on. No more Hydra, no more sneaking around, just you and me and the whole world waiting to be explored,”

Y/N gripped his sleeve tighter. “You don’t understand! You can’t go. I can’t lose you like this. Not now. Not after I've only just found you after all this time!"

Pietro laughed softly. With a grimey hand, he wiped the wetness from Y/N’s face. “Draga mea, you do not have to worry about me. I am faster than those stupid machines.” Suddenly, a child’s wails filled the air. Pietro looked around, searching for the source, but Y/N didn’t budge, almost as if she expected it. “You need to let me go, I need to go help that child,”

Y/N shook her head no. “We need to go, Pietro, we need to get out of here. I can fly us off before it hits and then we can run and never look back. Please, come with me Pietro, before it’s too late,”

He yanked his arm away from Y/N’s grip, puzzled. “And leave these innocents to die?”

She nodded furiously, sobbing silently as she held herself. “Are their lives really so important that you’d throw yours away?”

Pietro backed away from Y/N slowly, disgust spreading on his face. “Yes,” he spat, “and I thought you agreed,” Then, he paused, “We will talk about this later. I am disappointed in you Y/N,” ...and then he was gone before she even had the chance to say goodbye.

The gunshots that followed were the loudest of all.

Then, Y/N was running through the streets, searching frantically for any sign of Pietro. When she found him, he was already getting cold.

"PIETRO!"

Her wail was deafening as she fell to the ground, scooping his body into her arms and hugging it to her chest.

“I can fix you, don’t worry Pietro,” she babbled, spit running from her mouth as she tried to push life energy from herself into him, “Don’t leave me alone now, not after all this time. I can’t lose you like this. Just hold on a little bit longer,”

No matter how much energy she poured into Pietro’s body, it just drained right back out. That didn’t stop her from trying, though. Somewhere in the distance, Peter could hear someone wailing his name, but he held onto the memory, gazing down at his dead doppelganger’s empty eyes.  

Y/N’s babbling didn’t stop, even as the ground beneath her began falling down. She ran her fingers through Pietro’s messy hair and held him closer to her chest.

“It’s okay Pietro, you’re safe now. Nothing can hurt you anymore. Le ni meleth, Pietro. Everything will be okay now. I’ll be with you soon, nin melda. Wait for me. I am so sorry,” As an impact destroyed the street around them, Y/N pressed a soft kiss to Pietro’s forehead, and Peter was thrown forcibly from her mind.

“Peter!” Y/N wailed, hands shaking as she pressed a scarred palm to his forehead and pushed his sweat-soaked hair away. “Peter you have to wake up now, you have to wake up!”

He shot up, heaving in a breath that soothed his burning lungs. It was a shock to be back in his own body. Slowly, Peter realized he wasn’t standing anymore. Instead, his head had been resting on Y/N’s lap while he splayed out on the cold wood floor.

As he reacclimated to his body, Y/N wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed.

Once he had enough air in his lungs, Peter only had one question; “What the hell just happened?”

Y/N cried louder, rocking back and forth. “You died! I messed up and you died! It’s all my fault, all of this is all my fault,”

Peter pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Y/N,” he said firmly, “You need to calm down and tell me what just happened,”

She shook her head no, clawing at her hair as she dribbled onto the floor.

In a moment of weakness, which was probably warranted, Peter broke. “Y/N!” he shouted, “Get it together! What. Happened.”

Y/N stilled, eyes dead. “I was trying to pull you out of my memories,” she mumbled, still trembling, “but for some reason, I couldn’t get you to let go. I kept trying and trying but it wouldn’t work. Then you just… collapsed and your heart stopped. I was trying to heal you, but I had to keep the connection between us going while I did so you wouldn’t get lost in my memories and- and-” her words devolved into quiet sobs as Peter slouched against the wall, lifting his hand and finding that his cheeks were wet too.

He wanted to comfort her. To tell her it was okay, that he was okay. To make sure she knew he wasn’t angry anymore, that he understood… that he loved her too. Somehow, though, he couldn’t find the words. All he could do was stare forward and cry as the vision of Pietro’s dead body danced behind his eyelids.

When Y/N finally quieted, she stood silently. “What did you see,” she whispered.

“Pietro,” Peter wheezed back.

Y/N nodded, wiping her face.

“I’m so sorry, Peter. You were never supposed to see that.” She walked towards the door, opening it up and pausing in the doorway. “Jimmy’s number is next to the rotary phone in the den and my bank card will be on the side table in the mudroom. I… goodbye, Peter. I’ll let myself out,"

Peter turned, reaching a hand out to try to stop her from leaving, but she was already gone, so he just let himself go limp, crying for a man he never met but knew better than he ever wanted to.

-----

Elvish/Sindarin Translation: 

Le Ni Meleth: I love you

Nin Melda: My dearest

a/n: Thank you so much for reading!!! The word count really got away from me, but at least now all of the exposition is out of the way! Expect the next part to be out either today or tomorrow.

Please don’t post my work to other sites, thanks! <3

[nickyandmikey]

talk a little life with me

hi anon i took this opportunity to basically say whatever came to mind i’m sorry if you were only expecting a few sentences and hope you don’t mind sdhfjksd <3

TLDR; a little life is so interesting to think about when it comes what should and shouldn't be "allowed" in art, but still it feels emotionally manipulative for me, and the question of who the target audience is is worrying at best... The contents of the book itself were a lot of times straight up evil, yet i couldn't help be touched by the story that was told; the story of someone's life "as inconcievable as it is" will always feel like a privilege to hear/read about (even if it's fiction). i just really really wish it could've been done in a way that felt more like it was honoring certain experiences instead of being as harsh as it was.

(under the cut i get into it a "bit" more, so if you wanna read what i was thinking about as i was losing my mind through the last 100 pages, go ahead - but it IS like a mile long i warned you lmao)

What's interesting for me to think about regarding a little life is the discussions to be had about its right to exist. It has become sort of infamous for being very difficult to read. Everybody wants to know what all the fuss is about, people always have a perverse interest in taboo things, wanting to get a peek at the worst of the worst etc. And i've always thought of myself as someone who has a high tolerance for brutality and violence (in fiction!!!), so i also wanted to see how much of it i could take, pretty much just to be able to say that i did it, i finished it and prove to myself… what exactly? Idk. But here comes up my first problem: that the whole book can feel like an exercise in just how many absurdly, sometimes cartoonishly, evil things the author can throw in there. The reader is faced with an endurance test, and those who complete it are now part of an exclusive club. So what's the message here? Does there need to be one? Does any art need to have a moral to justify its existence? What should and shouldn't be limited and would taking away the most difficult parts of this book be censorship? I don't really have answers, i just find myself being like "including this part doesn't sit right with me" then asking impossible questions about the purpose of art and what it serves and how.

Despite this, one question still remains: who is this book for? Because i cannot imagine it would be an endurable read for someone who has gone through any of the numerous trigger warning-worthy events and experiences depicted. So that leaves those who had not, those who can only imagine, which includes myself. This creates a story only to be consumed as a spectacle for those who wish to be shocked by, to marvel at, to feel pity for people who cannot be present at their very own exhibition, because it is designed to be that way (also, as i mentioned, the book now has a reputation that precedes the reading experience, people obviously wanting to see for themselves just how fucked up it gets). So tossing aside all musings about what art should do and mean, i cannot help but feel that there is something exploitative being done here, even though it's a fictional story with fictional characters. Or maybe i'm being presumptuous, and i should appreciate that Yanagihara doesn't shy away from portraying the more brutal aspects of life. Then again, is it honest? Exploitative? Cruel? Does it exist only to shock? Is it a problem if it does? I really don't know. Maybe i've also misjudged people's ability to see reflections of their traumas portrayed as they are in a little life, so i'm sorry if that's the case, though just how much any one person can endure is of course individual. Typing this i realize the question i'm really asking myself is "can i call this sensationalist and exploitative without belittling real people's experiences of abuse, mental illness, disability etc?". Maybe manipulative is a better word for it?

I think for me personally the best way to describe this book is "exhausting". it's so emotionally draining and mentally taxing. It took me almost a year to finish, and i can be a slow reader sure, but at some points i just didn't have enough energy to take away from other parts of my life for this. Basically, there were months between me reading the first 2/3rds and the last 1/3rd so my memory of the beginning and middle of the story was able to mellow and lose some of its painfulness lmao. But it really is so all consuming, it enters your mind so deeply and it doesn't leave for days or weeks after reading any amount.

Reading about someone's life in its entirety is such an overwhelming experience. Seeing it unfold in front of you in a few hundred pages the decades someone (albeit someone fictional) had lived through, all the pain, the joy, the suffering, the glory… indescribable. And despite the often graphic imagery, the vividness of the details that made me wince and want to turn away from the book altogether, i still grew to love the characters. And they grew to be a part of me, no matter my gripes and doubts and iffiness about certain things. For this i am thankful.

SPOILER ALERT FOR THE ENDING FROM HERE. First of all, Willem's death. Trying to comprehend the enormity of Jude's loss feels impossible. I don't think there are words accurate enough for it, and this inability to understand on my part - due to being young and not having had the chance to develop that sort of history with someone - in itself becomes an experience for which no words exist, if that makes sense. After all, how do you give name to the experience of trying to imagine the unimaginable, you know.

Then there's the Ending ending. i feel there is something very dangerous about how beautiful it was, how inevitable. Something sinister in its implications but i don't think i can get into it now, not eloquently enough.

All in all, i wish it wasn't something you had to shield yourself from, putting up walls just to keep going forward, paying half attention at a few points, hurrying through plotlines to get to the end of them finally. I guess i just wish it had been more gentle. Finishing a little life is a sigh of relief, and in many ways it is an impossible book.

[potatopossums]

Insecurity and Boundaries: A Necessary Coexistence

Content Warning:

This post includes discussions / mentions of:

bodily insecurities, explicitly including dysmorphia, dysphoria, and implicitly including but not limited to eating disorders, weight

childhood trauma including shame, humiliation, fear

coping mechanisms, both healthy and unhealthy, including anxious avoidance, projection, masking, reflection

mentioned references to all of the above through lenses of morality, cis white feminism and sexualized body positivity

adhd

—

Author's Note:

Written through the lens of adhd, anxiety, depression, queerness, transness, nonbinaryness, aromanticism, alterous attraction, and as always, questioning.

—

Ngl I've had the opportunity to date/"be with" (in whatever capacity) several quite attractive ppl, and the last couple have been great examples of something that actually kind of triggers me / turns me off.

I didn't really know what to make of it then, and I felt bad about it then too because I thought I was just being judgy. Not saying some of that isn't potentially still there, but i think i understand better now.

It honestly kind of scares me when I have the opportunity to have close relationships with people with bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia or strong insecurities. My brain has a really bad habit of being reflective when I'm feeling vulnerable. I just match people. It's a way of masking while relating to people. It's a defense mechanism. But it feels quite real in the moment and i often don't realize it's happening until it has already happened.

But as a nonbinary person who gets misgendered a lot at work, I've spent a lot of time now very acutely aware of my own body (as if i wasn't already). I don't tend to hate my body in a vacuum. I actually enjoy my body. I like how it looks in certain clothes; I like how I can trick the eye and make it look another way with other clothes, and then surprise, it's a different body underneath! I like how my body feels when i masturbate, i like how my body feels in the warm sun, i like how my body feels when i self-soothe. Even when I'm in pain, in some of those moment, i like that my body exists because I know something is happening inside me, something systematic and programmed, something beyond me that does it's evolutionary purpose, no matter how flawed. I've always had a curiosity about bodies in general (gender and sex completely aside). So when i say i love my body, i mean that.

Does it mean i don't struggle with dysphoria? Of course i struggle. And it makes me feel like shit.

Sure, I've got that Cis White Feminist Self-Loathing Intervention Voice in my head that says "all bodies are beautiful" (and she really means all women are beautiful but I'll co-opt her lines to fit my agenda). That voice is problematic because like. I like being beautiful, but why do I want to be beautiful, and what happens when I'm not beautiful? How do I guage whether I'm beautiful at any given moment? Isn't that largely subjective even with an overarching cultural & social standard? When I feel "ugly" — my cowlicks sticking up, teeth unbrushed, i feel too short, i feel i look too childish, I'm afraid my boobs are showing in a way i don't want to be seen, etc. — who's to say that someone else doesn't find some of those things attractive? So attractiveness is a poor method of confidence, despite how influential it still is on my brain and personality. That influence is fear based.

All that in mind, when I hear other people struggling with their bodies, especially in a Trans/Non-Binary/Dysphoric way, it really scares me. I mean, any bodily struggles scare me because I have my own insecurities to deal with. And when I'm in that state of really wanting to keep a connection because abandonment trauma + adhd, my vulnerable brain says that in order to impress someone, I must reflect relatably. So that has me digging back into my bodily insecurities. And I explore them as if I should be feeling them.

Let me unpack that. I'm avoidant with my anxieties. I don't talk about them, and I don't think about them much if I can help it, because when I think about them, that result can be largely painful, dramatic, and too emotionally volatile for me to handle. I always want to look put together, I want to feel secure enough to not need to ask for help, because those few times it went badly when I asked for help still stick with me (regardless of how long ago those moments were, and regardless of how many good times I've had where received actual help since). I remember the embarrassment and humiliation, the shame, the fear, the guilt. I remember wanting to make myself smaller, and how crushing that felt to do. I remember how little I understood of these wild and complex emotions, and all I knew was that I felt violated and disgusting. And I turned that inward. Because I had no external support.

So me saying that I explore my anxieties "as if I should be feeling them" is multi-pronged. It's Cis White Feminist Body Positivity, it's all those family members who modeled and normalized self-hatred for me from a young age, it's bodily dysphoria/dysmorphia at being misgendered, it's me trying to convince myself that my body truly is okay and that my negative inner voice doesn't know what it's talking about due to it's poor influences, and it's me ultimately not being able to reconcile all that on my own (or fast enough, thanks adhd) and resorting to anxious avoidance of my insecurities as if that solves them.

And then, when I hear someone I might kind of want to be intimate with start to talk about their insecurities, my brain panics. It says, "If you go in there, you will lose it. You will fall into the same hole they're in. You will have to suffer just as much for them, and for yourself. You will lose all your energy and you will start to hate yourself. They will treat your body the way they treat their body. You will be made to hate yourself."

And even though I know plenty of people with dysphoria/dysmorphia and other bodily struggles absolutely won't do those sorts of things, I also know that projection is a thing. And considering how poor I am at boundaries and how I tend to adopt unhealthy relationship dynamics due to my avoidance, I know that it would just start a bad cycle for me. Even with all the empathy and understanding in the world, I simply cannot root myself in a situation that would cause me to loathe myself.

And again, in case this wasn't clear: this is absolutely not a statement about people with bodily confidence issues as a whole. I am not trying to villainize or demonize or moralize their experiences. That is markedly the opposite of what I intend here.

But it took a long time for me to get to this point in my self-awareness. And i wanted to share it because i want other people to be able to reach an understanding of themselves too, whatever that understanding might entail. Yeah, it's a little cliche, but our projections and fears about others can have a lot to do with our fears about ourselves. It's important to be self-aware, even if that doesn't immediately solve the problem(s).

I tend to really like confident people because of this. That attraction has it's own roots in confidence issues, and its own potential flaws. And until I can change my own avoidant anxiety, I'm going to find new ways to project my avoidance and shame onto others, regardless of whether they are confident or unconfident, dysphoric or not.

But, just because I'm projecting doesn't mean that I'm unworthy of boundaries. Even if my behaviors are unhealthy, even if I do need to work to change those things (and even though I actively want to change those things), it is still healthy for me to know my limits. It's healthy to know what triggers me. It's good for me to realize these things and step back, even if the relationship I'm leaving/not starting is arguably "good." (And that assumption is a whole other topic for another post.)

So, along with whatever other epiphanies you might have received from this read, here's my major takeaway that I want to leave you with:

Your boundaries are okay. Even if they're based in anxiety, even if they're based in unhealthy coping mechanisms, even if you want to change your unhealthy behaviors/mindset. Your boundaries do not need to pass any social justice or morality tests in order to be valid. Your boundaries do not have to "make you grow." Your boundaries are not bad, even if you feel like they keep you from being the best version of yourself.

The only way you can actually grow is if you respect yourself enough to respect and enforce your boundaries. The only way you can feel comfortable and happy and healthy is if you respect your boundaries.

So please do that for yourself. Please respect your boundaries. I know it's very hard, especially for people-pleasers. I know it's hard for you avoidant types. I know it's hard for those of us who mask and reflect.

But please, just a little bit at a time, respect yourself. Even if that means disappointing or hurting others with a "no."

And please, please, please surround yourself with people who respect your boundaries and stand up for you. Of all the work I've tried to do alone, nothing compares to the effectiveness and growth I've experienced when I've been around radically affirming people — people who fought for my right to say no; people who defended my boundaries no matter what they entailed; people who stood up for my pronouns at work; people who validated my life experiences, labels, queerness, and questioning. It can be difficult to find people like that in real life, but please stay in the company of people who do that for you. Even if they're online. Stay near people who model self-respect for you. They will help you practice how to treat yourself.

—

[atlawintersolstice]

ATLA Winter Solstice 2020

ATLA Winter Solstice Exchange is a fanwork gift exchange for Avatar: The Last Airbender, in the style of Yuletide and similar AO3 exchanges.

You may offer and request fanfic, fanart, fanvids, and/or podfic.

2020 Schedule

All times are in Eastern Time (US and Canada).

October 26-November 2: Nominations are open.

November 2-11: Sign-ups are open.

November 14: All assignments will be sent out no later than this date.

December 7: Deadline to default (withdraw from the exchange).

December 14: Assignments are due.

December 21: Gifts revealed!

Rules

Gifts:

All types of gifts/assignments must be rated with one of the AO3 ratings (G, T, M, or E). Works must be newly created for this exchange, and not dependent on other works to be enjoyed.

Fanfiction gifts must be at least 1000 words. Beta readers are strongly encouraged.

Fanart should be a clean, complete work, not just a sketch. Traditional art is accepted, but should be scanned clearly. Art should include an image description (ID) for accessibility; let the mods know if you need help writing one.

Fanvids must be at least 60 seconds long.

Podfic must be of a fic that is at least 1000 words in length.

Treats (which can be given without signing up) must have a rating, but they can be sketches or below the minimum length requirements.

All creators are encouraged to carefully consider implications of their work with regard to race, culture, sexuality, gender (including trans and gender non-conforming folks), disability, healthy relationships, intersectionality, etc. Fic writers are encouraged to do research and consult beta readers and sensitivity readers; artists are encouraged to do research on whitewashing and invite others to preview their work. At the same time, the burden is not on marginalized groups. Please consult the mods if you have any questions or need assistance.

Content:

In order to keep this exchange a fun, safe space, works containing incest or romantic/sexual relationships between adults and minors are not allowed. Depictions of suicide and self-harm are prohibited; discussion of past self-harm is allowed as long as it's properly tagged. Scenes of rape/noncon/dubcon (i.e., requiring the archive warning) are also not allowed, but works that discuss sexual trauma (without graphic flashbacks) are permitted, and must be tagged. Consensual sexual content is allowed, but if that is something you are not comfortable viewing and/or creating, please be sure to indicate that in your sign-up. The relevant ratings, archive warnings, and tags MUST be used, for these and any other possibly triggering topics, including but not limited to kinks, eating disorders, abuse, panic attacks, mental health disorders, violence, and death. Additionally, your recipient's Do Not Want list MUST be respected.

Conduct:

Respect the other participants. Do not bash or insult their work, their ships, their requests, etc.

Please see the section "Defaulting and Pinch Hits" of the FAQ for rules around difficulty completing assignments.

Contact the mods at atlawintersolstice on tumblr if you have any issues or questions.

The moderator reserves the right to update these rules as necessary.

More information under the cut.

More information:

Participation:

Participants must both create and receive a gift, but they can separately choose the details of each. An AO3 account is necessary to participate in the exchange. If you do not have one already, and need an invitation, please visit the AO3 invite request page, or, if the wait list is too long, message the mods at atlawintersolstice on tumblr.

Nominations:

Nominating relationships (of any sort, whether familial or romantic) and   characters allows participants to then offer and request those relationships and characters when signing up. If you would like to receive or create a gift with certain characters and/or relationships that aren't already in the tag set, you need to nominate them. You can do so by visiting the tag set and clicking nominate at some point before nominations close. You may nominate up to 20 characters and 20 relationships. There is no need to nominate something already nominated; if it has been nominated and approved, it is in the tag set and available for use in the exchange.

Sign-Ups:

In  order to sign up, you need an AO3 account (see "Participation," above). You must be willing to both create ("offer") a gift and receive  ("request") a gift in order to participate, but your offer and your request may or may not be the same format, relationship, characters, etc. You can only make one offer and one request due to this being a single-fandom exchange, but each offer and request may contain multiple relationships and characters. You will be assigned to give a gift to someone with someone whose request has at least one character, one   relationship, and one format in common with your offer. To get started, click "Sign-Up Form." After submitting your sign-up, you may edit or delete it until sign-ups close. After receiving your assignment, please default immediately if you will not be able to create a fanwork for the exchange (more information below).

Requests:

The first step of sign-up is your request. You will see that you only have the option for one fandom, but you must choose 3-10 characters and 3-10 relationships that you would like to have featured in your gift (these characters and relationships may overlap). If you are happy to receive  gifts with ANY characters or relationships in the tag set, you may check one or both of those boxes, but you should check the tag set first. Then use the additional tags to select the types of fanwork you would be happy to receive (art, fic, podfic, or fanvid); you may select "any." You should also select categories that you are willing to receive (F/M,  F/F, Multi, Other, etc.) and ratings (G, T, M, E) that you are willing to receive. Please ignore "Not Rated" as all gifts for this exchange are required to be rated. If you do not wish to receive sexual content, leave “Explicit" unchecked. You can uncheck "Mature" as well, but many creators use that rating for violence or other topics besides sex. Again, you may also agree to receive any rating or any category.

Dear Creator Letter:

This box is an optional opportunity for you to include a link to a post on your tumblr, Dreamwidth, etc. containing a friendly letter to your gift giver. You may tell the creator your fannish likes and dislikes, offer prompts, etc. However, anything in these letters is optional for the creator to include.

Optional Details:

This box can be used in a similar way to the Dear Creator Letter, but it should   also contain any of your Do Not Wants (DNW), if you have any. While the creator is not required to follow your prompts, favorite tropes, etc., they are required to adhere to your DNW list as provided in the optional  details box. Please list any background characters/relationships, triggers, squicks, topics, genres, tropes, etc. that you Do Not Want to see in your gift. Anyone requesting fanvids is encouraged to note any of their accessibility needs here,  such as no flashing lights. Anyone requesting podfics is encouraged to provide more information, such as a link to your own fics or your bookmarked fics. You do not need to list topics covered in the "Content" rules of this exchange in your DNW list, as they are already not allowed in this exchange.

Offers:

In the offers section, you should fill in 3-10 characters and 3-10 relationships that you are willing to feature in your fanwork. To reiterate, these may or may not overlap with your requests, and relationships can be romantic (/) or friendly/familial (&). If you choose ANY, it means any in the tag set. You may not later specify that you meant "anything but that one." Then use the additional tags to select which types of fanwork (art, fic, fanvid, or podfic) you are willing to create. You should also select what categories you are willing to create for and what ratings you are willing to create for. If you do not want to create explicit content, please leave that box unchecked. You will not be required to create explicit content if you check the box, but you may be matched with someone who has included explicit content in their request. If you want to keep your experience free of such content, uncheck the box.

Assignments:

You will be assigned to give a gift to someone with someone whose request has at least one character, one relationship, and one format in common with your offer. You are not required to feature every relationship or character that is listed in your recipient's request, as they have likely cast a wide net for the purposes of matching. If you were matched on request X, but see that the participant also asked for request Y, you may create your fanwork for request Y.

Recipients are invited to write Dear Creator Letters, provide optional prompts, and share the tropes, etc. that they enjoy. You are not required to use the optional prompt or include your creator's favorite things besides the character or relationship tags they used to sign up. You ARE required to comply with the recipient's Do Not Want list as provided in the optional details section of their sign-up, along with the "Content" rules for this exchange. Please see the Rules for more details on permissible gifts. If you are writing fic, you are encouraged to use a beta reader. The mods can help refer you to potential beta readers.

Defaulting and Pinch Hits:

If at any point you realize that you are unable to complete your assignment, please click "default" in the AO3 assignments page ASAP. If you default after the deadline to default, but before the assignment deadline, you will be required to post a treat before you can participate in the next Winter Solstice exchange. You are encouraged to default out of caution sooner rather than later. If you default, then it  turns out that you are able to create a gift, you can still give it. (Your recipient will receive more than one gift in that case, both your gift and a pinch hit.)

Extensions are granted on a case-by-case basis and are intended to account for last-minute emergencies. Extensions must be requested at least 24 hours before the assignment deadline. If your gift giver defaulted on your gift, and you have been granted an extension, you will not receive a pinch hit until you have completed your assignment.

If you do not submit your gift without communicating with the mods, submit an unfinished work, delete your completed assignment, disrespect other   participants, fail to comply with your recipient's DNW list, or fail to comply with the content rules, you will not be allowed to participate in next year's Winter Solstice exchange.

Pinch hitters fulfill requests that someone has defaulted on. Pinch hit assignments will be sent out as soon as the mods are aware there is a need for one, but some pinch hits may be last minute. You do not have to be signed up for the exchange to claim a pinch hit, but you do need to have an AO3 account, and provide your AO3 username when claiming the assignment. If the pinch hit is assigned to you, you will be notified by the mods, and see the request in the "Assignment" section of the AO3 challenge page. If you would like to sign up as a pinch hitter, please contact the mods at atlawintersolstice on tumblr.

If you default and your gift giver defaults, you will not be assigned a pinch hitter.

Treats:

Treats are bonus gifts. You do not need to be signed up for the challenge to give a treat, you just need an AO3 account. You can submit your treat by clicking "Post to Collection." You can find inspiration for treats by looking through the Requests Summary on the challenge page, or if a pinch hit opportunity is sent out. Even if someone else has claimed the pinch hit, you can still create a treat for the pinch hit, or a treat based on a request that is being fulfilled and hasn't gone to pinch hitters. Treats can also be shorter than gifts/assignments; see the "Gifts" section of the Rules.

Gifting

To honor the "surprise!" spirit  of this exchange, please do not post snippets, details, sneak peeks, etc. of your work. All gifts will be revealed on the Winter Solstice. Likewise, honor the gift-giving spirit by thanking your gift giver!

Acknowledgements

Credit to Yuletide, Holly Poly, and Mistletoe exchanges for inspiring much of the format, rules, etc.

[heartless-error]

Broken, not perfect, but together. - Chapter 10

Fandom: DC comics, Batman

Pairings: Jonathan Kent x Damian Wayne (JonDami) & Jason Todd x Timothy Drake (JayTim)

Rating/Tags: Family feels, hurt/comfort, mental health issues, running away, unresolved romantic tension

Other(s) links: AO3

Broken.

The Batfamily was broken.

It was six years ago, and they had barely stood together since then, trying to stand up despite guilt and regret.

Damian  was sure there was nothing to save, not after losing something that he  didn’t know he cared about. But when a new opportunity to get back what  they had lost appeared, he cannot help to doubt as his past decisions  haunt him again.

If you love somebody, set them free. But you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Chapter Summary: He knew he wasn't a good father, he had always knew. But he was trying, like always. And he knew he couldn't get rid of all his mistakes too, but at least he wasn't alone facing them. He had Clark, he always had Clark, even commiting the same mistakes.

Chapter 10

 Six years ago

 Contrary to what many people seemed to think, Bruce didn’t always have everything under control.

 He was trying, what was different. With all his strength, every day, with all the means and knowledge he had. Even if it was never enough, over and over again. The key was in that, in trying. It didn’t matter how many doubts were around him, how many problems arose against him or how much they tried to stop him, he had to keep trying, to solve it, showing a calm and in control facade so others didn’t know how much his mistakes or indecision haunted him in every step he took.

 Bruce knew there was no need to do it, to be so controlling or to bury his insecurities so deeply and hidden from anyone who dared to look. But he also knew where those problems came from, everything that had fed them, and what brought them to light.

The desire to control even what he couldn’t born in him from the moment in which the sound of the lifeless bodies of his parents resounded in that alley, that fateful night, and since then he lived with it. That desire to watch, intervene, and always be prepared for the worst grew as he did too, and became the man, the supposed hero, he’s now. And it was when those closest to him suffered or were injured by his decisions or failures, which reaffirmed more and more in his being.

 That feeling, that need, was like a vine with thorns. Pointy, infinite, dangerous, and sturdy, rooted within him without any limit, pressing and suffocating him everywhere, ready to hang him. It scratched his scars so that he would always remember them, suffocated his mind so that he would never forget it, and strangled his soul and that of those around him, because it was a double-edged sword where the line of protecting or controlling was easily blurred.

He couldn't get rid of it either, because then, what would be left of him? He was Batman. Batman. The one who always had a plan, a contingency, who stood out for his critical sense and his mind, what always had another alternative. He was the one whom the others looked at when they were trapped in a situation with no way out, the one who kept calm in extreme situations, the one who was able to save the day or the world thanks to his control.

 He couldn't lose that, but it's not like he wanted to, or knew how, either. So, doing his best was all that was left. Keep calm, control. He tries it.

 He tried but the manor was quiet. He knew it wasn’t something unexpected after what happened three nights ago, but it kept worrying him because it was as if everything had turned off suddenly.

Damian's firm, light footsteps were no longer heard in the hallways, his youngest son hadn’t left his room since that night, he had also refused to receive anyone and was recovering from his sprained ankle. The soft Richard’s laugh had also vanished, he was like a ghost, he knew that he walked around the corridors from time to time because he couldn’t bear the confinement, but he was impossible to detect. Alfred's courtesy couldn’t be seen either, he knew that the man was not only angry, but that he respected his desire to be alone right now. The presence of his daughter, Cassandra, was also lying much in need, as much as she was silent in itself, her stay was always appreciated. Stephanie's jokes had been replaced by cautious and angry looks upon learning what happened. Barbara hadn't even deigned to answer him when he asked for a certain favor the night before. Timothy and Jason had fallen into complete silence, nothing unexpected.

 It was afternoon, but Bruce was in his office in the manor, thinking about how the place he had managed to fill with laughs, footsteps, and life over the years was now as empty and silent as when Thomas and Martha Wayne died.

He hadn't moved much, from the big chair in front of the expensive office desk, because he was still thoughtful and analyzing the argument that had happened in the cave three days before.

 Bruce knew he wasn’t a good father. Like all of him, he was trying, but he was very aware of reality. If someone asked him about the mistakes he had made regarding his children, he could list each and every one of them by heart, classify them by different categories, and then recite them out loud almost without thinking. This, obviously, was because he had them in his mind and insanely at all times and, of course, feed again those cravings for control that dominated him. The fear of losing them was too much, he couldn’t bear it, and that led him back to enter that infinite cycle that dominated his life.

The more he loved his children, the more he needed to protect them. That, in one way or another, involved controlling them and their environment, and the more he tried to do it, the more damage he did directly or indirectly. He always ended up failing, making mistakes. And these mistakes were present again, trying not to be repeated for then commit others instead.

 He was also aware that most of his children hadn’t had an easy life. Everyone came to him as children whose circumstances had been difficult and unfavorable. He couldn’t be responsible for the trauma or abuse that others had done to them, he just helped to mitigate it, give them the happy, healthy home they deserved and tried to change things where possible. But at the end of the day, the adult who took responsibility for them was him, and definitely had made mistakes.

 The worst and what tormented him most at the moment, is that if he listed those mistakes and removed the most obvious and indisputable of the list -how, for example, involve all of them in their crime crusade - most of them involved Tim and Jason in some way or another.

 That certainly didn’t help him.

 If he initially wouldn’t have been so hurt by Dick's departure to the Titans, perhaps he would have considered not controlling Jason the way he did when he adopted him or making the same mistakes as with his first child. If he hadn't been so convinced that the wounded but brave boy from the Bowery, needed Robin, he might not have felt like he needed to fill his older brother's shoes and run away later. If he had made it to Ethiopia in time, to the warehouse, Jason wouldn’t have died. If Jason hadn't died, he wouldn't have fallen into the spiral of self-destruction that Tim had to save him from, and he wouldn’t have turned him into Robin. If he hadn't turned Tim into Robin, maybe his parents were still alive, maybe he would have had a normal and happy life. If Tim had a normal life, Jason wouldn’t have risen with so much hatred and resentment towards them and wouldn’t have tried to kill him. If he hadn’t "died" later, Tim wouldn’t have lost another person, nor fallen into the same self-destruction from which no one could save him now.

 If... If not...

 There were so many events that he could have changed, and others not. So many mistakes, so many things could have been better. Everything turned in his head and had harassed him for three days. His bad decisions, the possibilities, the memories, all of that filled him with guilt and uncertainty, blamed him that it didn’t matter how human he was, how much he felt, because his mistakes always had more weight and consequences in the people he loved, whatever he did.

He remembered the despair he felt while holding Jason's corpse, bloody and broken as the warehouse burned and collapsed around him. The fear that ran through him when he helped to trait Tim's wounds after Red Hood's beating him up at the Titans' tower too, knowing who had done it. He remembered the disappointment and pain that Jason's spiteful words provoked him when he was ready to kill the Joker. Also, the understanding of Tim's tears after his father's death.

 They were his sons. His sons. He felt and suffered more for them than for himself, and for the fact that because of his own crusade their lives have been so affected.

They had big hearts, unshakable will, and unmatched bravery. A potential within them that drove them to help others innately, to fight with everything they owned. It was that light, that ability, why they were Robin.

 However, that didn’t take away the fact that his field-acquired wounds, both emotional and physical, could affect them on a deeper level than they could think. Endangering themselves, the other, and the rest of them with that hidden relationship that was revealed three nights ago.

 Jason was the brave and fighting boy from the streets who decided to fight the crime he experienced firsthand. But the trauma related to the abuse, the streets, and his own death was still very entrenched inside him, shaping his decisions both inside and outside his vigilant life. The Lazarus Pit had made him violent and angry, a killer who lost control when one of his triggers of said trauma appeared, including the bats themselves. As much as he had improved his control, they still had no guarantee that the Pit Rage would appear at any time and become a threat for all of them again.

Tim, the sweet little Tim, was still the smart and kind boy who threw away all opportunity to live a normal wealthy child life to become an extraordinary hero, someone who cared for and saved people in a selfless and sacrificed way. But the experiences that came along with that decision were not as kind as he was, and while Tim gave his all, without contemplation, in exchange he lost family, friends and stability. Bruce was not stupid, he recognizes a severe depression when he saw it, and although no one knows what happened to his third child during the time he was lost in time -or what he had to do to get him out- it had to be bad enough for Timothy became the lifeless emotionless shadow which was now.

 “You’ve been years without knowing anything from us!” Jason said three nights ago.

 It wasn't true, but it wasn't false either. He couldn't deny it with the same force as Richard did, because as much as he would like to say that both of them were still integrated in the family, it wasn’t true. They hadn't been in a long time, and they couldn't run away from it.

For him, it was always easier to treat Jason as if he had been a fallen soldier in battle because doing it as the son he left to die was too painful, it kept shaking him to the depths of his existence, perhaps that was why he hadn’t been able to integrate him among them again, in addition to all the history resulting from those events. He couldn't ignore his morality and methods, destructive and totally different from his. Neither the numerous attempts to harm him or the rest of the family, especially Tim. There was the fact that Red Hood operated in Gotham apart from the Outlaws, yes, but they hardly worked together or cooperated. They had their territories very defined, but he could barely catch a glimpse of Red Hood without twisting things, neither Jason. He knew that sometimes he was in the cave or the manor, but he always made sure not to see him and not stay long unless it was necessary.

For his part, Timothy, after he returned from his "death" and accepted Damian as Robin, he adopted the Red Robin alias and seemed to disappear entirely. He claimed to be in favor of carving out his own name as a hero, but he was elusive, smart, and determined. He went to live alone, to work with the Titans or at WE. It didn’t matter how many calls they made, how many emergencies or meetings would be held. Tim barely stepped on the manor, he didn’t stop to talk about anything other than the vigilant job, and long periods passed without seeing him. He hid his wounds very carefully and his habits began to be dangerous for him. They knew enough to realize that he was trying too hard and something was going very wrong but reaching out to help him without scaring him in the process was hard, complicated.

 Maybe for all that and more, his sons didn’t trust him enough to reveal what was going on between them, that they were dating. He didn't blame them, he really deserved it, because he couldn't figure it out either. He also deserved they were angry with him and his opinion on the matter.

 They could get mad at him, hate him, or yell at him. But he really believed that he had reason to say that relationship was something that should be discussed or thought more carefully.

Relationships on the field were dangerous, he knew it personally, and he still remembered the discomfort that had plagued the team when Barbara and Dick broke up so many years ago, not to mention Tim and Stephanie too. And he also remembers the serious injuries Jason inflicted on Tim, how much Red Hood lost control around him, and how little Tim has always valued himself and his injuries.

 Jason's problems along with Timothy's emotional state were not a good combination at all. It wasn’t. It didn't matter how they looked at it, nor how many years will pass. Their story was too rough, there was too much torment, too much tension between them. They themselves were not in a position to have such a relationship with anyone, much less with the other. And if he already doubted the red team itself -despite its efficiency- he also couldn't help but doubt this.

 He couldn't leave them to destroy each other, he couldn't. He knew that was how it would end, and the simple possibility that it might happen made his cravings for control beg him to take the reins of everything again, to fix all this and do it now.

 However, he had already been too carried away by that feeling to know that it wasn’t a good idea to follow it. So, before he could do anything, he received a call. A call that lasted for hours, most of the night, where he got another perspective on the matter and helped him to decide and ask that favor from Barbara that he hadn't heard from yet.

 Despite knowing there would be no response yet, he couldn't help but check his phone again to make sure, eager to be able to do something about it instead of sitting for hours in that office evaluating and planning the best course of action.

 He was just going to think about that when a few firm touches on the window caught his attention, causing him to straighten and look at the window on his left suspiciously.

 Even though he had told him that he didn't need him to come, there he was, his call.

 Frowning, Bruce got up from his seat and went to the window to open it wide, looking at Clark Kent, who floated in front of him in his civilian clothes as if it were the most normal thing in Gotham in the middle of the afternoon.

Holding back a sigh, he opened the window and stepped aside to let him in, trying to decide what to say first.

 He was debating between a "What the hell are you doing here?" or "I specifically told you not to come here.” before the Super raised his hand and talked.

 “When was the last time you slept?” He asked, looking at him closely.

 Not even a "Hello, how are you?" before starting to enter the matter. It wasn’t necessary, they had already overcome that phase of their relationship for a long time. What's more, Clark didn't have to ask how he was doing, he already knew it, he knew it very well.

It had been him who had finished calling after the discussion in the cave with Tim and Jason because he knew that something happened to him only by his heartbeat. It's not like he could have hidden it from him, because not only would he have found out sooner or later, but because he already did, and he was his best friend, so he finished telling him everything. They talked too much, and the call lasted for hours, with both locked in their offices for more privacy and with Clark insisting on going to see him.

 He said there was no need, but he had ignored it, as always.

 “That’s not relevant.” He replied, frowning further.

 To Clark, that was the fragrant confirmation that -indeed- he hadn’t slept for three days. In his defense, Bruce would say he was too busy thinking about other things to allow himself a little rest. What's more, he wouldn't even have done it if he tried.

Every time he closed his eyes he listened to Tim's choked sobs and his weak voice begging him to leave them alone.

 Clark wasn't going to know that, but didn’t seem to like his answer at all, because he crossed his arms and looked at him the way he always did when he had no idea what to do with him.

 For a moment, Bruce had the slight hope that Clark would let him go, but it was Kent. So, when he grabbed his arm and dragged him onto the couch in the office to make him sit down with him, he wasn't even surprised. He just rolled his eyes and reminded himself that trying to fight Superman for this was not worth it, because he already knew the result, he had tried too many times. So, he ended up sitting next to him on the sofa and sighing heavily.

 “Sleep.” Clark said simply and shrugged. As if it were that easy.

 “I don't think it works that way, Kent.” He replied with a snort.

 Clark looked at him again disapprovingly a few seconds, then his annoyance softened, and his look turned into one of pure concern.

 “Rest, please.” He asked softly. “I know you, and I know there have been rough days, but it wouldn’t be better like this.”

 After a moment of silence, Bruce decided not to answer that and instead leaned on the sofa to look at the ceiling in silence, closing later his eyes and completely ignoring the tug on his chest that Clark's concern caused him.

That seemed to be an acceptable move for the Kryptonian, because then they were completely silent, together. Bruce could feel the warmth of the other's body, sitting too close. Also, how he tried not to move too much so as not to distract him or disturb his rest, which didn’t help much because he couldn’t rest by himself, but the effort was appreciated.

 He didn't keep track of how long they were quiet and just being aware of each other's presence, but Bruce found himself breaking that peace after a few minutes without even hesitate.

 “Why are you here?” He asked without changing his position.

 He felt Clark stir in his seat and his bluish gaze fixed on him.

 “I wanted to see how you were.” He replied directly. “Do I need something more to see you?”

 Again, he remained silent, that tug on his chest appearing again. However, unlike a few minutes ago, this time he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at him too, meeting his face closer to his than he had originally thought.

 He didn't look away, neither did Clark. They just looked at each other intently and waited for the other to say something. A tension already known between them leaked into the room.

 If someone had told Bruce years ago that Superman would be his most supportive person in his life, who he would trust the most, maybe he would have laughed, a lot. Now, he would have no choice but to agree and say thanks for it.

Because if it hadn't been for that call and those hours of conversation, things would have been much worse, and the situation would have only exploded after he had done something crazy. It was Clark who helped him see that it wasn’t necessary to carry the burdens of his mistakes alone, but that it was easier to do it together. It made it lighter. It was Clark who told him that even Superman made mistakes, everyone did, and the thing was learning to live with them and fix them after all, but don't let them dictate your life. And, above all, it was Clark who convinced him not to take hasty actions and try to clarify things with Tim and Jason without emotions clouding his judgment.

 It was Clark, it was always Clark. The one who managed to make him reason, the one who broke each and every one of his barriers with ease, the one who gave him hope, the one who saw beyond the calculating and calm façade he showed. Clark, always Clark.

 “My son was here yesterday.” The Super ended up saying in a whisper, they were close enough to hear it.

 “I know.” Bruce answered.

 He always knew when Jonathan showed up at the manor to visit Damian. This time he even thanked him, because he didn’t know the state of his younger son, but he did know that Superboy could cheer him up. As much as he broke Gotham's “no meta” rules and the limits set by his parents, he decided to let it be.

 “And you were okay with that?” Clark asked, more curious than annoyed.

 “Yes.”

 “Why?”

 “What do you think?”

 His answer made that tension, known but unsolvable, grow even more. Clark swallowed hard and Bruce didn't look away.

 The truth is that they would have had to be very blind not to have realized that their sons were in love for a long time and hopelessly they were going to end up together. After all, it was something that had been happening and developing in front of them since they made them team as children, and what they also had avoided talking at all cost.

 If Bruce at this time wasn't so worried about what had happened with Tim and Jason and how to solve it, maybe he could stop to think about how unfair he and Clark were being not wanting to recognize the feelings that their sons had on the other.

 They would like to; they would really like to. But admit that would openly lead to mention Conner's fixation with Timothy, which would lead to the conclusion of that, for some reason, always has existed a connection/fixing between the Supers and the Bats. And to admit this fixation would mean declaring that it really exists, along with that... Something, between them.

 There was something. Something between Bruce and Clark which didn’t want to admit, speak, or recognize. They've been ignoring it for years and had always worked like this, they had no reason to bring it to light, nor act on it. However, recognizing the situation of their sons not only will make it much more real, if not that -in some way- impossible.

That doesn't make sense because it was already impossible anyway. Clark was married to Lois, Bruce was dating Selina, they have been best friends since the League was founded, and their children were going to end up together, so there was no way they could... What?

 Do what? To say what?

 There was nothing to do, nothing to say. It wouldn't do any good because it was too late. No matter how much they tried to ignore it, it was something that hung over their heads and the moment it arrived they had to impose their sons' happiness on theirs, because that was how it worked, that’s what it meant to be a dad.

Although maybe that's why they didn't want to admit it, maybe that's why they tried to postpone all that until they could no longer, because they knew that the moment their children spoke for themselves, the decision of both of them was made, and it was like closing a door definitively that they had never dared to cross, but whose existence knew.

 But that wasn’t the important thing at the moment. The important thing was Tim, Jason, their relationship, making sure they were safe and secure, and waiting until Oracle managed to contact them in order to see them. But that was a matter of time, he just had to wait.

 So, ready for it, Bruce turned away from Clark, snorted wearily, settled back on the couch, and closed his eyes to get some sleep after three days without rest.

And if Clark's hand held his in the process, was something between them and no one else.

 ~0.0~

 When he woke up, he was alone.

 The office was dark, it was already night, the window was closed, and Bruce was lying on the couch.

There was no sign of Clark, but before thinking about how he had taken advantage of the fact that he had fallen asleep to accommodate him and leave without saying anything, he focused on the light of the flashing notification from his phone that he had been waiting all day.

 "Don’t thank me. Say hi to Hood before the patrol.” Barbara's text said.

 She had done it; she had granted his request and had been successful. Oracle had managed to locate the red team to take them to the Cave and sort things out. To have a conversation about it without surprises or threats, just leaving the cards on the table at once. There were situations and secrets in the family that could no longer be ignored more, and this was one of them.

 Bruce didn’t have time to be surprised that it was precisely Jason who agreed to attend that appointment, because he realized that he should head there. It was time to prepare for the patrol and it was better not to make anyone wait this time. He was determined to make his position clear and protect his sons, as necessary.

 He was halfway to the cave entrance when a loud sound made his world stop and a jolt of terror prick him.

 Bang!

 He breathed for a second, and then, recognizing the sound as a shot, he went through the entrance and down into the cave as fast as possible. Everything in a pure ingrained instinct that he had acquired after so many years in the crusade against crime, which tightened his muscles and contracted his bones.

 With his heart hammering hard and thousands of possibilities and explanations piercing his mind, when he arrived at the cave precisely the least expected received him.

 The vision of Dick Grayson, gun in hand, with Jason Todd bleeding out on the floor, made him realize that everything had gone too far.

 There was no longer a solution.

[rose-wine-selfships]

Kanji: 栗主帝納 阿美礼

Romaji: Kurisutiina Abira

Also known as: Counselor-san (Atsushi)

The ADAs Sweetheart (general)

The Golden Siren (BEAST Novel)

Personal information

Birthday: August 9 (Leo)

Age: 21 (first appearance)

25 (currently)

Gender: Demi-female

Height: 157 cm

Weight: 73 kg

Blood Type: AB

Likes: Drawing, music, cooking, belly dancing, helping others

Dislikes: Insects, her past, lying, her loved ones fighting,

Professional Information

Status: Alive

Ability: Corazón de Oro/Heart of Gold

Occupation: Counselor

House worker (formerly)

Affiliation: Armed Detective Agency

The Guild (formerly)

Appearances

Manga Debut: Chapter 5

Anime Debut: Episode 2

Appearance:

Christina has fair skin, long curly dark brown hair, and a short height with a voluptuous build. She wears dark red half moon glasses to cover her freckles upon her nose as well as her eyes. She wears a minimal amount of makeup given she has a fair portion of natural beauty, so she feels no need to hide her best features. She wears pink eyeshadow, mascara and eyeliner, and a dark pink lipstick. Her outfit mainly consists of a beige sweater with an pink undershirt, short white gloves, and purple knee length skirt. She wears a pink scarf, ruby stud earrings, a pink headband with a flower on top, and light pink kitten heels with bows and puffy lace on the back.

When she partially uses her ability, her arms transfigure to shiny gold limbs sharpened into two long spiky blades. In full transformation, she has a golden android appearance, dark golden eyes, a cold metal body, and molten lava-like hair that’s extremely hot to the touch.

Personality:

Kind, cheerful, and one of the most sociable people in the Armed Detective Agency, Christina is happy to welcome people from different backgrounds and adventure with it. Though she is affable and sweet, she can at times, be a little overdramatic and sensitive over things that shouldn’t really matter. She can also be aggressive and stubborn when people push her patience beyond her limit. However, her heart is always in the right place. Born with a literal heart of gold, it always helps her give her best advice and charity to people who need it the most. Hence why she is nicknamed,”The ADA’s Sweetheart”.

She also has self doubt, anxiety, and has a tendency to be too blunt at times. When people do call her out on it, Christina always does her best to try and improve her flaws. She’s very open to constructive criticism and requires it for her job. She is very expressive and open with her emotions, however, she is extremely private when it comes to her past. She will refuse to open up because she is so ashamed of it. Despite her warm personality, she can become easily shy in certain situations.

She gets easily flustered and awkward when forced to lie, gets genuinely complimented, or has a crush on someone. Also, as much as she loves people, she will get mildly claustrophobic around dense crowds and gets panic attacks in the middle of it. Her anxiety is usually triggered from heated arguments, small enclosed spaces, or extreme trauma. She loves anything related to the arts, cooking, music, and cats.

Ability: Corazón de Oro/ Heart of Gold

Christina’s ability allows her shapeshift into various precious metals, mainly gold, making various armor and weapon constructs out of her own body. Her full metal body can also absorb and reflect weaponized blows and conduct electricity under extreme weather conditions, such as violent thunderstorms.

Weapon Constructs- Christina has the ability to change and create her limbs (arms and legs) into tools, objects, weapons, armor, and barriers of varying permanence. She can create any item she imagines and have it put to use immediately.

Currency generation- The ability to generate monetary currency of any kind. She can create any form of currency into existence, ranging from coins, metals, jewels, and notes from any country in the world. This easily makes her the richest ability user in the world, but it comes with a terrible price. It must come out of her body by cutting her veins open. For example, if Christina is to make a few bronze coins, she must make a small (uncomfortable) cut in her palm to generate those coins. If she is to generate a large sum of money, she must bleed it out profusely to make the amount before fainting of blood loss. Making her ability an almost,”Blood money” creation.

Gold Mimicry-She can transform her physical body entirely out of gold. Her full form is highly identical to her original form, aside from being naturally made out of gold; which it still contains her vital organs and can be somewhat vulnerable to attack. Her gold form is malleable, ductile, resistant to corrosion and most other chemical reactions.

Fire hair-Christina has the power to have hair with flaming/volcanic properties. She can control whether she wants her hair to move or not. It’s extremely hot to the touch (and can also be a useful place to roast marshmallows).

Electric Conductivity- She has the ability to conduct electricity. Her ability can conduct electricity through her body, created or not, making her completely immune to electric attacks, no matter the voltage. Christina can also discharge electricity through conductive media (metal, water, etc.).

Weaknesses: Wind and water.

While Christina can resist most forms of corrosion, her form can be extremely susceptible to these elements if left for too long. Her insides will rust and get metal poisoning if she’s left untreated for long periods of time.

Full golden form: Original image can be found here

She is the reason why Fitzgerald rose to power in The Guild. After finding out what Christina’s ability could do, he manipulated her into staying in the organization for years when she was at an extremely low point in her teenage years. Kidnapped against her will and having little contact with her family provided the perfect opportunity to drain her almost of her life essence in his pursuit of wealth. She escaped The Guild at age 19, and laid low for a while before applying for the Armed Detective Agency and worked there for 2 years.

Trivia:

She believes her greatest weakness is giving in to what people think of her and not really speaking up for her wants and needs.

Christina is a Chicana, and is of Mexican-American descent.

She was diagnosed as neurodivergent from an early age, having both Atypical Autism and Attention Deficit Disorder as a little girl.

When she is anxious she will play with her hands or toy with a nearby object to stim. It is a method people with autism use to calm themselves down.

In her early years Christina actually skipped a school grade because of her great intelligence and hard work ethic.

According to her, she is an incredible researcher, and absolutely loves looking up information for hours if she’s interested in the subject enough. In less than an hour, she can recite every single facet of a topic without hesitation.

Her motto is,”Whatever you go through, I’ll stand by you”.

Her ideal type is a shy and kind person.

Her favorite spot in Yokohama is the pier overlook. She loves to come there to relax and look at the sunset.

She enjoys tapping in to her inner feminine and sensual side by belly dancing.

She mainly spends her free time visiting Café Uzumaki and singing opera on open mic nights. Christina claims she is very proud of her strong soprano voice.

She is an avid fan of cats big and small. But her favorite cat is a tiger, and is quite fond of the Toyger cat breed because it looks like a mini tiger to her.

She is NOT a morning person, and will become almost “zombie-like” until she gets her coffee order ahead of time.

Thank you for looking at this!~🌹🍷✨

[ksmutclub]

Let’s take a step...

Good Evening Everyone. Admin Tomi here.

I think we’ve reached the need for a full stop. 

There’s going to be a lot here - please hang with me. I ask that you read this thoroughly, because I would like to have this be the cease fire for the current situation. 

Firstly,

We are deeply sorry for any hurt, pain, trigger, or traumatic essence that has arisen in the midst of viewing the Monster Smash prompt list. 

These prompts are based on popular horror movies and books. Things that we easily associate with Horror via authors like James Patterson and Stephen King [which a good chunk of these prompts come from]. So to us, and a majority of the voters/members, who wanted it to return? There was no issue. 

The club rules *specifically* state that we do not allow the following

WHAT WE DON’T REBLOG

Sexualization of minors,

Incest,

Eating disorders,

Self harm,

Glorification of mental illnesses,

Animal abuse,

Any controversial topics,

Political topics,

Masterlists,

WIPs posts,

Domestic violence,

Abusive relationships,

Pedophilia,

Necrophilia,

Homophobic topics,

Racist topics.

Rape.

That has been the long standing no-no’s of this club since its inception.  We didn’t understand why the anons, and few members that came forward, would think that we would: 

A - allow any story that breaks the rules to pass through. B - that any of the writers/creators/esteemed members of this club would dip down to those levels to create material that does exactly what we ask not to be done.

We’re all adults, and trust that everyone knows right from wrong, and understands the ramifications of such issues.

We in no way intended to cause trauma, downplay anyone’s trauma, or ‘insult’ anyone with mental health issues. 

But.

We cannot stop creators from writing things that may include dark topics. 

We believe in the portent of trigger warnings required on each story. Because what could be a trigger for you? Could be a cathartic release for someone writing from a similar experience, or someone with an interest in said experiences.

We trust and believe in you all to believe in self-care. Meaning that if someone happens to post a yandere story with a trigger warning for blood? That you would move to the next story. We believe that every reader and creator are the masters of their Tumblr experience and will act in accordance with the safety of their well-being and mental health in consideration.

With that all being said? The h***ler prompt was missed/misstep. Again, we profusely apologize for that one making the list. There is no excuse, I will attempt to offer none. The K Smut Club Admins will do better to be more mindful/careful/watchful of such things in the future.

Now, a point was made during the back and forth of the evening. That one message cleared most of the confusion. A trigger warning on the prompt list. Which in hindsight, may or may not have made a difference. But, it would at least show that we DID hear you about the certain prompts [esp. the h**ler one, cause that should've never gone up. So we thank that member for catching it]. 

So going forward, since this has been a lesson, we will make sure to trigger warning as best we can for the next Monster Smash event. As a reminder, the prompts are purely voluntary to serve as an example of what you could possibly write. None of these were mandatory, or necessary to participate in the event.

Again, with any event the idea of your story and where it goes is always up to you, the creator.

To the matter of the prompt examples list? 

We can all agree to disagree. Everyone perceives things differently. Again, we trust you all to be mindful of the rules and not write anything that would be considered illegal. For example:

A brother and sister find an old door in their basement that wasn’t there before.

Hansel and Gretel; or Brother and Sister monster hunters, sister gets kidnapped by demon that’s been lusting over Brother. Or in secret relationship with brother - sister is kidnapped with ultimatum to come on over to the bad side or they’ll make the sister disappear. So, no incest. 

The abused animals of a zoo are unleashed and wreak havoc on a small town.

Based on James Patterson’s Book ‘Zoo’[and there was a miniseries]. Animals of the world suddenly developed a genetic abnormality that caused them to rise up and try to take the planet back. Believe it or not? There was romance/sex involved in the people trying to save the animals, the world, and themselves. One of the scientists fell for a reporter as they worked together for a cure. The story written could have the two people getting together and that amount of care they have for solving the menace - solves it. So, no abused animals.

Deceased soldiers return to their Civil War-era homes.

Based on multiple episodes of the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. People that may have died with strong regrets and the people who miss them terribly are given an opportunity to come back for one day. Fully alive, flesh and blood, breathing living - to spend one day with each other to help them move on. Also the movie Warm Bodies where a zombie regains his humanity, and undoes the curse of the undead by falling in love, of all things. The ‘zombie’ fully regains his humanity, living breathing, and bleeding - there’s even a kiss. So, no  necrophilia.

A monster is terrified by the scary child who lives above his bed.

Based on Monsters Inc. and I’ve seen some Monster Inc Kpop fic smut out there, so it’s absolutely possible to have a single parent cleaning a kids room and shenanigans ensue, or not, and just be a super crack horror fic.

A family dog runs away from home. He returns a year later to the delight of his family. But there’s something different about him. Something demonic.

Based on Pet Sematary, Stephen King classic. Synopsis could be that parents lost a family pet, trying for a child, pet returns, horror ensues. 

A child sleep-walks into their parent’s room and whispers, “I’m sorry. The devil told me to.”

Based on Case 39. A movie where the kid was a literally a demon posing as a child, and manipulated everyone around her and caused a bunch of deaths/mishaps. 

I’ve made these few scant examples to prove there was no ill, illegal, or sick intent with the prompts posted. Each of them can be connected to a movie, book, or television series that many are familiar with. 

Even though the rules state smut is required, where the smut happens within prompt depends on the story. But, wherever it should so appear would be required, of course, to act within the bounds of the clubs rules. 

Because we trust you, the creators, to abide by them.

In closing,

Everybody has had different experiences in their lives. We are not going to pit pain against pain. No one’s pain is greater. Pain is pain and we all have suffered it, or will at some point. We must do what we need to in order to protect ourselves from things that hurt or trigger us. 

I believe every network feels this sentiment and uses the trigger warning requirement in order to protect their readers from consuming content which would hurt them, while allowing the creator the opportunity to explore and create in the medium they see fit. 

We are all humans trying to navigate a difficult time. We all have our ways to deal with these traumatic and painful happenings in our lives. We either talk about it with our peers who have the same experience, write to forge a path forward to some sort of healing in our own way- or we simply remove that reminder from our sphere of existence. 

We will do the best in our capacity, in this network to create a space for both the reader and the creator to do what is best for them, while following all legal statutes set forth by Tumblr and the laws of the US where it is based.

If there are any club members that have issues with any of the prompts - we ask that you please DM the admin staff off anon, so that we can get an accurate count of the individuals that take offense.

There will be no bashing, no repercussions, or public shaming. 

We want to make sure that the people in our network have a say in what happens within the club events. Just because we can see the story in the prompts, doesn’t mean everyone can. We would be happy to discuss the prompt or prompts in question, with examples or sources to assuage any fears that you have. 

For those who were hurt, disturbed, disappointed, or felt the negativity wrought by this? 

We again, humbly apologize that you have. We hope that we can move forward with the event and the growth of the club with your blessings and participation.

Sincerely, The Admin Team 

P.S. - Death threats, threats of any kind are not ok. We’re all adults here. If you disagree then your blog is the space to do it. Stay out of folks DMs with that bullshit because you disagree - that goes for anybody that has spoken out disagreeing with the club and anyone outside toward the members within the club. We have differing opinions they should be respected. No one should be victimized any further than already experienced.