#overly sincere post but here. take it

[tinystepsforward]

my therapist went to a seminar last week about childhood trauma and shame and we talked about some stuff that was helpful for me so maybe it'll be helpful for other people too.

in short, when your childhood's been Bad in a particular way repeatedly or over a period of time, fight and flight don't work, right? you can't fight it every time. you can't leave. so what you've got left is surrendering for your survival.

and if you've done that for a while, growing up, then it becomes really difficult to not just wave that white flag whenever anything related to that Bad or to the family involved comes up! bc your brain thinks that if you don't surrender you'll fucking die.

(on that note: she also told me off for repeatedly being like "but it wasn't life or death tho". if you were at a point where you had to make that choice to survive, your brain was parsing it as life or death ⁠— at least psychologically if not immediately physically.)

and it can feel really pathetic! that shame grows from the moment you first make that choice to live, bc surrendering is accepting that to live, you gotta see them as more important than you. it's humiliating. and that shame grows roots, and becomes this thing that eats your life, that what's wrong with me, why can't i do this. that maybe i don't deserve to do this.

i'm working on trying to set boundaries and/or address issues with family and i'm nearly thirty and have built a whole fuckin life for myself and it still makes me want to die every single time. but my therapist wanted to acknowledge the monumental work it takes to even get to the point where you think that you might want to set those boundaries. and i'm proud of myself, on some level. and if you're doing that work, i'm proud of you too.

[threeacttragedy]

Entry 7: The One Where the Queen Asked, “Did That Go the Way You Thought It Was Gonna Go?”

I’m probably one of the few people in this fandom who find Antonia entertaining.

Goddammit – put down your fucking pitchforks!

I didn’t say I liked her – I simply said I found her entertaining.

If Antonia’s existence bothers the fuck out of you, you’ll likely enjoy my commentary here.

*And, right about here is when I’ll slip in my disclaimer: this is my opinion only; merely speculation based on information that is out there in the public realm.

Now, where was I?

Oh, yes, Antonia. I don’t find her entertaining because I think she’s a great dancer. Is she? You tell me. I mean, I have two left feet so just about anyone is better than me.

And, I have never seen a picture or video where she’s made me “like” her as a person. In fact, she comes off more like a villain, but not a brilliant villain (I might like her, then). She’s more like an Iago to, say, Deux Mois’ Jafar.

I just find her so fucking reckless, but in the most amusing way possible. If she were a movie, I’d give her 4/5 stars. The movie would be a low-budget comedy, of course.

In my opinion, she loves to troll the fandom and I’m convinced she must have notifications turned on for Nicola. The patterns started patterning early on during the World Tour (and probably before). The problem is, she’s just not great at trolling. Her attempts always fall flat, and she ends up making herself look like, well, a tryhard (hence why her movie only gets 4/5 stars).

I’m not sure what Antonia ever was to Luke but, at a minimum, I will (begrudgingly) say they dated. I know some people don’t want to hear that, but she was a player in this game for a reason. Rumor also suggests she, at the very least, squatted in Luke’s flat (and I don’t mean in THAT way).

That said, I believe she was officially taken out of the game at the end of July. However, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t still making noise from the sidelines.

One of the most humorous (in my opinion) “rah rahs” Antonia pulled was on September 28 when she posted some stories of herself at a theatre. I’m not sure if she could have been any more obvious when trying to show us her phone screen. The screen was lit up, her thumb pressed against it, and angled almost directly at the person taking the picture.  We get it, honey. You want us to see what’s on your screen. Not surprisingly, it appeared to be a blurry ass picture of Luke.

Big whoop, right? Well, actually it was because the Conscientiously Stupid took this as confirmation Luke and Antonia were together (again) and the Sincerely Ignorant swallowed their cyanide pills without water (again). And, the Fact Finders, while trying to resuscitate their dearly beloved Sincerely Ignorant friends foaming at their mouths, immediately called “bullshit” (again). The picture appeared to be old and, to be honest, it was too blurry to tell who was on the screen – although I will concede it could have been Luke. In fact, I tend to believe it was an old picture of Luke based on what happened next.

The problem with Antonia’s play style is that she doesn’t seem to catch on to the rules. She moves her pawn two spaces because she can, not because it advances her game. She has this nasty habit of ignoring, say, the opposing party’s pawn, which is in position to en passant her overly confident pawn.

Nicola had been living high on life throughout the month of September, which, in my opinion, is quite possibly the reason why Antonia seemed a bit unhinged by the end of the month (jealousy can make us do crazy shit). Among other things, Nicola had the Emmy’s (and the Wordle), the Gucci show, and, on October 1, she was presenting Simone with a Glamour Award. By this point, I believe Nicola had had enough of Antonia’s gameplay. The phone screen had struck a chord.

So, what does Nicola do?

She plays the game right back but not like she normally does with Scrabble boards, Dewy Skin Creams, and BTS wedding footage dropped at the perfect moment. This time, she does it with a power move that left her hands virtually spotless.

On October 3, Halley Brisker, Nicola’s frequent hairstylist, posted a set of four pictures to his Instagram grid, three of which showed Nicola casually posing for the camera and one showing Nicola in the process of having her hair done. It was the latter picture (#3/4 in the slide deck) that perked every Lukolas’ ears.

Low and behold sat a man, his face conveniently covered by a hairdresser’s arm, but his hands in full view. Hands that, at this point, we (embarrassingly) know too well. To date, no one has debunked the theory – more like, assertion – that the man in the picture is Luke.

Nicola liked this post by Halley, and even commented, “You legend [red heart emoji].” You’re welcome to read between the lines on that one.

I’ve always believed this Halley Brisker photo dump was Nicola’s very clever, albeit indirect, way of telling Antonia, “Checkmate, bitch.”

The point of this entry is not to convince you that Antonia is a red herring (she is), or that Luke is in the Halley Brisker photo dump (he is), or that Nicola plays the game better than most (she does). No, the point of this entry is to tell you Antonia’s game is over (because it is). Antonia lost.

So why does she remain on the roster?

Because, collectively, we as fans keep her there, sitting along the sidelines in her collapsable camp chair making noise with her cowbell. We pay attention to what she posts. We talk about what she posts. We argue over what she posts. We panic about what she posts. WE keep her in the game.

How about we don’t?

Why not start off this week with a positive change? And, not just for the USS Lukola, but for yourself as well.

If you’re following Antonia on social media (for sinister reasons) – stop. Meander over to Instagram, X, Tiktok, whatever, and unfollow her. Don’t look back. Stop checking her page. If you see or hear she has a new post, ignore it. Move on. The first day will be hard. But, the second day will be easier. You know where I’m going with this…

I mean, Luke can’t quietly unfollow her if we’re constantly looking in that direction, right?

P.S. If you need more convincing that Antonia’s shelf life has expired, I have a CliffsNotes response for that: https://www.tumblr.com/threeacttragedy/767137910999957504/great-blog-but-if-all-was-not-good-with-l-and-a?source=share.

P.P.S. Moving forward, I don’t give two boiled rabbits about what Antonia does. I will most certainly refer back to her in a historical sense (she does fill in bits and pieces of the Lukola timeline), but if she posts a crockpot tomorrow, don’t expect me to comment on what could be in it.

P.P.P.S. If you have any understanding of what the little chessboard I’ve dropped in to my picture means, I salute you.

[fabbyf1]

just a reminder to all my lovely followers to take a deep breath.

drink some water. have a snack. close your eyes for a few minutes. log off for a while. watch something that makes you happy. listen to some music, or a podcast, or anything that makes you smile

please don't let formula 1 ruin your mental health.

my timeline is an... interesting place to be today. i have seen a lot of posts that make me think "oh no... i hope that person is okay." a lot of people are sad today (for valid reasons!) and a lot of people are happy (also for valid reasons!) and it's okay to be either or both, but it's a great time to remember that you will be okay.

and that you will make it through this.

please don't let formula 1 ruin your mental health.

i know it's hard not to get overly attached to drivers, especially when we have so much access to them and consume so much of their content. and i know watching them leave the sport feels like everything is over and that you'll never enjoy it like you once did.

but as someone who has been around this sport for a while, i can tell you that your love for it will come back, and you'll fall in love with other drivers. and, if not, you can step away from the sport with absolutely no repercussions! none of us are getting paid to be here. (at least i'm not.)

please, please, please log off for a while if you're are actively hurting over this.

i promise you it's not worth it.

i'm here if anybody wants some forced elderly advice about putting yourself first <3

sincerely, grandma

[dark-romance-yan]

Make Me Forget

Yandere Jiyan-First Time meeting since you broke up.

A/N; This is just a one-shot of Jiyan from Wuthering Waves as a yandere. I'm in a writing mood so plz send requests if you'd like. Info about requests n stuff are on the pinned post in my profile.

Warnings; It's basically just pure smut about half way into it, p in v intercourse, slight choking(?), dirty talk, coercion, afab reader, UNEDITED

Wordcount; 6,800+

You and Jiyan broke up about two years ago, well, you broke up with him. He wasn't willing to let you go, fought endlessly to convince you to stay with him, promised you that he would change his possessive and overly protective nature. But he never did, he couldn't, not with how dangerous the world is. You had to stay home where it was safe, stay within the city of Jinzhou, not to step a foot outside the walls. He'd always make the excuse that it's far too dangerous for you to leave despite your arguments of how you can take care of yourself. You just wanted to explore but he wouldn't let you. And it's not like he could go out with you very often due to how busy he is with his duties as General of the Midnight Rangers. So you made the decision to end the relationship with him, moved out of your shared home while he was out on a mission and left a sincere letter for him on his desk.

During the first couple of months, Jiyan pleaded for you to come back home to him, to be his again, but you refused. He'd write love letters to you whenever he had a moment to spare but you never wrote back, never gave him the time of day anymore. So he let you go, or at least that's what you thought when the letters stopped. Within the past two years, Jiyan had been keeping tabs on you, gaining information from a certain information broker he's acquainted with. Anyone you dated mysteriously disappeared or passed away.

At present, you're sitting on fallen log outside the city walls of Jinzhou gazing at nothing in particular as you try to cope with the deep pain of losing your boyfriend due to a tacet discord attack a week ago. You don't even know how it could have happened, the guards had cleared the area he was exploring but a tacet discord happened to appear out of thin air and killed him. It had to be a coincidence this was the third time this happened to someone you were dating, right?

For the past two years you've felt nothing but pain and loss, only having brief moments of happiness but it's all snatched away when someone close to you vanishes from your life suddenly. Is this karma for something you did in your past?

Before you could continue with your thoughts, there is a deep and low growl behind you. Slowly turning to look behind you, there is a wolf tacet discord behind you, growling as it charges to attack you. You close your eyes and raise your arms to brace yourself for the impact but it never comes. Instead you're greeted with a familiar voice that you haven't heard in so long. "Are you alright?" You peak out from behind your arms to see Jiyan rubbing his shoulder and the fading tacet discord behind him. Sighing, you drop your arms back to your sides, trying to not act amused to see him meanwhile inside your heart flutters in a way it hasn't in a long time. "Yeah, I'm fine." You mutter, tearing your gaze away from him. Truthfully, you're not fine. You were terrified that you were about to meet the same fate as your previous partners, and Jiyan seemed to notice your fear as your body trembles and your shaking hands clench into fists.

He reaches out his hand and gently places it on your shoulder, trying to comfort you while acting friendly as he sits beside you on the log. He is about to speak but you beat him to it in an effort to act strong, making him shut his mouth. "What are you doing here?" You ask in a harsher tone than you intended, but you couldn't control it with all the emotional turmoil you're in. Jiyan stares at you for a moment with a raised brow, surprised by the harsh and stand offish treatment with him. He should be the one treating you like that after you left him with no explanation and broke his heart. But he gave you grace, knowing exactly why you're upset, he's the cause of it after all. He clears his throat, moving his hand off your shoulder and you felt colder. "Well I was on my way to the city to rest for a of couple days before I leave for another mission until I heard the TD and someone in danger. I didn't realize it was you I was saving at first." He spoke, only telling mostly the truth, knowing fully well it was you. He could spot you from miles away, even sense your presence. "What are you doing here? I can see that something is haunting you, darl-...I mean, Y/n." He cleared his throat as he corrected himself to using your real name instead of the one he used during your relationship. Deep down you ached to hear him call you that again. "It's nothing...well, it's not nothing. It's just.." You struggle to find the words, fighting with yourself on whether to confide in him. But you didn't have anyone else to help you through your pain, the aching pain that never seemed to end.

You let out a shaky breath as you cross your arms over your chest as if hugging yourself. Then you feel the familiar warmth of his hand on your shoulder, his thumb gently caressing your skin. "I know I'm not the best person to open up to, being that I'm your ex and we didn't end on the best of terms but, Y/n, I'm always here for you and I want you to be happy. You can tell me anything." He reassures, you peer up at him for a few moments, your eyes searching his for any sign of deceit but even if there is one you wouldn't care at this point. Your eyes fill with tears that threaten to spill at any moment with just being given the chance to vent your feelings, quickly turning your gaze to stare down at your lap. Sniffling, you finally speak in a croaky voice, "My...My boyfriend died last week. I just can't believe he's gone." His heart aches as he hears the pain in your voice, all over a death of a boy who isn't even worthy of breathing the same air as you.

But he can't help but feel victorious, you're finally opening up to him, finally talking to him again. His plan that he's put so delicately together is finally unfolding and working in his favor. "Oh, Y/n..." He coos in a soothing tone as his thumb strokes your shoulder, a subtle gesture to comfort with a dark intent to assert himself back into your life. "That's tragic, how heartbreaking. I am so sorry for your loss." He adds as if he's not the one who indirectly caused your pain, waiting for a moment to gauge your reaction, only seeing you nod as you lean into his touch on your shoulder. He takes a chance to move closer, his leg subtly brushing against yours in an attempt to re-establish that intimate connection with you. "But just know, you have me to turn to. I'll always be here for you." Hearing the words you longed to hear from someone to help you cope from your pain, you struggle with your emotions.

Feeling overwhelmed by the mixture of emotions that have been building up within you, you turn and nuzzle your face into his chest as you finally let your tears slid down your cheeks, sobbing quietly. He wraps his arms around you gently, holding you close as he strokes your hair. He hopes you don't hear his heart racing against his chest, all of his own pain of the past two years melting away as he holds you in his arms again. His hand caress your back soothingly as he speaks in a soft, reassuring tone. "Shh, it's okay Y/n. I'm here for you." He wants to make it clear to you that he is the only stable person in your life, the only one who can comfort you, hold you, love you. He's finally re-establishing an emotional connection to you. "Let it out, darling. I've missed this so much." He holds you tightly, his grip comforting but firm as you sob into his chest. He hates to see you so upset but the relief of feeling you in his arms again over riding any of the heart wrenching emotions.

After a few long moments pass and your sobs come to a stop, he pulls back slightly to gaze into your eyes, his own glistening with longing and concern. He lightly brushes a strand of hair from your face and tucks it behind your ear. "I've changed, Y/n. I'm not the same guy who hurt you in the past. I want to prove that to you. Please, Y/n, let me take care of you now." He speaks with sincerity, but carry an underlying obsession, struggling to hide his obsession for you. You sniffle as you gaze up at him, his hands moving to gently cup you cheeks while his thumbs wipe away any remaining tears. "Jiyan..." You start in a weak voice, your heart aching for his love but it just didn't feel right. "I'm not ready for a relationship again, not after what just happened." You watch his reaction carefully, but he just gazes at you with loving, understanding eyes as he nods slowly. "Of course, Y/n. I don't expect anything from you, just consider my presence as a gesture of support." His hand finds yours, squeezing it gently as a sign of reassurance while his underlying intention is to reestablish their intimate connection. He has an insatiable desire to win you back, he's just waiting for the right moment as he's reentering your life under the guise of support.

He stands, offering his hand to help you stand up which you accept. "We should get back to the city before it gets dark, I'll take you back home. But only if you want me to." He speaks in a gentle tone, meanwhile there's a hidden meaning that implies you're his to take care of and protect. You give him a small sad smile, nodding as you place your hand in his and stand. "Sure, I don't really want to be here anymore." You reply as you let him lead the way back to the city. The walk back to the city is quiet, yet comfortable.

Once you enter the city again, the streetlights shine above the two of you as stars fill the night sky, reminding Jiyan of the many strolls you two shared when you were together. His hand brushes against yours, taking the opportunity to hold your hand in his gently, his thumb caressing over your knuckles. You can't stop the small smile that tugs at your lips, reminiscing their sweet and tender moments they've shared. "I've missed this. Just the two of us, together like this." Jiyan breaks the silence, his head tilting to look down at her with a loving smile. You almost smiled back as you gazed up at him, but hesitate as you remind yourself of the aching pain in your heart after losing your partner. "Jiyan.." You sigh his name, as if scolding him as you turn your gaze away from him, looking anywhere but him. "Please don't say things like that. Not now." You mutter as a mixture of emotions swirl through her chest while you pull your hand away from his.

He looks at you with a wounded expression, his hand hanging in the air for a moment before retreating back. "You're right, I apologize. I forgot myself for a moment there." He speaks with a contrite tone, a frustration starting to brew deep within him as you're still wasting your emotions on that pathetic boy. "It's just...being close to you again feels so natural. Like it hasn't even been two years, no time has passed." He downplays his obsession to gain your trust and love again. The two of you approach your front door to your home, Jiyan stays a couple steps behind you to give you space. You unlock your door but hesitate to step inside of your dark, quiet and lonely home. You turn to look at him with a small smile as you nod towards your open door, your mouth moving before you could even process what you were saying. "Do you want to come inside? I...I don't really want to be alone right now." He is ecstatic. You need him right now and even voiced it to him. He's finally breaking down your defenses by providing you with comfort and support.

"Of course, I'd never leave you alone again if that's what you wished." His tone is gentle and concerned, yet also carries an unspoken implication that he's the only one who can truly understand and support you. He watches your movements intently as you step inside and begin removing your jacket. He can't help but notice how your blouse clings to your curves, the fabric seeming to glow in the dim light of the entryway. His eyes linger on the swell of your breasts and the slender line of your waist, his throat constricting with desire. He shifts his gaze to admire your home, not wanting to be caught ogling you, but his cheeks are flushed. "Can I help with anything?" He's is concerned, but there's an undercurrent of hunger beneath the words. He wants nothing more than to worship your beautiful body, to remind you of all the pleasure he can provide. He imagines peeling that blouse off you slowly, revealing the familiar body underneath, too caught up in his own imagination to notice you disappear into the kitchen.

Finally, he notices you again when you hold up a wine bottle as you pear out from the corner of the kitchen. "You can help me finish this bottle of wine." You speak up with a dull cheerful tone, coming off as more awkward and shy. His eyes light up as you offer him the wine, a smile spreading across his face. He takes the bottle from you, his fingers lightly brushing against yours as he does. The subtle contact sends a jolt of electricity through you. "I'd love to join you in a glass... or two." His tone is playful, but underneath lies a hunger to be closer to you, to recapture the intimacy you once shared. He pours two glasses, handing one to you as he leans against the counter across from you. His thigh accidentally brushes against yours as he does, and he makes no move to pull away, savoring the contact. "So tell me, how have you been? Really been? I know it's been tough losing... him." He says the name carefully, not wanting to upset you, but also subtly asserting that he's the one who truly understands your pain.

You take a sip of your wine, a sharp pain in you heart as he mentions your recently deceased boyfriend. You exhale, staring down at the red liquid in your glass. "Honestly, I don't know how I feel. Sometimes, it hurts to even breathe, and other times, I...I just don't feel anything." You answer, your voice cracking. You stay silent for a moment before tilting your head back slightly as you drink the rest of the wine in your glass, attempting to drown the pain. "But I don't really want to talk about that right now...Um, how have you been? How's work?" You ask as you fill your glass again with more wine, momentarily glancing at him with a half smile. Feeling a wave a heat, you pull your hair out of it's ponytail. He watches as you let your hair down, the sudden movement releasing a cascade of hair that frame your face perfectly. His heart races at the sight, remembering all the times he used to run his fingers through your hair, the way the soft strands would fall against your skin. He feels an intense urge to do the same now, to recapture that intimacy, that control over your beauty. "Work has been...steady. Nothing exciting to report." He replies, barely paying attention to his own life at the moment. His focus is entirely on you, on rekindling the connection you two once had. "But enough about me. You look lovely with your hair down, Y/n." He says sincerely, his eyes drinking in the sight of you. He notices the way the wine has slightly flushed your cheeks, making your skin glow, and he imagines all the other intoxicating ways he could make you lose yourself in pleasure. "Perhaps I can help you forget about your pain, just for a little while. If you'll let me." His voice is a low, husky purr, filled with longing and a subtle undercurrent of possessiveness.

You stare at him with an intense gaze, your eyes trailing over his fit figure with a growing desire from his suggestion. But you snap yourself out of your daze, forcing yourself to look away as you shake your head. "Jiyan, we both know where that will lead..." You mumble, even though you wanted to forget your pain, to lose yourself in him like you did all those years ago, but it didn't feel right. "I'm not really ready for that right now." You add, staring down at the wine as you take another sip. He feels a sting from your rejection, but quickly pushes it aside. He's not going to let a little thing like resistance stand in his way. "Darling..." He says softly, gently taking your chin in his hand. His thumb strokes your jawline, a feather-light caress meant to comfort, yet also subtly assert his dominance. "You don't have to make any decisions now. Just let me hold you. Let me take care of you." His tone is a soothing balm, promising safety and intimacy, but also carrying an underlying current of insistence. He wants to hold you, to have his body pressed against yours, to feel your warmth and scent and know that you're his again. "I know it's been tough...but you don't have to face it alone. I'm here for you." He says the words you've been aching to hear from someone for so long. You confuse comfort with desire, your eyes staring up to his with uncertainty. "I don't know..." You whisper, your gaze flicking from his eyes to his lips, your own wine stained lips parting. His free hand gently guides your hand to lower the glass onto the counter as he sees the moment of weakness, the way your lips part ever so slightly as you struggle with yourself. He knows he has you right where he wants you. "Shhh...it's okay, my love." His tone is soft, soothing as he leans down, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks. "Let me hold you. Let me take care of you. Just for tonight." His words are a gentle persuasion, an insistence that's hard to resist when you're in this vulnerable state. He's offering you comfort and affection, but also a chance to belong to him again, to let him have control over you and your well-being. "Please, Y/n. I need to hold you." He whispers the plea, his breath hot against your skin. He's not giving you a choice, not really, not when you've stepped into his delicately laid trap so willingly.

Your hands lightly grip his shirt as you feels his hot breath against your skin while your breathing turns uneven, your tipsy state working against you to make you more desperate. "Just for tonight." You repeat his words in a whisper. His grip on your chin tightens ever so slightly, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He knows he's got you, that your pain and sorrow are making you desperate for any distraction, any source of pleasure. And he's more than happy to provide it, to reclaim ownership over your body and desires. "Just for tonight..." He echoes softly, his lips still brushing against your ear. He slowly lowers his head, his mouth finding the sensitive skin of your neck. He kisses you softly, gently, but with a subtle possessiveness, as if staking claim to you once again. "I've missed this...missed you. Please, let me make you feel good again. Let me show you how much I care." His words are a seductive promise, a guarantee of pleasure and intimacy if only you'll submit to him again. His lips trail lower, teasing the top of your blouse as he breathes hot against your skin. “I can make all the pain go away, Y/n. Just let me in." He whispers the temptation, his hand sliding down to grab your hips and pull you against him, your soft curves molding to his fit frame, a faint familiarity both of you desired to reignite.

Without saying another word, you move one of your hands up to cup his cheek, pulling his head up to meet yours, your eyes meeting for a split second before closing as you close the gap between your lips. He returns the kiss with a hunger that's been building for months, no, years. His tongue invades your mouth, claiming you, reminding you of all the times he's tasted you before. He feasts on your mouth, drinking in the sweetness of your lips, the damp heat of your breath. His hands roam over your body, grasping and kneading the soft flesh, reacquainting himself with every curve and dip. Your hand presses to the back of his neck, slowly sliding up to tangle your fingers in his long blue hair while your other hand lightly grips the fabric of his shirt over his chest. He growls low in his throat, the sound vibrates against your lips, a primal claim of possession. "Mine..." He mouths the word against your lips, his eyes dark with desire and obsession, a promise of all the ways he'll reclaim you tonight. "Every inch of you belongs to me."

You freeze momentarily, blood running cold as his words remind you of the reason you broke up with him in the first place. You let out a shaky breath, slowly pulling back from the kiss as you hesitate and he sees it, the glimmer of doubt in your eyes as you remember the reasons you left him. His fingers tighten in your hair, his grip just short of painful. He leans in close, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks. "I know I fucked up before, Y/n. But I'm different now. I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy." His words are a honey-coated lie, a promise meant to soothe and reassure. "I just want to make you feel good again. Want to be the only one to touch you, to pleasure you. I'll show you how much I care..." His voice drops to a whisper, the words dripping with sensual promise. His hands slide lower, grasping at your ass, pulling you against him once more. He's going to remind you of all the ways he can pleasure you, of how he's the only one who truly understands your body and its needs. "Please, darling...let me make you feel good...You know I'll take good care of you. That I'll make you feel better than you have in months. Maybe years." His words are a seductive promise, a lure meant to entice you into surrendering to your desires, into submitting to him again and its working. His hand slides up your back, his fingers finding the nape of your neck, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin as your eyes stare into his while you battle with yourself.

But the way golden his eyes stare into yours with longing and temptation, you could no longer find the strength in yourself to deny him. "Jiyan, please make me forget the past two years." You whisper. The corners of his lips curl into smile, you've finally surrendered yourself into him again. His grip on your neck tightens, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin in a possessive caress. He leans in close, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks. "Anything for you, Y/n. Tonight, you forget about everything...and remember how good we are together." His voice is a husky purr, filled with promise and intent. His hands slide down your body, grasping at your waist as he pulls you against him. He's going to make you forget about any other pathetic man or woman that ever dared to call themselves your partner since he's been yours. "No more thinking, Y/n. Only feeling.” You only nodded to his words, your eyes closing as you focused solely on feeling his hands caressing over your body.  His hands slide up your body, grasping at your breasts, his fingers teasing the sensitive nipples through the fabric of your blouse. "Do you remember how I used to touch you, Y/n? How I could make you scream my name?" His voice is a husky whisper, filled with dark memories and twisted desire. A shaky breath entwined with a moan slips past your lips, as you gaze up at him with a half lidded eyes while you whisper, "Yes, but you should remind me." Your words were like a subtle beg for him, a dark smile spreading across his face, your desperation and surrender clear in the force of your words.

"Anything for you, Y/n. Anything you need, I'll provide." His voice is a seductive promise, a vow meant to soothe and reassure. But beneath the smooth words lies a twisted intent, a promise that he'll take what he wants, no matter how you might later regret it. "I'll make you feel so good, baby. Gonna fuck you 'til you forget your own name." He growls the words, a feral promise that speaks to the obsessions burning in his veins. "Gonna show you what you've been missing. What you need." His hands slide down your body, grasping at the hem of your skirt. With a rough tug, he sends the fabric flying, exposing your bare legs and panties to his hungry gaze. "No more clothes, Y/n. I want to see all of you.”

You pull at your own blouse, tugging it off quickly not caring if it ripped at the seems. You tug at his shirt, a silent plea for him to take it off so you can see his body again, to see if anything has changed about him. "Yes, please make me forget about it all. I only want to feel you." You whisper in desperation, leading him to your bedroom, now standing in front of your bed with him while your hands still tug insistently at his shirt. He feels your desperation, sees the plea in your eyes. His hands move to his shirt, pulling it off over his head in one swift motion. His body is a canvas of lean muscle, his skin tanned and smooth. But for the scars, they've grown in a noticeable number and they'd seemed fairly recent with the pink hue to them. You wouldn't know the violence that simmers beneath his surface but he has grown reckless and aggressive in his battles since you left him. "I'll make you forget, Y/n. I'll make you remember only the pleasure I can provide." He takes your hand, pulling you down onto the bed with him. His body covers yours, his weight pressing you into the mattress. He's claiming you, reclaiming you, making you remember the power he holds over you. "No more thinking, Y/n. Only feeling." He repeats softly as his lips crash against yours, hungry and demanding. His tongue invades your mouth, claiming you, reminding you of all the times he's tasted you before. He feasts on your lips, drinking in the sweetness of your mouth, the damp heat of your breath. "I've broken you into pieces, my love. And now I'm going to put you back together again...my way.” He confesses against your lips but you don't even seem to comprehend a word that comes out of his mouth as your tongue glides across his in a dance of desperation from both partners. Your hands slide up and down his chest, massaging and feeling his toned abdomen to reacquaint yourself with it, noticing the slight changes that occurred during the years you've been apart.

He feels your tongue, tastes the sweetness of your mouth, the desperate heat of your breath. His hands roam your body, grasping and kneading the soft flesh, reacquainting himself with every curve and dip. He pulls away from the kiss, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks. "You've missed this, haven't you Y/n? Missed my touch?" His voice is a seductive purr but beneath the smooth words lies a subtle edge, a hint of possessiveness and control. "I've missed you too, darling. More than you know." His hands slide lower, grasping at your thighs, pushing your skirt up around your hips. His fingers dance along the lace of your panties, teasing the sensitive fabric. "Let me show you how much I've missed you. Let me remind you of all the ways I can pleasure you.” You let out shaky breaths as he pulls away from the kiss, a string of saliva connecting your lips as you look up at him with a flustered look. "Yes, I've missed you, so much. Should've never broken up.." You lift your hips up off the bed slightly to help him slide off your panties.  He tosses the damp cloth aside, his gaze devouring the sight of your naked sex. "You haven't regretted it, Y/n. Not really." His voice is a silky snake, smooth and inviting, yet coiled with danger and intent. He leans down, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks. "But don't worry, baby. I'll make you forget all about your regrets. I'll remind you of why you loved me in the first place." His hand spreads you open, exposing your wet, eager flesh to his hungry gaze. His finger circles your clit, teasing the sensitive bud. "I'll show you how much I've missed you. How much I love you." He dips his finger deeper, swirling the tip of his finger in your slick folds, gathering your arousal. You let out a whiny moan, sending him an impatient glare that looked more desperate by the second. "Damn it, Jiyan...please stop teasing me already." You speaks in a whinier voice than intended, your legs spreading a little wider, desperate to be utterly suffocated by pleasure.

He sees your desperation, hears the plea in your voice. "Oh, I'm going to tease you, Y/n. I'm going to torture you with pleasure until you can't think straight." His finger continues its wicked dance, circling and teasing, dipping and swirling. He's stoking the flames of your desire, building you up only to deny you release. "I'm going to make you beg, baby. Beg for my cock, for me to fill you up." He leans down to brush his lips against yours with every word he spoke. "I'm going to ruin you for anyone else. You'll only be able to accept the pleasure I give you." You couldn't think straight anymore, only focusing on the way his fingers continue to tease your pussy. You're nothing but a whiny and moaning mess, your cheeks pink and eyes half lidded as your gaze flicks from his hand between your legs to his face repeatedly. "Oh fuck...please, Jiyan. Please I need you inside me." You whine softly, his teasing driving you crazy. He sees your desperation, hears the plea in your voice, you could even feel his lips curl into a wicked smile. "Not yet, Y/n. I'm not done playing with you yet." His fingers continues its wicked dance, circling and teasing, dipping and swirling. "You need to beg for it, baby. Beg me to fuck you." He whispers against your lips "Tell me how badly you need my cock. How much you crave it." He slides two of his fingers inside you but just barley, moving the digits in a scissoring motion to prepare you.

Any walls you once had up for him broke down as he kept teasing you, building up your arousal but never giving you release. "Jiyan...fuck...please fuck me. Please fill me up with your cock." You beg, your eyes staring into his with a pathetic desperate look on your face. "Please stretch me and fill me, no one has ever compared to you. I miss your cock so much." You plead in a whiny tone, any shame you once had is gone. He sees your desperation, hears the pathetic plea in your voice. A dark smile spreads across his face. "Oh, my love...you want my cock so badly, don't you?" His fingers pause their movements momentarily, his hand pulling back from you and you think that he's finally giving you what you desire. "I can give you that, Y/n. I can fill you up with my big, hard cock." He leans down, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks. "But you have to promise me one thing..." His hand slides up your body only to wrap around your throat. His grip is firm, possessive, a threat underlying the words. "You have to promise me that you'll never leave me again. That you'll be mine, completely, forever." His other hand fists in your hair, forcing your eyes to meet his. He's demanding your surrender, your complete and utter submission. "Do that, and I'll give you the pleasure you crave. I'll fuck you so hard, you won't be able to walk straight for a week."

Your eyes widened, your heart beating faster as your eyes met his during the intense moment. Even with the slight fear, you didn't hesitate to answer, his suffocating warmth better than your cold painful life. "Yes, I..I promise. I'll never leave you again, I'll be yours. Forever." You promised, a shaky breath following your words. A chill runs down his spine and his heart beats faster as he hears the words of promise that he set out to hear the moment you left him. "Good girl, Y/n. You won't regret this." His hand loosens around your throat, sliding down to lace with your fingers. He brings your joined hands to his lips, kissing them soundly as his eyes gaze into yours. "Now, are you ready for me, my love?" His other hand reaches over to grab his pants, pulling out his massive erection. It's thick and long, pulsing with need. "I'm going to fuck you so good, baby. Gonna make you scream my name." He positions himself between your legs, the head of his cock notching against your slick entrance, eliciting a gasp from you. The feeling is familiar, something you thought about often late at night whenever any of your latest boyfriends couldn't please you. Your hands grip his shoulders, preparing for what's to come, your pussy wet and welcoming his cock. "Oh...yes, Jiyan." You mutter softly, your gaze focusing on the space between their bodies and the way his hands grip your hips, holding you steady as he begins to push inside. "That's it, baby. Take my cock. Let me fill you up." He throbs inside you, his thickness stretching you in all the right ways. He's claiming you, reclaiming you. "You're so tight, Y/n. So wet and slick for me." He leans down, his lips brushing against your ear as he speaks. "I'm going to fuck you good, baby. Gonna make you forget about everything, everyone else." He begins to thrust, pulling almost entirely out of your pussy before slamming back inside, making you nearly choke on a gasp from the impactful feeling and squeak out a high pitched moan. . But you throw your head back, back arching and nails dig into his shoulders. "Oh fuck, Jiyan...oh yes." You moan out, your pussy clenching around his cock as he stretches your soft walls.

"That's it, baby. Moan for me. Let me hear how much you love my cock." He thrusts inside you, brutal and possessive. "You're mine, Y/n. Completely. Forever." His hands grip your hips, holding you in place as he fucks you hard and fast. His cock throbs, a demand for your total surrender. "Give in to me, baby. Give up everything else for me. I'm the only one who matters now." His words are a seductive promise, a lure meant to draw you deeper into his web of desire. Your nails dig into his back creating a long line of scratch marks to his shoulders, a hiss escaping his lips from the slight pain. Your eyes squeeze shut from all the pleasure, your lips staying parted as your moans seem endless, if it wasn't clear you've surrendered to him, it is now. "Gonna make you mine in every way, Y/n. Gonna ruin you for anyone else." His hands leave your hips, sliding up your body to wrap around your throat and grip your hair. He forces your eyes to meet his, demanding your complete focus. "Look at me, Y/n. Tell me you're mine." He squeezes your throat gently, just enough to remind you of his strength and control. Your breath hitches, your eyes focusing back up onto his face again, his eyes boring into yours. The feeling of being so controlled by him only intensified your pleasure. "I'm yours." You answer quickly in a desperate tone, your eyes squeezing shut as you feel close.

He feels your submission, sees the desire in your eyes. "Good girl, Y/n. You're so close, aren't you? So close to coming apart for me." He continues to fuck you with fasts thrusts, the tip of his cock hitting that spot inside of you that made you see stars that no one else could reach. "Let it happen, baby. Let yourself go. I want to feel you shake and scream for me." His hand tightens around your throat slightly, just enough to add pressure and intensity to your building orgasm. "Cum for me, Y/n. Cum hard. Cum all over my cock.” Your nails dig deeper into the skin of his back, leaving deep red marks as you moan out his name, your pussy fluttering and squeezing around his cock as you came. He feels your orgasm, sees the ecstasy on your face and he his lips curl into a slight smile. "That's it, baby. Cum for me. I love watching you fall apart." He continues to thrust inside you, his cock throbbing with each motion. He's savoring your pleasure, prolonging your ecstasy. "You're so beautiful when you cum for me, Y/n. So fucking beautiful." He leans down, his lips brushing against your ear. "I'm going to fuck you through another one, baby. Gonna make you forget your own name." His hands grip your hips, holding you steady as he pistons in and out of your spent pussy.

Your lips part with a whiny moan as he continues to thrust into you, not letting you have a moment to breathe after your orgasm. "Oh fuck...Jiyan, I cant.." You whine out softly as your eyes squeeze shut, your body twitching from the overstimulation but he doesn't stop. One of his hands lift off your hips and grabs one of your hands, intertwining your fingers while he tilts his head to press sweet little kisses down your neck. "Yes, you can, my love. You can take so much more." He speaks so softly while he thrusts his cock faster into your pussy, groaning as you squeeze around him. "You're so fucking tight, Y/n. So wet and slick for me." His hand slides down, his fingers finding your clit. He rubs the sensitive nub in circular motions and in time with his thrusts. "Cum for me again, darling." He whispers softly and as your body writhes in pleasure beneath him. He grunts, feeling the familiar squeeze and pulse of your pussy as you came, his eyes lighting up with such intense love and desire, so pleased to finally have you a mess in his arms once again. And he finally comes undone soon after you, tucking his head in the crook of your neck as he bites down on your soft skin to muffle his moan as he came deep inside of you. Both of you lay still like that for a few moments, panting lightly to catch your breath.

He seems to recover quicker than you, slowly pulling out his cock, making you shiver from the feeling of being so empty again. You thought he was done, opening your eyes to gaze up at him with a sweet smile but that quickly fades as you notice he's grabbing your legs, lifting them up onto his shoulders and he aligns himself with your entrance. He grins down at you, chuckling softly. "You didn't think we were done, did you? Oh, my sweet darling, we have two years to make up for."

[badomenslullaby]

Dont know if you take blurb requests but I wanted to ask for one (no pressure❤)

What about, something like the reader and Noah being together for a couple months and she thinks that he's gonna leave her for whatever reason but Noah 'reassures' her so she can keep calm.

Idk if you like this but do what you please with it❤

Okay, I got overly excited and a little nervous writing this, but I hope this is what you were semi-looking for. If not, I will do it again without hesitation! :) :)

I may or may not have read other blurbs to make sure I was doing this right.

Song

Masterlist

Three glorious months—seemingly a blink in the vast of time, yet profoundly meaningful in the journey you and Noah have navigated. It marks the peak of three years of friendship, a journey paved with shared laughter, countless conversations, and moments of unspoken understanding. Finally reaching the finish line, you both have embarked on a new chapter, intertwining your lives in a bond strengthened by trust, mutual admiration, and a deep-rooted connection. Every day shows the lasting beauty of your relationship and the profound impact of love, which thrives and grows with each passing moment.

Things seemed like they couldn't get more perfect until your first big fight. You posted a picture of you and Noah cuddling up in his bed, and he freaked out a little. He was one for complete privacy regarding the internet, but you wanted to shout your relationship to the world. It was hard for you to understand why he didn’t want pictures of you two posted, and it was even more challenging for you not to take it as personally as you did. You have been holed up in your room blasting "Lover Dearest '' by Marianas Trench for an intense hour, screaming and crying the lyrics to yourself.

You felt like he was going to break up with you sometime in the near future, and it was getting harder and harder for you not to freak out about it. This caused you to slightly distance yourself from him, which wasn’t hard due to him working in the studio a lot lately. Everything seemed reduced to slower texts, fewer calls, and limited visits for several weeks. You knew it was because once Noah had a creative flow, he couldn’t be slowed down, but emotionally, it felt like he was avoiding you because he didn't want you around anymore.

There was a knock on your door, so you slowly got up to answer it. On the other side was Noah, who had a bouquet of your favorite flowers and a big smile on his face. His expression slightly faltered when he saw your tear-streaked face. Confusion crossed his features when he heard the song you were playing. 

“Why are you listening to your break-up song?” He asked. That just pushed you over the edge and made your tears fall again. He grabbed your face with his free hand, wiping away the tears. “Hey…shhhh, it’s okay, baby. What’s going on?” he asked, concern laced in his voice.

“Are you going to break up with me?” You asked through sniffles and hiccups. Avoiding eye contact, you couldn't bear to see his face, knowing it would only deepen your heartbreak.

Seeing the anguish in your eyes, Noah's expression softened with understanding. After setting down the flowers, he gently cupped your face with both hands, coaxing you to look at him. 

"Hey, no, no, baby, I'm not going to break up with you," he reassured you, his voice filled with sincerity. "I love you, okay? I'm here for you."

Feeling relieved, you finally meet his gaze, tears still glistening. With a shaky breath, you leaned into his embrace, comforting yourself with his reassuring presence. Noah held you close, his arms wrapping around you protectively as you let yourself release the pent-up emotions weighing on you. Looking up at him, you both get swept up in the feelings, and he kisses you. At first, it starts slow and gentle, a way for him to show you that he understands your feelings and will be there to take the pain away. Then it starts to turn hungry, showing you his passion for you and that he isn’t going anywhere.

Leading him to your room, you lay on your bed as he climbs over you. The air is thick with anticipation and desire as he leans in to kiss you, his lips tender and warm against yours. As the kiss deepens, you feel a surge of emotion wash over you, the intensity of your connection palpable in every touch.

For the next hour, Noah worships you and every inch of your body, his lips and hands moving with purpose and passion. Each caress declares his love and commitment, reassuring you that he isn't going anywhere. In his embrace, you feel safe and cherished, the worries and doubts of earlier fading into the background as you lose yourself in the moment. Time seems to stand still as you revel in the intimacy and closeness you share, knowing that together, you can weather any storm that comes your way.

[trekscribbles]

The Bushwhack Job: Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen

(Disclaimer: This is a relatively rough draft and subject to change when I post to AO3. I'm just overly excited and want to share what I have.)

Eliot hit the ground forearm-first, rolling along the left side of his body to spare himself as much pain as possible. Lancaster’s shot went high—he heard it thud into the wall, well past the desk he’d landed beneath—but his attention was on the sound of Parker’s footsteps as she broke from cover. One, two, three... The door crashed open, and Lancaster’s answering shot came four seconds too late.

Parker was safe. The rest, he’d figure out.

The radio buzzed against the floor in the middle of the lobby, and he heard a muffled, “Ford, I have Parker. Come around to the front. Lancaster’s still inside with Spencer.”

Thank God for J.B. He really didn’t know how he was going to repay him.

“Hear that?” Eliot called. “Now it’s just you and me. We can still walk out of here before the police show up.”

“No one’s walking out,” Lancaster said. “But you’re right about one thing: we don’t have time to play. Stand up. I won’t shoot, I just want to talk to you face to face.”

Eliot snorted. “Somehow, I’m doubting your sincerity.”

“I give you my word.”

That was as good as useless, but if Eliot wanted to keep him talking long enough to chance an escape, he had to play along. “All right,” he said, sucking in a fortifying breath before straightening behind the desk. His right leg throbbed, and he could feel the blood soaking into his jeans—another pair of Sunny’s ruined. He’d never pay her back at this rate.

Lancaster stood across the room, his derringer aimed at Eliot’s chest. “See you worked your hands free,” Eliot said, rolling his shoulders. “What took you so long? We shouldn’t have been able to beat you down the stairs.”

Lancaster grinned. “I had to stop at my safe. Didn’t want this to get caught up in the explosion.”

He lifted a gun belt, and Eliot snorted. “Don’t you think you’re taking this cowboy thing a little too far?”

“This isn’t a cowboy thing,” Lancaster sneered. “This is a Colt Model 1860 Army Percussion Revolver, owned by Jesse James himself when he rode with the Quantrill Raiders. I bought it for $230,000, but I figured once I found the James treasure, it would sell for twice that.”

A flicker of color outside caught Eliot’s eye: police lights. Their sirens joined the wail of the alarm, and Eliot did his best to push the noise to the back of his mind. “Hard to dig up a treasure on someone else’s property,” he said.

“Well, with you out of the way, that won’t be much of a problem.”

Eliot eased a step backward, shuffling to keep from putting too much pressure on his right leg. “You don’t know Sunny June very well.”

“I don’t need to,” Lancaster said. “That’s the beauty of money. You never have to get your hands dirty.”

“Until now,” Eliot said.

“Until now.” Lancaster lifted the gun, sighting down his arm and closing one eye. “A fact I’m about to remedy.”

Eliot braced himself to turn and run, but Lancaster didn’t shoot. Instead, he bent his knees, set the gun at his feet, and slid it across the floor toward Eliot.

“Pick it up,” he said.

Eliot stared at him. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Shooting at the range is one thing,” Lancaster said, sliding the gun belt off his shoulder and fastening it around his waist. “But I’ve always wanted to know how I’d measure up in a real gun fight.”

“Your gun is 150 years old,” Eliot said. “And mine has a range of like seven yards. Not exactly worthy of the O.K. Corral.”

“You scared?” Lancaster needled.

Eliot laughed. “That don’t work on professionals, hoss. I got nothing to prove to you.”

“Then put it this way.” Lancaster spun the cylinder on his revolver, sliding bullets in as he spoke. “I’m shooting either way. You can pick up that gun and defend yourself, or stand there and take a bullet. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Fire sirens joined the cacophony of alarms, but no one was coming inside. Waiting for the bomb squad, probably—he had to keep stalling. Slowly, he lowered himself into a crouch and reached for the derringer, his eyes on Lancaster’s right hand. He’d holstered the gun and stood with his feet planted wide, grinning.

“How do you see this going down?” Eliot asked. 

Lancaster flexed his hands. “You pick up the gun. It’s already loaded, but you’ll need to cock the hammer. Stand with it at your side, and then we draw. Fastest man wins.”

“Speed’s got nothing to do with it if you can’t land a hit,” Eliot said.

“Then I guess we’re about to test your aim.”

Great—Eliot had no idea if he could shoot. Probably, given his other skills, but it would be just his luck that guns weren’t one of the weapons he was apparently proficient with. But even if he could shoot, even if he could manage to hit Lancaster at the edge of the derringer’s range, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Whatever he’d done in the past, whoever he’d been before… he didn’t want to be a killer. Parker had trusted him to follow her out, and if killed Lancaster now…

He wasn’t sure how much of himself would stay behind.

“On three?” Eliot asked. He’d picked up the gun, frowning at the feel of the short handle in his palm, but was careful to keep it pointed away from Lancaster. 

“So you can shoot on two?” Lancaster said. “You’re not getting inside my head, Spencer. Just draw.”

“It’s not really drawing if I don’t have a holster,” Eliot muttered. He lifted the gun carefully, keeping it at his hip as he rose on his good leg.

“There’s no talking your way out of this one,” Lancaster said, sneering. “Either way, you’re not getting out of this alive.”

Eliot went still. “Either way?”

Lancaster’s fingers twitched, and his gaze darted toward a clock on the wall over Eliot’s head. “You think you’re the only one who can stall?”

Alarms and sirens screamed. Eliot’s heart pounded, sending stabs of adrenaline through him—but no fear. Time was up, and he was getting out. 

He’d made a promise.

“You assumed I had to call to set off the bombs,” Lancaster said, misinterpreting his silence. “That ain’t the only way to do it. I would’ve taken a long lunch, only to come back and find the evil Mr. Ford had made good on his threats again—but this will work. You’ve got about ten seconds to decide whether you want to go out with a bang or a bullet.”

Eliot fired. He aimed high, hoping to take Lancaster by surprise, make him flinch—hoping to steal an extra second while he turned for the door. Lancaster’s gun clicked behind him—a misfire—the idiot had probably tried using the ammunition in the gun belt. He didn’t look over his shoulder to see if Lancaster was following. He fixed his eyes on the doors—on the golden hair he could see beyond them.

The explosion started above them. Without the charges in the basement, the building shook, but held—windows burst overhead, raining glass down on the sidewalk outside. The firefighters and police flinched at the sound, hurrying to usher spectators out of the way. Eliot’s leg gave out and he stumbled, caught himself on one hand, and ran on. He was ten feet away—seven, five, two.

The next charges blew as his hand hit the door, and the force of the blast threw it open, glass shattering around him. He lost his feet, crashing into the sidewalk as heat exploded against his back, and then something hit his head—

[bt-tarot]

hi, ozzy! hope all's well 🫶🏻

Could u see how's Hyunjin as a boyfriend? love the way u write your readings and how u express it S2

Hi!! First of all, I want to say sorry bc I haven't been posting much lately, the energy of the eclipse is making me feel drained and also everything has been really hectic these days.

I will split this reading in two because is really long, like REALLY long. At least the tarot part. A lot of cards fell.

✨Hyunjin as a boyfriend Pt. 1✨

Five of Pentacles + Page of Cups, Nine of Pentacles, The World Ten of Swords + The Empress Rev. Bottom of the deck: Seven of Cups Rev.

Date of the reading: 2025/03/07

♡Touch here for part 2♡

I think in early stages of the relationship he would feel insecure or shy, but he would open up and offer his sincere feelings from the beginning. He would like to give his all to his partner and start very innocently, but as the relationship progresses his insecurities will make him slowly isolate himself. He may feel that he can’t provide enough or be present enough because of his responsibilities or he might feel left in the cold at times even though the other person is making the effort.

Aside from his insecurities, I think he would put a lot of care into it, like a plant, he would nurture the connection and take care of the relationship. He would be very caring and kind. He would love to keep doing that for a long period of time. I’m getting that he would like to see how the relationship will develop in the future and he would be very excited about who he will become and how they both will grow and transform with the relationship. It's like he wants to have a time machine and see how they both would look like as an old couple.

His ultimate goal is to spend a lot of time with them, to feel fulfilled. I think that when he’s in a relationship he often sees it as the completion of a cicle or something that needed to happen in order to grow and become a better person. I’m getting he enters in a relationship with the final goal of knowing the person deeply and know if they can take the next step live together or marriage and he doesn’t like to waste time in unfulfilling relationships. He learns to love bits of himself with his partners and he wants to do the same for them. He thinks often about how would it be like to be completely vulnerable with someone and receive the same openness.

I got kind of a side note. He might be prone to deception. I think he often idolizes his partners, like really putting them on the highest pedestal but since they’re only humans, he would feel betrayed when they fall from it. It’s not entirely his fault, because I don’t think he does this intentionally, but it’s not his partner’s fault either, because it’s not their responsibility to fit the idea he has of them. I think because he idolizes his person he doesn’t see their flaws at first, no matter how heavy those are, so once reality hits is really painful.

I think he would feel terrible after putting them down the pedestal, but at the same time, from the start he knew deep in his heart that this would’ve happened, because it happened before, but he’s always sure he’s not idolizing the other person until it’s too late and then he gets hurt and everything falls apart. I’m getting that at times like this he feels guilty as well because he knows he should expect nothing, but he can’t slow down his feelings or thoughts, it just happens.

Aside from that I’m getting that he narrows his options, I don't understand if it's before he's in the relationship or after, tho. He’s a one person’s boy, he will fixate over someone. He loves so intensely that anything else just disappears. Not like he would be overly possessive or obsessive, but he will be loyal, committed and exclusive. He would like to do romantic things together and he just wants to freeze time to make the most of it with his lover. He would like to take all of his ideas and the romantic stuff he envisions and make them all a reality with his partner. His partner must expect to do a lot of activities because I think he has a loooong list of ideas that he wants to do with his partner, call it dates, topics he wants to discuss, games that he wants to play, books that he want to recommend, music he wants to listen together, anything, really. It’s almost like he wants to live life all over again but with his person.♠︎

✦•┈๑⋅⋯ ⋯⋅๑┈•✦

Thank you for waiting! I liked this reading, I like when the spirits help and I connect well with the energy of the person I'm reading.

Honestly, Hyunjin's energy have been very easy to read, I don't know if it's the questions or that he likes my decks but this gave me a lot of info and I think is coherent? It's crazy because you can't make this things up and it just fits him like a glove that surprises me.

I don't even know what am I surprised about, I'm the one who reads tarot cards and study astrology but I don't know! I still find it so magical and mind blowing how everything connects and matches and how the cards work it's just... I love this.

And thank you for liking my readings! I wish I could just speed up and answer all the questions but it takes time sometimes... Specially with long reading like this.

I also think that I'm becoming a yapper with this kind of readings, I usually don't like to write much at the end of the posts like I'm doing rn, I want to keep it simpler, but it's like when you hang out with extroverted people and you end up matching their energy, that's what I feel after connecting with this kind of energies. It feels refreshing and safe.

Part two is up now!

Thank you for asking 🦇♡

[wolfgirlwithahalo]

“Hi! I’m Maddy! Nice to meet you! Please, come on in!” *I smile brightly and my tail wags softly behind me*

Hi! I’m Maddy! I’m a wolf-girl! This side blog is my safe space for comfy and cozy and cuddly and cute things alike! Everything all about me, you can find right here! I’m suuuuper duper emotionally sensitive, so please be considerate and nice when interacting on this page! Thank you! Oh! And this intro post will probably be updated regularly, as I love to think up of more things to share about myself with everyone, and make my bio more pretty, too! Make it more…well, me themed!

Below the cut, is all about me!

Anywhos it whatsit, here’s some things about me!

Hmmmm, let’s see…well, I’m 20 years old, my birthday is on May 25th, I’m a female, my pronouns are she/her, I’m a Gemini, I’m straight, and currently mateless. My persona is a wolf-girl / animal-girl hybrid because it makes me feel comfortable in my own skin and happy! It’s how I express myself, so please be open and understanding of that!

And no, this persona is not apart of the therian/otherkin, agere/petre, or did system communities, though it does represent a more animalistic and childlike side of me, and all mentioned communities are welcome here ( as this blog will probably only be sfw ) as long as you follow my dni!

Here’s my personality and general appearance!

Appearance: Short, tiny, hourglass body. Long, wavy brunette hair. Lavender doe eyes. Long eyelashes. Fair, flawless, pale skin. Sharp teeth/claws. White wolf ears & tail. Short pretty flowy lavender dress!

Personality: Innocent, pure, sensitive, fragile, delicate, weak, vulnerable, kid-gloved, easily hurt and scared and overwhelmed, timid, shy, skittish, timorous, introverted yet extroverted, oversensitive, soft, touchy, emotional, moody, overly emotional, impressionable, dependent, reliant, pack-oriented, family-oriented, clingy, needy, bratty, pouty, naive, childish, childlike, cry/whiny baby, ingénue, sinless, virtuous, giddy, giggly, ingenious, genuine, honest, sincere, loyal, devoted, committed, caring, loving, sweet, gentle, naturally affectionate, compassionate, considerate, thoughtful, passionate, kindhearted, trustworthy, trusting, blissfully ignorant/unaware, essentially dumber than a virgin, and I has separation/social anxiety and have occasional attachments!

My hobbies, likes, dislikes/hates, favorites, & fears!

Hobbies: Drawing, sleeping, listening to music, playing video games, cuddling, watching movies and YouTube, playing, napping, collecting figures and plushies, laying in bed with my plushies, buying more plushies, snuggling, and taking baths!

Likes: Animals!, pet/nicknames, being called by name, father/big brother figures, other wolf/fox/dog boys! :0, protectors, big strong nice males, gentlemen, love and affection, cuddles and snuggles, hugs and kisses, nuzzles and closeness, touch and attention, ear and back rubs, being pet, my tail, my hair and tail being pet and brushed, baths, naps, games, gentleness, sweetness, innocence, wholesomeness, playtime, nap time, praise, cleanliness, being asked for consent or permission to touch and pet, especially my fur!

Dislikes/Hates: Animal abuse! >:0, being teased, females, meanies, bullies, mean males, roughness, pain, smokers, hunters and the like, dirt and crumbs in my fur, not being asked for consent or permission before touching, especially my fur!, and males who only talk to me because they’re feeling naughty! T^T

Favorites:

Color: Lavender/Lilac purple! 🪻💜

Animal: Wolves, or canines in general! 🐺🦊

Food/Snacks: Cucumbers, potatoes, smoothies, and anything and everything sweets! 🥒🥔🥤🍪

Time of Day/Weather: At night, or when it’s gray and raining/thundering! 🌑⛈️

Season: Fall or winter! 🍁❄️

Flower: Lavender, lilacs, roses and peonies!🪻🌸🌹🌺

Fears: Fireworks, bugs, especially cockroaches and spiders!, ghosts, and overly dominant males

And here’s some more things & medias that I’m into!

Anime: Attack on Titan, Black Butler, Demon Slayer, Haikyuu!, Jujutsu Kaisen, Komi Can’t Communicate, My Hero Academia, Spy X Family, Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Revengers

Video Games: Animal Crossing, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Kirby, Genshin Impact, Honkai Starrail, Zenless Zone Zero, Wuthering Waves, Spyro, Super Mario Bros.

Movies: How to Train Your Dragon, Howl’s Moving Castle, Luca, My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, Raya and the Last Dragon, Super Mario Bros., Tangled, Turning Red

“Where’s Mr. Ratio…? I miss him…can we go find him?” *My fluffy ears and tail droop low and I whimper sadly*

I’m also a vegan for the animals! So talk about animal abuse / cruelty with me will not be appreciated in the slightest! And if you are, or support or are neutral about the following things, please do not interact, and leave me in peace without any comments or confrontation, or even if you’re just curious about it!

DNI: Hunters/hunting, trappers/trapping, smokers/smoking, vapers/vaping, juulers/juuling, four-twenty/weed/marijuana/drug related, fishers/fishing, animal farmers/farming, taxidermists/taxidermy, vulture culture/enthusiasts, “oddity” manufacturers/collectors, animal part ( fur, skin, pelts, bones, skeletons, claws, teeth, feet, hooves, antlers, horns, jackets, coats, boots, leather, clothing, jewelry, accessories, decorations, insects, roadkill ) selling/buying/collecting, z••iles, horse riders/riding, horse racers/racing, dog racers/racing, dog sledders/sledding, com-/pro-/self-shippers, etc. etc.

You will be blocked immediately if you violate my DNI

( Will not be answering asks/questions about any dni topics on this blog, this is for my safe topics only! Makes my heart beat and hurt like crazy…too stressful, too scary… )

Tags because I want to find people to follow!

[bill-gates-hate-blog]

2024 was a ...challenging year, to say the least. To be frank, I experienced some of the worst things that can happen to anybody, at least insofar as interpersonal relationships. I've been on the receiving end of unbelievable amounts of misogyny and victim blaming from people I trusted, or had assumed were good people, to put it very lightly. People I had known for almost 12 years, at this point. I'm 24. That's half my life.

I'm not a person who generally likes to post things in a sincere way, at least not when it comes to stuff like this. I tend to joke about my own abuse a lot, and I've also made some angry vent posts on here when everything first started going down. I'm all about the art of Posting, even though I'm not very good at it. Sincerity is something I reserve for my friends.

Why share this at all? It's mostly for me, as a capstone to the old year. Symbolic, in a way. Talking about it brings me peace. But it could also help somebody else.

Trigger warnings for SA, emotional abuse, suicidal ideation... all that good stuff.

Earlier this year, in April, I was sexually assaulted by a close friend. We had been flirting on and off for about a year at that point, but I had rapidly grown uncomfortable with it.

He had a girlfriend. A girlfriend who I didn't want to harm, even though I would never have described us as the best of friends.

She was asexual, you see. And this guy... did not handle it well. I think some ace/allo couples can make it work. This guy was obviously not capable of that.

You see, unbeknownst to me at the time, long before he started hitting on me, I had been a dumping ground for his abuse. Whenever his girlfriend didn't live up to the insane pedestal he had put her on, he would take it out on me. Not in romantic contexts, mind you.

I joined this website in 2015, at the age of 15. Fun fact, I didn't have consistent access to the internet, then or before. My parents would shut off the wifi whenever they saw fit, to punish us--even if we needed if for school projects. Overly restrictive at best.

Tumblr was my first real social media presence, and I had irl friends on the site (love you soph). It was also the first time I could talk to or contact anybody outside of school or orchestra rehearsals or whatnot. I had no phone, no way to plan hangouts with my friends, and to be frank, I couldn't spend time with anybody unless they invited me somewhere. My family's house is so desperately messy that we couldn't invite people over. Even now, I come home for Christmas and I have to pick one room to clean before I get exhausted. I come back three weeks later and it's messy again.

Tumblr was also the first platform on which he abused me. Mind you, he wasn't here as a Blogger or anything. He made his Tumblr just to communicate with me, because I was so isolated from my friends by my lack of a phone.

You see, my friend had horrendous depression when we were in high school. It was, I now realize, something that was comorbid with his EXTREMELY undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder (as well as unmedicated ADHD.) Part of the reason he had acquired a girlfriend at this time, he'd tell me a few years later, was that he was looking desperately, for any reason to live. Whenever he started getting suicidal, he'd text this girlfriend.

When she told him she could no longer handle it, he'd go to me.

And that's how it started. He'd get on this website, he'd talk about how depressed he was--then he'd start random arguments, subtly devalue me, and accuse me of lacking empathy for his pain. There was one particularly egregious example where he sent me a several paragraph long text about how I should french kiss a woodchipper. I could not for the life of me tell you what provoked that. Something completely innocuous, i think. He revealed later that it was all something he did on purpose to make himself feel worse, because by provoking me i would hurt him, and he's the real victim here, right?

I'd try everything to help, because I loved my friend, but it's obviously not a task any teenage girl should be taking on. Ultimately, I just ended up taking on the brunt of his abuse because I was so scared he'd hurt himself, and I made excuses whenever he mistreated me. It will not escape the astute reader that I probably had an abusive upbringing, too.

I started getting an addictive rush every time an interaction went well. I loved talking to him. I couldn't possibly explain why, back then. I thought we must have simply had a very strong friendship, one where we made up quickly after every argument. Of course, I forgave him after every apology he never meant.

This is something called a trauma bond.

It's a coping mechanism for being trapped in the cycle of abuse, and it's often the thing that keeps you trapped, if it's not financial ties or having children with someone.

In junior year, on the second day of school, he tried to commit suicide by overdosing. He told me. Not only that, he told me it was all my fault, and that I wouldn't even care. I didn't notice, because I was too busy hyperventilating and calling 911. There was a terrifying moment where I couldn't remember his address.

But he's here. Alive. On this planet. Because of my actions. I don't pretend it makes me a good person or anything, I think anybody would have done it. I'm not special.

He got diagnosed with ADHD after that, and managed to get on medication for his depression. I'm not sure he stopped abusing me, but the instances where he'd pretend my feelings didn't matter or that he'd have an outrageous outburst of cruelty slowed down. Became more sporadic. By the time we were in college, things were pretty good.

In 2021, I moved to Pittsburgh full-time. I had decided to work for the same university where I had acquired my degree. He had come to Duquesne univesity in 2020, after taking his gen eds at a community college in my hometown. Predictably, we started spending time and drinking together. He had a girlfriend, so I never considered him available and for the first time, his relationship actually seemed to be based on love and mutual trust--not the looming threat of suicide lest his girlfriend ever leave him.

Still, one night September of 2022, when we were both really drunk, he started pestering me asking if he could put his face in my tits. I took it as a joke at first, but he kept asking. Eventually I did it just to shut him up (and he did a right shoddy job of it) but I felt uncomfortable around him for months. I have... never been in a relationship, nor had I anything remotely resembling a sexual encounter at this point.

I think my hypersexuality started here. I dreaded seeing him again, until it was suddenly fine, we talked about the tit incident, and I'd forgiven him. I did notice a significant uptick in my libido, but I still considered him off limits. Instead, I found myself randomly crushing on a different male friend seemingly out of nowhere. I obsessively started to crave physical touch and had no idea how to get it, and i couldn't make my brain work the way dating apps wanted me to. On my birthday in march of 2023, the other male friend and I cuddled a bunch -- I realized this was one of the first times I had acted on my hypersexuality with another person, mild though it was.

When my roommate had to leave the city due to the rising costs of student loans and studying at the university I worked at, I moved into a one-bedroom apartment. My other "friend" who went to Carnegie Mellon had graduated earlier that year. My abuser and I were alone. His girlfriend was graduated and gone home to eastern PA.

Now there was nobody to watch us. And he took advantage of it.

In late july of 2023, once my beloved roommate had taken all the skeletons in the divorce, my abuser confessed to me that he'd always fantasized about me. I dismissed it, once again, as drunken antics. But suddenly I felt so vindicated! It felt nice, as a girl who had never been approached like that, who had been "one of the guys," to be validated as a woman, as a sexual being. I told him "As long as you don't act on it, it's probably fine." He later told me his plan that night had been to sleep with me so he could break up with his girlfriend and kill himself. Awesome, right? What a normal thing to be told.

Things started to escalate with a slow boil after that, though never very far. We'd start talking about our fantasies, and I liked to gather physical touch from him in ways i thought were innocent. He revealed to me his girlfriend was asexual--something she'd actually previously told me, and had me really confused when he first revealed that they'd had sex. I figured she just might have been demisexual like me, but it seemed she had told him she'd never wanted to have sex with him again. He took it very maturely, as you can clearly see throughout this whole saga.

That relationship wasn't long for this world, I knew. Even then, I didn't want to be the thing that broke them up, despite my growing uncontrollable attraction to him. None of my friends would ever forgive me. I just hoped that he'd have the sense to see they were incompatible, and break up amicably.

Lol. Lmao.

Eventually, I got sick of him slowly pushing my boundaries more and more, and I told him I didn't want to hurt his girlfriend, and we needed to stop. I minimized contact, I refused to drink with him anymore, I just wanted to spend time together as friends. He started guilt tripping me, but that was that.

In January, after holiday break, we had a mutual friend come to my apartment. I figured he wouldn't be stupid to bring up our drama when I had considered it over and done with in November. I was comically wrong, and the friend overheard everything. He said that I was "starting to catch feelings too strongly" and that I was "playing the game" (He was very upset I had mentioned our affair to two of our mutual friends, and he wanted to make sure I was swiftly punished for it.) I had also tried to be sincere with him about how I was feeling the last time we had seen each other, though I hadn't called it love at that point. I just liked being with him.

Trauma bond will do some fuckshit to you, but I was trying my best to be a good person despite that-- be honest about my feelings--all of them, even the ones that were wrong, in the hopes that all of this could be solved in a way that wasn't completely catastrophic.

Well, I do realize now he was doing some comical levels of blameshifting, but he told me we shouldn't see each other for a solid two months--fine. But he didn't have to drag this up in front of our poor, unrelated friend. I was furious.

The next time we spent time together, he sexually assaulted me. I use that term because neither 'groping' nor 'rape' is accurate. He jumped on top of me, shoved his face in my breasts, started massaging my waist, told me how pretty I was, and when he went in to kiss my neck. I pushed his jaw away with the heel of my palm. Obviously not the most traumatic thing anybody ever experienced, but enough to make me lose 10 pounds in a week. I had no appetite. He started wallowing in my DMs after that. I told him I understood why he drew the conclusions he drew, and that we both had shit to work on. I could tell he wanted to see me so badly... things were going wrong with his girlfriend again. Well, he was graduating in a month. Now I didn't need to feel sorry at all when he'd leave me alone in Pittsburgh.

I only told my best friend. I didn't want to shatter the friend group and I suspected no one would believe me. (Edit: Also important: The Fear of him killing himself if his girlfriend broke up with him.) Said best friend would be coming over in a few weeks for his birthday. Then he would be driving me home in late may, in tow with all the furniture he was taking from the apartment he'd be vacating. That was it.

I felt horrible for a few days. Then it set my blood on fire.

I told my best friend "I need to remember how Saturday felt," because I could feel my libido rapidly rising. Every second he wasn't there felt like there were razor blades in my veins.

I figured I hadn't been affected by the assault, because i wasn't sex-averse or touch averse like many assault victims. It was something I craved more than ever. I wasn't ever going to approach him, but I knew I wasn't going to stop him if he tried something.

And he tried. He tried many things. We only saw each other three times after that, and every time he took something more, went a little further. Very frequently without asking. Largely this stuff falls under the umbrella of sexual coercion-- I wouldn't have consented to it if he had asked-- but it was generally things I didn't want to say no to. I wanted it violently. I reasoned that I must have allowed it to happen because I was in love with him.

Every time he left, it brought more pain. I couldn't eat. I figured that was what heartbreak felt like. I kept trying to move on and reaffirm myself without him, and kept it secret because I didn't know what would happen if I snitched.

He came back an extra time in early july, with a group of my friends. I figured he wouldn't be stupid enough to try something with four of our other friends supervising us. I was, again, wrong.

I was extremely sleep deprived (44 hours). I'd had very little food because I couldn't bring myself to eat. (on reflection, these were trauma bond withdrawal symptoms.) He had demanded to drink. The friends, (none of whom I'd told anything about this-- or not anything more than "I think he needs to break up with his girlfriend because he likes me, and I don't know how to deal with it") had all gone to bed, given tomorrow'd be a long drive for them. Again, we were alone.

I had a chance to grill him about using me! And be sincere about my feelings. And deliver the ultimate truth: That he and his girlfriend were completely incompatible, and that all his actions over the past several months proved it.

At first I pushed him off me. When he started taking my clothes off, I was like "fuck it. he can do what he wants."

That whole night was him acting on me, and me lying there, pins and needles punctuating every movement because my skin was so sensitive from the sleep deprivation and sunburn--he put me in a headlock without warning, rammed my head into the bed, pulled my hair really hard (my sunburnt scalp!)... I'm a masochist, but it's never okay to do these things without prior warning or discussion. He could have hurt or killed me.

He gaslit me after that incident, said it was my fault for letting him drink, and that I had refused to let him go home (Our friend had called him, multiple times, asking if he needed a ride.) I believed him at first. It wasn't until I recorded everything in my diaries and started talking to my more supportive friends (I have a very detailed memory, especially when it comes to this stuff) that I realized he was full of shit.

The stress from everything caused me to faint in late july. In august, my mental health started rapidly deteriorating, and I ended up dumping a nice boy because he wasn't as abusive as I needed him to be, and because I needed sex now and wasn't sure how I was going to want it from him unless he violated me. Also he didn't want kids.

We started talking about telling the girlfriend. He was convinced that she wouldn't break up with him. After all, we'd never had sex--just fondling, he reasoned. I warned him that all I needed to do was be honest about the sexual assault.

I didn't know I was trauma bonded, I didn't know I was hypersexual, i didn't know I was anything other than a shitty person. When he started hitting on me over voice call again, I decided I was sick of waiting for him to grow a pair and that I'd tell her myself.

Well. The great news is that he was super wrong about his girlfriend not breaking up with him. The bad news is when we stopped talking to each other, he did the craziest blameshifting I'd ever seen, completely reversed victim and offender, and told the events of july 6th like I was a jealous infatuate who had assaulted and inebriated him to get what I wanted-- never mind that he had taken my clothes off first, and that I was too sleep deprived to stop him.

The most abusive part of a relationship like this is the end. Never forget that.

The only reason I knew I could qualify any of this as abuse wasn't the specifics of what he said to demean me, or the DARVO-ing me, or my hypersexual reaction to his assault. No, it was the breaking of the trauma bond after he refused to talk to me, as one final insane punishment.

Did you know trauma bonds have physical withdrawal symptoms? I sure do now :)

Easily the most painful experience out of all of this was those symptoms. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I lost 15 pounds in a month. (He's an excellent personal trainer! I do not recommend!) Tension headaches. I still have moments where I completely disassociate because I don't feel like any of this happened to me, because breaking trauma bonds ALSO give you PTSD on top of the residual bullshit from the actual assault.

It was catastrophic. I was grieving because I lost a lot of friends in very brutal ways, people blamed me or ignored the whole sexually-assaulted-me part, and I was withdrawing from everything and everyone because again, more fun trauma bond withdrawal symptoms.

But I pushed through that. He made it easy by throwing a tantrum and refusing to talk. He still doesn't believe he's done anything wrong. [Fun fact! I have learned this is a cute little technique is called a narcissistic discard! I told everybody it was an instrument in his abuse of me and I was fucking right!]

I have given up faith that he can be a better person, although that pains me greatly. Too many moronic idiot males reinforcing his behavior, because men like this find other men like them. Not only that, but people are too busy blaming me for not saying anything earlier [victim blaming] and not a fucking peep at him for, you know, sexually harassing me for two years. Because holding him accountable would make them "uncomfortable." Really feminist and progressive, honestly.

Now, my life is so much better. I have a renewed interest in life, in the things I want to research and create-- and even better, someone actually worth my time will fuck me. (Eventually. getting into a relationship while recovering from a trauma bond is dangerous. I've been relapsing as of late, in part due to ill-advised whispers from a friend that he is willing to apologize. For that to happen, he has to understand what he did to me first. He doesn't, and he's still too busy thinking none of this is his fault, actually. But I'll die before I let him get away with it.)

Here's to the New Year. If it can be broken by the truth, it must be.

[nyahctrl]

𝜗𝜚 Satoru with a s/o who likes to get stoned

authors note: last thursday when i had ‘an experience’ i do not want to romanticize. i thought about how gojo would react to his s/o being high (because he doesn’t use any mind altering substances) so here i am ft. the notes from my phone i tried to use (i barely formed words) / tumblr doesn’t let me posts blogs with pics so excuse the lack of aesthetics

cw: drug use (mari🍃nna), insecure reader, nickname use princess

"Babe?"

"Yeah, princess?"

"Do you think it's weird how you have a girlfriend who likes to get high?"

— Let's be honest, he's probably used to being around high people because of Geto and Shoko (you can't tell me they don't stone occasionally)

— Satoru overall perception is that you're cute when you're high, because you never talk this much about your feelings with him, especially your feelings for him

— For when you're hyperactive, he probably gonna have a lot of fun, hearing you bubbling and trying to get 194829 things done but not doing shit right. Trust, it's documented in his camera roll.

— If you're rather chill and relaxed he totally enjoys cuddling with you and just watching you looking in the distance or taking 3 minutes to finish one thought. He is totally curious about what you think but wouldn't push it. (especially if you get high to destress from something)

— At the occasion of you having a bad trip he's totally there for you and those are the times he especially doesn't condone you consuming things, when they make you feel like this. But also in general if you would ask him, he would probably be anti-substances for you. Satoru understands the double blade of it, but as for something like mariXXnna, he would rather tease you out of it than having a real intervention. (No confrontation babe)

— He also wouldn't 'initiate' anything sexual or even go for it when you're beyond normal comprehension

— He loves hearing you talk about the most nonsense things. You wanna explain him your personal playlist? Why you sorted those songs that way? What each song personally means to you, which is just crazy specific. He is all ears.

— Your personal sandwich maker for your cravings, doing insane combos to impress you and asking for your opinion, being absolutely honored when you praise him like he created one of the seven world wonders (it's just a sandwich but he knows you eat everything up in that state)

— Now that I think about it, Satoru is probably the most quiet when you're high and babbling because he feels like he can hear you without any barriers of shame, that could stop you from expressing your true thoughts (and he will use anything you told him later to tease you and then he won't shut up, trust)

"- like isn't it useless, am i not crazy for taking it and you're judging me like what if you find me weird and you're normal and i'm weird and you see me as usless and stop loving me-" he finds it cute how you're so worried about all of that when he couldn't care less unless it's harming you in any way.

— (I have no idea if it's just me) but when you tend to be overly insecure about your feelings/expressing your anxious feelings, he will not stop reassuring you. Especially when you ask him 18 times if he knows you love him and that your love is sincere etc.He does take your insecurities as a validation of your love for him though.

"Oh my god, do i act like a drunk person? So i may sound like that. WTF i'm so insecure I have to stop. I'm sorry. I love you. Now I'm being quiet. You won't hear me talking. Omg am I more serious when I'm not high. Am I a drunk person?"

— His personal fave moments are when you start to explain for 15 minutes how much you love him and you start to go in so much detail that it's getting ridiculous. He would while all of that hug you from behind and look at you with the most soft look in his face just nodding and chuckling because you make it for real sound ridiculously.

no reposts on other platforms

[mizuki-foreshadowing]

What's On Your Mind - Exciting Picnic, Episodes 1 & 2

Initially, I wanted pronoun-use and honorifics with and without added distance from the referent to be an honorable mention on the main post I would make for the beginning of What's On Your Mind - Exciting Picnic, but I wrote so much it ought to be its own post. In short, I still think I can hold on to my theory that pronoun-use for Mizuki between 'they' and 'she' is based on whether the person knows Mizuki's secret, despite Ena not knowing it and using 'they' for her here.

Ena knows Mizuki is hiding her pain but can't break through the wall she puts up between them. Ena's friend Airi invites her shopping with Shizuku and Ena ends up confiding in the two without planning to. Ena takes Shizuku's advice and invites Mizuki on a picnic with the three of them, which isn't difficult, as Mizuki was already a fan of the idols. The way Mizuki is talked about and talked to is the focus of this post.

Important context is that Ena did not intend to talk about her Mizuki-troubles, and even when prompted, didn't want to explain the complicated and depressing situation, about a person neither Airi nor Shizuku have any context for. It was only at Shizuku's earnest prompting that got Ena to open up about it.

Singular 'they' for a known, cisgender (as far as Ena, Airi, or Shizuku know) referent in English, is uncontroversial if you're speaking indirectly about them or if you want to deephasize less-relevant details. (i.e. "And another customer, they talked to me like I was a little kid!" I know the gender of the customer but it isn't relevant to the listener for my venting.)

It might not look natural for Ena to use 'they' for Mizuki here because they're close. However, for someone who doesn't know Mizuki and wants to preserve a certain distance from a situation they don't fully understand yet, like Shizuku, it feels perfectly natural.

Like Shizuku, Ena is also talking about Mizuki with a degree of distance. She didn't want to get Airi and Shizuku involved and didn't plan to, after all. It's an overly complicated situation Ena has to shortcut explaining to not disappoint Shizuku insisting on hearing out her troubles. That is, they/them doesn't register as awkward to me here.

In Stage SEKAI speaking privately, Shizuku and Airi each use 'Akiyama-san' for Mizuki, the address with the most distance applied to the referent, and even greeting (an ecstatic) Mizuki in person, Shizuku uses 'Akiyama-san'. This helps to support the reading that Ena was presenting Mizuki indirectly as almost a hypothetical referent and the conversation kept her at that distance, where they/them is still appropriate.

As idols, Airi and Shizuku want even the people they've just met to feel welcome, and Airi skips the formalities and asks Mizuki if she may call her 'Mizuki'. Before Mizuki can accept or refuse, Shizuku invites Mizuki to call them by their own first names as well. When she does so, she uses 'Mizuki-chan', which is a familiar address, and reserved for addressing a girl.

As a small detail, Mizuki's response in the Japanese voiceline starts with just a wordless surprised exclamation. Personally, I like to think she is happy to be validated as a girl by a beautiful idol. However, it's ambiguous between her just being that surprised to be invited by a celebrity she admires to call her by her first name, and that's the way Mizuki spins it.

Moreover, when Shizuku and Airi are having a private aside, Shizuku still calls her by 'Mizuki-chan'; Shizuku only just met Mizuki, but her desire to close the distance is genuine. It also acts to show using 'Mizuki-chan' wasn't her saying what Mizuki would want to hear [under some reading of Shizuku knowing Mizuki's secret] but that it reflects how Shizuku thinks of her. The narrative is centered on friendliness versus formality, and on the sincerity Airi and Shizuku make people feel welcome with, rather than attention being on Mizuki's gender.

[sgiandubh]

Well hello one more time tonight it is Caitriona Anon again. I love when you get fired up. But 1) I'm not an Anti, I'm a shipper I just happen to be one who's disillusioned with Caitriona who I now find cold. I've been here since Sam was cast, I no longer have a blog because I'm trying to wean myself off of this and it's easier for me this way. I do believe they are together despite whatever irritation I might have with either of them at any given time. 2) I'm not Russian or German, I'm an American and I guess my grammar failed me tonight, apologies. 3) I didn't understand and I wanted to ask questions which I thought was the point of having an ask box and a comment section so that people can get to the heart of what you are saying. Despite you not caring if you are understood, after this post, I do. 4) I was sincere in my questions and appreciate your answers no matter how fiery they are.

Dear (persistent) Caitriona Anon,

You managed to bring a smile, after all, remembering my (shipper) mom's exasperation: 'stop doing your American lawyer schtick, we're eating, for the love of God!", every single time I get fired up, as you say. Yes, same shipper mom who is a C-mainly ('so beautiful! so elegant!') and who told me ' I will not comment on that boy, he is blonde' (it's true, the women of my clan are persistently attracted like flies by dark strangers).

Speaking of C also made me remember a lazy August afternoon, on the Nong Khai-Bangkok sleeper train. I was trying to read something about Virginia Woolf's Bloomsbury gang (a filthy paperback I had poached at the Khao San Road bookstore, between the 7-Eleven and the smiling Burmese tailors who made me a couple of wonderful tussah outfits). At the other end of the open dining car, an old American Hippie guy was explaining to a bunch of bewildered Australian flashpackers how that same Khao San Road changed and became 'such a nonsense' since the glorified days of the Banana Pancake Trail. That included the somewhat lewd recollection of his paramour, a fierce Valkyrie, the story ending with ' ah, she was beautiful. Beautiful and gone.'

So is C. Beautiful and gone. She came, she conquered, she left. But what is good to bewilder Australian flashpackers on a balmy Siamese summer night is crappy nonsense when and if you consider a life and a career after OL. So yes, even if I have trouble believing your story, I could reasonably understand why you are disappointed or angry or (you name it) with S, C, S&C.

I am not, because I set my bar very low on design. I have no moral right to ask anything of These Two. I have no intention to pressure two overly stressed individuals who still must figure out what the hell happened to them (yes, after all these years), just to satisfy my ego or be avenged. I am taking it as it is, one tango step and one day at a time. I know what I know and that is enough, because what I know I found out or figured up by myself: the rest is confirmation, solidarity and a beautiful story of collective friendship.

Wean yourself off? Wow, the ambition. This is worse than tobacco! And you still have a sock account just to lurk? Make no mistake, you didn't go anywhere, if you told me the truth. And neither did Moo, or CRT and their respective beggar's courts: they are still here, like dragonflies in amber, and despite all their loud, vile, venomous protestations. It's next to impossible to leave, when the sideshow is more enticing than Season 4.

You are always welcome to ask questions and I will always answer. But I think that you might want to consider this POV, too: how about finding yourself propelled in a world where people literally scream every single time you walk into a room? how about trying to have a life when you sometimes feel that hundreds of prying eyes are lurking near your bed? how about finding balance when every single word you ever uttered is analyzed to oblivion on blogs or is turned into a gif which spins lackadaisically in cyberspace? how about living with a sword above your head, called Non Disclosure Agreement? how about finding yourself insulted by nobodies with a keyboard? what would YOU do?

So what if they don't want to be seen, heard, mentioned, in a giant FUCK YOU ALL, shippers and antis and fencers and God knows who else?

Do I think this is the best way they could have managed it? Absolutely not. But my position is comfortable: the love of my life is not regularly considered an illiterate snake oil seller for a geriatric bunch of groupies. I am not that guy Richard Madden ostensibly humiliated in public, when he was bartending in London, and who, suddenly, is aware he became a global fantasy.

Would he lie for her sake, for their sake? I believe he would, and more. Would she accept the unthinkable? The woman who answered the 'what was the most foolish thing you ever did' by 'I got married' totally would.

Enough said. Let's say good bye, for the moment, with a nice pic from a calmer world, where the gong of the nearby wat wakes you up at 6 AM. And then you go and have the best coffee in town at The Scandinavian Bakery, round the corner:

[castlebyersafterdark]

thought I'd weigh in about nerd culture becoming more mainstream...

(this post so vinny can keep track!) -> https://www.tumblr.com/castlebyersafterdark/777962690581757952/the-duffers-knew-that-people-who-werent-nerds?source=share

i think the majority of people who like this stuff have pulled it into their normie sphere, rather than leant into the lore. what makes a nerd a nerd? is it the content you like itself, or the way you engage with it? i'd argue the latter.

nerds are teased because they're passionate about something, doesnt matter what it is. sci fi and fantasy i think is a poster child of nerdery mainly because it involves escapism and a detachment from reality, which is frequently considered childish, as if you're not facing your responsibilities and running away from problems. this is compared to something 'tough' like sports (but even then, it's only a few certain sports considered macho! think how nerdy something like luge or curling is! and anyway, big sports like soccer and football are full of grown ass men rolling around in the grass in pain at any given opportunity lmao.)

inner child pop psychology became mainstream in the 80s and 90s and people embraced a simpler nostalgic ideal. you see it in the 1950s-inspired teen movies that were made in the 80s (Grease, American Graffiti, even some John Hughes), so I think Hollywood sort of twisted this nerdy content to make it mainstream palatable, for lots of reasons...

i mean, if you think of comic books, originally they were aimed at like 12 year old boys in the 60s or something. its hardly content for adults, and it was made darker into the 2000s. Remember how fresh the dark knight was when it came out? But at its core, it's still IP originally created for kids.

And there's a noticeable infantilisation of art and media for adults today. I whinge about this a lot because it connects to spicy byler and the dearth of erotic cinema since the 90s, which leads into puritanism and all the nonsense we have to deal with here. There's actually interesting debate on this topic in academic circles, because in history, infantilisation of the public has often preceded fascism - basically, get grown ass people to have more and more childish interests and desires, and eventually they start to believe in their own powerlessness, where they wait for someone else to come and be an adult, to save them or take control. an obsession with superhero movies sounds pretty familiar to that on a cultural level, don't you think?

so maybe the MCU -> trump/putin pipeline is real lmao.

when i think of the things and genres of film/books/music/art i love, it ranges to so many types that I only just felt like it made sense as an adult. as a teen, i couldnt find a place anywhere cos i liked a mix of everything. I love lotr, i could probs talk about it for hours as a cinematic score / filmmaking nerd, but I'm definitely not someone who would ever dress up as an elf. so where do i fit? what kind of nerd am i, if at all?

This is the big question I posed when thinking about this topic, and here's a worthy answer: "what makes a nerd a nerd? is it the content you like itself, or the way you engage with it? i'd argue the latter. nerds are teased because they're passionate about something, doesnt matter what it is."

So many good points here. In particular -the infantilisation of art and media for adults. Huge example, important subject. It's the dumbing down of everything, it's catering to the lowest common viewpoint. It's not trusting an audience to formulate their own emotion or regulate an emotional response. See, not letting anything be sincere. Isn't that something we talk about often around here - sincerity. That's something pretty relevant to nerd culture. Sure, some may be overly passionate, too dedicated, obsessive, etc. about their interests - but are these such huge crimes? The love of something is sincere, unashamed.

Back to the other root issues with so much media. It's not letting the story be a story and hoping it resonates with someone. Anyone. To entertain, yes, but to say something. When art tries to cater to everyone - it loses itself. There are times and places for that sort of thing, not everything needs to be deeply deeply meaningful - but when too much of everything is catered to this mindset, what's left?

See one big example that might be hard to stomach - "basically, get grown ass people to have more and more childish interests and desires, and eventually they start to believe in their own powerlessness, where they wait for someone else to come and be an adult, to save them or take control." You know what comes to mind? Disney adults. I'm talking those conservative-aligned vlogger style obsessives who worship the house of mouse and build entire identities around The Brand. To the untrained eye - some might lump them in with nerd culture. And these people would be wrong. It's the idealization of childhood and fear of growing up and pledging yourself to corporation in a way that happiness is a commodity and commercial and it's as insincere as an obsession can get. I'm not lumping in every Disney fan and theme park lover - no, don't be stubborn. I like a lot of Disney-made things myself. You know what I mean by this. And it's part of what our society is pushing, see points in this ask.

Anyway - I think the main thing with "nerd culture" is... what does it mean to you? It's such a silly word and we don't really need to categorize ourselves so much. Humans in present day society are obsessed with boxing ourselves in and creating little groups and names for things that fit us and we can list as easily recognizable attributes for out identities. Some - important, useful, just for navigating the world. Other - completely arbitrary. Why do I care to call myself a nerd? Because despite wherever I've been in life, my personal passion and way I approach my personal interests have felt different from my peers and friends in a way that did feel othering. I'm the type of nerd who has always used my interests as escapism and I'm ok with that, and with the term as identifier. Depends on what an individual feels is right, though of course, it's a much different conversation when with ill intent someone calls you a "fucking nerd" - but that's the thing with adjectives and human identifiers alike: anything personal can be turned into an insult.

[apocalypsecraftstudios]

NOTIFICATION: ACTIVITY UPDATE! (For friends and followers!)

NOTE: this is a update blog about my current activity status so please, hope you don't take anything personal and you can understand me as well. I try to do everything under my reachment underneath my own time availability. Thanks!

- First of all, I'm very sorry for my unusual inactivity on here. I have been kind of inactive on Instagram, DeviantArt, X and Discord. Why? Because of external factors that don't let me continue with the activity I was used to on these social media applications. I won't lie either: I have been dealing with a lot of shit in real life and within my sentimental universe fighting art block, depression, low self-esteem issues, self-harm temptations and anxiety caused by certain personal stuff I don't think it would be adequate to mention on here.

I also am currently dealing with breathing system infections and a strong cold that doesn't gets away from my body yet. I haven't visited any doctor yet. I'm just letting my body fight for itself and take down all the infections in my poor breathing system. I wanna heal but it's taking longer than it should and that truly worries me but refuse to seek for professional help. I'm taking vitamin C pills to strengthen my immune system and help it fight the infections.

Also the fact I have been on current projects about Minecraft, Portal and Nimona doesn't mean I did forget about them. No, I totally haven't. I'm just taking a long break under my own time availability to heal and feel better. Also art block and the strong feeling that someone is about to steal/copy my ideas takes my motivation away from me and leaving me unable to get myself secure and confident about my own imaginative world. And no, I'm not talking about my friends or followers. Just saying that I have that feeling when I'm about to develop a unique a creative original idea for a story, comic or crossover. You know, I'm overly protective and jealous of my own imaginative universe and that's why I care too much about my work being properly done, protected and well-developed. I can't tolerate anyone coming up with a coincidence about certain ideas that are already mine.

Omg, I am being quite sincere today lol. But yeah, don't take this personal. Just hope you understand.

Good news: I recently joined the Godzilla Fandom so expect some epic crossovers between these Fandoms I'm already in. I can't wait to show some unique concepts! :'D

- Be overly patient and tuned when I come back. I will try to post something to not show my account kind of dead. I really hope to get better and get my motivation back and fight that feeling that torments me. Here, Apocalypse out! ⭐

[clarenecessities]

so, hey. I haven't updated you guys on the situation with Scott and Ethan in a while. it's been a very eventful 10 days.

You can see Ethan's updates here but I will be offering my own biased perspective and summary.

i'm sure my mother would want me to clarify that i did not advise anybody legally, nor did i tell anyone to bring a lawsuit, but. i did lay out my understanding of the law as it pertains to Ethan's case & tell anyone who would listen that i would have sued months ago

and uh as i provided ample sources and a laconic summary of the fair use doctrine and alternatives to federal court, i may have contributed to Ethan's decision to file with the CCB :3 which is (to be overly brief) like small claims court for copyright infringement specifically.

nobody has said so explicitly, so i do have some plausible deniability. but if by some grave miscarriage of justice Ethan were to lose a single one of these claims y'all Know I'd do my damnedest to recoup the man's losses anyway so i feel very comfortable in saying SPITE WORKS!!! THAT'S THE POWER OF SPITE-FUELED RESEARCH BABEY! THIS IS A WIN FOR CLARE!!

even the very worst case scenario for Ethan is a win anyway; the CCB's awards are capped at 30k, but since he's a much, much kinder person than I am he elected to pursue their "smaller claims" options, which further caps it at only 5k.

and let me tell you. the statutory damages alone would cost Scott upwards of $180,000 in federal court (not even counting the libel), so if he doesn't take this case (participation in a CCB case is voluntary for both parties) he is a fucking idiot. But I guess we kind of knew that already.

Let's see. So, Ethan started getting his copyrights registered last weekend (another benefit of the CCB; registrations can be filed concurrent to submitting your claims, though I don't think I told Ethan that) like right after my last post on the matter here. He submitted proof of his intent to bring legal action to YouTube, who can't actually apply strikes until a decision is reached, though those videos are sort of in purgatory.

Meanwhile, that allowed Scott to begin posting content again. He immediately abused that power. On the 23rd, Scott posted a fourth (4th!) defamatory video, whose thumbnail looked like this:

That action figure is his childhood OC, which he put into the MOTUC line. In addition to his literal, actual face. But don't worry, not his name! That was a DC Classics exclusive 🙃

For those of you that are unfamiliar: That's the license plate from Better Call Saul.

He made a bunch of really, painfully wrong assertions that I tried to write up again just now and bro I can't. It is fucking Cringe. I can't. He did claim he had a lawyer, which as I told him following the second defamatory Community Note, is grounds for him to fire that fucking lawyer.

Ethan did a second interview with Dad-At-Arms basically updating people on the situation, letting everyone know he was going to take things to court. That went up the 24th.

On the 25th, Scott posted another Community Note, this time doing a little victory lap, concluding, "So much content coming to ya! It is great to be on the air again!" and resuming his regularly scheduled posting for the remained of the week.

Then along came Monday.

Every single one of Scott's videos was privated, including the advertisements for his consulting firm and stupid bullshit AI comic.

Well--come to find out, he emailed Ethan right around when everything went dark saying he was "truly" and "sincerely" sorry for everything, and "never meant to create a fight" between them and that it was "never intentional".

"To make things right I am going to halt any videos and take down what I have. I hope this will make it right and restore your site to its full capacity."

Which like, alright, I try to be a little more level-headed in spaces these creeps might see, since they're already fucking wilding about every other aspect of my identity and personality. But the fucking BALLS on this guy!! The fucking audacity!!!!! MONTHS of claiming he was being BLACKMAILED and HARASSED, giving Ethan's identity to one of the biggest pieces of shit I've ever seen in the fandom (and that is saying something) and then his thousands of subscribers?? Telling those people really really obviously fake bullshit to make himself seem like the super reasonable victim and not the perpetrator of--ballpark, 'cause I don't know who may have granted him permission--five to ten thousand copyright infringements?

And "to make things right"!!!!! Right for whom, Scott!!!

I've been assuming he finally talked to a lawyer, because even with receiving notice of Ethan's intent to take him to court, I just don't believe we'd see this complete a 180 in him without the advice of counsel. Whom I do not envy right now, he's shot himself in the foot at every fucking opportunity. I doubt they told him to private everything, since a jury at least might construe that as hiding evidence (there are no juries CCB proceedings) but he's a big fucking idiot. Of course he'd panic and try to hide everything.

Case in point, this morning he unprivated everything. And then just unlisted it. Presumably because he realized he'd broken his embeds across every website out there, including his own (not that that ever got him to fix his LinkedIn button...). He did delete all of the Community Notes about Ethan though, just for good measure :) Still absolutely no public word from him since last week.

I have receipts on all the libel saved in multiple locations, but I do appreciate him un-privating some of his videos for me. Gonna make documenting those much easier 😏

i had a second post up on the forums but it's being weird about copy/pasting into tumblr, I'll see about that tomorrow ig. And I'm working on a third summarizing my case law research. HUGE win for me today in that the finding which most directly contradicted my arguments was actually reverse on appeal in 2022 so I'm sitting real pretty, citation-wise. Very smug, very petty. Feeling absolutely great.

[away-ward]

Original ask here.

I want to preface this by clarifying that I understand why people don’t like Will. I didn’t like Will the first time I read through the series. In preparing this, I’ve struggled with how to explain my feelings about him, because while I do understand where people are coming from, I can’t help but appreciate his story arc and character overall, especially when compared to the three other Horsemen. I’m not entirely sure how to bring all my thoughts together to coherently present to you why I don’t hate that he got the girl in the end.

Before we start, please know that I am not attempting to change your mind. This isn’t a persuasive essay. I’m just explaining my thoughts on Will’s story arc and characterization, and you are free to agree or disagree as you please.

Please note that below the cut is about 7k on why I like Will Grayson. If reading that would upset you, please feel free to skip. I’ll catch you on the next post. No worries.

If, however, you are down to inspect this little nut case from my overly enthusiastic perspective, hit the button. Now, on to the insanity.

The Anon asked me to focus on Will’s growth, but the problem with that is that I don’t think Will has a ton of growth within the series. At least not a straight, upward linear path. The order of the series, the overlapping timelines, can make it difficult to track his trajectory, but if we start from Will’s earliest point in the storyline, which would be in Nightfall, and follow it all the way through to the end, Will’s character declines, almost consistently. With each installment, he almost always becomes a worse person.

I know. Probably not the explanation you were expecting from a Will defender. Hold on, I’ll get there.

When looking at Will’s story overall, I think there’s one key characterization that readers should remember. And that’s: Will lies. I mean, all the boys lie, but Will lies to the reader, and he’s good at it. I think of all the other Horsemen, Kai might come close to having this skill to a degree. Still, I don’t think he’s as good at it as Will is. Will wears a mask that fools just about everyone he encounters, and it was this interpretation that had me reconsidering my original impression of him.

I didn’t love Will for most of the series. In fact, I hated him so much I nearly didn’t make it to Nightfall because what was the point. Will was mean and rude, and the constantly drunk thing was old. I didn’t care about him at all.

But then I met high school Will. I was mystified, and in wonderment about this charming boy who loved this one girl with his whole heart. He was so sincere toward Emory. He was difficult to swallow and a bit obtuse at times. Yet, my heart bled for them and the reasons they couldn’t be together; how much it hurt him to lose her and how he didn’t understand.

It was impossible to reconcile Will from high school to Will in the present. They were not the same person. When I finally gathered the bits of my shattered heart off the floor, I went back through the series and read just Will’s scenes to try and make some sense of what happened. I first concluded that PD didn’t know what they were doing, because they unintentionally wrote two different characters. Will in Corrupt, Hideaway, and Kill Switch was not the same character in Nightfall. End of story. I brushed my hands off, ready to let it go.

However, I found that didn’t sit right with me. There had to be a reason. And this may be where my projections and head canons for Will start to take over. Where I see what I want to see and have no problem with that because at the end of the day, I just want to enjoy myself and my ship.

When I read through the scenes again, with the understanding that Will was lying in most of the scenes he’s in, I began to see three different versions of the character, each with their own motives and priorities. However, I don’t see all versions as authentic – the “real” Will. Again, he’s lying or wearing a mask to cover up his deepest thoughts and feelings.

In the original Will post, I did a fair job summarizing Will’s high school life. We know he’s wealthy; the grandson of a senator, the youngest son of one of the wealthiest families in the country; he was raised in an affluent area, surrounded by people just like him. It seems that his older brothers are probably a good number of years older than him, and so the family member closest in age would have been his younger cousins, Misha and Annie.

He says that he was his parent’s good boy, and that his mother always sought his company, but Damon says he caused them trouble. This leads me to believe that Will’s parents spoiled him. He is their baby, after all. At the same time, I think he was probably generous with them as well. Will says that he had a Doris Day marathon when his mom asked, and he also came back to Thunder Bay for her when all he wanted was to stay away, so it seems that Will went out of his way to please her.

Damon says that Will’s house was his favorite. I’ve head-canoned that this is because the Grayson’s are genuinely a loving, happy family, and this is what allows Will to make it to high school with the sort of levity he has.

Will likes a good time, and he likes being mischievous. In high school, he finds friends who have similar tastes, and then there’s no limit. The Horsemen are privileged enough to avoid punishment no matter what they do. Will has everything he feels that he needs, except for one thing. But as I said before, he’s also delusional enough to think it’s only a matter of time before Emory gives into him.

I liked this side of Will. See, this Will, while obnoxious at times, is kind. He’s not always nice, but in general he’s kind. In Hideaway, when Damon knocks Banks off her bike, Will stops along with Kai and calls Damon an asshole for it. In Kill Switch, when Winter gets pushed into the boy’s locker room, and the rest of the boys are taking advantage of her blindness, Will approaches to make sure she’s okay.

Will said it himself. He likes being nice. Being mean is not his default, and in fact, it takes a lot of pushing to get him there. We don’t know how long Martin had been pulling him over before Will started pranking him. And that’s where he began – small, and what he thought were funny, harmless pranks.

After Emory leaves him, he tries to ignore her, but he can’t. He’s still obsessed. He still watches her, and eventually he’s able to piece the puzzle together. I’m uncertain how long it took him to figure it out, but it doesn’t seem like it mattered. Emory had made her feelings clear, and he wasn’t going to continue throwing the dignity he had left out the window. He graduates from high school and all his friends go to different colleges. Much like Damon, Will isn’t good alone, and without his support system he starts to spiral out of control.

When people complain about Will, I often wonder if they realize Will hated himself too. No one’s saying anything he wouldn’t have agreed with, if he were being honest.

Getting into the past scenes in Corrupt, he seems the same as before. He’s loud, flashy, eager to party. He’s quick to tease, he’s not really being mean. Unlike Damon, he doesn’t mind that Michael is bringing Rika along. Like Kai, he’s seen this coming for a while, and it’s going to begrudge Michael his chance.

The Gazebo scene is a break from his usual demeanor. Will’s sudden shift is such a shock, that a lot of us found it to be the most compelling scene in the whole novel. Of course, right after that, he’s back to being loud. He deems Rika their Monster, plays air guitar, and gives her a lap dance. And by the end of the night, he’s black out drunk. So drunk that he doesn’t even know Damon has put him in the back seat of Michael’s car and is plotting with Trevor.

I think, at this point, it’s impossible to ignore the effect that seeing the completed gazebo had on him. Will was going to get drunk regardless, but I wonder if he would have gotten that drunk. From what we can tell, his drinking has increased over time in both frequency and amount. However, this was a special occasion – a reunion with his friends, and I think he planned to spend the night getting drunk with them, not before them. But then Michael was distracted with Rika, Damon had his own things going on, and now… the gazebo.

The following morning he’s arrested. As he sits in that room, aware the cop he assaulted is watching him, aware that it’s his fault the video exists and that he took his mask off, he’s as equally unaware that Emory has come to save him.

I image Will feels the burden for everything he’s done. I bet it stings, as he sits in that chair, knowing whenever the subject of Emory Scott comes up, he loses all sense of control. He can't help it. Meanwhile, she probably doesn’t even think about him anymore, having a great life at Berkley.

He doesn’t know why, but his family convinces him it’s better to plead guilty so that his sentence is lowered. Two and a half years of his life gone. His 21st birthday is spent in prison. Kai’s and Damon’s, too. Kai gets his degree, but he feels shame in it. Damon’s in solitary, his sentence longer. While he has nothing to do with Damon’s video, I think he still takes the blame for leading his friends to Martin.

Michael comes up with the plan for revenge as a way to keep them together. He needed a way to keep them from losing themselves, and keep that fire burning inside them until they're free to ride again.

And this is the end of the first version of Will. And in my opinion, this is the most authentic version of Will. This is who he is when he’s not trying to fool anyone. He cares deeply about his friends, his family, and Emory. He wants her to care about him, too, but he doesn’t want to force her to love him.

I’m not going to say he didn’t deserve what he got. As it was stated in Nightfall, Emory didn’t owe him her heart just because he wanted it. It wouldn’t have mattered if he did everything right, and she still didn’t want him. I think readers might be more sympathetic towards him if he had done things the “right” way. However, that he didn’t do things the right way doesn't change the fact that his motives for Emory were out of sincerity, and that’s why I think this is the most authentic version.

 Will is different when he comes out from prison. He’s impatient, more careless, and less trusting. When he teases, there’s a bitter edge to it. He genuinely wants to scare and hurt Rika. He’s angry.

Weird head-canon here, but I think Kai was the one who came up with the idea for the dagger and the note, Damon was the one who had the idea to get Christiane out of the way by sending her to rehab, and Will was the one who burned the Fane house down, though I may be forgetting if that was established. Correct me if I’m wrong. I just feel the fire and impulsivity of it goes along with Will’s anger. I also think it’s interesting that Will later moves into that same house with Emory after they pay to have it rebuilt.

Anyway, after the dust settles and Rika’s proven innocent, Will is shown to be able to quickly shift the way he thinks about her. He’s the first one to apologize, and he asks her if she’d like a drink in a “gentle voice.” When Michael tries to put Rika in her place, Will sits quietly, though she expects him to laugh. He's not finding this funny right now.

Michael starts the party. Will flies Alex down, but doesn’t seem to be paying a large amount of attention to her, since she complains that he left her to the high school guys. It seems his idea is the more, the merrier, and he’s not going out of his way for her. Again, it seems he’s just being nice and including as many people as possible because that’s what he’s known for. The next time he’s mentioned is the next morning when he’s dealing with a hangover.

He’s definitely taking this time to blow off some steam. Remember, he thought he was going to be getting his revenge on Rika for her betrayal. However, he was forced to talk about why he went to prison, forced to discuss Emory, and betrayed by Damon. Not the night he planned.

After this, Will is the most determined to get revenge on Trevor and Damon. He insists that it must happen soon, and that everyone needs to be on board, including Rika. Will’s sense of right and wrong is largely based on loyalty, so to him, Rika needs to get hers too for everything to be made right.

I thought it was interesting that Will is seen driving frequently, which to me tells me he wasn’t drinking regularly at this time. I doubt Kai or Michael would allow him to drive, especially with Rika in the car, if he were constantly drunk or hungover.

We all know what happened on the Pithom, and how Damon attempting to kill him would have affected him, so I think we can skip to what’s going on with him in Hideaway.

Hideaway is a weird period for Will. Michael and Rika are engaged, and Kai has secluded himself across town in the White Hall district and his focus is on finding Damon. He lives at Delcour and works at Graymor Cristane, but he’s left out of a lot of their conversations. Kai notes that he’s been “misbehaving” since Damon left, but it’s unclear what that means exactly. I understand that he’s been drinking more and getting into harder drugs, but what trouble has he caused? Regardless, it’s clear that Michael and Kai have been trying to manage him, so to speak. But their way of managing him causes more friction. It’s probably because Michael and Kai have much a much stricter approach to his habits. While their solution to the problem is to find Damon to give Will his revenge, I wonder if they’d actually worked with him on his addictions and communicated, if Will would have been able to recover sooner.

But they’re men who don’t want to appear weak by communicating or showing any kind of vulnerability. What can you do?

I think when Will is left alone, his thoughts circle back to Emory eventually, and this contributes to the cycle of his addictions. He’ll do anything to make the pain stop. Will wants to be comforted. He needs it, too, after everything he’s just gone through. However, with Michael and Kai distracted, Will only has one other person to turn to, and it just so happens that Alex also lives at Delcour, making it even easier for him to have access to her. I’ve spoken about how his relationship with her changed during the time jump between Corrupt and Hideaway, and I think this might have had something to do with it.

When Will speaks, though, he’s back to being rude and cutting, especially with Banks. There was one scene I found particularly interesting, and that’s when he’s trying to mock her virginity. Banks snaps back at him, and it seemingly shuts him up.

On the surface, this appears to prove that Banks is tough and witty, and that Will can’t beat her with sheer cockiness. But like I said before, being mean isn’t his default. He doesn’t like it, and I don’t think it comes naturally to him. At the same time, the fandom loves to compare Banks and Emory for their similarities. Dark hair, not traditionally girly, sarcastic, tough, having gone through difficult things at a young age which left them with a critical view of the world? Banks response to him much the same way Emory would, and unlike the girls he usually finds himself surrounded by.

Is it possible that Will was able to pick up on these similarities, too?

I also wanted to touch on the scene where Banks reveals what she knows to Michael and Will. You can tell me if I’m off my rocker or not, because this may be a very different view of the situation, but I don’t want to ignore the possible meaning.

Banks tells Michael that Will can’t go five minutes without reaching for a bottle, and that he’s being hounded by Martin again. This is supposed to tell us how much information Banks has; she knows things even Michael doesn’t know, and they’re happening right under his nose.

She calls Martin a “child-abuser” but as we know, Martin has abused his power in other ways. He was going to rape a sixteen-year-old before Will, Kai, and Damon stopped him. It’s not clear if she knows about Emory’s history yet.

Will defends himself with Michael, but then the subject is dropped. No more thought into why Will is acting this way. This is odd behavior for Will, because we know that Will doesn’t do things alone, so why is he trying to handle Martin without Michael or Kai?

Banks is looking at everyone closely, but this information is only surface level. It's what you’d get by watching people and tracking patterns. It seems more likely to me that she’s installed cameras to keep track of multiple locations and reviews the footage, versus her staking out each of the Horsemen in rotation. I think she’s gathered information, but doesn’t know quite know what it all means. She’s also strategic in a way, but in this case, only when it relates to Michael and Kai. Damon’s likely told her certain things about Will that aren’t entirely true, like when he told Rika Will is too stupid to add two plus two. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but the implication is that Will is stupid. It’s possible Banks is underestimating him.

It’s supposed to appear that Will can’t fool Banks, but he has. She doesn’t think deeply about what’s going on with him beyond the surface, trying to determine what’s causing him to act out and how it could potentially affect his future behavior, which is a variable she should want to know. And even later, in the following years when Will is spiraling even farther, and he disappears, Banks doesn’t seem to have any extraordinary insight into why.

So, either Banks is not as insightful as she seems, and is just good at gathering information, which doesn’t feel entirely true, though I am willing to consider this aspect of her personality has been exaggerated. To me, it’s more likely that Will is very good at keeping his true thoughts and feelings behind a mask that even Banks can’t see around.

Anyway, again, I may be looking at this from a different angle, and I hope I'm not pissing-off Banks’ fans, but I thought it was interesting. Remember, I’m not implying that she isn’t smart. Only that Will might not be as dumb as we think he is. Regardless, I personally would have preferred if in Kill Switch she continued pushing him and could see the cracks in his lies that the others were missing.

In the last half of Hideaway, Will comes around as Kai’s feelings for her become more evident. This is like what happened with Rika, though he is a bit slower this time around. He has less to feel guilty about and less of a personal connection with Banks, so I don’t think much of it. He still tries to be kind to her in some ways, and it makes me think that the times he was being mean was because he was covering up other feelings. I’ll point out again that Banks has a personal connection to Damon and could possibly remind him of Emory in certain ways; Banks also calls him out for hiding things, which might give him a moment to fear she’s seeing too much. He has reasons to be weary around her, but even then, when she asks him for help, he’s right there dog-nabbing with her.

And I can’t help but think that this is because, at his truest, best self, he is a kind person who wants the people he cares about to be happy. Despite everything, he’s allowed Banks to enter this circle.

This also got me thinking that everyone sees Will as the happy one. He’s jubilant, for sure, but I don’t think he’s truly happy. So it’s interesting to me that he would still care and go out of his way to make sure his friends get their happy endings, to make sure they have what they want and need, that they see “justice” served for them, but he doesn’t try to go for it himself.

Before getting into Kill Switch, I want to address another side thought, because it might become relevant later, and I’m not sure where it fits best.

I’ve noticed this trend in the Anon’s asks that people are mad at Will for a variety of reasons, but one that gets mentioned that I just can’t wrap my head around is that he never reached out to Emory in the time between his release and Blackchurch. This one is a difficult topic for me to respond to because I feel that Will not reaching out to her, for whatever reason, was the right decision for both he and Emory.

For three years in high school, Emory told him no and pushed him away. She said yes for one night, but then pushed him away again. From there, all he knew was that there was a secret between her and Damon, but he figured out about the abuse on his own. He continued watching her and thinking about her; even as he tried to ignore her, he couldn’t.

Looking at it from Will’s point of view, Will knew he loved Emory. He tried being honest and open with her. He revealed his heart to her, thought he’d made it clear that he was willing to do anything for her, but some reason she wasn’t going to trust him. Even when she had left Martin and was out of his control, she still didn’t clarify anything with Will. I don’t know what other conclusion Will was supposed to draw other then she didn’t want his help, and that she didn’t love him.

At the point that Will’s been released from prison, Emory is an adult and she’s out of immediate danger. If she cared, if she was angry, if she had any thoughts for Will at all, she knew where to find him. He had been at the same address for two years. In his mind, it must have seemed like Emory was communicating loud-and-clear: she wanted nothing to do with him. And he couldn’t keep forcing himself into her life; the constant rejection hurt too much. He’d take the loss and pretend like it wasn’t killing him.

Overall, he wasn’t in the state of mind to have a productive conversation with her, and they both would have come away more hurt.

This is not to say that I think Will was aware he was respecting Emory’s wishes, or that that’s what he was intending to do. I think Will was trying to ignore her because he was in pain, because his pain had caused problems for his friends, and because thinking of her caused more pain. But he was indirectly respecting the signs Emory had given him. At no point since homecoming night had Emory given him a green light to interact with her, and he kept his distance. I can’t hate him for that.

Disclaimer before anyone gets mad: Expecting Emory to make those kinds of decisions is expecting way more than he should. I agree with the decisions Emory made. At seventeen, Will had too much hubris, as a lot of young adults do, especially those who come from privileged backgrounds. It takes some experience and humility to look back and identify where you were wrong, and even then, you need to be clear-headed enough to accept it without being angry. Getting out of prison, Will had neither experience, humility, nor a clear head.

And I bring this up now because one, I think this is one of the small ways that Will does show some growth, and two, it’s related to the level of his happiness.

Which, going into Kill Switch, is at an all-time low.

Damon is back. We know that he’s reached out to taunt Will. I think this has caused his character to decline the farthest it’s been at this point. You see, he appears to be nice to Winter, but the truth is he has no real interest in her. Winter is the way to get to Damon because Will knows she is Damon’s ultimate target. He knows Winter is different, and that’s the key Will intends to use to get his revenge. Planning this on his own might be the most devious thing he's done.

His dynamic with Winter is a bit different from what it was with Banks. Winter’s already in with their group because she’s been around for a few years, and they’re somewhat familiar with her. She’s also a “friend” of Rika’s, and in fact it’s Rika’s idea to send Will into to help Winter train. I wondered if Rika had asked both Kai and Will to help, and Will was the one who accepted because of Damon. It could have also been that Kai was just busier and Will had more free time, but whatever.  

While he’s somewhat kind in his direct dealings with Winter, he’s also mean to her. The way he speaks about her to goad Damon outside the pool house, regardless of if he believes his words or not, proves he has ulterior motives. Also, the way he forcibly kisses her when she’s leaving Michael and Rika’s home as a desperate move to hurt Damon, shows a lack of consideration and respect for Winter. It’s worth noting that he goes this far after Damon brought up Emory in the pool house, but it’s up to you whether you think it’s connected.

Again, I can’t help but think this lashing out is… a mask. He hides his true thoughts and feelings under a mask, sometimes of cruelty, which he learned from watching his friends, and sometimes of happiness, the kind he used to have when things were better. And I think to face Damon, he felt he had to be cruel. What he found was that even his false cruelty was nothing against Damon’s genuine viciousness. He couldn’t compete, and if he were being honest, he didn’t want to.

We see a shift in the way Will begins to treat Winter in the last half of the story, when things are coming together for the group. It seems that at the first chance he gets to start being kind, he goes back to his default.

Because he never wanted to be mean in the first place.

This ends the second version of Will. I like to think that this is the least authentic version of him; or at least the one farthest away from who he’d like to be, and that he’s behaving in a way that doesn’t come naturally to him. I believe he’s acting this way because he’s in pain, not because this is who he is in his heart.

Looking at the life Will has experienced for the past few years, it’s interesting to me that at this point, Will seems to be in the best situation he’s been in for a while. With Damon back, he has the strength and willingness to stop using drugs. To me, this was a sign that he was starting to heal, and if he continued going in this direction, things would have only improved. Will was tired of himself, tired of dragging his friends down, and tired of feeling dead to the world, and this was the first step in the right direction.

I also think this is the first time he had women in his life who were friends and not nameless girls he could bed and forget, and this helps him to start to develop actual ideas of what it means to truly love someone. As he witnesses the things his friends are willing to do for their women, I can’t help but wonder if he’s started to reflect on the way he handled Emory. Again, we have no way of knowing, but it wouldn’t make sense if it didn’t come up sometimes. He also has Alex, who has her own heart break and way of masking her pain, but genuinely seems happy for his company despite all the problems he has. Which, unfortunately, Emory never got the chance to do, though we know she would have.

He’s getting the help he needs; business is moving forward. This is probably the time he finds Coldfield, buys it, and designs it himself. Coldfield is also where he parks the bus from homecoming night, which he somehow managed to secure, showing he’s still thinking about Emory in some capacity.

Who knows, maybe once he was fully sober and free of his vices, he would have reached out to Emory and tried to reconnect. Maybe once he felt like he had something to offer her, or a way to fight for her, or that he could stand a chance. Maybe, for the first time in years, Will is hopeful for the future.

He never got that far, though, because it was at this time that he was made aware of the document Emory signed.

Will says he went to Blackchurch for a few different reasons, but mainly because he knew he’d need the extra help getting sober. It couldn’t be just his friends; they were too generous with him. More than that, he wanted to be done with all of it, the drugs, the alcohol, and the women.

He also wanted to be able to bring something more to the table. This makes sense, in a way. Michael and Rika were brought their college degrees and inheritances, with a clear future already set. Kai and Banks, as well, had Sensou and the empire she inherited from Gabriel. With or without an inheritance, Damon was a force to be reckoned with. They were also starting families and planning their futures, and what did Will have? He knew Misha wouldn’t be interested, and his family was becoming more saddened with his lack of direction, though they'd never cut him off. He had no drive and nothing to be better for.

However, without the drugs and alcohol to numb his pain, Will is an open wound. Personality wise, he’s stripped bare, with nothing left to cover up the parts of him that are bleeding. Being in a nearly abandoned forest with no connection to the outside world might have served the purpose of helping him to sooth his anger. That being said, Will still isn’t dealing with the source of his pain. Locked on that island, he has no reason to; it’s not like Emory can just drop in out of the blue, right?

Yeah…

And again, there’s nothing to prove this, but I wouldn’t put it past Aydin to identify Will right away and decided to “help” him break down those walls he’s built up to keep his pain from ravaging him, and then wait for the perfect time to bring in the source of that pain just to see what happens. Aydin knows Emory is salt on Will’s wounds. Seeing her burns him like nothing else, and he has no way of covering it up. He’s given up those tools and hasn’t developed any coping skills. All he has is his cruelty to keep from falling apart. But again, it's false cruelty meant to hide what he is truly feeling.

As mean as Will is with his words, the actions he takes show that he still cares deeply, despite what he believes Emory thinks of him. It’s because, even after all this time, that he still cares about her that makes him so angry. But I think his anger is more directed at himself than at her, though it’s her he lashes out at.

It's interesting, though, that before Emory showed up, he’d already garnered the friendship of Micah and Rory through act so kindness. I’m reminded that being kind is what comes naturally to him. He just doesn’t want Emory to see it. He's protecting that part of himself from her. I think he believes if she sees it, she'll see how pathetic he is because of how much he still loves her, and that would slice him open even more.

In Nightfall, Will ponders over the reality of him pursuing Emory for revenge, and there’s an edge of doubt to his thoughts. This indicated to me that there originally was a part of him that intended to get sober just so he could seek her out, but that once he was in Blackchurch, he started to reach some clarity. Still, he's not prepared for her to show up, and so he is incredibly defensive with her. He doesn’t go out of his way to protect her, but he doesn’t want to see her hurt at someone else’s hands.

He tells Aydin he wants her gone, and Aydin accurately surmises that what Will wants is for her to be safe.

When Aydin spikes her soup and Emory tells the story of the day she got drunk at school, Will wonders if he saw her that day. And when she tries to drink again later, he prevents her because he knows what it’s like to lose himself, and he won’t let her do that.

The way that Will treats Emory when they get off the train feels like he’s starting to revert to his old self, but not the Will that he was before Blackchurch. The person he was before he went to prison. Though he is slightly different.

In high school, Will told Emory he would hurt anybody for her. I don’t think Will included himself when he said that. In fact, the actions he took when he was hurt by Emory, and the blame he placed on her for his pain, prove he wasn’t willing to hurt for her.

However, this Will is. He burns down the Cove because it’s time to move forward. The Cove was dead, and the Horsemen were always planning on tearing it down. They were just waiting on Will, who was still hung on up it because it was his last good memory of Emory.  

He also tells Emory he loves her, but he’ll let her go.

This is a Will who understands that when he says he’ll do anything for her, that has to include things that might hurt him. And it’s this willingness to let go that tells Emory he’s a safe place to land. He’s not going to try and trap her or control her or leave her when he's done, like she feared he would before. He left the choice with her in the fullest sense, and that’s what she wanted.

Will is able to show he loves her in the way that matters to her, not to himself, which is the standard he set in high school. This is his most significant change, though it's very small.

Like I said, I don’t think Will experienced a ton of “growth” throughout the story. I think Will in high school was the best of him, and from the point that we meet him in Corrupt to the present scenes in Nightfall, his character experienced a sharp decline in quality, but I also don’t think that everything we see from him is “true.” I think he’s lying to protect himself, and people who are in pain do awful things.

Returning from Blackchurch with a clear head of what he needs to do is when he starts turning around. I believe that that Will could eventually become someone that his high school-self could not only be proud of but impressed by. I also believe this version of Will is going to fair surpass who he would have been if prison had never happened.

The problem, all of that would happen after the book ends. At the point where the series ends, Will still has a lot of work to do, and it’s not going to be easy. But I see a return of his natural patience and inclination to be kind helping him greatly.

As an example, when Emory was talking of buying her old house, he thought it was a bad idea because of all the memories it held. Emory explains her reasons, and he listens, he nods, and simply agrees. He doesn’t continue to push for his way, like he did in high school. He understands that Emory knows what she wants and what’s best for her. He’s capable of change, and we know he’ll always want to be better for Emory.

This is what I see when I read his story. I don’t think his story is as sad as Emory’s by any means. Will caused a lot of his own problems, he moped and wallowed, and he made several bad decisions. Despite the fact that cruelty isn’t his default, he is still very capable of being as cruel as any of the guys, and he displays that in a variety of ways. I try to reason on, not excuse his behavior. But seeing him this way is what helps me to think that he and Emory are going to have a wonderful life together, that Emory is going to be happy with him, which of course, is my goal.

It would have been nice if Will had done all that work before reuniting with Emory. Maybe there is an alternate universe where he never gets that document Emory signed, gets sober, quits his vices, gets some therapy and heals before he goes to see her in San Francisco, just to apologize. They can take off from there on some sweet, second chance rom-com. Who knows.

Point is, he didn’t do the work before Emory was thrust back into his life, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t ever do the work. People don’t think that Will deserves Emory, which is funny to me because they say it as if Will thinks he deserves Emory. I think more than anyone, Will is aware he’s married so far out of his league, and he can only hope that she continues to think he’s worth it for some reason.

Now, I know this might not have meant anything to you. If you hate Will, you hate Will and that’s fine. But I think if we’re going to believe that Michael, Kai, and Damon have done enough to be “redeemed” according to PD, then Will would have done those things too if there’d been time. Although, I don’t want to see what those things would have been; I prefer my own version, thank you.

I’ll take this moment to answer some of the complaints I get regarding Will’s behavior and why they don’t bother me as much as they seem to bother others.

Will and Alex sleeping together; Will sleeping around in general.

I don’t care what type of relationship Will had with Alex because neither of them were in a committed relationship. They didn’t have anyone to answer to. They were two adults engaging in a relationship with dynamics they both agreed on. Will didn’t owe Emory celibacy, just as Emory didn’t owe Will anything. On that note, other than Alex, we don’t know if Will’s sexual habits changed greatly from when he was in high school. In Corrupt, Michael says that he buried himself in women the first few weeks he was out, but then it’s not really commented on again.

He also wasn’t forbidden from falling in love with someone new, either.

Now, I don’t believe Will ever developed romantic feelings for anyone, Alex included. I also don’t believe Alex had any romantic notions towards Will. I think they loved each other, but not that way. As I mentioned, Will used sex to comfort and soothe himself, the same way Damon used sex to control.

The truth is, Emory Scott has owned Will’s heart and mind since she was thirteen years old, and there was nothing neither of them could do about it. Will had to drink and drug himself into oblivion just to stop thinking about her. He eventually got to a point where he didn’t want to do that any longer. Not even Alex’s charm was enough to make him stay.

He used Alex to make Emory jealous.

Yeah.

And in the past scenes when she didn’t do what he wanted, he told her she could be replaced easily, even though he didn’t want to do that. Honestly, that hurts me more than the Alex thing. It’s so mean.

But look at him! In the nearly ten years they’d been separated he has one thing that would get a rise out of Emory. And that thing is not that he’s had a lot of sex. It’s that he fulfilled the fantasies he developed for Emroy with someone else.

It shouldn’t be the burn that he thinks it is. He’s basically telling on himself. Emory gets jealous, but I want to be like, babe, he still has all the same fantasies from high school… he’s still thinking of you. This man is obsessed and has not stopped thinking about you for ten years. Take the win.

It’s pathetic that he uses the idea of another woman to make her angry, but it’s also the only thing he’s got. It only works because Emory loves him.

He’s being mean, but it’s out of desperation, and that’s just sad.

He’s a horrible person.

You could count the redeeming characters in this series on one hand. I don’t know what to say. That’s the series.

But here’s some reasons I like him:

He didn’t deny that he was the one that needed to change, and took steps to make those changes before Emory was back in his life. He wasn’t successful, but he started.

He returned to college when he had every reason not to, even though he hated school and was embarrassed to be so much older than most of the other students.

He also was the only one who adopted a dog from Banks, and I’m going to give him extra points for that.

He seems to be a decent father who loves the mother of his children.

I can’t remember any of the other complaints at this moment, I could go look, but I’m sure someone will remind me soon enough.

If you made it this far, you deserve a treat. Let me know if you decide to treat yourself. I’d give you one, but all I’ve got are hugs and head pats. Let me know if there was anything here that changed your view, even if it was only one aspect. Or let me know if I’m completely insane. I’ll accept that, too.  

This was fun. Take care!

-KO