#reading back my own writing gives me so many revelations about. what i think of his character

[yea-baiyi]

writing commentary from yesterday’s beefleaf writing session bender

[kyuujo]

↳ thinkin of u <3

↳ sae itoshi, shidou ryusei, nagi seishiro x fem!reader (separate) ↳ nsfw(ish) ↳ established relationships, nudes, descriptions of masturbation (fem), “sending them nudes/spicy vids while they’re in public”, slight sexting?, contains crack (sorry i can’t help myself), no explicit sex but lots of allusions to it, language, aged up characters, not proof read :x, my writing

↳ 1k words

↳ tbh i’ve thought about this trope for a long time and finally got the creativity and inspiration to write it! i’m not entirely sure of the quality of this as i’ve never written anything like this before, but i hope it’s still enjoyable! thank you so much for reading and i hope you enjoy!! <3

“… now that you’ve played alongside japan’s u-20, would you ever reconsider your decision not to join? the people want to know.”

sae sent an icy glare to the reporter across from him; he’d thought he’d made his stance on this vividly clear, but obviously not.

“no.” sae said simply, reveling in the spark of indignation his refusal brought to the man’s eyes.

“well, why not—?”

sae lifted a hand to silence the man when his phone pinged twice — maybe that was rude, but sae had the feeling that whatever had just come through his phone would be a thousand times more entertaining and engaging than the sleaze across from him.

and boy, was sae right.

my wife: seeing you on tv has me all worked up. maybe hurry it along? 😘

my wife: [video attachment]

despite his current surroundings and the many cameras pointed at him, sae opened the attachment — it was a video, one without sound, but the muteness didn’t take away from the sheer tempting nature of it.

you looked so good, back resting against the armrest of the couch and legs spread lazily and slit glistening in the flash of the camera. your fingers teased at your clit lightly, and desire shot through sae’s body as he itched to replace them with his own.

sae didn’t even get halfway through the video before his phone pinged with another message — and then another.

my wife: SAE YOU ARENT SUPPOSED TO LOOK YET

my wife: YOURE ON LIVE TV PUT IT DOWN

sae smirked and gave the reporter a lazy wave before standing.

“my deepest apologies, but i’m cutting this short. i have some other business to attend to.”

sae couldn’t give two shits about the way both the reporter and his pr manager sputtered and desperately attempted to flag him back — his woman was waiting on him at home, and that was far more important.

shidou rarely ever felt bored during matches — but so far, this one had simply been a drag. the opposing team didn’t really offer much of a challenge, and shidou had scored more points off of them than he could justly remember.

by the time half-time rolled around, shidou was seething and sweating, feeling incredibly tense and antsy as he whipped into the locker room.

his teammates knew not to bother him when he was in a dip like this, so they cleared a path for him and avoided eye contact at all costs. if shidou weren’t so frustrated he would have found it amusing.

there was only one thing that may make shidou feel the least bit better — messages from you, something he was guaranteed to find at half-time. a trickle of excitement slithered down his body when he pulled his phone from his locker and plopped down on the nearest bench. his phone read ‘3 unread messages’ when he clicked the screen on.

shidou didn’t think twice about tapping open the chat log between the two of you, a smile instantly gracing his lips at your first message.

babygirl💕: hope your match is going well baby!! i know you’re gonna rock it

babygirl💕: but on the slim to none chance that it may not be, i want to give you some motivation ;)

babygirl💕: [video attachment]

shidou probably should have ensured his sound was off before opening it — but your legs were spread open so deliciously and your fingers were working your cunt at a desperate speed, what was shidou supposed to do? think rationally? tough chance.

lewd moans and whines of “shidouuuuu” filled the locker room and ten pairs of shocked eyes met his. shidou’s cheeks warmed and anger sparked in his chest at the knowledge that now his teammates knew how absolutely angelic you sounded in the throes of pleasure.

all it took was a heavy glare and they were clearing out of the room to give him and your video some privacy.

every single tiny box on the shelf looked exactly the same.

what was he even supposed to get again? he’d read over the front of every box at least three times. pearl, radiant, braided… none of those words rung any bells in his head. what was it you had told him before he left?

“maybe it was the pearl…?” nagi murmured to himself, eyes narrowed as if that would somehow help the answer become more clearer to him. he gingerly grabbed a box and examined it before promptly putting it back on the shelf.

nagi didn’t like to admit defeat, but he’d been perusing this shelf for nearly thirty minutes and still didn’t know shit from shat — he’d have to phone a friend, unfortunately.

nagi slipped his phone from his pocket and was just about to tap open his contacts when his phone pinged with a message; ironically, it was from you.

babycake <3: hurry home love. i’m waiting for you 💕

babycake <3: [image attachment]

nagi’s eyes nearly bugged from his skull when he caught sight of the picture you’d sent him — you, sprawled across the lush queen bed, donning nothing but his freshly washed jersey. if he looked close enough, he could see the faintest tease of your nipples perked up beneath the fabric, and the hem of it fell to your mid thighs, hiding the sweet spot between your legs.

nagi sucked in a breath and clicked off his phone screen, willing his half-hard dick to calm down — at least while he was in the store. with furtive glances down each side of the isle nagi powered his screen on and, while avoiding letting his gaze fall to the tempting picture, typed a quick response.

me: omw. don’t move.

your period wasn’t due for another week, anyway. nagi always had time to figure out the pearl-versus-radiant-versus-braided debacle before then.

i genuinely had so much fun cooking these up! thank you so much for reading! likes, comments and reblogs are not at all required but are much appreciated!! <33

[k1ngpin42]

Abby being insecure about how needy she is ;)

Warnings: Not proof read at all 😭 I wrote this while sick at like 3am so sorry for this monstrosity. Pretty intense sexual references, some fluff if you can call it that. 

“We shouldn’t be doing this…” Abby breathes out apologetically, bringing one of her large hands to the soft flesh on your face. You cock your head, smiling at her softly. Your wide eyes bring a smile of her own to Abby’s face as she makes the comparison to a deer in headlights in her mind. 

“I just…” Abby explains, letting out a deep breath. “Don’t want you to feel like I’m taking advantage of you. I mean I- feel like I’m taking advantage of you.” You were stunned by her words. In fact, you were stunned by the whole situation. Abby; without her cocky fucking facade about her, the fact Abby would think she’s taking advantage of you. 

You had wanted this from the start, so if in any plane of reality she was somehow taking advantage of you, you’d let her, 100 times over.

“What are you talking about? You know I love our sex…”

“I’m objectifying you.” Abby tries, and you let out a laugh in disbelief. 

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve tried not to think about it, but I can’t. It makes me feel so selfish I can barely say it.”

“Say what, Abby? I’m so confused-“

“I want to have sex with you. Every minute of every day. I think about you when you’re on assignments, I dream about you when you’re sleeping elsewhere, I want to fuck you senseless in front of everyone I- Jesus what am I saying? What am I doing, even? But it’s true I just…whether you’re wearing tight jeans, short skirts, long dresses, even a fucking hoodie I want to tear it off and do so many things to you. Maybe…maybe we should break up, this shouldn’t be normal, it isn’t-“ You stop her by planting a soft kiss on her lips. 

Abbys gaze softened and her shoulders slouch back into place.

“Just calm down Abby….I love our sex. Fucking love it.”

“But-“ You shake your head, quickly preventing  her doubts from festering.

“Love…we’re in a relationship….if you didn’t feel passionate for me there wouldn’t be much of one, would there? Now just look at the place around us. This place was once used for actual football…by people who lived in a world with an abundance of simple pleasures. We live in a world where pleasure is so much rarer, it’s no surprise that you revel in what we have…what you can give me….especially since you’re a soldier. Always so…tense.” She listens to your explanation intently and nods, hesitantly. 

“I still feel…you know….” You look at her with a comforting smile, but it was still clear to her you weren’t a mind reader.

“I know that I love being around you…hugging you…kissing you…I could probably survive without the sex but I still feel like I’m using you somehow…I mean we’ve…” she clears her throat, now wondering why the word ‘sex' suddenly felt like poison in her throat.

“Had sex at least twice a day every day that we’ve been together. I mean that one Saturday I-“ She pauses and you both blush remembering it.

“You were still limping by Monday….” She concludes. You can’t help but laugh at her babbling. 

“Abigail Anderson…this is emotional stuff, you know you should write this down…ooh maybe you can try poetry?” She shuts the idea down with a playful hit to your shoulder. 

“Ow.” You laugh. Your smile fades a little and you close the gap between you guys, leaning into her ear. 

“You think you’re the only one who craves it every day? I know you don’t want to hurt me but when you’re rough holy fuck….the marks you leave on my body…it’s stupid and embarrassing but I get off to them….” Her eyes widen.

“What? You never said-“

“Well because I thought it was toxic at the time-“

“Hey you said this stuff was normal!”

“It is!” You exclaim back, playfully. You both laugh and you kiss her deeply. She leans back onto her bed and you fall onto her lap, kissing her fully again.

“Hm, so what other shit do you want to tell me, then?” She asked, playing with your hair. You just smirk at her.

“To be honest…I think I’ve had enough talking for one afternoon wouldn’t you agree my little sex addict?” She rolls her eyes.

“You’re so annoying.” Abby replies, unbuckling her belt. 

[kanmom51]

https://www.tumblr.com/kanmom51/712812388735418368/is-letter-a-song-for-army-the-baby-jm-never?source=share

I was going through this particular post and felt emotional...

Jm really calls jk baby isn't it?? We saw in the show too...things are slowly falling back to places just like many had doubts like why would the two bandmates supposed friends or the worst "not good mates, hate eachother so much to breathein the same place" travel to countries shooting a show in their last moment of freedom instead of laying happily beside their supposed gf or bf right.

They did tell us indirectly that they are together in their life without saying anything...just like everytime they did...

Hey there. :)

This is the post you linked:

Just read it again and ok then, what can I say, I am impressed. Quite the talented writer whoever wrote that one.😜

But seriously, am I a fortune teller or what? This was way before we even dreamt of a Jikook travel show giving us 9 hours more or less of authentic Jikook interactions. I'm not going to say uncensored, because there was clearly some censorship going on, at times on their part (awareness of cameras) and at times from the editors. But man, even with all of that, now that we are on the other side of this show you need to be really daft not to see they are telling us they are a couple. And if the show didn't convince us, well, this HAD to:

Oh, and JM calling JK baby... lol.

You know, like he did while talking to him in Letter...

Admit it.

You weren't surprised, right?

Only surprise was that once again it was allowed in.

But then again, purposefully so.

I know many are calling it a soft launch and well maybe you can call it that. But I would rather not label it. I will just sit here and enjoy what they have given us, which is so so much.

In this show we basically got first and foremost JM and JK telling us and showing us that they are, without a doubt, the closest duo in the group of 7. This comes on the tail of a couple of years where oh so many were claiming and reveling in what they thought was an apparent distance between the two. Apparent to those that for some reason think that these young superstars live their private lives for us to fully see. I guess (more so hope) that those ideas were laid to rest. And that for once and for all people finally realize that the two actually have a private life that we are not fully aware of. That the two spend time together even if we don't hear about it. That the two were and still are super close - intimately close.

And that takes me to my next point. It's not that the show revealed something that we weren't aware of when it comes to the level of intimacy between the two of them. It's not that they hadn't told us all of this over the years. It's that people were unwilling to hear it or see it and with the show we got to see it, 9 hours worth of it. Them on their own and them with their good friend that insisted on joining and was for most part allowing them to do their own thing. Not only did Tae's presence not disprove Jikook's closeness and intimacy (something many were hoping for), it actually highlighted it. It highlighted just how different, how much MORE JM and JK are with each other as opposed to either of them with Tae. Even when the three were spending time together (and I say even because much of the time Tae just left them to do their own thing or even if he was with them).

So yes, this was them allowing us to see just a little bit more of THEM. Together. The playfulness, the chemistry (again, something we were "warned" about in the promos - their known chemistry...), the way they just flow with each other, JK clearly being JM's cook (we get that in words and actions) and so much more.

I am not a fortuneteller and as such I can only write in hopes and wishes. I do hope and wish that this is them setting a new reality for the fandom. Yes the fandom should have caught on by now just how close they are. They basically never hid it, even if at times they pulled back with what we were shown (for many many reasons, some personal some towing the company line). But I am really hoping that post AYS Jikook will indeed be louder in the sense that they will allow us to continue and see THEM without the pullback we got at times. Because Army will accept THEM and embrace THEM. That the Jikook we get post military will be able to mention one another and it will be a new normal, not an eyebrow raising event. That JK won't have to say he'll get his toiletries and go over to shower at JM's because they will be living together in JK's new mansion. That they wouldn't have to hide it because people would finally accept them for who they are and who they love.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The art of Daniel Danger

[Image ID: Daniel Danger's art print, 'To all who home to this happy place,' depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

There’s this behavioral economics study that completely changed the way i thought about art, teaching, and critique: it’s a 1993 study called “Introspecting about Reasons can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction” by Timothy D Wilson, Douglas J Lisle, Jonathan Schooler, Sara Hodges, Kristen Klaaren and Suzanne LaFleur:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240281868_Introspecting_about_Reasons_can_Reduce_Post-Choice_Satisfaction

The experimenters asked subjects to preference-rank some art posters; half the posters were cute cartoony posters, and the other half were fine art posters. One group of subjects assigned a simple numeric rank to the posters, and the other had to rank them and explain their ranking. Once they were done, they got to keep their posters.

There was a stark difference in the two groups’ preferences: the group that had to explain their choices picked the cartoony images, while the group that basically got to point at their favorite and say, “Ooh, I like that!” chose the fine art posters.

Then, months later, the experimenters followed up and asked the subjects what they’d done with the poster they got to take home. The ones who’d had to explain their choices and had brought home cartoony images had thrown those posters away. The ones who didn’t have to explain what they liked about their choice, who’d chosen fine art, had hung them up at home and kept them there.

The implication is that it’s hard to explain what makes art good, and the better art is, the harder it is to put your finger on what makes it so good. More: the obvious, easy-to-articulate virtues of art are the less important virtues. Art’s virtues are easy to spot and hard to explain.

The reason this stuck with me is that I learned to be a writer through writing workshops where we would go around in a circle and explain what we liked and didn’t like about someone’s story, and suggest ways to make it better. I started as a teenager in workshops organized by Judith Merril in Toronto, then through my high-school workshop (which Judy had actually founded a decade-plus earlier through a writer in the schools grant), and then at the Clarion workshop in 1992. I went on to teach many of these workshops: Clarion, Clarion West and Viable Paradise.

So I’ve spent a lot of time trying to explain what was and wasn’t good about other peoples’ art (and my own!), and how to make it better. There’s a kind of checklist to help with this: when a story is falling short in some way, writers roll out these “rules” for what makes for good and bad prose. There are a bunch of these rulesets (think of Strunk & White’s Elements of Style), including some genre-specific ones like the Turkey City Lexicon:

https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/

A few years ago, I was teaching on the Writing Excuses cruise and a student said something like, “Hey, I know all these rules for writing good stories, but I keep reading these stories I really like and they break the rules. When can I break the rules?”

There’s a stock answer a writing teacher is supposed to give here: “Well, first you have to master the rules, then you can break them. You can’t improvise a jazz solo without first learning your scales.”

But in that moment, I thought back to the study with the posters and I had a revelation. These weren’t “rules” at all — they were just things that are hard and therefore easy to screw up. No one really knows why a story isn’t working, but they absolutely know when it doesn’t, and so, like the experimental subject called upon to explain their preferences, they reach for simple answers: “there’s too much exposition,” or “you don’t foreshadow the ending enough.”

There are lots of amazing stories that are full of exposition (readers of mine will not be shocked to learn I hold this view). There are lots of twist endings that are incredible — and not despite coming out of left field, but because of it.

The thing is, if you can’t say what’s wrong, but you know something is wrong, it’s perfectly reasonable to say, “Well, why don’t you try to replace or polish the things that are hardest to do right. Whatever it is that isn’t working here, chances are it’s the thing that’s hardest to make work”:

https://locusmag.com/2020/05/cory-doctorow-rules-for-writers/

But if I could change one thing about how we talk about writing and its “rules,” it would be to draw this distinction, characterizing certain literary feats as easier to screw up than others, having the humility to admit that we just don’t know what’s wrong with a story, and then helping the writer create probabilistically ranked lists of the things they could tinker with to try and improve their execution.

Which is all a very, very long-winded way to explain why I bought a giant, gorgeous art-print at Comic-Con this weekend, even though I have nowhere to hang it and had sworn I would absolutely not buy any art at the con.

I was walking the floor, peeking into booths, when I happened on Daniel Danger’s booth (#5034, if you’re at the con today), and I was just fuckin’ poleaxed by his work.

http://www.tinymediaempire.com/

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘It stopped being about the panic,’ depicting a ruined mansion interwoven with the skeletal branches of a tree, with a weeping statue and two human figures]

Now, see above. I can’t tell you why I loved this work so much (and that’s OK!), but boy oh boy did it speak to me. I just kind of stood there with my mouth open, slowly moving from print to print, admiring works like “It stopped being about the panic.”

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/2022-sdcc-it-stopped-being-about-the-panic-v4

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘headlight in the path of,’ depicting a ruined mall with a pair of stags standing at the top of the escalator.]

On the surface, this is moody, post-apocalyptic stuff, heavily influenced by classic monster/haunter tropes, but it’s shot through with hope and renewal and the sense of something beautiful growing out of the ashes of something that has toppled. There’s real “(Nothing But) Flowers” energy in “Headlight in the path of”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-headlight-in-the-path-of-v2

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘We are no longer able to protect you,’ depicting a ruined factory with a coming-apart sign reading ‘We can no longer protect you forever,’ and a statue of a sword-bearing angel.]

Danger isn’t just a

very

talented artist, he’s also an

extremely

talented craftsman. As a recovering pre-press geek, I was (nearly) as impressed by the wild use of spot color and foils as I was by the art, like in “We are no longer able to protect you”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc-2022-we-can-no-longer-protect-you-forever-v3

[Image  ID: Daniel Danger’s ‘made of smoke and chains,’ depicting a ruined landscape with a pair of derelict subway trains at the foot of a hill on whose peak is a rotting mansion. A pair of human figures, holding hands, are approaching the mansion.]

Danger himself calls this work “weird sad hyper-detailed artwork of dreamy buildings of ghosts and trees,” which is a very apt description of this work, as you can see in “Made of smoke and chains”:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/made-of-smoke-and-chains-mist-preorder

So I looked at this stuff and sternly reminded myself that there was no way I was going to buy any art at the con. Then I walked away. I got about two aisles over when I realized I had to go back and ask permission to take some pictures so I could put a little link to Danger in my blog’s linkdump, which he graciously permitted:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=interestingness-desc&safe_search=1&tags=danieldanger&min_taken_date=1687478400&max_taken_date=1690156799&view_all=1

[Image ID: Daniel Danger’s art print, ‘To all who home to this happy place,’ depicting a ruined Disneyland castle in a post-apocalyptic landscape with a statue of Walt and Mickey in the rubble.]

But then I got all the way ass over to the other ass end of the convention center and I realized I had to go back and buy one of these prints. Which I did, “To all who come to this happy place,” because fuckin’ wow:

https://tinymediaempire.myshopify.com/products/sdcc2023-this-happy-place-v6-foil

This was unequivocally the best thing I saw at this year’s SDCC, but I also got some very good news while there, namely, that Emil Ferris’s long, long-awaited My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Vol 2 is finally on the schedule from Fantagraphics:

https://www.fantagraphics.com/collections/emil-ferris/products/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-book-two

It’s coming out in April, which gives you plenty of time to read volume one, which I called, “a haunting diary of a young girl as a dazzling graphic novel”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

If you are or were a monster kid or a haunter, this is your goddamned must-read of the summer. It’s a fully queered, stunning memoir for anyone whose erotic imagination intersected with Famous Monsters of Filmland.

(Also, if you’re that kind of person and you’re in the region, you should know about Midsummer Scream, a giant haunter show in Long Beach; I’ll be there on Sunday, July 30, for a panel about the Ghost Post, the legendary Haunted Mansion puzzle-boxes I helped make:

https://midsummerscream.org/

Now Favorite Thing book two was the best news, but the best experience was watching Felicia Day get her Inkpot Award and give a moving speech:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inkpot_Award

And then learning that Raina Telgemeier also got an Inkpot; I love Raina’s work so much:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/04/ghosts-raina-telgemeiers-upbeat-tale-of-death-assimilation-and-cystic-fibrosis/

[Image ID: A photo of me with Chuck Tingle, who wears a pink bag over his head on which he has written ‘Love is Real.’]

To cap yesterday off, I also ran into @ChuckTingle, which is as fine a capstone to a successful con as anyone could ask for:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53065500076/in/dateposted/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/23/but-i-know-what-i-like/#daniel-danger

[ladyloveandjustice]

I've kept getting so many ideas for Natsume fics, like the most I've gotten for a fandom in a while, but literally no time to write them. It's so tragic. But there's a lot I want to come back to, and I figured if I listed all my fic ideas here, it'd give me incentive to come back, and you can see the ridic amount of ideas I have:

-The one I really want to get done the most is Natsume running into (an obviously older) Souko and finally getting to tell her about Reiko and we discover how her life's unfolded since she met her, etc. I've started it and I desperately want time to write it. I also have a vague idea about Souko encountering Reiko when they're adults (but before Reiko died, obviously).

-A short one about Natsume's experiences with reading. Escaping to the library as a lonely kid just like me fr. What books he was interested in.

-Missing scene from season 2 episode 12 showing a conversation Taki and Sasada had when Taki sort of forcefully took her away from Natsume. I think the fact that this encounter was the last time we saw Sasada bother Natsume about yokai is very interesting, and the idea she had a conversation with Taki where Taki convinced her not to is so compelling to me. What did they talk about? And this could be where their friendship or something more? began

-I sort of have an idea involving gender stuff- Midorikawa says Natsume has a 'complex' about how he knows he appears and look feminine, so he tries to use more masculine language than you'd expect (using 'ore' as his first person pronoun, etc). You see it come up a couple times in the anime, where being called feminine really gets to him, he's uncomfortable going into a bakery that's too cutesy. And I thought it'd be interesting doing a fic kind of addressing/exploring that, because I haven't seen it too much. Specifically I want it to be a conversation with Taki, where she notices it (or gets kind of hurt about something he says) and they discuss it.

-Natsume gets possessed by a yokai and suddenly Tanuma has to understand how Natsume feels about his own habit of being possessed and kind of...the fact he's repeatedly like "yokai you can use my body to do whatever dangerous thing you want :)" is like, such a concerning thing about Tanuma (and extremely interesting), so it'd be interesting if he had to confront the terror of seeing a friend get possessed

-I actually made a good start on two incredibly angsty fics during hurricane times when I needed some angst to revel in. They might be over the top though so I don't know if they'll ever see the light of day. I do come back to them and write a little more whenever I need that angst fix.

and yeah. too many fic ideas too little time. I want to be able to do things I enjoy! alas. But I'll keep chugging away at the Souko one, and maybe I'll be able to do the library one since I'm wanting to keep that relatively short.

[starfall-spirit]

@officialfeysandweek Day 6: First of Their Kind

🎨: the_megabee33

Feysand Week Masterlist // Read on Ao3 // SFW Commission

Summary: Rhys and Feyre spend Solstice Eve bringing a fantasy to life at the Court of Nightmares.

AN: Art is awesome, but I think I speak for many of us when I say it's twice as fun to have art and a story. It was an absolute honor to write this for my fellow commissioners, @popjunkie42, @moonpatroclus, @foundress0fnothing, @tunaababee, and @cauldronblssd

CW: Public sex, egregious use of "good girl", naturally.

"I feel slighted, you know."

Rhys looked up from where he was fastening his cufflink, slowly crossing the room to join his mate at her vanity, reaching for a comb to start running it through her damp hair. "How's that, darling? Have I neglected you somehow?"

She huffed, meeting his eyes in the mirror. They'd be attending the revel held in the Court of Nightmares this evening, just as they were obligated to every Solstice Eve. "Not recently."

"Holding a grudge, are we?" He twisted the upper half of her hair into a smooth knot, gathering a few pins to keep it in place. "What's this about, Feyre?"

"Do you remember the first time you took me to the Court of Nightmares?" Even now he held a careful mask, but Feyre could sense the subtle shift in her mate all the same. "Before we were mated, all pent up, waiting for something to happen. I wanted you to take me right there, Rhys."

He cursed behind her, taking a large step back to finish dressing himself for the evening. "You can't—" He let out a long breath. "You can't say something like that when we're expected somewhere, Feyre. Fuck."

There was no way he was unaware of what her desires had been, now several years into their mating. There were no true secrets between them. But she'd never discussed that particular moment so brazenly. Put it in bold lettering for him to read. "Can't I, though? It's a revel after all. I'm sure that after living this long our dear subjects know how we came to have two children. If they can fuck out in the open why shouldn't we do the same from your throne?"

"My little exhibitionist," he teased, shrugging into his evening jacket. The slight amusement she caught in his voice faded when he rejoined her at the vanity, gripping her chin. "You're sure?" She nodded and his smile returned. "They won't know what to do with you, wearing a crown and warming my cock." She shivered, eyes fluttering shut when he pressed a kiss to the corner of her painted mouth. "I hardly know half the time. Come, my love. Let's go give the sycophants a show."

~~~~~

They started with a dance. “I suppose we should be someone respectable this evening,” she’d told him upon arrival. He’dd taken her in his arms, pressed another kiss beneath her ear, kept his head bent low to whisper every filthy thing he planned for her tonight, before their court and behind closed doors. She made it through two songs before letting him lead her up the dais. She passed her own throne without hesitation and let him turn her around to more easily pull her down by her hips. She only paused a moment before a soft tap against her leg had her reclining into his chest, slightly off center so her legs were parted over one muscled thigh. Not that she had any intention of resisting if he wanted to keep her spread open to play with.

Feyre had no fear when it came to what the court would think tonight. She wore a crown from their High Lord’s family trove, was happily mated to a male with unwavering loyalty. There was a tender stroke of affection at the very edge of her mental shields that reinforced the thought all the more.

But most importantly when it came to the views of the people not-so-discreetly watching the two of them, in the near decade since she’d been Made her power had only grown, a force to rival their High Lord’s when his had gone unmatched for so long. Even if she spread her legs and bowed to his whim tonight they new better than to make a comment to degrade her when the walls of the Hewn City had ears of their own.

The proclaimed Cursebreaker could be just as ruthless as the male holding her.

“I love you more for it, you know.”

She let herself grant him a slow smile, tilting her head back to expose the length of her throat, almost hoping to feel his teeth there. “Show me how much.”

His thumb was already slipping under the dark panel covering her breast, absently teasing her nipple, the other four fingers dropping down to cup her breast from beneath. She barely started to roll her hips before his other arm banded around her waist. “Rhys,” she whined, curling into that little space he left open for her in his mind, content to stay there for the remainder of the evening.

“Keep still for me, darling. You want to be a good pet for me, don’t you?”

“Yes, High Lord.”

He groaned softly, the tip of his tongue flicking the sensitive skin beneath her ear. “Good girl. Close your eyes. You’re going to sit here and take what I give you.”

Feyre took a breath, deep and slow. Let her legs go limp against him and bit back her whimper when he spread them wide, her ankles caught between the cold throne and his knees. Cool air brushed over her center when he slipped his hand beneath the fabric, the chill made worse by the wetness already building there.

Rhys let out a low hum and she honestly couldn’t tell if it was a chastisement of praise for what he found waiting for him. Thoughts muddled, all she knew was that she was left open and waiting for him to torment or please. “I’ll always please you, little mate,” he said just loud enough for the nearest court members to hear. “The only question is how long I want to play with you first.”

She couldn’t suppress her whine at that. The promise in her ear, his fingers dragging up her center, thumb circling her clit. The shadows rising from the throne should have been warning enough that Rhys was up to something, but it hardly took a moment for the dark wisps to secure her wrists on either side of Rhys’ thighs. She still couldn’t contain her sharp cry when Rhys pushed two fingers into her core, the sharp curl of his fingers hitting a tender spot he was well aquainted with by now. She’d put herself in the lap of a male who could play her like a fiddle. And he had every intention of doing just that.

“Rhys.”

“Do we need to stop?” His movements slowed, the drag of his fingers gentling.

“No. Just wasn’t expecting that.”

He kissed her temple, keeping the slow pace, but pushing a little deeper. “Alright, darling. I need you to breath through it. If you want my cock tonight you’ve got to come on my fingers first. That’s it. Breathe. Good girl.” She thought to open her eyes. See how much attention she’d drawn, yelling like that. “No, pet. That’s not for you to worry about. I don’t want you thinking anymore tonight. The only thing you need to do is feel.” He gave her a third finger and she whined, teeth scraping his neck. “Good girl. Good.”

“Close. Need—”

“I know. I know, pet. I need you to come like this first. Then you can have my cock, sweet girl.”

She let out another whine, jaw clenched tight to keep from crying out even as she trembled in his arms. She was halfway down his length before she came back to herself, panting between her teeth.

“Such a good little pet,” he crooned. “Now that you’ve been satisfied, darling, I believe we have a few matters of the court to tend to this evening. A shame to mix business and pleasure, but such is life.”

“Rhys.”

It was hardly a whisper. It couldn’t be considered a true protest, but she needed something else in that moment. Not necessarily soft comfort. An anchor of another kind. He snapped to summon a nearby courtier and then his hand was around her throat. Not applying pressure, just a steady weight, guiding her to lean back into his chest, nuzzling into the crook of his neck.

She felt like she was there for ages, still as a statue even as she soaked through the fabric of his pants. A good pet, there to warm his cock while he conferred with the members of their court. He let her get away with biting and sucking at his neck, but nothing more than that. By the end of the night she was trembling in his arms, overstimulated from the constant edging through the evening. In the years they’d been mated they never stayed in attendance for so long.

An hour or two at most, making an appearance for their people before winnowing home to celebrate Solstice Eve in their own way. But Rhys had always enjoyed testing her limits. Confessing she wanted to be his plaything, she should have known he’d drag it out until she was a desperate mess. She could have told him to stop. He would have respected it. Took her home and finished what they started in the privacy of their room. But part of her liked it too. Letting go of that control, endless thoughts and worries evaporating simply because she was told not to resist. To channel her focus to feeling alone.

Maybe she was her mate’s plaything tonight, but she was also cherished. “Always, darling. Never forget that.”

“Can we go home?” she whispered. He kissed her brow, lifting her off of him. A moment later her feet were planted on the familiar wood of their bedroom at the Riverhouse. “How long was that?”

“Three hours,” Rhys murmured, setting her crown aside and easing the dress from her shoulders before carrying her to the bed.

“It felt like years.”

“I’m sure,” he responded, not showing any sign of amusement, though Feyre was sure she sounded ridiculous. Vanishing his clothes with his magic, he settled in too, bracing himself over her, hips resting between her legs. “You’ve been so patient for me tonight, sweet girl. Gonna take you nice and slow. You can come when you need to.”

He did his best to ease into her, but it did little to help the sensitivity that had built through the past few hours. Whimpering, she started to push up the bed. Her plan was foiled when Rhys used one hand to catch her leg, rubbing soothing circles to the inside of her knee. “Deep breath.” She obeyed. “Again. Good girl. Again.” He peppered tiny kisses along her cheeks and brow, thumbs sweeping just under her eyes when a tear fell. “Alright?”

“Yes."

“Good.” He was careful, his movements slow and even until she wrapped her legs around his waist, raising her hips with his next thrust. The pressure inside of her was climbing, just starting to overtake that teetering edge she’d been standing on all night. “Don’t try to stop it, darling.”

Squeezing a hand down between them, he flicked her clit, sending her flying over the edge, nails biting into his shoulders in a weak attempt to ground herself. He swore when she clenched around him, shuddering through his own release before reversing their positions so he wouldn’t crush her with his weight.

For a good long while they stayed just like that, time meaningless when the only thing either of them cared to think about was the bond glowing between them. Shields down, connected in every way, they could rest for a while. Rhys was the first to speak, drawing back enough to meet her eyes. “That was… something.”

“A lot,” she murmured in response. “But I liked it.”

He bent to kiss her, stroking her hair back from where it clung to her sweaty face. “I’m going to draw you a bath.”

“Alone?” she pouted.

He chuckled, pecking her lips again. “I’m going to look in on the kids, then I’ll join you. How does that sound?”

Feyre sighed, pure contentment overtaking any other feeling she’d faced that evening. “That sounds perfect.”

~~~~~

Taglist: @lulling-night-sky // @edgyellie // @shallyne // @the-lonelybarricade // @darling-archeron // @goddess-aelin // @the-lost-changeling // @faeriequeensuriel // @pandavelaris // @s-uppertime // @elentiya-whitethorn // @acotar-fanns // @jealousveronya // @acourtofwips // @gwynkyrie // @corcracrow // @thelovelymadone // @reverie-tales

[army93bangya]

The Moon Goddess’s Chosen | Chapter 2 | MYG [M]

Chapter 2

*Summary: Y/N has been sheltered and hidden within her pack her whole life. She is gifted and her father the alpha of the pack does not want her to find her mate and leave the birth pack. But not even he can stop her from attending the mate gathering between many packs every year to find one’s fated mate. Y/N is worried what her father will do should her mate find her and try to take her. Add in the revelation that the talked about fairly new pack Bangtan will be in attendance this year. Rumored to be ruthless and their alpha heartless, Y/N has every reason to be concerned and riddled with anxiety.

*Genre/Rating: Mature, 18+, Werewolf/Fated mates, eventual smut?

*Warnings/Potential Triggers: Talks of Child Abuse, Abuse, Non-con Touching, Mistreatment, Non-con Confinement, Angst, Anxiety, Nervousness, Character Poisoning, Explicit Language, Mention of plotting Murder, Mention of Murder/Massacre, Reader is going thru it, Possible future Smut,….more to be added in future chapters.

*Disclaimer: This work was written and owned by Army93bangya and there is no consent for anyone else to post it as theirs, this story is intended for entertainment purposes only, this story is a work of fantasy, seems a bit ridiculous to say but I do not own or have rights to BTS or the members and the characters in this story are a fictional interpretation of members.

*Notes: ATTENTION! Pov change to second person writing. OMG I was really amped up after posting the first chapter/teaser and immediately started working on chapter 2. My sleep has suffered getting this all typed out, but I just could not help it! I worked really hard on this, and I just have to say, as a long-time avid fanfic reader I now have an extreme appreciation to all the writers out there. I knew that writers put a lot of time, energy, and passion into their work, but I never truly sat and thought about how much work it is. So, for all the writers out there and the ones whose stories I have read and love I just want to say ya'll are rockstars in my book! I wrote this and thought I was done but then went back to proofread and edit and ended up writing another 1k words last night. Anyways again, if you come upon this story and give it a chance, Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy!

*Words: 4k

*Date posted: 01/14/2024

Previous Chapter —- Next Chapter

Maddie left your tent a few minutes ago to join the other pack members that were already making their way to the gathering. Sitting silently you wait for your father to come fetch you when Darius storms in. Grabbing you he throws you on the bedding. You let out a surprised yelp and try to get back up, but he pushes your body back down growling as a warning before climbing on top of you to start rubbing his entire body against yours practically squishing you, and seemingly trying to scent you as much as he can. Grabbing the bottom half of your face and yanking your head to the side, he starts laving his tongue roughly against your pulse point where a mating mark should go, before moving your head to the other side giving it the same treatment. Feeling disgusted by his actions and close proximity you attempt to push him off, but he grips harder, an even louder growl rumbling through him causes you to freeze knowing better than to keep resisting.  

“Don’t think for one second you’re going to find your mate and be free of us. If you bond tonight with anyone he will be dead before you can even make it out of this territory!” You glare at him as he pulls himself off you, yanking you up to stand, heavily sniffing the air to make sure his scenting was efficient. You now reeked of this fucker and wouldn’t be able to get his scent off without having to bathe again. He shoots you a threatening look “You can glare and act like you don’t want me as much as you desire, but we both know that someday your father is going to stop dangling you over my head as motivation for my eventual secession finally letting me sink my teeth into that pretty neck”  

Your father waltzes into the tent with a stern look permanently etched onto his face and glances between you two. “You did a good job Darius, I can hardly smell her scent.” Darius’s face turns smug and you have an almost irresistible impulse to find something sturdy that you could pick up and land the hardest blow you can against his unappealing mug. Words sink in and your mouth almost drops open in realization before schooling your features and looking at the ground instead like your father usually preferred. Of fucking course these two had come up with this tactic. Drenching you in Darius' scent, basically claiming you as his future chosen mate to mask your own so that you have less chance of your mate smelling you. You feel upset but at the same time if your mate is in attendance today and doesn’t catch your scent, or thinks you already have a chosen mate and decides not to approach you, then you don’t have to worry about him being killed. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if your mate finds you and is a kind decent wolf, only to be murdered because of what you are and your father’s desperation to keep you forever captive for his own selfishness.  

Being the Goddess’s chosen, the mage wolf, you are supposed to be one that all wolves from any pack can seek out for guidance as you are a direct link to the goddess herself. You feel her at times and you know she is displeased for how you have been treated. The fact that the gifts she bestowed upon you has been kept hidden from the world. To be selfishly used for the benefit of one pack, for one alphas greed, has angered her. Not that you are offering a whole hell of alot for your birth pack. The link between the Goddess and yourself feels frayed, your abilities not as controlled as they should be.  As a child you wanted to learn the intricacies of the link  and figure out how to manage your gifts. You was happy to be her mage wolf, to have that connection with the Moon Goddess. Gaining hers and your fathers approval was just about the only thing you cared about. But eventually you got tired. You were not progressing quick enough for your father, he began to get frustrated and irate because you could not fulfill all his requests. That's when the abuse started, first you would just be locked in a room for days on end only receiving your meals. When that did not give the results he hoped for, the amount of food you received began to lessen as well. He always let you have just enough nutrients to keep you alive and somewhat mobile so that he could stretch out how long he kept you locked up before letting you out. You remember being so weak but reaching out through the link, you wanted your goddess to help you, to help you mend your fathers soul or to escape if he could not be healed. But she never did. Only sending feelings of patience and reassurance. You used to think that she was telling you to be patient and that you would be liberated from this loneliness and confinement. But your spirit broke and eventually you just gave up. Now you just don’t care. Choosing to try and ignore the link, not listen, not feel the goddess as much as you can. You have long come to terms that the destiny she has thrust upon you wasn’t meant to be. Greed and a thirst for power had corrupted it.  

Your father walking towards you interrupts your thoughts. Glancing up but not looking at his face you see the cup in his hands and your stomach immediately churns knowing the contents that it held. He stops in front of you and holds the cup out for you to take. “Drink up. We can’t have any of your abilities making an unwanted appearance today or anyone finding out what you are.” Reaching for the cup hand shaking as you grasp your fingers around it, you know that you cannot refuse or there will be consequences. Accepting your present fate you respond. “Yes father.” Bringing the cup to your mouth, you down the contents as fast as you can the burn of it agonizing as it enters your body, a feeling you're all too familiar with. Tea laced with wolfsbane, not enough to fully poison or kill you but enough to make you feel weak, subdued, and to temporarily mute your gifts so that they will not surface when out in public. Your father makes you drink it whenever he wants to punish or establish control over you, it is also a method of containing your abilities if they start to go haywire. It makes you weak and unable to resist, not that you resist much of anything anymore. The wolfsbane leaves your body in pain until it is out of your system. You feel it causing a burning pain in your muscles and joints, your body beginning to feel heavier, the pounding beginning in your head. If they had given you a little bit of a stronger dose you would have been bedridden. As the wolfsbane makes its way through your system you once again contemplate for maybe the millionth time why your father didn’t just tell the other packs that you have already found your mate in your birth pack. The only thing you can think of is because of Darius. He means to eventually let his pupil mark you. If he says you already found your fated mate only to later be marked by Darius as his chosen mate and the other packs somehow found out? The packs would be outraged at your fathers blatant disrespect to tradition. It would make him look bad in front of the other packs, possibly losing him the few allies he has. 

You sway just slightly on your feet and Darius moves to your side placing his arm around your waist, holding you up squeezing slightly uncomfortably. “You will stay by my side tonight. You will not go anywhere without me, keep your head down and do not speak unless spoken to. Do you understand Y/N?” His hand squeezes your side harder prompting you to answer. “I understand.” Secretly thinking that if you hurl today you hope It lands on him.The plan they have come up with is beginning to piece together for you and you have to say it’s a good one. First cover you in Darius’s scent, marking you as his and warding off other wolves. Give you wolfsbane to not only subdue your gifts and keep them from making an appearance, as sometimes you can’t control it when you are facing strong emotions no matter how good you are at hiding them. Also with the wolfsbane in your system you have no choice but to stay at Darius’s side, too weak to be able to walk around and mingle by yourself. Lastly, keeping your head down is not only keeping you submissive, it is also another way of making sure no connection to a mate is made. Mate connections can be made by scent, touch, and lastly eye contact. Yeah, you hate yourself for admitting the two banes of your existence have seemingly come up with a pretty good plan. 

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The gathering is massive with multiple packs attending, even if the crowd is mostly just unmated wolves and the pack leaders. It is a huge clearing that stretches far in a neutral territory. With enormously long tables and benches set up on all the outskirts of the field. There are several piles of stacked wood placed strategically in areas throughout the field to be lit when the sun goes down so that the event can last through the night giving as much time for everyone to mingle in hopes to find one's fated mate. The mate gathering is sacred and bloodshed is prohibited. All these packs come together for one night peacefully lest they be banned from ever getting to attend again.

Darius, you, and the four pack betas follow behind your father to an area more so reserved for the leaders. You steal quick glances of your surroundings but keep your head lowered for the most part and stand next to Darius who stays close to your fathers side even after he dismisses his betas to go enjoy themselves but be on guard. A few alphas come up to your father and comment on your presence, asking if this was the mysterious daughter that has not been able to attend due to sickness. These alphas must be his adversaries, the ones that would not let your father continue to withhold you from a chance at being a mate to someone in their packs. But you must not seem to be as much of a mystery as they were hoping for because they do not stick around for very long after they get the acknowledgement that you are the daughter he has been hiding. Or they just can't stand to be around your father which seems more likely. The wolfsbane in your system and your demeanor makes it believable that you are sickly and you can feel the stares on your form concluding that they are most likely expressions of either concern or disgust. Your father just laughs about how you haven't been feeling well this day and that you are an incredibly shy girl. For fucks sake this whole experience is painful, and its not just cause of the literal poison in your system. Being paraded around all these strangers reeking of the asshole next to you, being forced to look docile and pathetic while masking the extensive discomfort of wolfsbane flowing through your body, you have a strong desire to throw your head back and scream as loud as you can. But that little act of defiance would probably get you starved and locked away for a month. 

A growl accompanied by yelling rings out somewhere to the left and your head instinctively snaps up, eyes following the sound. You let out gasp at the scene, Maddie stands with a distraught look on her face while a man in front of her towers over another male, fist clenched and growling threateningly. A quick realization flashes through your mind recognizing the man on the ground. His name is Vix, Maddie always talks about him, that he has been pursuing her for almost a year now. He wants her to be his choice mate and after four years of not finding her fated mate at any gatherings, she has agreed that if she didn't find her mate this year she would be open to attempt a relationship with him. You focus back on the events unfolding as another unfamiliar wolf appears and grabs Mr.pissed offs arm whispering in his ear, his body relaxes and they both turn to look at Maddie. Your heart clenches at the terror on her face, she remains frozen, eyes wide as the seemingly now calm man walks up to her slowly like she is a skittish doe, standing before her his back is now to you so you can’t see Maddie on the other side of him. Slowly raising his arm, hand extended out to her, he speaks so softly that you can’t make out what he says, but a moment later she takes his hand and is being led out of the field on the opposite side that your pack entered. Your knowing perception somehow makes an appearance and it tells you that Maddie just found her mate. Vix gets up with a look that speaks of his anguish as one of your fathers' betas approaches him, grabbing his arm and leading him in the direction that will take him back to camp. You feel terrible for the wolf whose heart longed for your best friend. You recall her once telling you that much like Darius, Vix mate had died before he could ever find her. The feeling one gets when your wolf side senses the death of their fated mate is said to be gut-wrenching and leaves inside a feeling of hopelessness that can last weeks.

Darius' arm tightens around your waist in warning urging to once again lower your gaze. As you oblige you overhear a conversation happening not too far away. "Wasn't that one of the betas from Bangtan?” Your body feels like it just took a physical blow. That pack name had completely slipped your mind with all the stress of your own predicament bearing down on you. From a further distance away you hear the guy's companion reply “Yeah that was one of them. I would keep my distance if I were you, those betas are rumored to be just as powerful as an alpha” You can barely make out the first guys scoff and Darius who was apparently also listening to snickers before leaning down to whisper in your ear. “Looks like you're going to need a new maid. Don't agonize over it too much, she just got a raise in position. From lowly maid to the mate of a beta, I'm sure she will be ‘very’ well taken care of.” Dick. How you wish you could retaliate to his nasty derogatory words. Tears start to prick your eyes and you take a deep breath to subdue the panic you now feel for your best friend. She was your chosen family, the one person you could fully trust in the world. In the rare instances when you would lash out or if your abilities became overwhelming and started acting up, your father would lock you back into your solitude room. Maddie would sneak extra food to you and risk sitting by the door to talk to you for a while. She took care of you, encouraged you, lifted your spirits when everything got to be too much. She was your person and now she is gone. The grief you feel is immense but you lock it all away as best you can, you still have to get through this day.

“Well wasn't that a spectacle?” “Alpha Sharp, it's good to see a friend amongst these miscreants.” You almost snort, did your father just call other alphas ‘miscreants’? What a master of projection. “Alpha Y/L/N it's been awhile since we have had a chance to talk. How is your territory fairing?” You begin to tune them out and focus on your body and willing it to stay strong. Knowing your father you would not be attending for too much longer having already been here a few hours. He is just waiting for an adequate amount of time to pass before sending you back to your temporary camp without seeming suspicious. Or heck maybe he wants you to pass out and he can use such a display to keep you from ever having to attend again. Wouldn't put it past him to be elated with that outcome.

“That's Alpha Min over there and his other five betas with him.” If your ears could have perked up in this form they definitely would have. Fuck you want to look, to see the leaders of the pack everybody is apprehensive of and gossiping about. The thought shoots a pang through you reminding you again of Maddie. Of Course the halfwit next to you has to chime in. “That's him!? He's the powerful merciless alpha everybody whispers about?” You don't have to be looking to know that your father and Alpha Sharp have stiffened and are probably throwing warning looks at Darius for the volume he spoke those words in an area filled with sensitive ears. “Darius speak that loudly again and you will return to the camp.” You can't help the small upturn of your mouth at the reprimand. Promises promises. 

“Sharp you always have your ears open, what have you heard about him?” You start to feel prickly. Maybe the wolfsbane didn't subdue your gifts as well as you thought because you begin to have a knowing feeling that you are being looked at, and not by anyone standing close to you.“Plenty. But whether what I've been told is factual or not I don’t know.” His audience must be staring at him expectantly because ‘alpha not so sharp’ sighs before continuing. “Let me start by telling you the only thing I do know for sure; Min Yoongi is the son of Alpha Min Hoon of the Min pack.” You startle hearing that pack name but it goes unnoticed as Darius and your father both stiffen and must be paying undivided attention to Alpha Sharp. Why didn’t this alphas surname spark recollection in you before. The Min pack was revered and old, very old. Everybody knows that the last mage wolf the goddess created was born into the Min pack. Darius’s voice breaks your train of thoughts. "I didn't know there was any survivors from Alpha Min's family.” “Well if what I heard is true you can't exactly call him a survivor. We all knew that the Min pack was decimated eight years ago, but it's all been speculation as to what exactly happened. What I was told is Min Yoongi ran away from his pack and went missing for an entire week before returning with a bunch of rogue wolves who helped him slaughter his entire pack before running off again.” 

You feel bile rising in your throat, your heart quickening from hearing something so heinous. Why? What would have been the reason to do something that vile? That knowing prick starts again, somebody is watching you and the desire to look up in the direction you feel it coming from is almost overwhelming. From the ringing that has started in your ears you hear your father being the one to reply to Alpha Sharps words. “I knew that after it happened that there was a fight over the Min territory from the Crimson pack and the Kim pack who was the Mins ally” Alpha Sharp exhales a dry laugh before responding. “Yes from what I heard both sides lost quite a few wolves before they came to an agreement to split the territory, but then we know that two years after that the Kim pack was destroyed and the Bangtan pack was formed under Min Yoongi. For five years Bangtan and Crimson packs feuded and had territory disputes, Crimson being weakened from their previous fighting with the Kims was not able to get rid of Bangtan. That is until last year when the new Alpha Min once again slaughtered the entire Crimson pack leaving no survivors.”

Darius cuts in being fully engrossed in what he is being told. “I find all this hard to believe. How did one wolf take down not one but three damn packs. I know Bangtan now has all three territories, but there has to be more to this than him supposedly being blessed by the moon goddess.” You wish that whoever kept stealing glances at you would just stop. It is a foreboding feeling that is filling your already exhausted and overstimulated self with unease. You long to be able to just turn it off, to not be forced to be so acutely aware of this wolf's interest of your person. Focusing back on the conversation before you, Sharp answers captain oblivious. “How did I say that I was told he did it the first time? Rogues. Eight years ago, he ran and returned with rogues only to vanish again. It was said to me that those two years before he took the Kim pack down, that he was moving between the territories collecting rogues to fight for him. If I had to guess, he gave them promises of being a part of a pack again to earn their loyalty and that started to form what would become the Bangtan pack.”

You feel like you're having some bizarre out of body experience. You feel what you have felt since you drank the wolfsbane, the pain in your body, the throbbing in your head, and your seemingly muted gifts. Your emotions from what you are hearing, and being distraught over Maddie are there too, but the knowing sense is what is taking over and beginning to feel hefty. Someone will not stop observing you, and this sensation is so strong that a tingling feeling has also spread throughout your body. You feel this immense urge to lift your eyes, to finally gaze upon whoever this person is that your precognitive gift is screaming at you to see. 

You're abruptly alarmed and left even further unsettled when your father, Darius, and Alpha Sharp's body language all abruptly change, taking on a more defensive but still somewhat of a civil stance. Darius’s arm once again tightens around your waist gripping and would probably feel more painful if you weren't so shell shocked and overwhelmed. You can no longer stop yourself from raising your eyes, first glancing at the man you despise, who hasn’t let go of you since you got here. His face is drawn tight with a look that says whoever he is gazing at is very much unwelcome. Somehow even with the wolfsbane poisoning your system, your link to the moon goddess comes bursting through your soul like a battle cry possibly stronger than you have ever felt it before. It is as if she is beseeching you, piercing you with cries to look! Just follow your gift, heed my command! The insistence, the urging is so shattering that you just can't take the torture of it anymore.

With your head raised you turn it slowly in trepidation, and to not cause yourself a wave of dizziness. Shifting your sight to immediately follow the feeling of compulsion and glance at who the moon goddess has implored you to gaze upon. A wolf with cat-like eyes has approached your group. His face holds blank, but his eyes speak. His wolf coming through them and shining amber with the bond of a fated mate being placed in him, and you know without a shadow of a doubt that your eyes are doing the same. Somebody's voice breaks through but your mind is so gone you don't have the slightest recognition of who it belongs to.

“To what do we owe this pleasure Alpha Min?”

[kerryweaverlesbian]

I love your Daphne Allen posts; all of your posts talking about characters struggling with gender and sexual identity are so well written and thought out, especially genderqueer!Dean. Do you have any other thoughts on Daphne, no matter how small? I love hearing about your ideas ♥️

[Anon is referring to this fic and this poem]

:") everyone is nice to meeeee, thank you ❤️ I'm going to call Daphne he throughout this so don't get confused. I don't have bonus headcanons about him at the moment, I usually construct those for minor characters as I'm making a fic about them, but I'll talk broadly about my thoughts about him under the cut (it got long LOL).

I think Daphne gets to me in particular with gender, because:

a) Meet My Girlfriend by Transgenderism was the first time it really clicked in my head that you can just. Choose. To change your pronouns. If it makes you happy. And you can still be a lesbian. So he's linked in my mind with that revelation.

b) pulling some man out of a river and marrying him on the spot is PEAK compulsory (cis)heterosexuality. Like. Ah yes :) God has sent me a man to solve my problem and he doesn't know what Being A Man is so he's Safe plus 'this is normal heterosexual behaviour I'm pretty sure [it absolutely is not]'.

(Reading Adorned With Smoke For Clothes by lesbiansailor, where Daphne prays for salvation [from being a lesbian] and there stumbles upon "Emmanuel" and is like 'oh okay' really sank into my brain, that's definitely what happened.)

c) I've always loved 'teaching someone how to be human' but the sweet, sweet juice of "teaching someone how to be A Man when you are insecure and unhappy about your own gender role"? YUM YUM YUM. The act of finding yourself through the other!! That's how. To get a little introspective lol. That's how I tend to work through figuring stuff out about myself. There is someone in my life and I think to myself "ah they might be _. This explains me thinking about it so much." And then like 3-5 months later I'm like wait. I think I am _. Lol. So I can project that projection onto Daphne, but with bonus resentment because I love resentment it's so fun to write.

d) obviously him being partnered with Castiel, who I view as a secure trans man (he "became a father", he went from agender to man, he literally changed from a female vessel to a male one, many people in fandom have said this. He literally invented free will to choose to be a trans gay man ❤️*). Having someone SO sure that he's a man even when he lost ALL his memories and didn't even know how to use a toothbrush at first AND when he's doing manhood "wrong" and sensitively and queerly, to a transmasc Daphne that's got to feel like "he doesn't even care about what it means to be a man so I have to care about it for both of us and I still don't get to be one!!! I don't want to think about it!!!!"

e) the way prescriptive religion ties in with him, doubting his gender role means doubting God which means potentially upending his entire community and being so fucking lonely. We only see Daphne for like. 1 minute of screentime lmao so it is for the best that they didn't pile on more side characters but it gives the impression that he doesn't have any friends**, which makes me think about how Marge Simpson doesn't have any friends (highly recommend the Lola Sebastian video about Marge) which makes me think about (my) fear of becoming a housewife with no friends.

So, I think Daphne is afraid of being himself with the (justified!) fear of losing his present community, but in trying to avoid that, he can't get truly close to people and thus causes that lonliness anyway. A vicious cycle...

f) Daphne is a character firmly discarded by Supernatural - which is fine, I don't want every 3 second character to keep coming back or we'd have 100 Cole's and I couldn't stand 1 Cole - but finding love for minor characters in spn has become a particular fascination of mine ❤️ mostly due to the sapphicnatural community 🧡 With the meta context that minor characters are not only disregarded by the characters amd writers but disregarded by GOD, for a character like Daphne who throws himself so firmly into faith that he marries a man whom - I cannot stress enough - he found in a river, that dramatic irony is so delicious. He's putting his life in service of a guy who, if asked, might not even remember his name. JUICY.

And e and f together beg the question, if it doesn't make him less lonely and if God [who is also a misogynist just btw] doesn't care what he does. Why is he putting himself through the agony of the closest. If his life is so flimsy that he can marry a stranger like it's nothing, why can't he pursue a life that makes him HAPPY?

g) Johanna Marlowe's performance of Daphne....she [the actor] just looks so strangely afraid? Daphne had just been attacked, but even when he's safe and looking up at Emmanuel, there's something fearful there I think:

Like maybe that's just how her face looks, but there's also the way she decided to touch him glancingly, hesitant and fleeting. Look at her physicality choices in her one scene. If I were just attacked by a demon and my spouse came and untied me, I would probably, like, hug them and find reassurance in them? But Marlowe says no. I will touch his face as quickly as possible and then let him drag me around. They're not even holding hands!! He grabs her wrist and she makes a fist! I never noticed that before that's crazy. Anyway this may have been directorial just to get through the scene quickly, there's a lot to get through in the episode, but regardless of the practical reasons behind her performance, it is Text and it is Strange!

And finally. I realised I do actually have a small headcanon. I think Daphne's transmasc new name is one of three:

Emmanuel (he chose the name, he should get to keep it!); Samson (biblical, raised according to the instructions of angels, had his dark night of the soul from his beloved cutting his hair [PS I think Daphne grows out his hair through transition]); or he keeps Daphne. He can still be Daphne if he wants. You can do whatever you want forever!

I also think he keeps his faith in God. His logic is that he asked for salvation -> Emmanuel appeared -> Emmanuel's questioning of his life brought him to true understanding of himself, and this must be holy.

*(I actually think Cas can also be attracted to women personally but this post isn't about him)

** also the fact that no one talked him out of marrying Emmanuel lmao

***Also from the Wikipedia recounting of the bible version he might be really into bondage??? Get it Samson!!

[scaly-freaks]

I love love love dark stories. I don’t know why but they just itch my brain perfectly. Your stories I swear are thoughts I’ve had (let’s not get into that) and written out in a way I couldn’t fully conceive.

I’ve been practicing some writing just as a hobby and I think for me to write dark stories it feels like I need to fully cross a wall of some sort to out those thoughts on paper. Not sure how to overcome it but I’m trying.

But yeah idk why but the sadder and more brutal a story is the better and I think it’s because on an emotional level I can just connect with it if that makes sense?

Anyways this is just a long winded way of me saying that I love your work and appreciate the effort you put into fleshing out characters and having us connect with them in that way. (I also love sappy moments too but idk with dark stories they feel earned in a way like we worked for it and achieved a short lived reprieve)

Also just a quick little question, how would an interaction between Daemon and Amara go? This is gonna sound terrible but when you mentioned the stepdad au my mind went to him before our Egg boy.

No because...same. I write dark stories and revel in them the way people revel in comfort media. I understand them, and the necessity of finding light amidst the darkness is something I've lived with all my life so familiarity breeds comfort in me. Sometimes I get a little startled because someone will read what I wrote and be like wtf how does this happen? How is it ever allowed to happen? And I'm like yeah...why did that happen to me? Why was it allowed to happen? But then I turn off the switch and dive back into fiction to cope (as I think many people who create art out of trauma will profess to - it's a way of distancing yourself but acknowledging it).

That wall (I know what you mean) will be crossed eventually I think. Just stay aware that it's not a wall you want to cross often or live beyond all the time. It's somewhere to retreat to, but always remember to climb over it and return to the other side otherwise it can get too much.

Thank you so much for this ask though, it makes me feel so seen and appreciated. I often worry that I'm upsetting people with how abjectly miserable my work can get, and force myself to lighten it up so it'll be more palatable. But the AU idea I posted yesterday named 'fuck puppet' is mostly what I write well and consistently (Amara does kill him in the end, so there's no romanticisation there, it's just pure victim vs abuser, beast vs human, and she wins).

And HMMM okay, so if you asked me about Daemon and Amara two years ago, I'd be like ew no. He really irritated me as a character when everyone was defending him, but the defence of him as stopped being as cloying and the writers have dug into the pathetic aspects of his nature more so I'm open to exploring him.

Plus, ironically whenever he interacted with Amara in my fics even when I hated him, there were readers who pointed out that there was sexual tension there (which I didn't even intend!) So clearly, there'd be something there, what with her daddy issues and his ability to appear put together and intelligent in front of a much younger woman.

I think where it takes Aegon longer to identify Amara's childishness and immaturity (because his own outshines hers a lot of the time), Daemon would snap at it in an instant. Eventually, Aegon gets there and is like okay, my turn to take care of you but Daemon reaches the destination immediately and does softer things to figure out whether she sees him in a remotely romantic/sexual way. So maybe a gentle hand on her waist to move her aside, resting it on the small of her back to comfort her (but only for a second) or giving her that odd little smile when she's yapping that has a twinkle of endearment in it. I think she'd fall for it pretty fast, and get a kick out of all her friends being disgusted by the idea of her having sex with an 'old man' (because obviously to them he is). She doesn't see it as exploitation, and she doesn't have to. When she's in his bed for entire weekends and he's using every trick in his extensive book of sexual tricks on her, she barely has time to think never mind wonder if this is right. I think he probably would need Viagra though bc canon Daemon strikes me as the type to wear out pretty fast, but Amara would be the insatiable party and well...there we go.

Anyway, over time, she is a little flighty, and her friends' constant judgement does weigh on her, along with the fact that Daemon's immaturity isn't like her immaturity. He's still ahead of her in experience. He can gaslight her into believing his pettiness is actually adult wisdom. So if he doesn't like her hanging out with boys her own age, he'll cut at her intelligence and make her feel diminished and stupid for thinking those boys could possibly want her for anything more than sex. And she'd fully believe him. She'd probably be reduced to tears after screaming at him for being a dickhead, and then accept his palm caressing her face telling her it's fine, and that he didn't mean it, and has she seen herself? She's so beautiful, anyone would want her. He just loves her and is worried someone will take advantage. And then that of course leads to sex and her feeling relieved Daemon cares so much and giving him everything she's got to make sure he feels the pleasure in return. Thus, the whole cycle starts again.

I can't believe I'm saying this but...Aegon might just have to be the rescuer in this situation LMAO. Daemon would not let her go easily.

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

hi im gonna write a drifteris fic (with different names) for a creative writing contest but i desperately need a prompt, you are The Drifteris Person™ and i would trust you with my life so please do you have any prompt recommendations 😭

I do not know when I became the Drifteris person but, while I feel unworthy of the title, I will try my very best to give you something lovely.  If at some point in future you wish to share what you've written I would love to read it.  Anything I can do to increase the amount of Drifteris in the world delights me intensely.

Here's a bunch of story ideas for things I might write some day that you (and anyone else who wants) are free to use (ideas are not stories - take them, use them, write your thing and revel in the glory that is human creativity).  Some are quite unoriginal, but the thing about writing is if you get too original no one can relate to it, so always give yourself permission to do something that's already been done.  Only you can write a thing like you.  No matter what the base idea is, the actual writing is still your own.

Specifically set in Beyond Light: Europa (because I feel robbed we did not get enough of those two in BL - for research, watch the awesome cutscene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAD6E_vESJY&t=18s or the videos of their conversations with the player by the fire)

Exo Stranger is busy and there's a strange signal so they go investigate

They find something in an ice cave

Why did they leave Europa? (We just showed up one week and they were gone - maybe there was a specific reason that caused them to run off?)

There is a blizzard and one of them is late coming back from a patrol so the other goes out looking for them

Ice fishing gone wrong

Snowball fight

Scenes from learning how to use/practicing Stasis

More generic anytime/anywhere:

One calls the other after waking up from a bad dream

"Saw this, thought of you." (bonus points if it seems vaguely insulting on the surface but is actually really sweet)

Cooking lessons

Pick a location in the game, think of a reason for Eris to want to investigate something there and drag the Drifter along in a similar manner to the Eidolon Pursuant clothing ( https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/eidolon-pursuant-suit-warlock?highlight=eidolon+pursuant )

The Drifter takes Eris fishing to one of the fishing spots in game (why does she go with him?  she lost a bet? or perhaps she asked him to take her fishing and he's nervous about them getting shot? so many possibilities!)

Drifter shows up on the Moon having fixed something for her (maybe he stole it and she didn't know he had it? maybe she asked him to fix it so he made it better?  maybe she didn't know it was broken?  maybe he broke it?)

She shows up to the Annex because he asked her to come look at something he found after one of the Salvage operations on Titan (and of course he never mentioned it to anyone because Drifter be like that)

Immaru says some shit to Eris and gets bullied (the possibilities are endless - I support more Immaru bullying in the world) 

Eido asks Eris about something the Drifter once said to her and wants an explanation of what that 'human custom' means (it is of course something Drifter-terrible - or maybe not - perhaps it’s emotionally revealing and he never expected Eido to notice never mind ask about it - you decide!)

Ikora asks Eris to investigate something in a lost sector and Eris brings the Drifter along (or the Drifter finds out Eris is going and shows up uninvited - I love lost sectors - they're such interesting bits of the game and easy to explore for research purposes after you've cleared them out)

Go in game to one of their locations (Annex or the Moon or Athenaeum...) and wander around looking at the details.  Find something intriguing.  Have one of them ask the other what it is and why it's there (why the hell does Eris have Hive eyeballs floating in her bowl in the Athenaeum?  Seriously... what is she even doing with that?)

Sometimes I just go stand beside Drifter in the Annex or Eris on the Moon and listen to their idle diaogue and then go “I wonder what that was all about.  There’s a story in there!” and get inspired.

I will stop now or I'll just keep going on forever.  I would love to read any/all of these.  Please write them.  I may write them too at some point but that’s ok.  There’s no such thing as too much Drifteris.

[s12e28]

How I feel knowing the vast majority of this fandom's missing out on sotdae's fics—especially the multi-chaptered ones—because of the language barrier. All their works are completed and of top quality, with rich plot and character dynamics not limited to that of the ship. Please give even MTL a chance...

Like, they wrote a whole SCI-FI LCF AU! and what's really crazy is how they pulled off making it fairly canon compliant! Choi Han being the last remaining 'original human' from the Harris Village experiment... scientist on steroids Rosalyn... cyborg Mary... AI eugenicist White Star... it's seriously so good. When you read it, you can't help but imagine a movie play out...!!!

Adaptation of Ron coming back from losing his arm scene:

"Oh father..."

"I feel like he's been exposed to radiation."

Cale nervously took out his portable terminal. There is nothing money can't buy. Fortunately, there is an abundance of money. You can buy both equipment and people. At that moment, another call came. It was a familiar alert sound. Cale's fingers roughly swiped the screen.

"Oh, Cale. I was thinking about it because you didn't contact me about compensation—"

"I'm busy right now."

There was a brief silence as the communication device was suddenly cut off.

"Young Master, but—"

"It's okay, Vicross. I'll do whatever it takes."

"Then there is no realistic solution."

Cale looked up crookedly. This kid is secretly delicate. Ron must have raised him well. Meanwhile, I'm a cruel person who would keep Ron alive for as long as possible even if he rolled around the floor in pain and— Hmm?

"What does that mean?"

It sounded like there are out-of-the-box solutions, only, they were unrealistic.

"That... all the medical equipment is state-owned, and the procedure for getting access is too—"

Cale pressed redial. The other person picked up not even two rings later.

"What? You said you were busy."

"I apologize for your busy schedule. I need to use state property for the work you've entrusted me, so please give me authority."

"For further explanation or permission—"

"I'll do it later. Please."

A brief silence passed over the line.

"I'll give you a card that can bypass every agency. A temporary issuance will be sent to your terminal. If you need it for the long term, contact me again."

"Thank you."

Then suddenly, the communication device was cut off again. Long live science and technology.

"Don't look at me like that. Why do you think I brought a medical transport vehicle? Don't worry, I've got everything you need."

Then there's one where previous secret services agent KRS dies and transmigrates into child!Cale, who then meets the young prince Alver in boarding school... it's starts off fairly silly and sweet, but then revelations happen... and things happen... things happen!!! Cale is one BAMF here...

Another of Earth 2 KRS and Temple Test Illusion Alver... "You live in a world that Cale abandoned, I live in a world that the hero saved." man!!! besides being a shipfic, it was also an interesting introspection on how That KRS must have felt... here's my favorite passage:

Roksoo reached out and touched Alver's face. He had gradually come to love many things in this world, but there was nothing he loved as fiercely as you. You were you. You were real as you were. So different and so unique, that he didn't even fear that loving you might be an imitation of the original.

The second part gets twisted, but such is the way of sotdae's writing. Seriously, their fics are beautiful beyond words...

[redrocketpanda]

Today is my 1 year anniversary of fic writing! I wanted to do something to celebrate but couldn't think of anything, so here's a little reflective ramble post about writing instead

For well over a decade (tbh closer to 15 years) I struggled with severe writing anxiety and, with the exception of one thing I posted in 2014, my anxiety became so bad that I completely disengaged from writing altogether. Whenever I sat down to write I would be filled with such powerful negative thoughts that I would become paralysed by them. I tried so many things to help combat this including writing workshops + classes, nanowrimo, mentoring, journaling, and reading tonnes of self-help advice, but nothing seemed to work. I grew increasingly despondent, afraid that nothing would "fix" me, which was incredibly depressing because when I was younger I loved writing. I wanted to get back to that space of creativity and joy that writing brought but instead felt like I was being pushed further and further away from it.

Then, in November 2022, I was talking to one of my best friends - @parad0xymoron - about how distressing I was finding S6 of My Hero Academia, to the point where I was struggling to watch it. Socket's suggestion? Write fic! If something is happening that I don't like or is upsetting me, then I can write a different version of events. And thus the first chapter of Just Watch Me - my Kirishima/Bakugou fic - was born.

And once I'd started, I found I couldn't stop.

Suddenly, all of the characters, and scenarios, and plots I was imagining in my head came spilling out onto the page. Between November - April, I not only posted all 4 chapters of Just Watch Me but I also wrote and published 7 other one-shots as well. This isn't to say that writing "suddenly" became easy. Of course it didn't. It was - and is - still stressful for me. There were times when I felt that all too familiar sense of paralysis creeping up on me, but I drew on all the tools I had learned over a decade to deal with it.

I stopped. Took a deep breath. Looked inside to see what was going on: What was I scared or anxious of? Then I addressed the issue myself, or spoke to friends who helped me process. And then I kept going. I didn't let the fear or the anxiety or the obsessive need for perfection to stop me.

In exactly 1 year (27th November 2022 - 27th November 2023) I went from 0 words to:

I repeat: In exactly 1 year I went from 0 words in (almost) 10 years to 87, 852 words across 12 published fics for 5 different fandoms. And that's not even including the thousands of words I have from my wips.

During this time, I didn't just write though. I spent time devouring other people's fics and learning from their writing. I spoke to a whole bunch of wonderful fic writers who gave me tonnes of useful feedback, ideas, reassurance, and validation. I began analysing media I enjoy to begin breaking down the parts of them that I loved so that I could learn from it. I joined a bunch of bang events (which, honestly, has been incredible). And I made friends with some of the most wonderful people + writers who are now very dear to my heart.

Perhaps ironically, I cannot even put into words how life changing writing fic and participating in fandom has been for me. It has given me back what no workshops or classes or professionals has ever been able to give me - my ability to write, and to enjoy writing.

So let me just be a sap for a minute and say a very tearful thank you to any of you who have been part of my journey - whether that's been in leaving kudos or comments on my fics, or talking through ideas with me, or beta-reading my fics, or gifting me your valuable writing advice, or sharing your own writing journeys with me, or being someone who I've made friends with.

I'm literally so grateful to every single experience I've had over the past year, and it makes me very excited to see what the next year brings. I still have far to go and much to learn, but damn am I revelling in the fucking joy of being able to write. I'm so excited to keep writing, keep creating, and keep sharing with you all <3

[tokiro07]

Martial Master Asumi ch.32 thoughts

[And Then There Was One]

(Contents: speculation - cancelation)

I wonder how I would have taken the news that MMA was ending had Cipher Academy not ended at the same time?

I wonder how I'd be reacting if I hadn't been told prior to the previous review?

I wrote last week's fresh off of that news, so I almost feel like I already did my end-of-series review

I almost don't know what to write here, but I owe it to this series and Kawada to at least try

Like with Cipher Academy, the roadmap that we skipped is pretty well laid out here - we see the key opponents that Asumi would have needed to face in the J-Future Cup (Takanori obviously being one of them, and I'm willing to bet would have been the final one), we see that Baku had a violent and deadly past that likely would have been a major revelation that raised the stakes for the entire series, and finally we see Asumi vs. Kazuro, with Kazuro's bloodlust manifesting as fire to complement Asumi's water. I don't remember if I predicted that specifically, but it doesn't come at all as a surprise

I definitely would have liked to see other characters show off their bloodlust like that, and I think it's a tremendous shame that no one ever got the chance to. I don't have a good idea of what it is that prevented the series from catching on, but if I had to guess, I think it might be that it established itself as a continuation of Hinomaru Zumou without matching the level of escalation quite quickly enough

To illustrate: Hinomaru revealed the concept of bloodlust around chapter 60-ish as I recall, while Asumi did it around chapter 20; now that we know that they're using the same mechanics, we would expect to see it being used by other fighters just as quickly rather than having it sprinkled through, but the only glimpse we ever got of it after that was from Okiba. I think since Asumi reached the professional stage in about an eighth of the time it took Hinomaru, then we as the audience should have been given a glimpse of how the ceilings of the professional worlds compared

The moment we knew Kunisaki was here, I think it would have helped if we had gotten to see him fighting. Maybe we could have seen the fight that inspired Amagaki, or the first professional bout we saw could have been one of his rather than Okiba's one-sided beatdown. The sense of escalation was fine for me, but maybe it felt too laid back for everyone else. Hinomaru fans know that we could be seeing people with lightning coursing their entire bodies, why are we only seeing Asumi splashing a little bit of water?

Like I said, this is just my best guess, but I think the connection to Hinomaru established too strong of an expectation that wasn't really being delivered on. That said, wow did people not give it any time to do anything with it! It's been what, a quarter year since we saw Asumi enter bloodlust mode?? That's nothing! We only got to see two fights since then! But I guess maybe people were just impatient?

Or they just...weren't up for reading an MMA manga? Maybe MMA's not that popular in Japan? I think Hinomaru Zumou found a really good niche cus sumo itself is big, but also from how Kawada portrayed it, kind of dwindling. It seems like sumo is having a harder time connecting with the youth, so maybe Hinomaru helped bridge that gap, or appealed to the fans who felt like their favorite sport wasn't as popular as it should be?

Or maybe there are too many MMA manga. I don't read any, but I've seen a few here and there like Teppu, so maybe the market's oversaturated with them and I didn't realize it

There are so many possible factors, but in the end, knowing what to blame wouldn't really change the fact that another one of my favorites is gone. It's especially disheartening because of how Kawada seemed to take the news, berating himself in the author comments this week. Maybe his tone was more light-hearted in Japanese, but calling himself an amateur and blaming himself for his own failures leaves such a negative taste in my mouth. I hate to see an author I love get down on himself, and it makes me so worried that he's going to give up, like I said last week too. I want to see his work again; his art style is so pleasing, his choreography is great, and his character writing is fantastic. I think it would be a tremendous loss to the art form if he were to quit, but alas, he will never hear me say that. I hope someone feels like I do in Japan and sends him a nice, heartfelt letter expressing how much he means to people like us, and that we'll get to see him again as soon as possible

I'm going to stop here, lest I work myself up into a lather. I know I pretty rarely had engagement on these posts compared to UU and CA, but I hope that the few of you who read them enjoyed yourselves, and I hope it deepened your experience and appreciation for the series like it did for me. Hope to see you all again with Kawada's next work

Until next time

[addictedtostorytelling]

It's me again! I have finished all the original CSI seasons and I'm now on Vegas. One thing I am frustrated with is the lack of GSR kissing. I know a kiss was cut and I have seen your rant about the lack of kisses, but why do you think that is?? They are so happily married and obviously attracted to each other! Why do the writers constantly not give us more PDA between these two??

hi, @i-collect-things!

good to hear from you again!

re: your question:

my sense is that the reason why the writers were so stingy with gsr kisses (especially in the reboot) was because they were laboring under some mistaken impressions even though they really should have known better.

they believed that it was the paucity of gsr kisses that made the few that we got to see over the years special, when in fact such was never the case.

because of the way the fandom had responded to the gsr slow-burn storyline, they essentially mistook our enthusiasm for the few "table scraps" we had ever been fed as a preference for scraps in itself rather than correctly interpreting it as evidence of how much more excited we might have been had we ever been given access to a true feast instead.

they seemed to think that if they had made gsr kisses a regular occurrence for us, said kisses wouldn't have been "special" anymore, and our interest in the ship (and by extension the show) would have diminished.

no two ways about it: they were flat-out wrong, and the stunning lack of kisses in places where there should have been some is just egregious in retrospect, an absolute failure of writing and production, indicative of just how badly the csibods misjudged their audience in the later seasons of the show and reboot eras.

more discussion of the issue after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

warning: here be salt about csi and csi: vegas writing and production decisions. read at your own risk.

__

three kisses in twenty-one years for the only actual romantic couple in the entire csi: vegas storyworld: it reads like a bad joke at first, especially when one considers that said couple goes from being the classic "will they or won't they?" pairing, to dating, to engaged, to married (twice!) over that long span of time and has many of their most significant relationship moments play out on screen.

certainly, the experience is incomparable to anything else i have ever dealt with in my almost thirty years as a fangirl.

gsr kisses are rarer than gemstones, even though there is absolutely no narrative reason why they ought to be.

so what gives?

well, for my money, the lack of gsr kisses all goes back to the fact that, as anthony zuiker talks about in this interview, the original csi, by design, "never brought characters home [or] delved too deep into their personal lives."

that writing choice meant that while gsr was the show's flagship romance, it was never something that received a lot of mainline narrative focus.

—which in some ways made negotiating the gsr slow-burn romantic storyline difficult.

on other primetime shows, a flagship slow-burn romance will typically play out over the course of about three seasons, receiving measured but nevertheless steady development, with little romantic moments scattered in here and there, punctuated by one or two "romantic focus episodes" per season. there will be plenty of pining, some near misses, and usually a midgame ship or two along the way to stir up jealousies, resentments, and personal revelations until finally the two characters come together in the inevitable "consummation moment" that sees them confess their love, hold hands, kiss, and/or have sex for the first time on screen, after which point they are then officially a couple.

however, because csi never had any interest in giving gsr that much mainline attention, they didn't adhere to those traditional patterns. while gsr did get occasional peripheral development during the show's first three seasons—and even played the whole "one endgame character gets into a midgame ship with someone else that causes the other endgame character to get jealous" game for a while—by the end of s3, grissom and sara were actually further apart (relationally speaking) than ever, with grissom flat-out rejecting sara's most overt romantic overture to date.

on a show more willing to expend narrative resources exploring and developing the characters' personal lives (and depicting their actions outside of work), they might have been able to write their way out of this narrative low point for grissom and sara in relatively short order, having them "hit rock bottom" only to then bounce back and get together sooner rather than later, maybe by sometime in mid-s4. but on csi, where grissom and sara's romantic storyline by necessity had to (per the rules of the show) always remain in the margins only, getting the two lovers "back to good" was going to take more time; their relationship wasn't something that could be fixed quickly.

i mean, there is a reason why s4/s5 are such a roller coaster ride, gsrwise. and the fact that it couldn't be meant that the writers now had something of a pacing problem.

writing a slow-burn romance is an art, particularly when it comes to pacing. for as much as it's about teasing the audience's expectations and playing the "will they or won't they?" game for as long as possible, there has to be some indication that the characters are moving toward each other and will eventually reach that all-important "coming together" moment at some point. on the one hand, you have to be patient and draw the development out in order to build up the narrative tension, making the audience yearn for the consummation so badly it almost hurts before you ever give them the satisfaction of seeing it. on the other hand, you need to make sure that even if the slow-burn runs long, it still is in a constant state of progression, with the tension escalating over time until the consummation inevitably occurs, or otherwise you risk losing its momentum (and with it, the audience's interest). with gsr, the csi writers had already drawn things out with them almost as long as they could without overtaxing the premise.

that so, they had to wonder, after grissom's seemingly decisive rejection of sara at the end of s3, was there really any way to move the story forward? had they dragged their feet too long already, making romantic gsr unviable, or was there any way to navigate the coming season so that eventual consummation (maybe two or three seasons on) was still a potential option? initially, the writers thought the answer was "no."

but thankfully billy and jorja thought the answer was "yes," and they advocated for the romantic gsr storyline to continue, eventually persuading the writers to stick things out a while longer.

nevertheless, even once the writers decided to continue writing romantic gsr after all, given that by then they had long "overshot the runway" in terms of the usual slow-burn tropes, they had to get creative with trying to stick the landing—and what they decided, for better or worse, was that since the entire reason why grissom and sara hadn't gotten together previously was that, as a rule, the show didn't focus on the personal lives of their characters, they were going to double down on that narrative choice.

ipso facto, after spending s4 and early s5 slowly moving grissom and sara back toward each other, instead of having that traditional "consummation moment" occur on screen, they opted to just kind of skip over it.

have it happen but not on screen.

have it happen but not allow the audience to know that it had (at least at first).

while there were probably a lot of factors that influenced this decision on their parts, one of the big ones was the fan response they had already gotten to gsr so far: gsr had always been a "love it or hate it" ship, with very few people neutral on the matter.

among fans who hated the ship, certainly there were those who did so because they favored other grissom and/or sara pairings instead; however, there was also a fairly vocal contingent of folks who were just against the concept of csi portraying any romance in general, arguing that it pulled focus from the forensics of the show, posing a distraction from what they viewed as "csi's main point."

meanwhile, fans who loved gsr were (by this time) annoyed that the relationship had been teased for so long without being made canon.

by sublimating the consummation and making it happen off-screen, the writers spoke to those two disparate responses, essentially saying, "yes, this is something that's happening (see, gsr fans?), but, trust us, it's not gonna be a distraction from the show's main focus. grissom and sara have already been together for a long time, and you didn't even know it (gsr haters)!"

it seemed like a good way to compromise between doing what was right for the characters and gratifying some of the fans while at the same time honoring the show's thesis and production values without alienating the other fans altogether.

unfortunately, taking this particular approach also created a problem: just because the writers decided to skip over the initial consummation moment didn't mean that all that pent up tension and expectation for it just evanesced.

fans still wanted to see a gsr kiss, dammit, and the longer they didn't see it, the more ravenous for it they became.

and so the writers had written themselves into a bit of corner, making it so that any gsr kiss they might write would be, by its very nature, chimerical: a first kiss from the audience's perspective but a thousandth kiss from the grissom and sara's.

writing such a kiss would require finesse.

however, it also wouldn't have been impossible to do.

it's just that the writers chose not to do it.

part of their decision to keep holding off undoubtedly stemmed from that same old reluctance to focus on the characters' personal lives too much (and from a fear of alienating fans who either hated gsr and/or just didn't want there to be too much romance in the show in general).

however, part of it also undoubtedly came from the way fans were responding to lack of kisses so far—i.e., by being super vocal about wanting to see a kiss, campaigning for it online (as by now online fandom was definitely a thing), tuning in in numbers every week and particularly for episodes that touted heavy gsr content, and by just generally engaging with the show on the basis of wanting to see a kiss happen.

essentially, at the same time that the writers had officially concluded the gsr slow-burn storyline, they had also (largely inadvertently) stumbled upon a way to prolong the whole "will they or won't they?" of the thing, sustaining the same narrative tension that had kept them afloat for so long.

even though the couple was officially together, the audience still had something to yearn for with them.

and that yearning was too sweet to just easily relinquish.

so the writers milked it.

they dangled the promise of the kiss™ overhead, tantalean, making sure to remind us all the time that grissom and sara did in fact have a physical relationship but never letting us so much as glimpse it.

they teased it all through s7 and into s8, even going as far as to stage a "near miss" kiss during grissom and sara's engagement scene in episode 08x04 "the case of the cross-dressing carp" just to drive the fans up a wall. and who knows how long they might have continued in that same vein going forward, except for the fact that, all of a sudden, jorja fox was going to leave the show.

—and just like that, the writers were out of time.

jorja's impending exit essentially turned the kiss into a "now or never" proposition—and, thankfully, since grissom and sara were still very much in love (and were even engaged to be married) even with sara's departure looming, the answer had to be "now."

the writers had to finally write that kiss they had been withholding for so long.

luckily for them, their old problem of "how should we stage what is a first kiss to the audience but a thousandth kiss to the characters?" was essentially solved by the circumstances.

by having the first gsr kiss also be the last gsr kiss, that made things simple.

the significance was all wrapped up in the moment.

they didn't have to go out of their ways to stage or fame anything.

of course, as you might imagine, reactions to this kiss were mixed. while on the one hand, fans were pleased to finally see their beloved otp lock lips after 7+ years, on the other hand, the context of the kiss was so heartbreaking that it was hard for anyone to truly be gratified. many fans could not help but feel cheated that the first time they got to see grissom and sara kiss was also going to be the only time they ever would do so and also that the kiss itself was so overwhelmingly sad, with sara in tears and grissom confused and scared for her. the moment of the kiss itself was overshadowed by the harsh reality of sara's departure.

while i have no way to prove as much, i think, retroactively, the writers realized that they had fucked up—that they had waited too long to have the first gsr kiss altogether and that what ended up being the first kiss was just kind of unintentionally cruel to the fans.

mercifully, one season later, both the writers and the fandom got a chance for a redux: an opportunity to see one last gsr kiss, this time in circumstances much happier, during grissom and sara's reunion in episode 09x10 "one to go."

that kiss, they stuck the landing on.

it was triumphal. it was significant. it was everything that fans could've asked for and would have served as a very fitting ending to the entire gsr slow burn, had it indeed been the final word on the thing.

except.

then jorja came back to the show.

and her coming back raised once again the problem of how to depict gsr pda anew.

of course, without having billy on the show with her, there was no way to really portray grissom and sara kissing (much less having sex); innuendo was the only option.

and innuendo only would've been okay, circumstances being what they were.

except.

the circumstances changed.

billy did come back—first in his cameo in episode 11x13 "the two mrs. grissoms" and then for his more substantial guest role in "immortality."

and this is the point where i truly get baffled by the writers' choices.

why they didn't write an ending to episode 11x13 "the two mrs. grissoms" that involved grissom showing up at the lab after all was said and done with the bombing case, i don't know. if they could get billy on deck to film the webcam scene, then presumably they also could have gotten him on deck to film something in the same room as jorja. presumably there could have been a kiss.

and this one wouldn't even have had to be a big deal™ kind of thing! it could have just been a very lowkey kiss hello between a married couple that hadn't seen each other in a few weeks.

even more confounding is their choice not to include a kiss at the ending of "immortality."

like.

i literally cannot wrap my head around how they biffed that one so badly.

as i talk about here,

from a production standpoint, i cannot think of one even slightly defensible reason to not include a kiss, particularly given the way the scene is set up.

i mean, gsr is the show’s flagship romantic pairing, and the scene is the culmination of their love story, which has spanned every season of the show.

it would be one thing if billy and jorja hated each other, so the writers and production staff decided to spare them from having to kiss. 

but billy and jorja don’t hate each other. 

they’re dear friends who’ve kissed on screen before, and they even kissed each other (in a friendly way) unprompted at paleyfest. plus, they understand how their characters feel about each other and how television shows work.

all of that being so, i don’t think they likely objected to anything. if they’d been told that grissom and sara had to kiss, they undoubtedly would have gone for it as directed.

so the fact that there’s no kiss in the finale speaks to someone in power having made a very poor production decision along the way—either a writer or producer, who chose not to write a kiss into the script; or a director, who chose to ignore a kiss already written into the script; or even an editor, who took a filmed kiss out in post production.

somebody zigged when they should have zagged.

the csi powers set up the final scene of the episode perfectly to scaffold a kiss. based on the way grissom and sara’s reunion is staged, the music that’s playing, the narrative context, and even the camera angles, the audience has every reason to expect that grissom and sara will lock lips.

because the stage has been set for a kiss, not having one is such a letdown.

not only would a kiss have blown the audience’s collective mind just because gsr kisses have historically been a rare commodity on the show despite the fact that gsr has been a thing™ since day one—2.5 total kisses over fifteen seasons! not even a full kiss when grissom and sara get engaged!—but just in terms of the story that is told in the finale episodes, with all the longing and hesitation and pining and lovelorn looks, a passionate kiss between grissom and sara would have been the way to go. it would have been so narratively satisfying...

you can’t write a finale that is so intensely gsrcentric—to the point where it, frankly, neglects most of the other characters in favor of telling grissom and sara’s story—and spend the equivalent of two full episodes playing the “will they or won’t they?" game, showing ad nauseum that grissom and sara are still desperately in love with each other but too scared to say as much, and then have sara finally make the brave gesture, go to grissom, and lay her heart on the line, and not consummate the moment with a kiss!

based on the way the story has been told, a kiss is what the audience is wanting and expecting. 

a kiss is what would make sense from a narrative and cinematographic perspective. 

a kiss should be the pièce de résistance to what has essentially been “grissom and sara realize they can’t live without each other (and that they’re idiots for ever thinking they could): the two hour made-for-tv movie.”

everything is there, just ready to play out—but somehow anthony zuiker and co. completely fumble the setup.

just as they stoke the expectations of the audience to a frenetic pitch, they decide to bail out and instead go with the letdown move, inserting the hug.

it’s the television equivalent of failing to touch home plate after rounding third with the whole baseball game on the line.

one cannot even attribute the lack of kissing in the finale to the same desire to "build tension" that had led the writers to withhold kisses during s5-s8, as, in this instance, they had good reason to believe that it might be the last time they'd ever have the opportunity to put billy and jorja on screen together as grissom and sara again. it wasn't like there was more "will they or won't they?" territory left to be explored; the answer—they will! they have! they are!—had already definitively been given, and the story was ending on that very note.

all i can figure is that maybe they were somehow laboring under the delusion that gsr fans wouldn't want to see a kiss in that particular narrative situation—like maybe they were worried we would consider it overhasty (in the wake of the divorce and the fact that grissom and sara had been apart for two and half years) or believed that we would more appreciate the "subtlety" of a hug.

in any case, whatever was or wasn't in their heads, not having a kiss at the end of "immortality" was about as big of a fuckup as ever there was one.

and they definitely heard fans say so.

the csi twittersphere talked about the choice ad nauseum for a while, and though there were a few defenders ("the hug was good enough!"), there were many more folks who made their disappointment well-known.

so you think tptb would have learned their lesson for the reboot.

but no.

prior to the debut, fans excitedly speculated about what it was going to be like to after long last have a happy and married grissom and sara together on our screens. many of us speculated that we might finally get to see some regular gsr kisses for the first time in twenty+ years of shipping—a speculation that was only fueled by some of the early press surrounding the show, in which billy and jorja hinted about the show including more intimacy, with jorja going as far as to say "the show is going to air at 10pm, so we can be a little edgier than we were last time" in direct response to an interviewer asking her about the potential for gsr pda.

but then the first several episodes aired, and while we got to see a lot of cute gsr interactions, none of them included much physicality. some of us wondered if maybe pandemic safety restrictions were preventing kisses from being filmed.

but then the promo for episode 01x04 "long pig" dropped, and all such speculation went out the window.

obviously, kisses could be filmed—and one had been.

eureka!

for a few blessed days, the fandom rejoiced.

after so many years, we thought that finally we were going to get to see our otp just share a regular, everyday "just because we're happily married and it's how happily married people say goodbye to each other for the day" kiss.

imagine our devastation when the episode then aired and the kiss was nowhere to be found. the scene it was supposed to feature in came and went, and no middle-aged scientist lips got locked.

fandom complained.

loudly.

and bless her heart, jorja fox responded, tweeting out confirmation that the kiss had indeed been filmed, and she had no idea why it had been cut.

the fandom had no idea, either.

it would have been one thing had no kiss ever been filmed, but since it obviously had been, it made no sense for it to have then been omitted. since it was only ever meant to be a little goodbye peck on the lips and not a major turning point in the story, it couldn't have been edited out for storytelling reasons. ditto on time constraints, as it would have added only a few seconds (at most!) to the episode's run time, and there were definitely some long transition shots that could have been whittled down if needed in order to accommodate it.

my suspicion at the time was that the choice had been made because the powers that be were intent on teasing the fandom—trying to pull the same cutesy "tee-hee! we gotcha!" bullshit that they had been pulling on us for twenty years, withholding kisses just to string us along.

lo and behold, my suspicions were confirmed when showrunner jason tracey gave an interview in which he stated, "when you shoot something and the folks at [the] promo [department] get a hold of it, it’s a very enticing moment [to be included], but from a storytelling standpoint, i think that when the audience sees where we left things [with the season finale] and how we kind of brought it all home for those two characters. sometimes rewards are sweetest if you kind of have to wait. we like the shape of the story that we told. i hope people don’t feel too cheated, but we’ll see how they feel when they’ve gotten to absorb the finale and see that maybe we saved the best for last.”

basically, he thought that the roller coaster kiss in episode 01x10 "signed, sealed, delivered" would only hit if it were the sole gsr kiss of the season. he believed that having another kiss in the mix earlier on would somehow dilute the finale kiss's potency.

which.

jesus fucking christ.

after twenty+ years, you would think that the writers and showrunners would realize that it is not the paucity of gsr kisses that makes the few that we have gotten to see special but rather just the fact that it's grissom and sara and we love them and we love seeing them together.

that they were still laboring under the delusion that we only cared to see gsr kisses because they happened so rarely is just utterly baffling.

a cursory perusal of any kind of fandom space would show: we have been imagining all sorts of gsr intimacy for over twenty years now and haven't either tired of doing so yet OR exhausted the limits of our imaginations.

the actors were willing.

the story would allow.

we would have been happy to see it any which way and at any old time—but especially at those instances where it truly would have made good, solid narrative sense.

people kiss their beloveds at big reunions.

people kiss their beloveds at goodbyes.

people kiss their beloveds when they're giving comfort.

when they're celebrating.

when they're trying to seduce them away from their work in the middle of the night.

when they rescue their lost wedding ring out of a vat of liquid human decomp.

putting kisses in those parts of the story in no way would have cheapened those moments or inured us to the magic of the thing. it just would have made sense.

as i say elsewhere, "poor is the writer who can’t make a hundredth kiss feel just as special as the first one"—and especially not when they're working with such fantastically physical actors as billy and jorja who have natural chemistry in droves.

it's such a shame that the csi and csi: vegas teams never learned that lesson and instead persisted in thinking that they had to keep dangling that carrot in front of us in order to get us to watch.

anyway, suffice it to say, i'll be salty about this bad choice forever.

three kisses in twenty-one years!

infuriating.

what a complete waste of so many good opportunities.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[ruminate88]

Overcoming past Emotional Abuse in a healthy Marriage

I dated two narcissists back to back, Cody and Andrew, and I also had a guy friend who was a narcissist, Jake, that would be in my life off and on again for years! I never knew what emotional abuse was but I felt these 3 men were very toxic for me and I was very broken down and hard on myself too. I put myself down to protect myself from these men or even future men hurting me. Sadly not knowing or understanding, I was blindly pushing myself forward without 100% healing first. I rushed into marrying someone because I was trying to run from these men. I did talk with my husband about these men but I couldn’t explain truly what happened to me and how it affected the way I react and feel in various circumstances. So after I’m married, I’m beyond fragile and cautious. The littlest thing my husband did or said that triggered me, caused me to get overly upset but I would try to quickly resolve it because I didn’t understand. Simply put. Lack of wisdom on my past and my own self. Trying to approach my husband with respect, gentleness and some compromise. I wanted this marriage to be its best always but I wasn’t even at my best yet.

Eventually I learn what emotional abuse is and my eyes are starting to open. I deal with the anger my ex Andrew instilled in me and finally get some relief from that. I deal with the emotional scars and I finally deal with cognitive dissonance. I do so much prayer, soul searching BUT I need a breakthrough. It took months of writing down as much as I could remembering even the uncomfortable parts of my past and re-reading it till I’m sick of it all. I just pushed myself to sit in the uncomfortableness and I felt very shameful. Yet there were still a few more missing pieces.

With much prayer and continuing to not give up on the whole matter, I started to receive my breakthroughs. I started to understand why certain situations and conversations trigger me as I found myself comparing my present life and my spouse to the past trauma. I know I NEVER wanna experience emotional abuse again. With as much knowledge and trying to understand it all, It still wasn’t enough to heal me. I’ve had to pray even more!! The last situation to arise in my marriage that was a “trigger” put me back in a past mindset during the emotional abuse but I reminded myself how I’m not in the abuse anymore. I don’t wanna react in a “triggered mindset” so I take a deep breath, start telling Jesus how I feel and how I wanna do even better… I did tell my husband some of my feelings right away but he didn’t respond back, so he was obviously dwelling on the situation too. I decided to pray about it all and not further react.

I was not healed when I married my husband and while I didn’t realize or understand that, I felt I was doing the right thing. I was wanting a partner so bad and I wanted my husband to be “the answer” to moving on from my traumas but he wasn’t. He’s been great and has helped me in so many ways but only with years gone by, lots of prayer and revelations, have I begun to actually get what I needed. Alone with Jesus. Not with my husband. I haven’t even felt comfortable to express all of my journey or talk to my husband about everything I’ve learned because I know my past does hurt him and it almost feels safer just to let it be. In fact, I’ve never had intentions to be thinking about it so much/talking about it but I know now it’s been necessary because now I have awareness when I’m “triggered” in my marriage and I can deal with it before reacting or responding negatively. Certain emotions still arise that are hurtful from my past but as they appear, I can quickly think it over and talk to Jesus about it but remind myself those feelings are in the past. Those men can no longer hurt me and comparing my spouse to them is unfair. Unfortunately, however you’ve been in prior relationships, that is often what you bring to the table. You have to learn to change your old mindset and habits. It doesn’t happen over night. I didn’t even learn about emotional abuse till I was 5 years in my marriage!! I’ve spent this last year taking what I’ve learned and seeing how I can apply it for the future. Give yourself time and grace. Let Jesus have your guilt and shame. I’ve asked Jesus to take these emotional scars from me. I DO NOT have to wear them as a punishment for my old mistakes. You don’t either! If you’ve experienced emotional abuse like me and you’re now in a better position, daily remind yourself how far you’ve come. Getting out of the abusive relationship alone is a major victory! Now you can begin to move forward. Learn all you can about emotional abuse but then step back and allow yourself to meditate on what happened to you, how it’s affected you currently AND THEN one at a time, deal with each past thing that has hurt you. For me, it was 3 different men who all hurt me differently. I’ve had so much to deal with. I’m there though! I feel myself having a clean slate! Lastly, forgiving the ones who abused you. Most narcissists don’t apologize and if they do, it feels as if they’re only saying it to “appease you” but believe they’ve done nothing wrong. Often they feel hurt by you too. Forgiving them doesn’t change what they did but it’s helpful so you can move on from them and you will give them a chance to start over as well. You can’t change them or control how they treat future partners. Maybe they will continue to abuse people BUT that’s their choice. You can only change yourself, control how you treat yourself and your future partners. Now I know what love is and I’m learning about healthy boundaries, how to stand up for myself more and to feel comfortable sharing my life with someone new. I pray my story helps someone out there going through similar circumstances! 🥰