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muzaktomyears · 2 months ago

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John Lennon and Yoko Ono: his affairs, binges and diet pills

For years the radio host Elliot Mintz was the only person the former Beatle and his wife trusted. Now, he has written a book about his intense relationship with the couple — including what really happened during Lennon’s infamous ‘Lost Weekend’

John Lennon, Yoko Ono and Elliot Mintz outside the Mampei Hotel in Karuizawa, Japan, 1977. Right: Lennon and Ono in 1980

I am holding a pair of glasses. They are antique, made of steel wire and perfectly round. The trademarked name is the Panto 45. This is the 26th pair of John’s glasses I’ve examined on this snowy night in February 1981. It’s been about two months since he was gunned down in New York outside the Dakota, the gothic edifice where he and Yoko Ono had been living since 1973.

I’ve been tasked with the responsibility of inventorying his personal effects so that Yoko, and posterity, would know precisely what he had left behind. I did not want this task. For one thing, I live 2,500 miles from the Dakota, in Los Angeles, where I host a late-night radio interview show. But Yoko asked me to do it, and I have rarely been able to say no to Yoko, let alone John.

I found their idealism infectious and inspiring. Still, as I got to know John and Yoko as flesh-and-blood friends, I began to see their flawed human sides as well.

The trio at a restaurant in Kyoto, 1977

Yoko, for one, was even more airy and ethereal in private than she was in the media. She could be a fountain of aphorisms, dispensing endless nuggets of Zen-like philosophy. Her haiku-esque homilies on manifesting one’s desires or the wisdom of the nonrational mind could be a bit much for some people.

There were moments when even I was a bit baffled by it all. Except then she would say or do something that would absolutely convince me that she was connected to some higher plane.

John, meanwhile, was every bit as charming, funny and intelligent as he came across in public. But I gradually discovered he was far from perfect. For starters, for a guy who aspired to be a world-shaking peacemaker — a thought leader on a par with Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela — he was surprisingly uninformed about historic figures like, well, Gandhi, King and Mandela.

He also had some Luddite-like notions about science, particularly medicine, extending well beyond his annoyance at “daddy doctors” for not letting him perform his own weight-loss injections. Even though John had smoked, ingested or snorted just about every illegal recreational drug he could get his hands on, he was weirdly suspicious of the ones that were properly prescribed and proven efficacious.

Lennon and Ono on The Dick Cavett Show, 1971

John and Yoko could be incredibly sensitive, honest, provocative, caring, creative, generous and wise. They could also be self-centred, desperate, vain, petty and annoying. In John’s case, also shockingly cruel — even to Yoko.

An example…

Early one morning in November 1972, the red ceiling light that would flash whenever my hotline to John and Yoko rang started blinking. I picked up.

“Ellie, I f***ed up,” were the first words out of John’s mouth.

“Why?” I groggily asked. “What did you do?”

“We were at this party last night,” he said, “and I got loaded. And there was a girl…”

I sat up in bed.

The party was at Jerry Rubin’s Greenwich Village apartment. A small crowd of well-connected peaceniks had gathered to watch the presidential election returns on television. As it became clear that Richard Nixon would win re-election by a landslide, the mood grew bleaker and the crowd began drinking more heavily.

Alcohol was not John’s friend and on this occasion, John’s evil inner gremlins truly outdid themselves.

I got some of the specifics from a hungover John during his morning-after call. The upshot was that John had indeed hit it off with some girl at the party and had slipped into a bedroom with her, where they proceeded to have such loud, raucous sex that everyone sitting around the TV in Rubin’s living room — including Yoko — could clearly hear them going at it.

Lennon and Mintz in 1972

At one point, a well-meaning guest put a record on the turntable — Bob Dylan’s 11-minute ballad Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands — at high volume. Yoko sat on the sofa in stunned, mortified silence.

Whatever they said to each other later, I suspect the conversation was not a pleasant one.

“I slept on the sofa,” John told me, sounding defeated and embarrassed — although, frankly, not quite as contrite as I thought his situation warranted. “Things like that happen,” he said, way too matter-of-factly for my taste. “A bloke cheats on his wife… If I weren’t famous, nobody would care.”

Yoko, unsurprisingly, felt differently.

“Are you OK?” I gently asked her when I phoned to check in on her a few hours later.

“There is no answer to that question,” she said shakily.

“Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive him?”

“I can forgive him,” she said. “But I don’t know if I can ever forget what happened. I don’t know if it will ever be the same.”

After a few weeks of cooling down, though — during which Yoko wrote and recorded Death of Samantha, her bluesy ode to burying one’s pain for the sake of outward appearances — the crisis seemed to abate. John and Yoko chose to roll the cosmic dice with a spectacular gesture of faith and hope in the staying power of their love. They bought an apartment in the Dakota.

“It’s apartment No 72,” Yoko announced when she called to tell me about the purchase. “Do you see the significance?”

Lennon’s 38th birthday party, 1978

When you add seven and two, you get nine, Yoko explained, which was a hugely significant numeral to the Lennons, a magic integer that seemed to mysteriously recur throughout John’s life. Yoko would rattle off the number’s many repeated appearances: John was born on October 9. She was born on February 18 (1 plus 8). Paul McCartney’s last name has nine letters…

I was somewhat mystified as to why they chose this particular neighbourhood. “Aren’t you worried it’ll be too stuffy for you?” I asked John. “Will the people who live there even know who you are?”

“I don’t want them to know who we are,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t want to know who they are. We just want to be left alone.”

The Dakota struck me as one of the most eerily beautiful — and oddly daunting — structures in all of New York. John and Yoko greeted me in the vaulted vestibule, eager to begin our tour, which started on the ground floor with the new headquarters for Studio One, the business entity behind John and Yoko’s creative enterprises. Tellingly, John did not have an office in Studio One; Yoko did.

The main attraction was on the seventh floor. It was nearly 5,000sq ft, with massive windows offering eye-popping views of Central Park. Virtually everything in its expansive living room, from the plush carpeting to the grand Steinway piano, was as white as Japanese snowbells.

Lennon, Ono and Mintz at a Shinto temple in Kyoto. The custom was to hang your horoscope on a line

There was only one highly conspicuous work of art in the White Room: a Plexiglass case on a white pedestal, in which was a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus. John and Yoko had scored the very last mummy allowed out of Egypt before the Egyptian government put a ban on exporting their national antiquities.

“You should x-ray it and see what’s inside,” I suggested. “There might be something of great value, like precious jewels.”

“I don’t care what’s inside,” Yoko responded. “The great value is the magic of the mummy itself.”

Another thing I clearly remember about that long afternoon at the Dakota was how enthusiastic both John and Yoko seemed about the life they were building together in this new nest. John giddily described the “entertainment centre” he wanted to construct in a nook off the kitchen. Yoko, ever the artist, chattered about the endless design ideas she had. It was all too easy to forget about the pain and stress they’d been dealing with. I managed to convince myself that the worst was over for John and Yoko. I was wrong.

There are those who believe Yoko not only approved of the affair but arranged it. That she planted May Pang in the seat next to John on that American Airlines flight from New York to Los Angeles knowing full well what was likely to happen. That their comely 23-year-old assistant would sooner or later end up sleeping with her husband.

It’s possible, I suppose. It could be she saw some strategic long-term advantage in setting up the affair; by handpicking John’s mistress, she might have felt she could exert some dominion over his extramarital wanderings. Perhaps, thanks to her mystical advisers, she really did see that John was heading for a free fall and was endeavouring to soften his inevitable crash.

If any of that is true, though, Yoko never breathed a word of it to me. All she said in October 1973 was that she was sending John and an assistant to LA. Could I please meet them at the airport?

With his assistant and lover, May Pang, 1974

I was by then aware that their marriage was in deep trouble. Despite their best efforts to mend the relationship, the red light on my bedroom ceiling had been blinking even more feverishly than usual leading up to what would later be known as John’s “Lost Weekend”, the 18 months he spent in exile from his wife in New York.

Yoko’s demeanour back then, as always, was not demonstrably emotional but it was clear from our phone conversations that she was in pain. John’s calls were every bit as depressing.

“Has Mother been talking to you about us?” he asked during one early morning chat.

“Yoko talks to me about everything,” I answered vaguely.

“The other day I shaved and got dressed up and told her I wanted to take her to her favourite restaurant and she turned me down,” he lamented. “She said she didn’t have time. Me own f***ing wife said that to me!”

Yoko has always been a methodical person, and my guess is that she precisely and carefully orchestrated John’s eviction from the Dakota. John might not have even realised what was happening to him. He certainly didn’t seem like a man who’d been kicked out of his home when I met him and May Pang at LA airport.

“You look trim, Ellie,” he said with a big grin when I greeted them. “Have you been taking those diet pills again?”

They had very little luggage, suggesting that neither of them was expecting a long stay. My instructions from Yoko were to drive them to music manager Lou Adler’s house in Bel Air, a mini-mansion up on Stone Canyon Road.

“I need some money,” John said as we settled into my weary old Jaguar. “Mother said these could be used for money,” John continued, shoving a fistful of traveller’s cheques in my hand.

The couple outside the Dakota building in New York, 1980. They bought an apartment there in 1973

John was functionally a child when it came to taking care of himself. But then, that was what May was for. Whatever other intentions Yoko may or may not have had for the assistant, her primary job was to make sure John was properly fed and cared for, that all his basic needs — or at least most of them — were satisfied.

John and I spent a lot of time together over the next several weeks. He was also expanding his friendship circle in LA, hanging out with people like Harry Nilsson, the brilliant but notoriously hell-raising singer-songwriter. But after three or four months, much of his initial enthusiasm had boiled off and his mood was starting to curdle. He was missing Yoko: he began asking me when I thought she’d be ready for him to come home. He started spending more and more time with Nilsson, drinking at the Troubadour till all hours. After John famously got thrown out for drunkenly heckling the Smothers Brothers, the late-night shenanigans moved to the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset. That’s where John and Harry and a collection of others — including my old pals Micky Dolenz and Alice Cooper — formed an infamous drinking club known as the Hollywood Vampires.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the level of unbridled indulgences that took place in the Rainbow’s VIP room, a small alcove atop some stairs overlooking the bar. The amount of alcohol imbibed was staggering, to say the least, and there were also small bags of cocaine discreetly passed into the room. Nilsson, a great big bear of a man, could pound down a dozen or so brandy alexanders — a potent mix of brandy and cream, his cocktail of choice, which John soon adopted as his own — in a single sitting.

Not being a celebrity, I was never invited to become a member of the Hollywood Vampires, but I was a welcome visitor and spent many a late night on the edges of their wild, sometimes harrowing saturnalias.

Lennon with his Hollywood Vampires drinking partners, from left, Harry Nilsson, Alice Cooper and Micky Dolenz, November 1973

There was always a crowd of attractive young women at the bottom of the steps leading to the Vampires’ VIP lair. Frankly, though, by the time the boys descended, usually at closing time, most of them were too wasted to take advantage of the opportunity. I lost count of the number of times I all but carried John down those stairs and poured him into whatever car service I had called to the bar’s car park.

For the most part, I kept my promise to Yoko: I kept John safe. But one night, I realised things were starting to spiral out of my control. Normally, John didn’t put up much of a fight when I helped him down the stairs at the Rainbow Bar but on this occasion, he resisted. He didn’t want to go home.

He pushed away and dived straight into the crowd. It was my worst nightmare: a drunken star lost inside a drunken mob.

Finally, I spotted John with Nilsson at the edge of the car park, the two of them climbing into the back of a black limousine. A moment later, it pulled away into the night, going I had no idea where.

John, I realised with a sinking feeling in my gut, was slipping away.

I was about to walk into the nadir of the Lost Weekend, John’s rock bottom. The call came not on the hotline but my regular house phone, and the voice on the other end identified himself as a security officer working for Phil Spector. John was in trouble: could I please hurry over to Adler’s house and help “calm him down”.

What I saw when I stepped into Adler’s living room some 20 minutes later looked like a scene out of The Exorcist. Drunk and wild-eyed, John was strapped to a high-backed chair, his arms and legs restrained with ropes, which he was struggling against with all his might as he shouted obscenities at his captors, a pair of beefy-armed bodyguards who stood in awkward silence nearby. The place was a shambles. John had torn some of Adler’s framed gold records off the walls and smashed them to pieces. Bits of broken wood and shattered Plexiglass littered the floor.

The couple in Selfridges in London where Ono was signing copies of her book Grapefruit, July 1971

Apparently, the meltdown had started earlier that evening at the studio, where John and Phil had nearly come to blows. What precisely they were arguing about, nobody seemed to remember. But the session ended early with Phil’s guards restraining John and shuttling him to Adler’s house, where John slipped away from them long enough to pick up some sort of walking stick or cane, which he swung wildly around the living room until the guards were able to subdue him.

I slowly stepped up to John, who had stopped shouting. His head hung low on his shoulders, his chest heaving furiously. After a long beat, he slowly lifted his eyes to me. He looked possessed.

“Get these ropes off me!” he erupted. “Get them off me, you…”

And then John spat out an epithet so hurtful and offensive, I can’t bring myself to repeat it.

I looked straight into his eyes, barely containing my disgust and disappointment. He looked back into mine. And that exchange of glances seemed to reach some shred of humanity buried deep in John’s alcohol-addled brain. Suddenly he became very, very quiet.

After a moment or two, I turned to the guards. “I think you can take those ropes off him,” I said. “I think he’s done.”

John stood up, rubbed his wrists and, without another word, slowly made his way down the hall to the bedroom, where he must have collapsed on the mattress and passed out.

The next day, as I was getting ready to leave for work, the hotline started flashing.

“Ellie?” John said. “I’m sorry for what I said. But if you think about it, if that’s the worst thing I could say about you, you couldn’t be all that bad, right?”

“Thanks for the compliment,” I said.

“Well, welcome to the real world, Mother Virgin Mary. I’m me. I have a big mouth and express meself the way I feel when I feel it. I don’t hide behind some microphone. I sing into it or speak into it when it suits me. I’m not always the Imagine guy or the Jealous Guy or the Walrus. So I said I’m sorry to you. That’s all I can do.

Lennon and Ono in 1972

“Do you want to have dinner?”

“No,” I answered. “I think I’m going to take the night off.”

For the first time I can remember, I was the one who hung up the phone.

Obviously, our friendship took a hit after the incident at Adler’s house; how could it not? For the next several months, John and I barely spent time together — at least, not in person. We would talk almost every day on the phone, as we always had, and eventually our rapport began to feel as easy and familiar as ever. But I no longer joined him for evenings at the Troubadour or the Rainbow.

John, meanwhile, had shifted from the mayhem of the Spector sessions to the slightly lesser bedlam of producing a record for his pal Harry Nilsson. The most notable thing about the Pussy Cats sessions was who else was in the room. Ringo Starr sat in on drums. And although it never made it onto Nilsson’s album, another ex-Beatle unexpectedly turned up and even sang with John, the first time the two of them had performed together since the Beatles split.

I wasn’t present but later heard that Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, had popped in without warning, bringing Stevie Wonder with them. According to those who were there, John and Paul seemed to pick up their friendship as if they were teenagers again, but when John told me about it later, he was kind of dismissive about it, saying, “They were all just looking at us, thinking that something big was going to happen. To me, it was just playing with Paul.”

Lennon with Harry Nilsson, left, outside the Troubadour club in West Hollywood, having just been ejected for heckling a performance by the Smothers Brothers, March 12, 1974

What John didn’t know, though, was that, according to Yoko, Paul had an ulterior motive for the visit. A few days earlier, she had called me to explain the machinations behind the visit.

Yoko told me she spoke with Paul, who offered to speak with John. “I thought it was very kind,” she said. “I was very appreciative. But I made it very clear to Paul that it wasn’t something I was asking him to do. It would have to be Paul’s idea, not mine.”

To me, there was never any question that John desperately wanted to get back with Yoko. Yes, he had feelings for May, yet at some point during virtually every phone call I had with him, John would sooner or later beseech me to talk to Yoko on his behalf. “Tell Mother I’m ready to come home, Ellie. Tell her I’m a changed man.”

“I don’t think she wants to hear it from me,” I would say. “She wants you to show it to her.”

Paul, I later heard, gave John similar advice. Sometime after popping into the studio in Burbank, he sat down with John and laid out, step by step, what he would need to do to win Yoko back.

It’s impossible to say if Paul’s presentation was what did it, or if John experienced some other epiphany around that time, but over the ensuing months he did indeed begin to clean up his act. In the summer of 1974, he started working on his next album, Walls and Bridges, regularly flying to New York for rehearsals and recordings at the Record Plant on West 44th Street. By all accounts, those sessions were entirely professional, with John showing up 100 per cent sober every day.

At the Grammy Awards in New York, March 1, 1975

Then, as work on the album neared completion, John made a fateful decision: he decided not to wait any longer for Yoko’s invitation to return to New York. Instead, towards the end of the summer, he and May rented an apartment of their own on the Upper East Side. It was a small but comfortable place that had a wraparound balcony with spectacular views of the East River.

When I flew to New York to tape some interviews, I took the opportunity to pay them a visit — my first face-to-face meeting with John since the ugliness at Adler’s house. It was an awkward encounter for numerous reasons. For one thing, I had just spent an afternoon with Yoko at the Dakota, some 20 blocks away; taking a cab across town to John and May’s felt something akin to betrayal.

Perhaps sensing my apprehension, May gave me a wide berth, leaving to make some phone calls in a bedroom while John and I stood together on the balcony, catching up.

“Does this make you feel uneasy?” John asked after a beat.

“You mean being here with you and May? Yes, a little,” I admitted. “It just reminds me of the fact that you and Mother are still separated, and that makes me sad.”

“Well, that’s the way Mother wants it,” he said. “At least for now.”

Then, unexpectedly, he wrapped his arm over my shoulders and added, “Don’t look so glum, me boy. Put on your radio face. There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.”

It was one of the few times he’d quoted a line to me from a Beatles song.

Walls and Bridges was released a month or so later. John sent a prereleased signed copy (“To my little dream lover on ice, with love and old pianos,” he wrote, referring to my affection for Bobby Darin’s hit song).

As it happened, Elton John had joined John on keyboards for one song on the album. Elton made a bet with John. If the song was a hit, John would have to perform at Elton’s upcoming concert at Madison Square Garden. John agreed, never imagining he’d have to honour that promise.

Of course, Elton was spot on: Whatever Gets You Thru the Night did indeed become John’s first No 1 solo single. And so it came to pass that, in November 1974, onstage at Madison Square Garden, in front of thousands and thousands of fans, that the Lost Weekend finally began to fade to a finish.

Lennon’s surprise appearance at Elton John’s concert at Madison Square Garden, November 28, 1974

The details of what exactly transpired backstage that night remain, 50 years later, shrouded in some mystery. What is known is that Yoko, who’d been invited to the concert by Elton’s manager, was in the audience. She couldn’t have been prepared for the reaction around her when Elton announced, about two thirds into the concert, that he was bringing John onto the stage for his first public performance in two years. The crowd went berserk.

After the show, Elton’s manager approached Yoko and told her that Elton had requested her presence in his dressing room. Yoko was led backstage to a door with a star on it. She knocked, the entrance opened, and inside she saw her husband standing there, alone.

I cannot tell you what happened after the dressing room door closed behind them. Nobody but Yoko knows that, and she has never shared with me any details. What I can tell you is that in the weeks and months that followed, there must have been many more rendezvous as Yoko and John re-established their connection, even as he continued living with May in their East Side apartment.

According to one of May’s early accounts, John was ultimately hypnotised into ending his relationship with her; she has long claimed that Yoko hired a mesmerist to help John quit smoking but that it was all a ruse to brainwash him into splitting up with her so he could return to Yoko. To this day, many people believe that story. But I know for certain that it wasn’t true. Because, as it happens, I’m the one who arranged the hypnotist.

Yoko had nothing to do with it.

John had remembered that I had interviewed a hypnotist on my radio show and asked me if he might be able to help him kick nicotine.

At the Lincoln Center in New York, circa 1975

I called the hypnotist, planned for him to fly to New York, booked him a room in a Midtown hotel, and set up an appointment with John. In just about every respect, though, the hypnosis was a total bust. John told me immediately afterwards he was never put under; the hypnotist claimed John was but just couldn’t remember. The hypnotist also turned out to be something of a diva. He disliked his hotel — he thought the desk clerks were rude — and checked out the next day, flying back to LA in a huff.

John didn’t quit smoking, not for a minute, so it’s hard to imagine the hypnotist had succeeded in brainwashing him into anything else — like, say, leaving a lover. But the very next day, John did break it off with May and returned to the Dakota, resuming his marriage to Yoko and ending, at last, the long and lonely winter that had been the Lost Weekend. He called me in LA shortly afterwards to share the happy news.

He said, “Let the media know the separation did not work.”

‘He’d weigh himself twice a day’

Elliot Mintz on his friendship with John and Yoko. By Georgina Roberts

When a red light in Elliot Mintz’s bedroom flashed, it meant that John Lennon or Yoko Ono was calling him on a special hotline. “In an average week, 20 hours of phone conversation would not be unusual,” the 79-year-old former radio DJ and talk-show host says from his Beverly Hills living room.

Mintz describes the friendship with the couple that “dominated” nine years of his life as “almost a kind of marriage”. He was taken aback when Ono called him in 1971 to thank him for not asking about Lennon when he interviewed her on his radio show. When they began to speak for hours at night, she batted away his concern that her husband might get jealous, saying, “Aren’t you giving yourself a little too much credit, Elliot?”

Lennon first called Mintz to ask if he could get him fat-melting pills. “That was my first conversation with John Lennon. It wasn’t philosophical. It wasn’t about Elvis or the Beatles. It was about weight loss,” he says. Sometimes Lennon would weigh himself twice a day and the couple “were obsessive about diet”.

In Hotel Okura in Tokyo, October 1975

After six months of speaking, the couple summoned him to meet them in Ojai, California, where they were trying to kick a methadone addiction. Ono barely spoke until she was in a bathroom with the tap running. “She whispered to me, ‘This house is bugged. Everything we say here, they’re listening. So you have to be very careful what you say.’ ” FBI files released years later showed that Ono wasn’t being paranoid. President Nixon had placed the couple under surveillance after rumours they planned to disrupt his convention, Mintz says.

His clandestine friendship with the couple wreaked havoc on his love life. When he couldn’t explain whom he’d been speaking to in the middle of the night, one love interest assumed he was married and stormed out. “I realised at that moment that my love life would have to take a back seat to my relationship with John and Yoko,” he says.

There were times when lines were crossed in the friendship. One morning, Lennon summoned Mintz to kick out a girl who’d stayed the night. “I told him, ‘Please don’t ask me to do something like that again.’ He flipped out. He said, ‘I will effing ask you to do anything that I feel like asking you to do. Do you understand that?’ ” Mintz was hurt and offended. The next day was one of the few times he said no to “grabbing a bite” with Lennon.

Becoming parents was “the biggest game-changer” for the couple. After his son Sean was delivered via caesarean section in 1975, “John was outraged that when Yoko was clearly struggling, doctors would come up to him and say, ‘I’ve always dreamt of shaking your hand.’ He would bark at them, ‘Look after me wife!’ ”

While Lennon threw himself into childcare, Ono, who came from a banking dynasty, handled the couple’s finances. After becoming stratospherically famous so young, Lennon was “clueless” about money. “I doubt if John was ever in a supermarket, went to a bank, wrote a cheque. That’s what Yoko did,” Mintz says. “If not for Yoko, there’d be no money in the Lennon-Ono estate today.”

A drawing by Lennon on a postcard from Japan sent to Mintz in 1977

The first time Mintz met their son, Lennon said protectively, “Not too close. Germs.” “He said, ‘Look, we were going to make you the godfather, but we decided on Elton, because he would at least give him better Christmas presents.’ ” “This is typical John,” Mintz says.

Sean would only spend five years with his father before Lennon was murdered outside the Dakota in December 1980. Lennon had always “poo-pooed” Mintz’s requests for him to employ more security. “John said, ‘I’m just a rock’n’roll singer. Who would want to hurt me?’ ”

When Mintz speaks about learning of Lennon’s murder from a weeping flight attendant, his honeyed radio-presenter voice cracks with emotion. “Even now, after all these years, just thinking about that moment…” He trails off. The most gut-wrenching of his responsibilities was making an inventory of Lennon’s possessions. When he signed for a stapled brown paper bag that came from the hospital where Lennon was taken after he was shot, he could not bear to open it. “It was what John was wearing, what he had on him when he fell, including his broken, bloodied glasses.”

He is reticent about his friendship with Ono today. “I want to give her a sense of privacy,” he says, but adds, “It still feels like family. I still love her dearly.” The last time he saw her was at her 91st birthday in February. It was there that Sean encouraged Mintz to write his book, We All Shine On. Does he think Ono will like it? “I’ve never tried to predict a Yoko Ono conclusion.”

How different would his life be if he had never met the couple? “I could have got married. Could have had children.” Were the sacrifices worth it? “Of course. I got to spend that amount of my time with these two extraordinary people.”

We All Shine On: John, Yoko, & Me by Elliot Mintz (Bantam, £25).

(source)

#john lennon #yoko ono #elliot mintz

322 notes · View notes

yesimwriting · 7 months ago

Note

you write art and patrick so well im literally foaming at the mouth for more

yes yes everyone pls ask me about my boyfriends that are also boyfriends to each other 🩷 (i have two extra drafts for them already)

----

breath in. the pad of your thumb presses into the side of the ball. you give yourself a beat to feel the weight of it, to embrace the familiar feeling of felt against your palm. breath out.

you bounce the ball once. breath in. you squeeze the ball, knuckles briefly straining beneath your skin before letting it hit the concrete again. breath out.

finally, you raise the arm holding your racket. every joint in your body is locked into place. there's a science to a sharp serve. the ball will land where you will it to.

you release the ball, arm stretching forward. a total follow through. the ball hits the center of your racket. the force of your hit propels the ball through the air until it hits the center of the other side of the court.

ugh. the night before your qualifying match and suddenly the precise serve you spent years perfecting loses its edge. what happened to the serve that media outlets have been calling 'the ultimate point guaranteer'? why is today the day that you can only manage a perfectly average serve?

you groan, letting the disappointment's weight settle against your chest. you suck. with a sigh, you start walking towards the extra tennis balls you left near the net. your dad is so never going to get over you not qualifying for the us open.

"there she is." the voice surprises you enough to force you to still. patrick...and a few steps behind him, his doubles partner, art. "the princess of modern tennis."

you turn your head enough to glare in patrick's direction. he's referencing a title some journalist used in one article that your dad decided would be perfect for marketing materials. "don't."

normally, you like seeing patrick and art more than you can justify. you don't know if you can consider yourself their friend, it's not like you guys see each other outside of coincidental run ins at tennis events. the three of you have been to more and more of the same tournaments these days. they're familiar in a way that settles you, like the feel of tennis ball in your hand.

you try to tap into that usual warmth, but you can't quite get there. it's not their fault you're frustrated.

art gives you a look that feels like an apology. he walks forward, opening the gate to the fence and stepping onto the court. "i told him not to."

you bend down to pick up a spare ball. "i appreciate the effort."

"what?" patrick follows art onto the court. "it's on billboards."

he's seen your billboard? you don't know why you feel the need to dwell on that. you weren't the biggest fan of having a picture of yourself blown up and pasted everywhere, especially with a caption that makes potential losses extra embarrassing, but you've never been truly self conscious about it. now, you're trying to picture it in your mind, trying to remember the details of your expression, the way your hair was styled, what you were wearing.

you let go of the ball in your hand, bouncing it against the ground so that you have something to look at. "it was a charity thing."

"i know." you let yourself glance up at patrick. he's closer than you thought he'd be. you catch the ball before releasing it again. "for the youth outreach program thing, right?" before you can answer, he extends an arm, catching the ball before you can reach it. "you looked cute in it."

art looks at you again, something a little more distinct than apology behind his eyes. he reaches for the tennis ball still in patrick's hand. "patrick."

he twists his arm away before his friend can steal the ball from him. art follows him, leaning forward and grabbing his arm. "what?" their play fight grows in physicality, with each of them pushing and pulling at the other. you'd worry about the game losing its lightheartedness if both of them weren't smiling. "you stared at it for more than five minutes before getting out of the car."

"really?"

art freezes, his hand squeezing the only part of the ball patrick's left exposed. "it was a good billboard, you look pretty--looked pretty." the implication of his correction hits him a second too late. "not that you don't look pretty now, you always look pretty, but you looked really--" he cuts himself off with a sharp breath, "but that wasn't the point, you also looked like a strong role model for underprivileged young women."

the compliments paired with his uncertainty make it difficult not to melt. you beam at him. "thank you, art." you adjust your hold on your racket, both hands resting on the grip. "i think you're pretty, too."

he smiles, head briefly angling itself downwards. art manages to steal the tennis ball from his friend. you can't tell if he pulled it out of patrick's grasp or if patrick chose to let go.

"you know what the best thing to do is the night before a big match?" patrick's question feel rhetorical until you look at him. he's watching you like he's waiting for something.

despite knowing what you should be doing, you also know that you're incapable of not playing along. "what?"

"doing anything that keeps you from getting in your head." you stand a little straighter, chin angling itself a fraction of an inch upwards. as nice as the local doubles duo is, advice offered from other tennis players comes with its own sort of tension. saying that you know best implies that you see yourself as the best. "that's what's wrong with your serve."

your eyebrows briefly pinch together. "you think i'm in my head?"

he takes a slight step forward, body angling itself to make the distance between you feel even smaller than it truly is. "i think your serve is technically perfect." patrick takes a moment to press his lips together. "but you're tense."

patrick's going about this the nice way. he's focusing on what you're doing right. you technique is objectively precise, your dad made sure of that. he's coached you since you were old enough to securely hold a racket for a reason. but tennis isn't just routine and muscle memory.

there's an art to the sport, and you know the difference it makes when you're playing. you can feel when your heart is in it, and right now, all you can think about is that your retired tennis champion dad watching you in the stands.

the feeling of something warm on your shoulder pulls you out of your train of thought. you blink. patrick's hand is on your shoulder. "you need to relax."

"i'm..." it's instinct to argue, to insist that you're fine and that you'll push through, but something tells you that that'd be pointless. he'd know. "i'll work it out."

his fingers briefly press into your shoulder, the squeeze assuring and gentle. "that's your problem--work." you look at him skeptically. "you're overworking yourself, and it's putting you in your head."

art angles himself a little closer. he extends an arm, placing his fingers on the edge of your racket. "that's why you're supposed to rest the night before a match."

the thought of not being in motion isn't appealing. if anything, you feel like you have too much energy in your system. but objectively, you know they're generally right.

art gently tugs on your racket. "you should come hang out with us."

"yeah," patrick agrees with a slight hum, "you're in the hotel down the street, right?"

okay--you know the right answer. your dad would be mad if he found out you snuck out the night before a match to practice, but if he found out you ended up in a hotel room with some guys--he'd die and then come back to life just to kill you.

"um..." your eyes briefly fall to your racket. "yeah, i am." okay, you need to think of an excuse that doesn't make you sound like a little kid with a curfew. you twist your wrist slightly, a halfhearted attempt to free your racket. "but it's kind of late...and i have to be up early tomorrow."

art pulls on your tennis racket again. there's nothing overly forceful about it, but it's enough to make you look at him. "yeah, but you were going to stay out here for a awhile, right?"

"and it's good to take your mind off of things." patrick tacks on his point. "i mean--we always do something fun before our matches."

patrick stretches out an arm, the back of his hand softly hitting art's shoulder. "yeah, yeah, we do."

you press the nail of your thumb against the side of your racket's handle. "really?" you're mumbling to yourself more than anything else, "something fun."

it's risky. if anything goes wrong, you'll never hear the end of it. and if you mess up tomorrow because you're tired or distracted, you're not sure you'll be able to forgive yourself. you've already taken some risks tonight. you should quit while you're ahead.

then again, you like being around them, and they're in the same hotel as you. it can't be that bad of an idea.

you let out a reluctant sigh before finally looking up. you glance between them, too aware that it's too late for you. "okay," you breathe out, "i guess going up for a little bit can't hurt."

patrick grins. "can't hurt at all."

art lets go of your racket before taking a few steps forward. he stops once he's at your side before throwing an arm around your shoulder. "you know us." art's hand settles over patrick's. "we'd never do anything to hurt you."

warmth crawls up your chest. you're comfortable with them--maybe too comfortable. "yeah," you hum in an attempt to dismiss the feelings bubbling in your chest, "let's just go."

——

im thinking of writing a part 2 to this so if you’d be interested in that and/or would want to be tagged pls lmk :)

#challengers x reader #art donaldson x you #art donaldson x reader #patrick zweig x you #patrick zweig x reader #mike faist x reader #josh oconnor x reader #art donaldson x reader x patrick zweig #challengers fic #x reader

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scientia-rex · 1 year ago

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It is WILD to me that people continue to think they can "gotcha" me into saying the science on weight loss doesn't say what it says. Like, it's not what the authors say; it's what the data reflect. And the data don't give one single hot shit about your reason for wanting weight loss. You can have a terrible reason or a great reason and it doesn't matter. The reason behind your desire for an outcome doesn't change whether the data support the likelihood of it happening or not. There isn't a secret Option C here. The options are A) try to make peace with your weight or B) fight it forever. And if you fight it, the data are pretty clear that you're worse off than if you make peace and take the best care of yourself that you can. You can hate vegetables, you can want it to be easier to find clothes that fit, you can be disabled and find physical exertion challenging, but it doesn't matter. There is no secret option where, because you hate vegetables, your body works differently than every other body that's been studied.

There IS a database of people who have managed to sustain long-term large-scale weight loss. They're so rare we study them extensively. In general, they eat severely restricted diets and exercise for at least an hour a day. I have no desire to recommend eating disorders to my patients. If staying thin is occupying time and brain-space you could be putting into other things that are more meaningful to you, do those other things.

#the attending dr. kristophine #eating disorder tw

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marwhoa · 5 months ago

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request: omgggg <33 did not know u did ohshe!!! i love the way u did mori u did him justice!!! is it possible to for you to write mori x tiny reader please? i just find the height difference very cute and comical. thank u! 💕

🝮 mori-senpai headcanons

morinozuka takashi x short!reader

author’s note: I like Mori :)) my favorite is Hikaru, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t write for anyone else uwu 💕

word count: 1.2k

ఌ As he does with Honey, Mori can’t help but hold you. For one, he doesn’t want to accidentally knock into you, since you’re a bit out of his peripheral vision, and he has a habit of zoning out if there’s no sense of danger! If you hate being picked up, he’ll respect that, but do note that he is crying a river mentally.

ఌ secretly finds it irresistibly adorable when you’re too short to reach things and need his help. One of his fondest memories is when he just happened to be in the right place at the right time in the library!

During study time, Mori wandered off to the library to search for books on the women’s court in the Heian Period. While he was searching, he turned down one of the aisles to catch you grumbling under your breath about how “ all the books I need just had to be placed right out of my reach, what a joke! “

He didn’t intervene! Just watched fondly as you pulled a step stool over to solve the problem yourself (you’re independent! surely you have a few tricks up your sleeve to navigate a taller world?).

Thing is, the step stool wasn’t tall enough, so you resorted to standing on your tippy toes and trying to nudge the book into a free-fall. That is when Mori intervenes, as he watched the book shelf teeter under your inadvertently-tugging hand.

“ Y/N! “

It all happened so quick. You swore the world seemed to slow as the stool beneath you flipped and the books began cascading down the shelves towards you. With your hands crossed over your head, you squeezed your eyes shut and braced for the impact. While your butt hit the floor hard, you were surprised to find your back never met the same fate.

Instead, there was a light pressure and warmth radiating from the small of your back.

Opening your eyes hesitantly, you tuned in to the pained grunt and watched as Mori was hovering over you. The weight of the bookshelf was heavy on his back, but nothing could convince him to step aside and let you take the brunt of this instead.

“ Oh god, Mori?! You—“

You were at a complete loss of words. Thankfully others in the library quickly noticed and came to help lift the bookshelf. Before you were both free, you didn’t miss the out-of-breath whisper by your ear.

“ At least you’re safe.. ”

ఌ Stays close to you in crowded situations. He will use his height and strength to his advantage to ensure you have a comfortable amount of wiggle room regardless of where you’re at—the cafeteria during high traction times, the commoners’ train while it’s rush hour, malls experiencing season-high discounts, etc. Regardless of the setting, you can count on him.

ఌ Mori can tend to have cuteness aggression, and having a partner shorter than he is definitely contributes to that. He refuses to acknowledge he ever did this, but you can remember plain as day a particular study session in the third years’ science class after school.

As you sat across the table from Mori, yammering on and on about the current problem stumping you both, there was an odd creeping feeling that he wasn’t paying attention. Lo, and behold, as you rose your head to fact-check, you found Mori’s eyes just staring at you, clear as day that not a thought was processing behind those eyes.

Just before you could reprimand him, Mori shot up in his seat and rounded the table to stop at your side.

“ Whuh—“

Dumbly, you mumbled out a noise of confusion as his hands planted firmly on your cheeks and kneaded the flesh before then pushing until your face was scrunched up and making duck lips. You tried to swat him away but found your hand freezing in midair as an unfamiliar expression washed across his features.

Laughter. Mori had actually burst into laughter, a pure and genuine laugh that echoed in the room like the sun’s rays radiating in summer. You decided to let it slide for now.

ఌ Unlike the sweeter Honey, you tended to be more of a spitfire. A feisty fire that definitely fought back, and sometimes that worried Mori. While you could hold your own verbally with a silver tongue, some people can be a bit more… physically combative, as seen in the case with a particular vacation that landed Haruhi in danger with some particularly confrontative boys. While Mori wasn’t too much a fan of how frequently you could end up in danger, he was amused by how easily most of your enemies would tuck tail and run if he so much as glared them down from behind you.

And it was quite rewarding whenever you’d turn to look at him with a big triumphant grin, shamelessly declaring “ see ? you have nothing to worry about—they’re intimidated by me! “

ఌ Even though Mori yearns to dance with you whenever the host club holds parties, because of the size difference, he usually chickens out of even offering to dance with you. He’d hate to ruin an experience like that with you just because the difference in height is so comically large.

What he didn’t account for is your free spirited personality not caring one wink of how others would perceive you two dancing—you also know that he may be tall, but it’s not like your 3 feet tall compared to his 6’4 ass. At one of the most recent soirées, you almost-quite-literally swept him off his feet when you asked for a dance.

As you both took to the floor and swayed in each other’s arms, slowly the other partygoers began enraptured by the sight. Fortunately for you two, you had both melted so far into each other’s gaze and warmth that the others watching you had completely gone unnoticed.

Mori cursed himself for being so dumb and taking so long to ask a dance with you.

He also ended up purchasing his first set of photos from Kyoya’s personal collection. They had captured you both in such a perfect light and detail that he considered opening a museum in your honor. All just to show the world what a masterpiece you both made together.

He decided against it.

The photos instead sit upon the walls of his room, congregated on the exact spot he faces every night before bed.

ఌ Once y’all are together, you tend to rely on Mori a lot more, as per the rules of “ Girlfriend Incompetence ” or otherwise known as princess brain. Things you could very well do on your own are instead passed to him as something “ only he can do ! you couldn’t possibly do it yourself ?? “

A book on the higher shelf? Well, you could easily get a step stool, but why do that when you could bat your pretty li’l eyes at Mori-senpai and he would bring down the moon at your request?

A puddle obstructs your path? D’aw, well, just go around it! Or, you could turn to Mori with a pouty lip and a sweet little “ please? “ He’d sweep you up in an instant—an easy task with how much smaller you are—and easily traverse over the puddle. You would find yourself mentally lamenting just how much longer his legs are, but you’ll get over it since it grants you the privilege of being in his embrace.

#ohshc morinozuka takashi x reader #morinozuka takashi x reader #mori takashi x reader #mori senpai x reader #ohshc mori x reader #takashi morinozuka x reader #mori x reader #ohshc x reader #ouran mori x reader #ouran high school host club x reader

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rainylana · 2 years ago

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“Do it for me.”

Eddie Munson x female reader

summary: reader’s past struggles come back to haunt her.

warnings: reader has an eating disorder, talk of anorexia and weight gain/loss, throwing up food, angst, tears galore, panic attack, depression, language. requested by @eu1a i hope i did this justice to what you wanted as of how serious the topic was. thank you for requesting and enjoy reading:)

“Fuck,” You sobbed, hands gripping the toilet as you sat on your knees, rocking back and forth through cries. You sniffled and snotted, choking on cries that echoed through the bathroom, an absolute mess. It was shocking how one little comment send you into hysterics. You thought you’d gotten so much better.

All it took was one comment from your sister about your weight to ruin your whole day, to send you into the bathroom. You tried not to stick your fingers down your throat, but you were so upset you thought you’d throw up anyways.

You’d always struggled with anorexia ever since you were in middle school, but you’d been doing good ever since you’d gotten together with Eddie. He was good for you, kept you positive. He knew about your past struggles, but you knew he had a hard time understanding it. You didn’t blame him, you didn’t understand it all either.

You’d never had a healthy relationship with food, but being with Eddie healed you. He taught you to love yourself, be kind to the body that you were given. Even if you didn’t want to be, you faked it till you made it. Being with him had helped you get to a healthy weight, put on the pounds you needed to keep your immune system up and healthy.

Your dinner was sitting uncomfortably inside your belly, so you stuck your fingers down your throat and threw up your food, gagging as you did so. It didn’t make you feel better, though, and you sobbed as you drooled all over your hand, eyes watering and chest burning as you vomited your stomach contents.

One comment sent you into a spiral, and you didn’t know how bad it was going to be.

•

You were exhausted, and the loud boom of cafeteria chatter didn’t help the pounding headache that you were trying to fight off. Eddie was to your left, arguing with Gareth and Dustin about something regarding to their newest campaign. You’d tried to focus on what they were talking about, but you hadn’t been sleeping very good. Everything seemed foggy, cloudy, hard to see through and felt as if you were underwater.

Your stomach rumbled for something to eat, but you denied it almost every time, making you look pale and sickly. It had been a week since your sister’s comment, and it had been a week of straight hell. Your body was undergoing your own torture, and you were certainly paying the price for it. You felt so guilty, going behind Eddie’s back and doing everything you could to keep him from finding out that you were sick again. He never saw you like it before, not really, only having heard your stories. You didn’t want him to see you week. You were afraid he’d find you disgusting.

“Angel?” Eddie’s voice echoed in your ear, becoming clearer when he grabbed your left hand. “You with us, baby?”

“Angel,”

“Baby,”

Dustin and Mike cackled like chickens as they made fun of their dungeon master. Eddie rolled his eyes, giving them the bird. “Sorry,” He chuckled, laying an arm over your shoulder. “You good? You seem quiet.”

You smiled as best as you could. “Yeah- just..just tired. I stayed up all night studying for our science exam.”

Eddie bopped your nose. “That’s my good girl. Keeping up with those grades, huh? Well, maybe you should ditch the rest of the day and head home for a nap, yeah? Might do you some good.” He kept eye contact with his big brown eyes, making you fall harder in love with him. Made you feel more guilty.

You couldn’t describe your feelings. You knew you weren’t overweight by any means. You were healthy and were you needed to be. You hadn’t even been insecure about your belly that wasn’t as smooth as it had used to be, or the extra meat on your thighs. You worried about eating, what the food would do to you if you got out of control. What would happen if you weren’t pretty anymore? What would happen between you and Eddie?

You didn’t see yourself as ugly, but you feared food would make you hideous. The solution? Simply not eat.

“Yeah, maybe.” You nodded, looking down to your lap.

“Not eating anything?” He noticed your empty space on the table.

“Not hungry.” You shrugged your shoulders.

“You’ve not ate much this week.” He acknowledged, giving you an odd look. “You’re not coming down with something, are you?”

“No, no,” You shook your head. “Just been really tired. Not had much of an appetite.”

He frowned and scooted his bag of pretzels towards you, pointing so you could eat before he turned back to his friends, giving you a kiss on the cheek as he did so.

It took you five minutes before you could eat one.

•

Your gagging sounds filled the bathroom dreadfully, hunched over the toilet as you heaved out everything you had consumed that day, which hadn’t been much. You cried like a baby, guilt eating you alive. You didn’t know what to do. You knew you couldn’t go down this path again. You’d gotten so bad last time. You needed to talk to Eddie. You knew you had to.

The idea terrified you. He’d be disgusted of what you were doing wouldn’t he? He didn’t judge you before, but that was before.

You sobbed as you flushed the toilet and stood on shaking legs, walking to your bedroom to look in your mirror. You lifted up your shirt with trembling hands. You couldn’t even see your reflection from how hard you were sobbing, your heart broken and body wracking with guilt.

Before you knew it, you were calling Eddie.

His tapping on the window came as a relief and terror all at the same time. You pushed open your curtains to reveal his terrified face, and he jumped in as quickly as he could. “Baby, are you okay?” He grabbed your shoulders. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

You’d regretted it, though, now. It had given you a chance to calm down, his drive over there, and you were suddenly wishing you hadn’t called him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” You waved your hands, not looking at him. “I’m okay, now, I was just upset.”

“About what?” He pressed, warm palms on gone shoulders. “What had you so upset, darlin’?”

“Nothing, I’m okay.” You dismissed halfheartedly.

“Baby,” He said firmly. “Tell me what happened! Are you hurt?”

“No, Eddie, I’m fine!” You snapped harshly, making him jump. “I’m fucking fine!”

You obviously weren’t, because your tears had come just as quickly back again, and you covered your face with your hands as you sobbed behind them.

“Y/n,” He tried to reach out to you but you jerked away. “Please, you’re scaring me, what happened?”

“I can’t tell you!” You wailed, making him recoil slightly. “You’ll be so mad at me!”

“Sweetheart,” He softly and carefully wrapped his hands around your shoulders. “Calm down,”

Your breathing got out of control, and you pushed him away to put your hands on your knees. “I can’t,” You choked, gagging on your own breath. “I’m so-”

“Breathe,” He tried not to panic along with you, holding your torso as he brought you to the bed. “Breathe, honey,” He brushed your hair out of your face. “Shh, it’s alright. I’ve got you.”

You sobbed like a lost child, snot dripping down your nose as you hiccuped and choked. “Shh,” He soothed you. “Shh, I’m right here. Don’t rush, just breathe for me, alright? Need you to calm down.”

The panic attack drifted away after a few minutes, the terror washing away with an overwhelming amount of relief that made you sigh dramatically as you looked up to the ceiling. “Oh, god,”

He pushed your hair away from your sweaty face, adjusting your shirt that was falling off your shoulder. “Are you alright?”

You nodded heavily. “Thirsty.” You panted, getting up to shakily walk to your dresser for your water battle. He stood, watching you carefully to make sure you didn’t fall over.

You swallows your drink roughly, throwing down the bottle when you were done. “Oh, fuck, Eddie I’m so sorry.” You said exhaustedly.

“Y/n, honey, it’s okay.” He frowned, coming up to you. “But you’ve gotta talk to me, okay? I’m freaking out here. What happened that got you so upset? Did someone hurt you?”

“No,” You whined. “Stop asking me!”

“Y/n,”

“Eddie,”

“Fine!” He snapped. “Fine, what the fuck ever then!” He growled, stomping with heavy boots over to the beat. “Forget I fuckin’ asked.”

You gritted your teeth and crossed your arms, the familiar guilt swarming over you like buzzing bees. You carefully set down beside him, fidgeting with your fingers. Your eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.” Your voice cracked.

“I’m just…I’m afraid of what you’ll say. I don’t want you to be angry with me.”

Eddie looked over at you with saddened eyes, reaching out to grab your trembling hand. “Sweetheart, I promise I’m not going to loose it, okay? I just want you to talk to me.”

He watched you sit in silence, big tears rolling down your cheeks as your lip quivered. He wanted to pull you into his arms, but he knew you needed your space.

“I’ve been throwing up my food again.” You let out a whimper, face burning with shame. “It’s just been a couple weeks.”

Eddie’s eyes widened. “Throwing up…your food? As in when..”

“Yeah, like before.” You rushed, finishing for him. “I know it’s disgusting and I should stop. That’s why I’m telling you.”

Eddie looked to the floor, trying his hardest to figure out what to say. He should’ve seen the signs, should’ve realized you hadn’t been acting right, because you hadn’t, and all the pieces were finally connecting together:

“Two weeks?” He looked back up at you. “What happened?”

“My sister.” You sniffled. “She said that I was getting fat. Well, no, she didn’t say that. She said I was putting on weight, but you- well, you get it.” You stumbled, bringing up a nail to bite.

“Who, lizzie or Micah?” He said quickly.

“Lizzie.”

“That little brat.” He gritted his teeth. “I outta-”

“That’s my sister, Eddie.” You finally looked at him.

“I don’t care who it is.” He stood up, pacing. “Nobody should ever talk that way to anyone. That’s just messed up.”

“It’s not her fault.” You defended. “She’s right. Don’t be mad at her, Eddie.”

Eddie gave you a look. “Are you serious? You’re not gonna sit there and justify what she said to you, especially with…with your health.” He was flustered and red, pacing a whole in the floor as he walked from one end of the room to the other.

“Are you okay?” You asked him, causing him to stop.

“Am I- no, no, baby, are you okay?” He came down to his knees in front of you. “I mean- you know that I don’t know anything about this, so you just gotta be honest with me. I mean..well, are you alright? Don’t you..should you eat something?” He was rambling and he knew it, terrified of saying the wrong thing.

“I’m not hungry.” You blushed.

“How long has it been since you ate?” He regretted the word choice as soon as he said it, especially the way your face turned beat red, but he had to ask.

“This morning.” You answered.

“And did..did you, uh- throw it up?” He said carefully, looking up with big, brown eyes.

You were beginning to feel very small, not able to keep your eyes on him. You started to cry again. You held your belly and sniffled, his hands on your knees.

“Baby, it’s okay,” He tried to sooth you. “I’m not mad. I’m glad you told me. I’m just trying to understand.”

“Yeah.” You said hoarsely. “I’ve not been able to keep anything down.”

“Okay,” He said gently. “Thank you for telling me. Have you been doing anything else?”

“No,” You shook your head. “Just that. I’m scared I’m going to get bad again, it’s just so hard to stop.”

“What’s it feel like?” He tried. “Is it..like addiction? Are you addicted to it or is it something else?”

His slender fingers came up to wipe your tears, soothing your aching anxiety. “I-I..I,”

“Slow,” He stopped you. “Shh, calm down, slow, slow,” He guided you through your breathing.

“I’m too big.” You blubbered, coiling over and grabbing his arms. “I’m too- too, uh, big!”

“No, you’re not, y/n.” He shook his head, holding your shoulders. “You’re healthy. You’re exactly where you need to be.”

“But, what happens when I’m not!” You cried. “You’ll leave me!”

“What?” His eyes crinkled in surprise. “Honey, what, no. No matter what you look like I’m staying. No matter what.” He lifted up to hold your face.

“Sweetheart, you’re healthy and where you need to be.” He squeezed you. “It doesn’t matter if you loose weight or gain it, none of it matters to me, do you understand? All I want is for you to be happy and healthy. I want you to be the healthiest version of yourself that you can be.”

“I can’t do it,” You leaned your forehead against his. “I’m too stupid. I hate myself.”

“Do it for me.” He kissed your nose. “Please, just try to love yourself. Be kind to your body. I will help you in anyway that I can, you’ve just gotta be honest with me.”

You cried and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, burying your face in his neck. He didn’t realize how fast his heart was racing until he felt it vibrate against your own. He took a deep, shaking breath, allowing his own eyes to water.

#lana’s shit post #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x female reader #stranger things #stranger things season four #joseph quinn #eddie munson imagines #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson headcanons #eddie munson drabbles #eddie munson angst

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mononijikayu · 5 months ago

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we can’t be friends (wait for your love) — gojo satoru.

GENRE: alternate universe - reincarnation

WARNING/S: romance, domesticity, fluff, family, break up, comfort/no comfort, angst, trauma, implied death, hurt/comfort, character death, depiction of death, depictions of loss and depression, depiction of graphic content, depiction of emotional breakdown, depiction of anxiety, mention of death, mention of grief;

WORD COUNT: 1.7k

masterlist

series masterlist

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you were always reminded of how beautiful and sad wintertime is. when you were younger, you excitedly put on your winter boots and puffer jacket, hurriedly running out to play in the snow, your muffler trailing behind you. you had fond memories of those snowy days, and that sentiment only deepened as you grew older.

winter became even more special the night you met gojo satoru at his birthday party, when your friend had dragged you along. you were so happy then, to have been able to have this man steal your heart. since then, winter had been warmer, happier. but lately, it wasn’t the case.

that was what you hated about winter—sometimes, all it brought was bitterness and a putrid cold. the nights were frightening, and the breath you took felt like it punched the air out of your lungs. everything stayed frozen in time, suspended by the snow that seemed to crush the earth with its weight.

nowadays, you can’t remember if you ever waited eagerly for the snow to fall. you don't look forward to winter as you did when you were a child. it was too hard to smile at the falling snow. but you still try. you really want to. you think that maybe, if you smile, it would be easier. if you smile, maybe your face will remember only the warmth. maybe if you smile, you won’t feel the bitterness—you don’t want to turn into winter itself.

you tear your gaze away from the narrow echoes of the windowpane. and for a moment, winter tears itself in two, into that bitterness and warmth. sometimes, looking at him makes it easier, and some days, it makes it harder. you supposed you always knew he was like snow itself—pure as the driven snow and yet so brutal with the weight you bear for it.

gojo satoru shifts carefully on the mattress, and before you can think, you are instantly beside him. you couldn’t help but put his hand gingerly in yours, making sure not to jostle him too much. you never expected this. that he would be in such a state. he had been so healthy all his life, and now he wasn’t even able to stand up by himself anymore.

it's very hard not to worry over someone whom you've loved your entire life. satoru, whom you would gladly go to war for. satoru, the man you had called yours at one point. the very same satoru from the life before this. from all the lives before this one. you look at him and see not the previous version of him you've once held in your arms, but the young boy you first met so many years ago.

“how are you, 'toru?” you ask him tenderly.

there is hurt and pain in these isolated walls, this stupid little winter cabin of his. there is the looming knowledge of what is to come, too, and it is something you can’t face. you already knew the answer to the question. the doctor told you. but you didn’t care about what science says. you wanted to hear it from him.

at the end of the day, you are still hopeful. because he's here. satoru is still here with you. his usually warm hand is cold; it had never been cold when it touched yours. not until recently. but you think that it doesn’t matter. cold or warm, you still held his hand.

it was still yours to hold. and you were together. the world didn’t matter right now. your own husband, your career, your reality—nothing mattered. you wanted to be here. you wanted to be by his side. you wanted to be his world again, just as he was yours.

“it’s cold today, darlin’." satoru whispers to you, trying to squeeze your hand, as though to reassure you that he was still here with you.

he wasn’t as strong as he would have liked, you knew that well. but he still held you. he still held your hand and would not let go. you don’t realize too late that you’ve been holding your breath.

you squeeze his hand and you try to smile for him, to be happy for him. satoru opens his eyes to look at you, a ghost of a smile playing across his lips. he likes it when he can see you smile for him, as you always did years ago.

you don’t think it will ever sink in. this isn’t real. this isn’t happening. you could feel the bile stuck in your throat. you already knew that this isn’t how it’s supposed to go. you have experienced much worse together. you have done much worse to each other.

you have pulled each other through collapsed barricades just to find safety elsewhere. even when you weren’t together anymore, you have managed to survive it all. because you still had each other.

that was then, and this is now. here you are, huddled together for warmth, satoru’s lips chapped and blue. your ex-husband could only try and make a front for you, one that you think he could not hold for much longer. even if he wished he could, there would come a time when it would all be over.

the room is silent except for the faint sound of the wind howling outside, the winter storm a harsh reminder of the reality you are facing. you clutch satoru’s hand tighter, as if your grip alone could keep him tethered to this world.

“satoru, love.” you whisper, your voice trembling. “stay with me.”

his eyes flutter open once more, and he looks at you with a softness that breaks your heart. “i’m trying, darlin'.” he murmurs, his voice barely audible. “for you, i’m trying.”

you bite back the sob that threatens to escape, not wanting him to see you fall apart. you need to be strong, for him, for both of you. you lean closer, pressing your forehead against his, your breath mingling in the cold air.

“i know, love.” you say softly. “i know you are.”

the moments stretch on, each second feeling like an eternity. you talk to him about anything and everything, recounting memories of happier times, of your first meeting, of the countless winters you spent together. you tell him about the future you once dreamed of, the life you wanted to build together. you pour your heart out, hoping that your words can keep him here a little longer.

but as the hours pass, you can see the light in his cerulean eyes dimming, the strength in his grip weakening. he is slipping away, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. you feel a crushing weight in your chest, the pain of losing him more than you can bear.

“satoru, my love.” you say again, your voice breaking. “please don’t go. i can’t do this without you.”

he looks at you with a sad, knowing smile. “you’re stronger than you think,” he whispers. “you always have been.”

tears spill down your cheeks, and you shake your head. “not without you,” you insist. “i need you.”

his hand moves to your cheek, his touch feather-light. “i’ll always be with you." he says softly. “in here.” he taps his chest weakly, indicating his heart.

"how do i live on without you?" your tears blur everything in sight, even him. but you don't want to. you don't want it to.

"you learnt how, when we got divorced, darlin'." he smiles at you. you can tell, he was having a harder time speaking. "you'll learn again. you've always been a fighter. my darlin'. you've always been a fighter."

you nod, even though it feels like your heart is shattering into a million pieces. you lean down, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips, savoring the warmth and love you’ve shared. as you closed your eyes, you could feel it tremble with tears once again.

“i love you.” you say, your voice barely a whisper.

“i love you too.” he replies, his voice fading. “always.”

you hold him close as his breathing grows shallower, his grip on your hand loosening. you can feel his life slipping away, each moment more painful than the last. and then, with one final, shuddering breath, he is gone.

the room feels impossibly quiet, the weight of his absence suffocating. you hold onto him, your tears soaking into his shirt, your heart breaking in ways you never thought possible. the world outside is a blur of white, the snow falling relentlessly, indifferent to your pain.

winter has never felt colder than in that moment.

you stay there for what feels like hours, unable to let go. you waited for the paramedics to arrive. you call his kids, to tell him what happened. and then....nothing. emptiness. the quiet. not even the snow falling made a sound.

the memories of your life together play in your mind, a bittersweet reminder of all you’ve lost. you remember the warmth of his smile, the sound of his laughter, the way he made you feel alive. and though he is gone, those memories are yours to keep. you fall in love again. and that tears you apart. it kills you whole.

eventually, you find the strength to stand, to face the world without him. you know it won’t be easy, that the days ahead will be filled with pain and heartache. but you also know that satoru would want you to keep going, to find a way to live life as you always have.

when everyone arrived, you knew it was time to go. you didn't want to leave his body. but you have no right to be there anymore. his kids tell you that it was too dangerous out. but he was gone. you say your goodbyes, you walk over to the coat hanger. your eyes red, your heart heavy - you make your way to leave the cabin.

you could feel how cold it was when you stepped out into the echoing blizzard, this unforgiving winter. the snow crunches beneath your feet, each step a reminder of the journey ahead. you look up at the sky, the falling snow blurring your vision, and you take a deep breath.

winter will continue for a long time, you think. and perhaps, you’ll only ever breathe winter snow again, as bitterly as you could. but you hope maybe, one day—you’ll think of him and be warm again. you bit your lips, tears flowing freely.

maybe if you're lucky?

you'll be reborn again.

maybe you'll love him again.

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n0cturn4 · 3 months ago

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𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚎 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚘𝚜

Character: Jason Todd x Reader Summary: Your silent love for Jason Todd Word Count: 2365 Music: "Disfruto" by Carla Morrison

You have always been an observant soul, more inclined to listen to the whisper of the wind than to get lost in the chaos around you. Ever since you discovered the gift of astral projection, time became an old companion, unraveling secrets while stealing parts of your essence. Each journey between dimensions drained you, the weight of eternity touching your skin, but with Jason, time became something suspended, malleable, almost irrelevant.

He entered your life like a storm, abrupt, unpredictable, carrying winds of change. Under Bruce’s guidance, you both navigated between shadows and redemption. Jason, with his raw rebelliousness, fascinated you in ways that words could never capture. There was a beauty in his stubbornness, in the way he challenged the world, accumulating invisible scars.

The love that grew for him wasn’t made of momentary sparks but of a slow and steady fire. It wasn’t grand gestures that moved you, but the shared silences, the almost complicit peace. You knew that true love was patient. Jason was still learning to find his healing, and you waited, like a safe harbor waiting for his arrival.

In the moments you shared, there was poetry. The furrow of his brow when words failed, the rare glimmer that appeared when he smiled genuinely. These were the precious moments that marked you, where the world seemed to pause, and love became a battle won in the quiet, far from missions and external struggles. For you, the real challenge was being the rest he so deeply needed.

Over time, you understood that loving wasn’t about grand declarations. It was about the gentle touch after a hard night, the coffee shared in the silence of the morning. It was about holding his hand in moments when the weight of the world felt crushing. Your patience, in truth, was a science—a science that Jason needed. He needed someone who understood his chaos, without trying to fix or save him, but who was willing to love him exactly as he was.

In moments of greatest vulnerability, when silence fell heavily between you, you would simply move closer. Your fingers would glide along the nape of his neck, and he would close his eyes, finding peace in your gentle touch. You offered no solutions, just your presence, constant and silent but unwavering. That was what he needed more than words.

There, in the space between what he showed and what he hid, you understood the pain he carried. It was an invisible scar, the result of a life filled with struggles and losses. And instead of lightening his burden, you loved him wholly, shadows and all. On the nights he disappeared on missions, returning hurt and exhausted, you didn’t question him. You simply cared for each wound, knowing that some battles he would face alone, but others could be shared.

Over time, Jason began to realize that the love you offered was not an obligation but a choice. You chose to be by his side, to navigate through his storms without expecting calmness. He, who had always seen love as something fleeting, discovered that with you, love could be constant, even amid chaos.

In every silence, on the nights when words were lost in the vastness of what could not be said, there was something greater than understanding itself. What bound you both together was not shaped by clear promises but by the depth of a connection that defied logic. Each touch, each shared glance without haste, revealed what Jason feared most: the vulnerability of allowing himself to be loved.

You saw beyond the layers of pain and the armor he erected. You knew that behind every impulsive gesture was a heart that had been broken countless times but still insisted on fighting. Jason was not just made of anger or a thirst for justice; he was composed of nuances that few dared to see. And you patiently understood that love was not about changing the other, but about offering a safe space where he could be who he truly was.

As he got lost in missions, seeking a sense of redemption that he might never find, you remained a constant. Not as an anchor that held him down, but as a guiding star, offering direction when he needed it most. Jason began to notice that even when the chaos around him seemed uncontrollable, with you by his side, there was always a way back. You were not a refuge of forced calmness but a space where he could be himself—broken, imperfect, but genuine..

In brief moments, when the city seemed to be asleep and the two of you shared a rare instant of peace, Jason allowed himself to relax. It was in these moments, between silence and the simple touch of your hands, that he found a piece of himself that he thought was lost. And you, with your constant presence, showed him that love didn’t have to be fleeting, that the bond between you wasn’t as fragile as so many others in his life. He began to understand that no matter how much the world around him crumbled, there was something unchangeable between you two.

The true beauty of this love lay in the little things: the way your gazes would meet amidst the darkness of Gotham, the sound of a shared breath as danger receded for the night. Neither of you needed to speak to know that, despite everything, what you had was real. This love, built on silences and small gestures, was an unbreakable force, even in the face of the greatest storms.

And so, even without certainty about what tomorrow would bring, you both pressed on. Each day, each mission, each shared wound strengthened what seemed inexplicable. Because loving Jason was understanding that life by his side wouldn’t be easy, but you were willing to face every shadow and every battle. For you, love was this: being beside him, without haste, expecting nothing, just existing together in a delicate balance between chaos and stillness.

In the quiet of the longest nights, when Gotham slept in its infinite darkness, you found a singular truth in the moments shared with Jason. There was a vulnerability he rarely showed to the world, a delicate side that only you knew. He didn’t allow himself to be fragile in front of others, but with you, he let his guard down. Not completely, but enough for you to see beyond what anyone else ever could. And that was what made your love for him even deeper, more meaningful.

Jason carried with him a pain that couldn’t be measured. The physical scars were easy to identify, but those that marked his soul were invisible, intricate like a tapestry of broken memories. Each wound, each loss he had endured, shaped the man he was. Yet, somehow, you could see something he himself tried to ignore: a kindness hidden beneath layers of anger and determination, a heart still capable of feeling, even as he tried to suffocate that ability.

You knew he would never say the words aloud—Jason was not the type to proclaim his love easily. But you didn’t need to hear them. There was love in the way he rested his head on your shoulder during rare moments of fatigue, in the way his fingers intertwined with yours when the city became an unbearable weight. There was love in the most subtle gestures, in the way he sought you out amidst the chaos, as if knowing that in you, he would find his only true peace.

In the quiet of the longest nights, when Gotham slept in its infinite darkness, you found a singular truth in the moments shared with Jason. There was a vulnerability he rarely showed to the world, a delicate side that only you knew. He didn’t allow himself to be fragile in front of others, but with you, he let his guard down. Not completely, but enough for you to see beyond what anyone else had ever seen. And that was what made your love for him even deeper, more meaningful.

Jason carried a pain that couldn’t be measured. The physical scars were easy to identify, but those that marked his soul were invisible, intricate like a tapestry of broken memories. Each wound, each loss he had suffered, shaped the man he was. But somehow, you could see something he himself tried to ignore: a kindness hidden beneath layers of anger and determination, a heart that was still capable of feeling, even if he tried to smother that capacity.

You knew he would never say the words out loud – Jason wasn’t the type to proclaim his love easily. But you didn’t need to hear it. There was love in the way he rested his head on your shoulder in rare moments of exhaustion, in the way his fingers intertwined with yours when the city became an unbearable weight. There was love in the subtlest gestures, in the way he sought you amid the chaos, as if he knew that in you, he would find his only true peace.

And over time, you became accustomed to loving in this silent way. You didn’t expect declarations, you didn’t ask for promises. You understood that the love between you was something built in the margins, in the stolen moments between one mission and another, in the shared glances in a dark corner of Gotham. It was a love that bloomed in subtlety, in the whispers that never needed to be spoken but were deeply felt.

Sometimes, in the rare mornings when you woke up together, you allowed yourself to dream of a future where Jason could find the peace he so desperately sought. But you knew that his path was filled with thorns, and that his internal battle was something no love could heal completely. Still, you remained by his side, knowing that love wasn’t a cure but a beacon that could guide him back when he needed it most.

The nights in Gotham were like a heavy cloak stretched over the city, tinted with shadows and secrets. But amid the flickering lights and the whispers of the wind, there was a sacred space that only you and Jason knew. It was a refuge in the midst of the storm, a place where the outside world became irrelevant and the only thing that mattered was the connection you shared.

Jason had a peculiar way of dealing with feelings, as if emotions were a battle to be won. He built walls around himself, surrounding himself with an ice that made him unshakable. But you were stubborn, and every gesture of yours, every tender look, was a small spark, an invitation for him to allow himself to feel. In those moments, you became the sun that melted the coldness of his defenses, a warm light that seeped into the cracks of his armor.

And so, in the small things, your love revealed itself. A lovingly made coffee in the silent dawn, the soft music that filled the air while you danced barefoot through the room, trying to coax a smile from Jason after a difficult day. He would resist at times, as if laughter were a luxury he couldn’t afford, but the persistence of your affection had a strength of its own, and somewhere within him, the barriers began to give way.

You remembered one particular night when the rain poured torrentially outside. The sound of the raindrops on the roof was a familiar song, a backdrop that helped create the intimacy you shared. Jason was sitting in a worn armchair, his shoulders heavy, his expression distant. You approached him, sitting beside him, saying nothing, just allowing the silence to speak for you. The connection was palpable, and even in the absence of words, there was a conversation happening – a mutual understanding that you were both there, ready to face whatever came.

He looked at you, and in the glint of his eyes, you saw the storms he carried. “I’m not easy to deal with” he said, almost as a warning. But you just smiled, a smile that overflowed with understanding. “And I’m not here to make things easier. I’m here to stand by your side, no matter what happens.”

That was a pivotal moment, an instant when vulnerability became a stronger bond between you. Jason began to realize that he didn’t have to be perfect to deserve your love. That, in fact, his imperfections were essential parts of the tapestry that made him who he was. He didn’t need to carry the world on his shoulders. He didn’t need to fight alone.

Weeks turned into months, and while Jason devoted himself to his missions in the shadows of the night, you became his safe harbor during the day. And with each return, he found in you a home he never knew he needed. The marks of the battles he faced became visible on his skin, but there was also a new spark in his eyes – a reflection of the hope you cultivated within him.

Moments of laughter became more frequent, and deep conversations about fears and dreams became a new normal. You talked about the future, about what it meant to build a life together, even amidst the chaos of Gotham. With every exchanged word, with every shared laugh, Jason allowed himself to open his heart more, freeing himself from the idea that he had to be strong all the time.

One night, while walking through the quiet streets of the city, Jason stopped and looked at you with a seriousness that made your heart race. “You really love me, don’t you?” The question, so simple, carried the weight of all his uncertainties and fears. And you, with the honesty that always guided you, replied: “I love you, Jason, with all your flaws and the beauty that resides within them. I don’t expect you to be perfect. I just hope you will be yourself.”

The expression on his face changed, as if something within him had broken. There was a fragility in his eyes, but also immense gratitude. He leaned closer, and in that moment, you felt the world around you disappear.......

#reader insert #x reader #angst #fluff #jason todd x reader #jason todd #red hood x reader #jason todd x you #arkham knight #arkham knight x reader #n0cturn4 whites ♡

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iriscasefiles · 6 months ago

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Just under the wire for Pride Month, I've decided to publish a behind-the-scenes Patreon chat from about 3 years ago in which Kim (the resident Starship Iris science advisor, among other roles) and I discuss our respective experiences with asexuality.

Join us for an extremely 2021 conversation (were we ever so young?), about asexuality in fiction, asexuality in life, asexuality specifically in season two of Starship Iris, and American fruit history. Also, Kim has a novel proposal for fixing dating for some of us.

A few warnings:

This episode gets a little NSFW. Also, brief mention of alcohol abuse.

A few notes:

Huge, the show I mention at the top of the episode, is not as fatphobic as it might sound. The protagonist is really against the whole concept of a weight loss camp and is trying to rebel.

One thing we didn't get into is that ace representation in fiction podcasts is actually pretty great. Here's a partial list!

If you want to do some soul-searching about whether or not you could be on the spectrum of asexuality, here is a handy website! a thing to remember is that these labels are useful for ourselves only insofar as identifying with the label makes your life in some way clearer or easier. if you arguably fit the definition but you find the label is not personally productive for yourself, that is also okay!

I want to clarify that when I briefly complain about people on tumblr being negative about asexuality, I'm carping about a small number of people. Most tumblr users have been absolutely lovely to me, including about my orientation.

Happy pride to everyone everywhere on the asexuality spectrum, and to everyone outside the spectrum as well! Take care of yourselves, don't talk to cops, and embrace nuance in identities 🏳️‍🌈

#asexuality #tscosi #the strange case of starship iris

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shewhowritesbooks · 1 month ago

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Viktor & Jayce juxtaposition

This frame was stuck in my head for the entire week and I finally understand why. The juxtaposition between Jayce and Viktor also represents the juxtaposition between Piltover and Zaun.

Jayce is the embodiment of Piltover and Viktor of Zaun.

1. If we were to start with the literal physicality, the carnal comparison, Jayce’s body is strong, healthy, and humanly, free from adulteration while Viktor’s is altered to such an extent that it could hardly be recognized as human anymore. Viktor’s flesh is blackened and murky as though filled with dirt and toxicants, which most Zaunites’ bodies are considering the toxic air they breathe and the poverty.

2. Piltover was attacked and yet it suffered minimal losses and minor destruction whereas Zaun is still struggling under its weight even though Zaun had been the attacker. Just like who Jayce is standing whole while Viktor was the one who had almost died. No matter if Jinx’ attack had been a defiant act of rebellion, you can’t overcome decades of lack of resources, health and wealth by one single attack. The oppressors still remain the powerful ones and the oppressed suffer harder even as they seek out their right to resist.

3. Jayce is still involved (creating or using) the pure side of their science: Hextech. Whereas Viktor’s body is literally infiltrated with Hex core, the destructive, dark, corrupting side of their science that Viktor had to pursue in desperation for his survival. Piltover (Jayce) has the best of the best, even in science. Hextech, the most progressive discovery of the decade that comes with little to none consequences and helps them relish in more and more goods. But Zaun (Viktor) is stuck with the toxic counterpart of their science. Hexcore (and shimmer), a product born out of desperation. They don’t have the privilege of choice. They either inflict themselves with damning substances or die.

4. And oh Jayce’s wilful ignorance still shining through. Piltover has just been attacked and he just straight up resigns from the Council and wants to hide his lab with his partner. He has the privilege of looking away from the catastrophe. He has the privilege to look away and be locked away in his lab, tinkering with his invention just like the “good old days��. But the first thing that Viktor says after being brought back is that Jayce should’ve let him die because Viktor knows that Zaun will let up paying a heavy price for Hexcore’s existence. It’s always Zaun that pays the price for Piltover’s ambitions. The reason Viktor ended up creating Hexcore was because his body had deteriorated over time because of the toxic environment under which the Zaunites live. A limp, infected lungs. Viktor never had the privilege of looking away and he knows he doesn’t now too. Piltover can look away. Its citizens can feel safe behind the arms and weapons of their allies (Noxus) even though they should fear for their lives. Whether Zaun is the aggressor or the victim, it can never look away. It never not be subjected to Piltover’s consequence, to the oppression they suffer. Directly or indirectly they are always involved, always suffering and struggling.

#arcane #arcane season 2 #arcane season two #jinx #jinx arcane #jinx and vi #viktor arcane #jayce x viktor #arcane jayce #jayce league of legends #viktor league of legends #viktor and jinx #jayce lol #vi arcane #vi and caitlyn #arcane league of legends #league of legends

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ogprettyprincess · 2 months ago

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hi so sorry idk about ur boundaries on asks.. anyway i've asked this on reddit, but i feel like the loa subreddit is just as clueless as i am ngl....

i struggle with belief even though i have manifested so many things (such as weight loss, money, sp, beauty, etc etc)

i've watched and read so many things about how we create our own reality and it makes sense to me but i just cant believe in it and its so frustrating... any idea on how i can fix this?

hi! no problem :)

if you're a logical person, i recommend learning why manifestation works. like the science behind it and stuff. that way you can understand how and what goes into creating reality.

for a not so logical route, manifest something you feel would absolutely prove its real to you. wether that's something completely unrealistic or something you consider small.

#⋆𐙚 ₊ ° ⊹ pretty princess yaps #law of assumption #loa #loa blog #reality shifting #shifting blog #shifting #loablr #shiftblr #reality shifting blog #law of assumption blog #loassumption #realityshifting

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jackiequick · 4 months ago

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—The Sterling Siblings ♥️✨🖌️🫐

Inspired by DC Comics

-> Axel Quinn Sterling ♟️

- Age: 22

- Height: 5’5"

- Status: Single

Personality: Clever, often cheeky, and a secret science fiction fan. Axel is very blunt and unfiltered, often saying exactly what’s on his mind without holding back. Despite his sharp tongue, he has a strong sense of responsibility, especially toward his younger sister, Ember. He’s fiercely protective of her, even if it doesn’t always show in his attitude towards others.

Skills:

Acrobatics: Axel is highly agile and acrobatic, allowing him to move quickly and gracefully in combat or when evading capture.

Weapons Mastery: Proficient in the use of knives, guns, and various other weapons, Axel is a force to be reckoned with in a fight.

Shadow Cloaking: Axel has the ability to become invisible when in darkness or shadow, making him a master of stealth and surprise attacks.

Role: Axel is the older brother, always pulling his own weight in their rebellious endeavors. He’s determined to keep Ember safe, even as they dive deeper into dangerous situations together.

<<—————>>

-> Ember Drew Sterling 💄

- Age: 19

- Height: 5’3"

- Status: Single

Personality: Reserved and determined, Ember is someone who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go after it. She’s snarky and often gives off a pouty vibe, but underneath it all, she’s deeply protective of her brother, Axel. Though she may seem obsessed with her appearance, it’s part of her careful approach to controlling how others perceive her.

Skills:

Espionage: Skilled in infiltration, manipulation, and gathering information, Ember is the brains behind many of their plans.

Electricity Control: Ember can generate and manipulate electricity, which she uses both offensively and defensively during their operations.

Stealth: Like Axel, Ember is adept at moving unseen, making her a dangerous adversary when she combines this with her electricity powers.

Role: As the younger sister, Ember often finds herself looking out for Axel, despite his protective nature. She’s the one who pulls him out of tight situations and makes sure they both get out unscathed.

————-

———————-

Background of the Sterling Siblings 🍓🔥🫂

Axel and Ember Sterling enjoyed a relatively stable childhood in Central City. However, their lives took a dramatic turn when their father, Damon Sterling, received a job offer that required the family to relocate to Starling City. Although the move was a significant change, the siblings adapted and began to settle into their new environment.

Tragically, their lives were upended when a catastrophic fire broke out in Starling City. The fire was caused by an explosive device set off at a company where Damon worked—owned by Malcolm Merlyn. The company’s negligence in maintaining safety protocols contributed to the disaster. Damon Sterling, along with several other employees, lost his life in the blaze. Malcolm Merlyn, focused on his own priorities and other concerns, showed little regard for the safety of his employees, including Damon.

On the day of the fire, a devastated Axel, only 10 years old, was left trying to comfort his 8-year-old sister, Ember, who was overwhelmed with fear and grief. As Ember cried and called out for their mother, Axel struggled to provide solace and ensure her safety amidst the chaos.

In the wake of this tragedy, their mother, Kora Sterling, made the decision to bring her children back to Central City. She hoped to provide them with a sense of stability and security, moving them away from the traumatic events of Starling City. The siblings returned to Central City with their mother, carrying the weight of their loss but finding solace in being together.

At just 10 years old, Axel was thrust into the role of protector for his 8-year-old sister, Ember. The trauma and grief from the fire had a profound impact on him. The loss of his father darkened Axel, causing him to become rude, unfiltered, rebellious, and occasionally arrogant. The burden of taking care of Ember and the isolation he felt from his circumstances led him to develop a rough exterior. He often got into fights, experienced misunderstandings with friends, and questioned the motives of others.

Despite his abrasive demeanor, Axel remained deeply protective and caring towards Ember and his loved ones. His sense of responsibility and his desire to provide for his sister kept him grounded. While he was often silent, snappy, and snarky, he showed respect and friendliness when it came to those he cared about.

Ember, growing up under Axel’s overprotective watch, found herself increasingly isolated from the world around her. Despite her young age, she became highly perceptive and developed a sharp, reserved demeanor. She often used her quiet observations to challenge her brother’s decisions and to pull him back from dangerous situations. Her rebellious nature emerged as she began testing boundaries, both with Axel and their mother, Kora. Ember’s attempts to assert her independence led her to seek ways to make a statement, which often manifested as acts of defiance and a focus on her appearance. This behavior was driven by a deep-seated need to control her own life and identity in the face of her circumstances.

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Siblings’ Dynamic & Mutual Support 🎲

Axel and Ember Sterling share a deeply protective and supportive bond that extends beyond the typical sibling relationship. Their experiences and the trauma they endured together have forged a strong sense of mutual reliance and care.

> Ember’s Support for Axel: Ember is fiercely protective of Axel, demonstrating her care through action. She often finds herself dragging Axel out of dangerous situations, ensuring his safety when his protective instincts lead him into conflict. Additionally, Ember takes on the role of caretaker, patching him up after fights and injuries. Her support is a testament to her deep concern for her brother’s well-being and her commitment to keeping him safe despite his rebellious tendencies.

> Axel’s Protection of Ember: Axel, in turn, maintains a vigilant eye on Ember. He isn’t afraid to pull her away from risky situations and confront her when she oversteps boundaries. His protective nature extends to calling Ember out on her behavior, holding her accountable for her actions. Despite his occasional snappiness and arrogance, Axel’s primary goal is to ensure Ember’s safety and to guide her through their shared challenges.

Their interactions are characterized by a blend of tough love and unwavering support. While they may clash and challenge each other, their underlying bond remains strong, reinforcing their commitment to each other’s safety and well-being.

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The Particle Accelerator Incident & Gaining Abilities 🧪

Axel and Ember Sterling's lives took another unexpected turn during The Particle Accelerator Explosion at S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City. Axel, secretly a fan of science fiction and fantasy, was thrilled about the open public event and eagerly attended. Ember, initially uninterested and preferring to binge-watch movies on Netflix, decided to join him after seeing his excitement and curiosity.

The siblings planned to watch the event from a safe distance and grab a bite. However, the evening didn't go as planned. As the Particle Accelerator malfunctioned and began to explode, the rain started to pour heavily. The explosion caused widespread panic, with people fleeing for safety. Axel and Ember, thinking they were in a secure spot away from the chaos, were caught off guard. The explosion's shockwave, combined with the thunderstorm and the panicking crowd, knocked them out cold.

Their last clear memory was of the sky lighting up with a mixture of colors as lightning struck in their vicinity. The intense energy from the explosion struck them as they were sheltered underneath a dry spot, leading to their unconscious state.

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Discovering Their Abilities 🌩️🔦

When Axel and Ember awoke the day after The Particle Accelerator Explosion, they were disoriented and struggling to comprehend the events and their newfound abilities.

Hospitalized to rest and recover, Axel was filled with apprehension, fearing that their lives would never return to normal aftermath of it all, he could sense it. Ember, on the other hand, was grappling with the trauma of what she had witnessed—the fall of people and the chaos of the night—while trying to ignore the pain.

As the months passed, their new abilities began to manifest in unexpected ways.

Ember's first encounter with her powers occurred during a seemingly ordinary day at the park. While hanging out with her friends, a group of boys approached, and one of them, intrigued by her dyed red hair and spunky outfit, tried to get her number. Ember, frustrated and unimpressed, tried to push him away. In a moment of anger, she inadvertently released a bolt of electricity that coursed through the boy, causing him to stumble and faint. Ember stood there, stunned and bewildered by the power she had unleashed and the sight of her own hands.

A few weeks later, Axel faced his own revelation. After getting into a fight with older guys who had objected to him and a friend playing baseball in their area, Axel found himself running through the streets of Central City, seeking refuge in a poorly lit area. He got a few pretty aggressive shots and left the guys beaten, another reason they were after him. While hiding from his attackers, Axel noticed something extraordinary—he seemed to blend into the shadows, becoming almost invisible. This unexpected development marked the first indication of his shadow cloaking ability.

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Bonding Over Newfound Powers & Causing Trouble 🕹️

As Axel and Ember slowly came to terms with their newfound abilities, they began to confide in each other about the strange occurrences they were experiencing. Initially, both were hesitant to share, unsure of how the other would react. However, the bond between them was strong, and they soon found comfort in each other’s experiences, gradually opening up about the incidents at the park and in the shadows. This mutual revelation deepened their connection, making them increasingly protective of one another.

Realizing the potential of their powers, the siblings decided to explore the limits of what they could do. This exploration, however, quickly took a darker turn. What started as curiosity about their abilities evolved into a rebellious streak. Axel and Ember began using their powers to cause trouble around Central City and Starling City. They discovered that they could move unseen, strike without warning, and get away with nearly anything.

Ember’s ability to control electricity became a weapon against those who crossed her, allowing her to incapacitate enemies with a mere touch. Axel’s shadow cloaking made him nearly invisible in the dark, enabling him to sneak into places unnoticed. Together, they formed a formidable team, stealing from stores, breaking into secure locations, and exacting revenge on anyone who wronged them.

Their actions were calculated and precise, leaving no trace of their involvement. The Sterling Siblings became known for their ability to make a scene and then vanish without a trace, leaving authorities and victims alike baffled. They reveled in the thrill of their new lifestyle, finding a sense of control and power that they had lacked since the tragic fire that had taken their father.

Despite the excitement, there was an underlying fear that drove their actions—a fear of losing each other, of being exposed, and of what their powers might ultimately lead them to become. This fear only intensified their protectiveness, causing them to be even more vigilant about each other’s safety as they continued their descent into the criminal underworld.

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Ahhh so you have met April Merlyn’s season 4 haters! She didn’t do anything wrong ofc but yk drama and trauma 💅

Let me know what you guys think of theses siblings

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