#she makes me feel like someone has fucked me up irrevocably

[mrzombielover]

- slow ride ch1

feat. sinner!adam x fem!hotel worker!reader

series masterlist | next chapter

warnings: NSFW, enemies to fuckbuddies, adam and reader both suck, unhealthy relationships, size kink oooops, light degradation

a/n: oh my god this is so self indulgent. something is fr wrong with me bc all my favorite men are irrevocably fucked up and toxic and emotionally damaged and would treat me like shit teehee

wc: 2.2k

“You took my shame and you took my pride / And now you gonna take me for a slowride”

When even Charlie is trepidatious about checking someone in to the hotel, you know they’ve fucked up bad.

Adam had shown up, tail between his legs, admitting something about how he’s “desperate enough to try anything,” even this “stupid delusional humiliating hotel.”

Charlie, who’s more like an angel than Adam ever was, had ultimately decided that he could stay. After a lengthy and heated discussion, she’d reminded the group that the hotel’s policy states that everyone deserves a chance at redemption, regardless of the sins they’ve committed. Considering he killed your friend, you thought that was bullshit, but it’s Charlie’s hotel at the end of the day, and you’re just along for the ride.

You like Charlie, which is why you put up with having Adam around. She’s a good person- genuinely, deep down. There’s no hidden motives in her actions. You’ve not met many good people in your life, so she’s won your respect, even if you have your doubts about the hotel’s premise.

But for as much as you love her, you briefly questioned her sanity when she asked you to keep a special eye on Adam.

“…and how exactly is that the job of treasury secretary?” You deadpan.

“Wellll…” Charlie trails off, looking away for a moment. “It isn’t really. Buuut what if I was asking as a favor, for your friend?” She clasps her hands together, giving you a smile. You have to avert your eyes from the hopeful look on her face before your resolve cracks.

“No way in hell,” You say quickly.

“Please!”

“No,”

“Pleaseee!”

You bite your lip as you think. He’s obnoxious, yes, but what’s really the worst that could happen? You close your eyes and sigh.

“…you owe me one,”

You regret accepting every day. Nobody got along with Adam. Well, nobody except for Nifty, who seemed thrilled to have a real bad boy staying in the hotel. You, however, got along with him the least of all.

For someone who’d come to the hotel in his time of need- who was in no position to ask for anything other than forgiveness- Adam sure has a smartass mouth. It seems Charlie just wants to give you a brain aneurysm, that’s why she gave you this job. Even if that wasn’t her goal, that’s certainly the stage you’re approaching, because fighting with Adam everyday is 100% going to make you pop a blood vessel.

You can’t help it. Something about him- the way he acts, the forced proximity, just gets under your skin, makes your eye twitch. He should be groveling, begging for forgiveness, putting his heart and soul into bettering himself, yet all he does is bitch and moan. Constantly complaining would be one thing, hell’s full of whiners, but he also feels the need to voice every thought he’s ever had, which often includes insults and snide remarks about those around him. You’ve never been one to take that shit- though, nobody at the hotel really does. It seems to be much worse with you two, specifically, though.

The problem comes in because, as much as you hate to admit it, you might sometimes occasionally have some things in common with him. No, you’re not quite as loud or crude or obnoxious, you don’t generally insult people for fun, but if someone deserves it?

You’ve tore into people for way less than murdering your friend, showing up on your doorstep and being a pain in your ass 24/7, especially if you’re in a particularly shitty mood. Reduced people to tears for mildly inconveniencing you, having an annoying voice, wasting food, etc etc… all of which Adam does.

Generally, you’re apathetic to what goes on around you, especially at the hotel. You’re fed, don’t have to pay rent, and can pretty much do whatever you want, so dealing with the annoying, traumatized, dramatic residents and staff is a fair trade off in your eyes. Adam should, in theory, be no different than the rest of them to you. So you cannot, for the life of you, figure out what about him makes him so much worse than the rest.

You just try not to think about him as much as possible. But when you ignore him, he just seems to get worse.

“Jesus, you don’t think it’s a bit early to start drinking?”

You mentally groan as you hear his voice, avoiding eye contact as you crack open the bottle.

“I mean, Isn’t this shithole supposed to be for rehabilitation?” You can practically hear the smirk in his voice as he opens the fridge.

“Why don’t you focus on your own rehab first, dick? Been weeks now and you’re still an asshole,” You snap, before taking a swig of your beer. He shrugs, grabbing the orange juice from the fridge and placing it on the counter. He walks past where you’re leaning on the counter to get a glass.

“I mean, damn, you didn’t even try today, huh?”He laughs.

“Why are you pickin’ a fight with me right now?” You raise your voice a little, exasperated and too hungover to deal with this.

“oh, uh, i dunno… i’m bored?” He shrugs again, looking over to you with a self satisfied smile. You groan in frustration, then sigh, forcing yourself to keep it together.

“…and you wonder why your wives left you,” you mumble with a roll your eyes, turning to quickly leave the kitchen. you don’t see his face, but judging from the sound of a crash and footsteps quickly following you into the hallway, you hit a nerve. oh, god, here we go…

“you fucking junkie bitch!” he yells after you as you stomp up the stairs.

“you’re proving my point right now!” you say over your shoulder.

“Like you have room to talk? Let’s bring up your love life, huh?!”

“oh my god shut up!” Angel yells through the door as you pass his room. “Every fuckin’ morning with you two!”

Adam ignores him, continuing to rant as he follows closely behind you, every degrading name he can think of spilling from his lips.

“…fucking whore cunt- whose not even fucking listening to me!” he says as you turn into your room. you turn, attempting to slam the door, but he sticks his foot in the gap and grabs the door, shoving it back open.

“what in the fuck is your problem today?!” you yell.

“it’s you, bitch!”

“oh my god- how do you care about anything this much? Seriously, it’s not that deep!”

you jump a little as he suddenly slaps the beer bottle out of your hands, the glass shattering loudly and the leftover beer soaking your socks. your jaw drops, outraged, and you can’t help the reflex to reach up and smack the side of his head.

“ow!” he yelps, and you raise your fists to hit him again, when-

“you- fucking bitch-!” he shouts. you cry out in surprise as he grabs your wrists and yanks you with surprising ease, shoving you roughly into the wall behind you.

theres a struggle, both grunting with the strain of pushing against each other as Adam wrestles to keep the upper hand. You go to knee him, but he moves quicker, slotting one of his legs between your own and pressing his body against yours to pin you completely against the wall.

then, something changes. he pauses, the close proximity seems to have finally registered in his brain. his eyes widen and you pause too, both panting, faces inches apart. his grip loosens, and a flicker of confusion crosses his features.

“wait, what’s-“

“shut up,” you snap suddenly. before you even realize what you’re doing, your hands are on his chest, and you’re shoving him towards your bed.

“take off your shirt,” you command as the back of his knees hit the mattress and he’s falling backwards. he quickly does as you say, looking up at you with wide eyes as you straddle him and rip your own shirt off as well. he mumbles a nice when he sees you’re not wearing a bra. you reach to tug off the sweatpants you had on, and as soon as you can kick them away Adam’s hands are on your waist and flipping you over. He hurriedly rips off the rest of his clothes before he’s back on you, leaning down to eagerly press kisses down your neck. you have to tilt your head to make room for the horns now permanently attached to his head, and you think of the irony of this situation.

the sound of fabric ripping followed immediately by two of his fingers finding your clit makes you gasp. you bite back a whimper as he begins to rub rough and sloppy circles on your clit. the pleasure doesn’t last long before he’s pulling his hand back, only to shove a finger inside your cunt quickly, and you gasp again. being so unprepared, the stretch burns a bit. fuck, has he always had such big hands? he’s gentle at first, as he works the single finger in and out of you, and once the pain subsides, he quickly adds a second one.

“Oh, fuck,” you can’t help the curse that slips past your lips, and before long you’re rocking your hips against his hand. his movements are rushed and sloppy, impatient as he stretches you out. he chuckles dryly, and you shoot him a glare.

once again, before long, he’s pulling away, and grabbing you by the shoulders to make you sit up with him. you whine involuntarily at the loss of contact, and the cocky bastard laughs again.

“So impatient, babe,” He grins.

“Shut up,” You say again, pushing him so that he’s sitting up against the bed frame. You crawl over to him, and straddle his lap. His hands find your ass, groping it roughly while you grab the base of his cock and align the tip with your entrance.

You both gasp in unison when you swiftly lower yourself to take his full length. A strangled moan escapes from your lips and you let your head fall forward to rest on his shoulder. Eyes squeezed shut, you wait so you can adjust to his size. Seriously, how had you never noticed how big he was before now? Prematurely, Adam angles his hips and suddenly thrusts up into you, making you cry out in pain and pleasure.

“Oh you like that, bitch? Huh?” He says teasingly, running his hands up and down your back before moving his hips again.

“You have seriously got to learn to be quiet,” You retort through gritted teeth, reaching up to pull his hair from the roots. He lets out a groan, followed by a more pathetic whine as you begin to move on his length.

It must be all the pent up emotion, because you’re very quickly unable to speak beyond a few curses and wanton moans. Adam however, can’t seem to stop talking. Mumbling about how good you feel- for a whore, how he didn’t think you’d be so tight, how you’re so fucking sexy he wishes he’d done this sooner.

“Ugh, Adam- shut up!” You groan as you move desperately. He whines as you pull his hair again for emphasis, biting his lip as you feel his hips snap up into yours.

“Oh, god-“ You’re squealing, back arching as you can feel your whole body tense. You’re on top, but as you grow more limp, he’s holding you upright as he roughly fucks into you. “I’m close!” You warn, and it comes out a strangled sob.

You’re so, so close. Euphoria clouds your brain, and collapse onto him as he continues to hold you up to thrust into you.

You fall backwards, and Adam follows, caging you underneath him as he chases his own release now.

“oh- fuck- don’t stop!” You’re practically screaming as your orgasm crashes over you, and you wrap your arms around and claw at Adam desperately, fingernails leaving marks on his fleshy back. You only faintly register the breathless laugh he lets out at your state as he now pounds into you.

He slams into you with an intensity that forces the air out of your lungs, and even Adam can’t form thoughts or speak anymore.

“Oh, fu-uuck, fuck, fuck, oh my god,” He can’t believe the noises that are coming from him, but he also can’t find it in himself to care when you feel this good. You’re so sensitive, and still tight from your previous climax, and he can feel your pulse in the walls of your cunt as you clench around him.

Pleasure quickly turns to overstimulation, and you moan his name again, reaching up to pull at his hair, horns, wings, anything, as tears begin to prick at your eyes. Hearing you moan his name, seeing the look on your face, knowing he’s the one doing this to you is what he needed to send him over the edge.

“o-oh my god-“ he groans, hips stuttering as he presses his body as close to yours as possible, spilling his cum deeply inside of you with an actual moan.

He stays still for a moment, both of your breathing labored, sweat making your hair stick to your foreheads and necks, but you stay holding eachother. While both your brains are still fuzzy, thoughts muddled from the aftershocks, he takes a hand up and wipes your hair away from your face, and the tears from your eyes.

Eventually, he sits up and pulls out of you, rolling over to lay next to you on the bed. Neither of you say anything, too fucked out to think of the repercussions from your actions.

[zhuoyichenpretty]

Ep 22-23 Commentary

Ha...I was inexplicably nervous for eps 22-23 and it looks like I was right to be (-: What a rollercoaster. Spoilers below!

I've just come out of ep 23 and uh????? holy shit????? ZYC????

Ok ok but to backtrack, let's do my comments semi-chronologically:

Ep 22:

A carry-over from ep 21 that I have to mention—heck yeah PSJ give WZY hell. She doesn't have all that many lines but she sure knows how to make them count. Also seeing PSJ and WX get screen time just the two of them makes my brain go "yay <3"

Back to ep 22, loved the fake-out sundial ayeee that was a nice Chekhov's gun that also brings the real sundial back into relevance for later. Also me eating up the PSJ and ZYC crumb of an interaction has brought to my attention how starved I am of their screen time together.

This whole ep was a great lament towards the feared inevitable. Every sad downcast look from ZYC, every complicated glance WX gives him. A wonderful, terrible crossroads for these characters. I love that for ZYC especially, it's such an incredible mess of emotion coming to a head. Bad enough that he's come to care about the demon who killed his family and ruined his life, bad enough that he's sworn a blood oath he regrets and tied himself to punishing someone he no longer finds culpable, bad enough that ZYZ's life or death depends solely on his choice and ZYZ is constantly practically begging for death when ZYC wants him to live. How much immensely worse it makes the whole situation that WX is literally ZYZ's soulmate. And obviously the whole team has only grown more and more attached to ZYZ, too. ZYC's personal turmoil aside, how heavy must that responsibility and guilt be? For the finishing blow that only he can deliver to also deeply threaten every other person he cares about? Everyone understands in the abstract what must happen and why, but just like seeing ZYZ lose control firsthand, the gulf between understanding and experiencing is so unimaginably wide. If he kills ZYZ, can there really be no resentment from his friends? From WX?

Also it seems ZYC only wears cloaks so that he can give them to other people lmao

Ah fuck, the farewell drinks. I didn't even factor in how ZYC might not survive the encounter (''': The drama truly was like hm can we possibly give ZYC a worse day than that night his whole fam died? Maybe give him a bunch of new family members and also the blade and the fate and the sole responsibility to potentially irrevocably scar said family members with? And he might die in the process too? (-: haha maybe? (((-:

Oh. Oh. Addendum. I forgot this til I saw it mentioned in another post—ZYC recounting his oath as he watched WX smile when they discussed reviving the tree...I could feel him weighing those words against his own life, against ZYZ's life, against WX's happiness. One way out of this impossible situation is indeed to doom himself. I'm in pieces.

Damn if WX isn't dedicated heart and soul, going into the sundial like that. I'm sad no one could keep her company for those 300 years but also I guess that's kind of an impossible ask (and maybe not survivable for the other non-goddess mortals? I'm admittedly very unclear on sundial time loophole logistics). It would have been nice to see someone offer though, even just to be turned down.

Ooh I like the soul needle fake-out, given this show's penchant for retroactive "actually we had a plan all along" moments. A good subversion of the narrative's own style.

Also I saved this for the end because it doesn't really fit the linearity of my comments but what the fuuuuuuuck oh my god I absolutely flipped out at this scene:

I am at once rabidly intrigued and at the same time not sure if I'll be satisfied with whatever payoff will come for this so I don't want to overindulge in theorizing and setting my own expectations too high. Maybe this is just a fevered hallucination, maybe it means nothing (I hope it means something). But damn!!! What a gorgeous man crazy scene.

In conclusion, ep 22 had some good stuff for me. Plot development and reflection and tension enough that I may have been satisfied with just that one episode. But they gave us two, so onward to ep 23 comments!

Ep 23:

I like how many solid reasons the team has to suspect ZYC being possessed. Even though I withheld judgment during my watch given how quickly the show usually confirms that kind of stuff with a possession mark, just simply casting that doubt made the whole build up that much more intense.

ZYC slowly walking down the corridor with the whole grounds lit a somber and haunting gold—*chef's kiss*

ZYC's monologue to a catatonic ZYZ is so important to me. The closest we'll get to his internal monologue about this whole situation. The kinds of things said when we think there's no conscious listener.

Okay so, having finished this episode and looking back, Li Lun's hands coming up from behind ZYC was not to denote possession (at least in this episode), potentially is a visual from ZYZ's POV, and seems related to the above screencap. I am so, so curious. Once again, I'm stopping myself from further speculation because I want to be surprised but ahhhhhhhhh

PSJ shooting at Ao Yin is so gorgeous. Her action scenes seriously never disappoint—the creativity of her fight choreos!! Also very cool that the whole team is getting to take part in the action, not just the two male leads.

Bai Jiu possession was not on my bingo card but I sure do love that we literally saw the possession take place and I still didn't connect the dots. Good shitttt. Also oh no ): ZYC was telling the truth about the soul needle, he was just tricked ):

Seriously from the Ao Yin case to getting PSJ released to reviving the Divine Wood to getting tricked by possessed!Bai Jiu to making pear soup to fighting ZYZ to fighting Li Lun—when will ZYC get a single goddamn vacation day holy shit.

Also when will WX tear up that contract so ZYZ can stop having a mild heart attack every time he wants to kiss her ): &I love that they saved the 300-year montage for this moment. While their ship doesn't give me brainrot personally, who could be unmoved by that incredible and undisclosed sacrifice? That's soulmatism.

Okay, I'd seen clips of them filming the ZYC and Li Lun fight but damn I did not expect it'd be happening right now!! Right after already taking damage from ZYZ? And my god is Li Lun brutal. The two actors did such an impressive job on this entire fight, what with Li Lun's ease and ZYC's suffering. I really appreciated the extensive hand-to-hand combat after Li Lun literally obliterated ZYC's sword. (Also though, given the origin of that sword, I kept hoping for a flashback to ZYC's brother once it broke, but alas, no dice.) Anyway, the show does not play around about ZYC whump it seems. I was very very shook by that throat punch; that shit legitimately looked like it hurt.

Honestly, I had a hard time with the extended ZYZ and Li Lun conversation at the very end because oh my god someone please heal ZYC lmao. But of course, that's the end of the episode~~

Y'all...check on your local ZYC stans because I was not okay after all that (': I need a heaping dose of comfort after all that hurt, but as always I'm cautious of hoping for much from canon itself. So yeah! Ep 23 was solid, but I would probably be in better shape if today's release just ended on ep 22 ((':

Time to go wait for the cast's Hi6 episode to drop so I can heal my battered heart ;-;

[lakesbian]

alright this one is getting its own post instead of a reblog on a post that is Entirely Not About That. presenting the 'what if we put amy and alec in a room together' manifesto because the thing is that it is interesting but not in the way amy/alec shippers think

Amy shook her head, talking over her, “She’s always been emotional, passionate, unrestrained, and she’s channeling all this new emotion into hate, because it’s the closest equivalent.” “New emotion?” Regent asked.  ��You mean you mindraped her.” Amy looked like she’d been slapped across the face.  I wasn’t surprised, but hearing it said out loud was unsettling.

“Nice,” Regent said.  “She could be a human-spider hybrid.  Add some insult to injury with the mindrape thing.” I could see Amy tense.

it is relevant to his character that he's the first person to cut through amy's euphemisms (and everyone else's avoidance of saying the unsettling part out loud) and outright say "you mindraped her." he calls the euphemistic language out and then intentionally repeats it a second time for no other reason than to bug her about it. it's vaguely reminiscent of something he says to sophia during his interlude:

“You and I are more alike than you’d suspect, I think,” he said. “We’re both arrogant assholes, yeah?  Difference is, I admit it, I don’t dress it up and tell myself that I’m a bitch and that that’s a good thing.”  He burned Emma’s face out of another photo.

he has a repeated habit of making people uncomfortable by calling something out for exactly what it is, whether it be "yeah sure cape groupies, my dad's girls, people i used my power on towards the end" or "you mean you mindraped her." he's desensitized enough to really all forms of violence to be unbothered by committing or witnessing them, but he seems to harbor a genuine pet peeve for people who obscure or unreasonably justify what they're actually doing. as uncomfortable as he can make taylor, it's often not that he's doing things worse than the other undersiders, but that he's the person most willing to openly admit what he's doing--or to pettily call out what someone else is doing.

i think it more or less boils down to the fact that he's never gotten to be the person on the peripherals of violence making up neat and tidy ways to talk about it: he spent his entire childhood being hurt in every way imaginable & being coerced into doing the same to others. i think it left him with a sort of genuine distaste for being expected to talk in circles around the viscerally awful things he had done to him or did to others, and subsequently, for people who have done similar things but can't fucking fess up to the reality of it. it's like he's been walking around his entire life just absolutely drenched in blood, witnessing so much else get covered in it, and he's starting to get legitimately bothered over people standing around twiddling their thumbs and pretending it's red paint. he knows it's blood. he's been tasting it since he was 6. he would really like if everyone else could also grow up and admit it's fucking blood.

it's always funny to me that amy/alec shipping is, like, a Thing--a niche thing, but a Thing, because i could not think of a rapist more hand-crafted to piss amy dallon off than alec vasil. he cannot go Three seconds in her presence without going "oh you raped her? you mean you raped her? with your mind? like she doesn't just have new feelings you specifically mean you mindraped her?"

she, on some level, views herself as someone who did harm because she's irrevocably, ontologically evil, and is sort of desperately obsessed with minimalizing or half-justifying her actions to herself so that she can avoid recognizing that she feels like she can't be better. she's clinging to the idea that she can be "redeemed" if she does something of equal measure in the opposite direction (e.g 'spending the rest of her life healing people' as she mentions), but because she can't even directly acknowledge how bad her actions actually were without crumbling under the weight of the idea that she's doomed to be that bad, she's fundamentally incapable of looking directly at what she did at this point in the story.

alec, on the other hand, is really fucking upfront and fairly objective about his actions--he never ties them into some Inarguable Truth About His Soul, and he's pretty honest about whether or not he thinks they're justifiable. in 14.1, he has this dialogue with cherie:

“When daddy had you practicing your powers, you ‘hijacked’ a few people at a time, used their bodies to get high with no consequences for you, you threw orgies for yourself…” “Again.  I was a kid.”

but despite the fact that sophia is, on some level, justified in his mind by his "eye for an eye, this is a favor for taylor" rhetoric--he's fine with admitting that he's also just doing it because, yeah, he's an arrogant asshole and he feels like it. some of it was because he was a kid being groomed, and some of it was because He Felt Like It.*

*sure, he only Felt Like It because he has a comically large cocktail of unpacked psychological issues--but he doesn't know that, he just knows he felt like it.

in other words, he doesn't subscribe to the idea that any of his actions are, like, Ontologically Predetermined By His Inner Being or even necessarily all related. he's like the fuckin' "might do it again, prolly not" dude from the sex offender shuffle. okay, sorry for saying that in my seriouspost. but his philosophies would clash hilariously badly with amy--he insists on accepting his own & others actions for exactly what they are, he's generally very invested in not being his father (being asked if he intends to turn out like his dad is one of the only times something briefly upsets him), and he's actually doing pretty okay at that. he's like...shockingly well-adjusted given the circumstances. his entire arc is more or less a slow upward climb.

i think having to be around someone who both believes and would outright admit "yeah i raped people, no i dunno if i feel that bad, no i'm not raking myself over the coals for it, yeah some of it was because i was a kid, yeah some of the other stuff wasn't, no i'm not Predestined To Suck," would like. clash with her beliefs abt 'ontologically evil' being a real thing, abt punishment as justice, etc. in a way that would really bother her. she spends a lot of her time in her head trying to twist things around until they feel salvageable to her, but alec is 0 amount concerned with rationalizing to make him feel alright--he just does things, some bad, most shitty attempts to be better.

it's, funnily enough, far more functional for improving than what amy has going on--he operates on material actions as opposed to her Self-Flagellating Thought Labyrinths, and the fact that he's busier moving on from things he can't materially change than he is kicking himself in the face means he can actually achieve some form of progress towards more functional approaches wrt human interaction. i think if amy had an extended conversation w/ him about the subject, she'd both be disgusted with him for not thinking thoughtcrime is real and deeply resentful that this fellow ontologically evil villain is doing better at moving forwards as a person than her despite not 24/7 flagellating himself + yearning for "redemption" like she is. it'd throw a disturbingly large wrench in her worldview, and she would not be happy about it.

oh, and alec would think she's weird and mopey and dumb and annoying and "why do it if you can't even admit it." and he would probably tell her as much. which is the point where i unlock the door to the room so alec can sprint out to escape amy's attempt to put tastebuds on his asshole.

[mojo-bro-tho]

Hey so I blacked out and wrote a snippet for that Pretty Woman Emmrook AU idea I was talking about-

Idk why anyone lets me near a key board.

Potential title: Blue Tongue

Warnings: Nothing really, just a bit suggestive (a full fic of this would be very explicit but I’m running on fumes for a snippet lol)

Enjoy below the cut if you’d like!

A knock at the door heralded the millisecond that Emmrich Volkarin realized he was irrevocably fucked. This was a terrible idea. How did he let Johanna goad him into this? His heart hammered in his chest, spilling out the ribcage. He couldn’t go through with this. This was entirely ridiculous at best and incredibly cruel at worst. He would walk to the door, address the surely lovely woman that waited outside and tell her that he had no need for her services. Yes, that would be for the best.

Emmrich was across the hotel room’s living space in a few anxious strides and soon found himself before the all white threshold of certain self destruction. The lock was undone with the speed at which one might rip a bandage. His hand reached for the handle, holding it steady and taking a massive breath through the nose before swiftly tugging the door open.

Behind it stood a young woman. Terra-cotta skin that glowed an illustrious pink on her bare shoulders with flecks of glitter scattered across what could be seen of her arms and collarbones. A strong jawline, a shapely nose that dipped low into a pleasant curve, high cheekbones. Lavender irises with unripened strawberries encroaching on the pupils framed by fluttering lashes and pointed liner. Her hair was shorter, cut just below the jaw in a rich black shade that admittedly appeared to be temptingly satiny. Between her full lips sat a thin, white stick that she pulled away with a dramatic pop to reveal a well nursed electric blue candy.

The woman’s inquisitive gaze searched him as well. The coat she wore gathered at her elbows shifted as her other arm dropped from its spot around her ribs. A… tight black dress was revealed to him in the process. It was knee length, nothing particularly revealing in terms of skin aside from the aforementioned shoulders and enough of a glimpse onto her chest that the smallest spill of cleavage made his eyes snap back up to her face. A cheeky smile danced across one side of her mouth.

“My, my. I wasn’t expecting someone like you.” She stated simply, bring the sweet dangling hand to his vest before allowing herself inside.

It was as if his body turned to jello, his bones reducing to collagen in the wake of her determined strut past his temporary doorway. A heeled shoe dexterously knocked the door back closed. Emmrich heard it lock as her free hand disappeared behind her long leather coat. She leaned in close, and Emmrich was caught on the scent of artificial fruit, sugar, and something that reminded him of being in a forest. Her glossy lips inched towards the candy that she pointed towards her teeth, tongue peaking out in a matching shade of blue and curling over what was left of the sphere.

“P-pardon me, but I fear there has been… some sort of mistake.” He stuttered, breath hitching as she licked again. A half giggle got caught on the sticky surface of the sweet.

“Oh? So, you aren’t a ‘Professor E.V.’ with an executive suite, rented out by my employer, in The Lighthouse? Because, if that’s true, Mister… I’m afraid the front desk gave you the wrong key.” Her voice came out in a purr.

Maker, she was better at this than he figured she would be. She examined him closely, making Emmrich feel more like prey than person. The candy stick was caught between her teeth for a moment while her fingers grazed up his chest, plucking at the chain of his pocket watch.

“Well, that is me, yes. But you see-”

“In that case, Professor, you should be more careful about the titles you share to services like ours.” The sucker pulled away from her lips again and hovered dangerously close to his own as her fingers went up to glide across the line of his jaw. “I’m sure you worked very hard for a position like that. But you have to be cautious. You’re lucky we’re so nice, with that much info we might be able to find your… personal affairs.”

“Personal affairs?” He asked. Her eyes flicked down to both his wrists.

“A lot of jewelry you got, a few rings too. Just saying.” When she looked back up at his face, she held a deceptively innocent expression.

Oh?

Oh.

“I’m not married!” He clarified, though he wasn’t sure why he felt such an intense need to. Her brow furrowed in a playful sort of empathy he was unfamiliar with.

“Aw. That’s a shame.” Was she… disappointed he wasn’t married? Emmrich felt very confused. “Well, more of you for me then. I like the nervous ones. Usually more interesting.” She teased.

“My dear, I’m afraid you are mistaken. I’m not nervous.” Emmrich attempted to correct, as well as attempted to move her hand away but she hooked him by the collar.

“You seem at least a little nervous, sir. More than a little. A pretty girl shows up your door that you paid good money for and you try to send her away? I’m almost hurt.” She pouted.

His hands surged up, one catching on the corner that would lead them fully into the sitting area and the other going flat against the wall. She went still in response, though their eye contact never broke. In the brief moment of silence that followed his own surprise, he couldn’t but be somewhat mesmerized. Emmrich wasn’t sure what he was expecting her to look like. He was no stranger to beautiful women, nor men or anyone else that caught his fancy, but she was something else. Her visage made her appear more like a statue at times. A soft, tantalizingly warm statue. And he had to be honest with himself, the forwardness that came with her profession did strike something very unexpected in him. He pushed the thought out of his mind.

“Forgive me, I did not intend to cause offense., Miss…?” Another short laugh softened into his shirt.

“You can call me Rook.” She grinned.

“Rook?” He asked, she hummed affirmatively. “Like the chess piece?”

“Something like that.”

[nonbinarykai]

righhhhht and she was loyal!!! she loved her dad!! she loved him and he just (would have) let her die!!!!! and later in crystalized (i think the seasons kinda blur together lmao) she talks about wanting a family?? and??? that felt so loaded to me? its not just about wanting the stability (that kai cant give, but this is not about him. i have my own thoughts about the smith siblings and their commitment issues, but thats for later) but family? she just. is a family person. she was INTRODUCED as a family person, and i know ninjago probably sidelining her wasnt some intentional thought out desicion, but i like to headcanon it as her SPECIFICALLY not joining the ninja bc. theyre so obviously a family. and. she just needs to distance herself from that a bit, to find out whi she is outside of a group (*frantically writes a 15k character study following her throughout her journey into self discovery bc FUCK it makes me (someone who grew up in a cult) a bit insane)

and and. the tattoo?? like she was marked along with the rest of his followers, no different than a pawn, a mere minion. does she still have the tattoo?? that permanant physical reminder?? bc chen changed her, irrevocably. even after she turns back from becoming a LITERAL SNAKE AGAINST HER WILL (body horror angst, anyone?) she still has a mark.

i just. i want to give her more love and attention bc god holy shit. AND SHE COULD HAVE REALLY INTERESTING DYNAMICS WITH THE GROUP!!! IF PEOPLE JUST REMEMBERED HER!!!!!

she has to have formed some sort of bond with nya and lloyd after hunted. does she talk to him abt evil dads? i want to see her bond with zane over their love of cooking. does jay ever tell her abt her role in sky bound? they could talk abt their experiences turning into snakes lmao.

and her element is so interesting!!! literally absorbing others powers how cool is that?? what are the specifics? is there a time limit to how long she can use the power once she has it.

anyway this is getting too long but you get it. she needs to come back in dragons rising. she needs to bond with jordana over being ex-cult kids following her redemption, bc that girl is getting redeemed.

(i apologize for any typos i tried to be careful)

Can’t believe you didn’t mention how Cole’s fav restaurant is canonically Chen’s noodles which means he probably has ended up seeing skylor a lot and it’s possible they became friends.

Anyways I agree. I feel like it makes sense that even though skylor was abused she still loved her father. Thats unfortunately why a lot of abused kids stay with there parents to try to make it work. But I also wish skylor had more agency in choosing to go against her father other than “boy told me to”.

Speaking of which I do wish we saw more of skylors social life outside of whatever *he* shows us. It genuinely makes alot of sense for skylor to have some connection to the other ninja in some way. The only indicator of ppl she hangs out with is chamillie and that’s it. I want to see her have a group of friends that are completely detached from the ninja. Like regulars at her restaurant.

[vemaro]

under these circumstances

[PART 2]

Here’s a link to PART 1 if you haven’t read it!

Pairing: Astarion x Tav (female Tav) // also minor Karlach x Dammon

Word count: ~2900

Notes: Sorry this one’s a bit longer. Couldn’t find a good spot to end it so I just left it as is. Man, I am soft for how Astarion approves of you helping children in Act 3. So soft. And in this house we stan Dammon!

Enjoy!

…

Astarion got roped in by the tieflings to come and see their former leader. And by roped in, Karlach literally dragged him up from the Underdark. Against his will. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Tav. Of course he wants to see her. He wishes she never left his sight. Astarion just has absolutely no desire to see the woman he’s madly in love with living a lavish life with someone else . Sure, he understands it’s his own fault. The vampire made no shortage of mistakes along the way; holding her at dagger point upon introduction, plotting to seduce and manipulate her, telling her he hoped she died screaming because she stopped him from completing the ascension ritual, the list goes on. His biggest mistake, however, was not confessing when he still had a chance. That or screwing up his manipulation plan so spectacularly he ended up developing feelings in the first place.

On second thought, both mistakes are equally stupid on his part.

Tav irrevocably changed Astarion’s life and his worldview. She made him a better person, a better man, an upstanding citizen of society who’s willing to help others without a second thought (sometimes). If not for her, he might’ve ended up dead, still under the control of his now dead master, or, worse yet, he could’ve turned into Cazador. For as long as he’ll live, no one will ever mean more to him than that kind hearted woman. Which is why it hurts to see her here and now. She’s married with a child, albeit an adopted child and the marriage was for purely political reasons.

To add salt to his wound, there’s also the matter of said child, Callum himself. Astarion is not immune to the boy’s charm. He’s actually quite fond of him. Hells, he would kill for Callum. By some cosmic fluke, the boy seems to share the sentiment (just to be clear, the fondness, not the killing). He can’t help wondering if Callum gets this excited seeing Tav’s husband. It would be rather uncouth to ask, right?

Astarion smirks, perfectly masking all of the rampant thoughts clouding his mind. “I was wondering when you’d notice me,” he says. “I was starting to feel neglected.”

Callum charges at Astarion like a horse wearing blinders, who then scoops him up with practiced ease. The vampire gets a small poke from the sword for his troubles. “Ah, do mind the blade of your weapon, Mr. Monster Slayer,” he tuts. “This monster is on your side and won’t require any slaying, thank you very much.”

The little boy gasps. “You’re not a monster, Asty! You’re so nice!” He throws his little arms and hides in the man’s neck, ironically on the side with the bite marks. “I love you!”

Astarion isn’t too proud to admit he’s grown to have a soft spot for children (and cats), but Callum has him wrapped around his little finger. That doesn't make the unprompted proclamation any less nerve racking. Gods below, he is so much like his mother, ready to befriend almost anyone. If they were alone, he would’ve waxed poetic about his odd friendship with Callum, but today there is an audience, a very particular audience. “Thank you. I … I love you too, Callum,” he says back, refusing to make contact with anyone but the boy. For fuck’s sake, he has a reputation.

Karlach takes this prime opportunity to tease the vampire. “Awe, is that a faint blush coloring big bad Astarion’s cheeks?”

“No,” he’s quick to say. Too quick. Even if he really was blushing, he knows the callout would’ve caused more blood to rush his face and ears. But he is not blushing. Curse Karlach for bringing him here. “For your information, I haven’t fed in a while so that’s not possible.”

Tav, amazing and kind and sometimes alarmingly generous Tav, frowns. The crinkle in her brow oozes concern and it makes his undead heart ache. “Oh no, are you okay, Astarion? Later I could let you …” She lets her words trail off, but the implication is obvious. No one’s hidden the fact that he’s a vampire from Callum. They do tend to spare the gorier details for good measure.

He shakes his head. “Thank you, dear, but I simply couldn’t.” She’s only offering because her husband isn’t around. He’s also aware of Astarion’s condition and gets this pinched look on his face whenever Tav invites through the front door. Or perhaps he’s aware Astarion is in love with his wife. Who’s to say?

“Yes, you can, Astarion, because I’m offering.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

“But I insist.” He wants to accept, not only to be close to her again, but he’s genuinely thirsty. Most of the blood that crosses his path these days goes to the many ravenous spawn who followed him and siblings after the fall of Cazador.

Karlach snorts. “It’s either her or me, Fangs.”

Astarion blanches at the tiefling. “Er, no. I’ll have to pass, Karlach. Despite fixing your overheating problem ages ago, your blood is still much too spicy for my taste.” It’s the equivalent of biting directly into an Altheian chili pepper. Walking directly into the sun would burn less than stomaching her blood.

Tav shrugs. She puts on an airs of nonchalance since she thinks she’s won this argument. “That only leaves you one choice then, doesn’t it?”

He has a comeback though. “Ah ah, incorrect, my sweet. I also have the choice of not eating at all.”

Callum jerks back suddenly, a devastated expression on his face. “You have to eat, Asty. You have to. Food is good for you.”

Tav has crossed the room so she’s standing on his opposite side. Fantastic. Now he has both mother and son staring him down. “Exactly, Callum’s right. You need to feed.”

And, of course, Karlach, the loud mouth, has to throw her two gold pieces in. “Yeah, Fangs. We can’t have you starve to death.”

His eyes nearly roll to the back of his head. “That literally can’t happen—” Which all the adults in the room are fully aware of. Fuck you, Cazador. Burn in whatever level of the Hells he got shoved into. “—but alright, fine. Later.”

Relieved, Tav smiles and places a hand on his free shoulder. “Thank you.”

Astarion scoffs. “You’re thanking me? You’re the one offering bl—” A quick glance to the child makes him remember to rethink his words. “Food . You’re offering me food when you absolutely don’t have to. Thank you, Tav, you stubborn, selfless woman.”

Her hand slides from his shoulder to his back, finding the space between his shoulder blades. She rubs soothing circles there. “Of course. You’re one of my best friends. I worry about you.”

The contact sends goosebumps all over his body. Hold it together, Ancunin. “The concern is appreciated, darling, but I can handle myself.”

“I know, Astarion,” she says. “But still. That’s what friends do. We look after one another.”

He both loves and hates the title. It causes his stomach to do a somersault and also drop like a heavy stone.

“You’re my best friend, Asty!”

A better distraction couldn’t have come along. “Am I now? Well, I feel honored.” He tosses a cheeky grin at his competition. “Hear that? I’m his best friend.”

Karlach’s jaw drops. The next few minutes are about to get interesting. “I thought I was your best friend, Callum.”

The little boy taps his chin in deep thought and points between them respectively. “Um, Asty’s my best friend. And Karlach’s my best friend. And Dammon’s my best friend.”

The blacksmith shrugs. “That’s fair. Though I’m just happy to be included.”

Astarion swivels so Callum’s back is to the rest of them. “Yes, of course, we’re all your best friends. How sweet and diplomatic. But I’m your favorite, right?”

Karlach rushes over, and is it suddenly a little warmer than it was a second ago? “I’m his favorite.” She tries to place herself in Callum’s line of sight, but Astarion swivels away again. And again. And again.

At this point he’s spinning in a circle. “Excuse me, you saw how utterly delighted he was when he saw me.”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Karlach starts walking in a circle too, following Astarion and Callum’s rotation. It’s officially a game of keep away with Tav’s son. “What? He didn’t even notice you at first, you said so yourself.”

He waves her off. “It’s hard to miss the large, exuberant, bright red tiefling smack dab in the middle of the kitchen.”

She sticks her tongue out. “Whatever makes you feel better, Fangs.”

Who cares if she could throw him and Callum over her shoulder like it’s nothing; he’s going to throttle her. “If you don’t believe me, ask him.” Astarion abruptly stops, grabs the boy under the arms, and holds him out. “Callum, dear sweet and so very brave, Callum. Tell that wretched Karlach I’m your favorite best friend. Also, you’re very adorable. And a great swordsman.”

Karlach elbows the man none too gently. “No, Callum. Tell yucky, stinky Asty I am your favorite.”

Meanwhile, Tav and Dammon stand back, amused and entertained. “How is my four year old more mature than these two full grown adults?”

“Baffles me as well,” he says. “Still love them though, right?”

Tav has to look away, hoping he doesn’t notice the blood rushing to her face. “Mhmm. Still love them.”

“Callum.”

“Callum.”

“Callum!”

“Tell him, Callum!”

“Stop,” Callum shouts, shocking both of them. He points his sword to the side. “I love you both. But … Mama’s my favorite.”

Dammon barks out a laugh at the plot twist. Tav glides in and takes her son into her arms, even does a little twirl. “Awe. You’re my favorite too, Callum.” She pulls him in for a big kiss on his chubby little cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Mama.” Tav peppers a dozen more kisses all over his face, resulting in a fit of giggles and squeals.

Astarion averts his eyes, trying so hard to ignore the roil of yearning churning in his gut. Is he really jealous of a toddler? Pathetic. Someone clears their throat, making him look back up. Karlach is staring at him, hard, and she flicks her eyebrows. What’s this about? He narrows his eyes trying to discern her intentions, to which she smiles knowingly then looks back at Tav. She makes eye contact again then silently mouths tell her now.

As if it’s as easy as that! As if Astarion could just walk up to Tav and just tell her he loves her with every fiber of his being. He’s fucked up way too many times for that to ever happen. He’s fucked up too many times for her to ever return his love. And even if by some miracle she did love him back, she’s in a publicly favored marriage. (To be honest, he’d be perfectly content as the mistress, but he would never put her in that position.)

Karlach’s support, however well-intentioned, is ultimately pointless. The pale elf and the sunny druid are not meant to be, much to his chagrin. Because he apparently can’t help it, his gaze drifts towards Tav again. Mother and son glow with love, affection, and warmth, something he was forced to leave behind when they’d finally rid themselves of the parasites. It’s too much for his heart to take. Without a word, Astarion turns on his heel and heads for the front door. Best to commiserate in solitude, maybe back in his fortress in the Underdark, but …

“Asty? Where are you going?”

Shit. So much for being a stealthy rogue. Now to have a go at persuasion. “Just stepping out for a moment, little bird.”

Callum pouts in the most irritatingly precious way. “You’re leaving?”

Great, now he feels bad. He really is wrapped around the boy’s finger. “No. I was in need of some fresh air, is all. I’ll be right back.”

The boy wiggles until Tav places him down. Then he runs over and grabs Astarion’s hand. “I’ll go with you. I’ll protect you from the scary monsters.” He punctuates the statement with a slash of his new sword.

Tav can sense something is wrong, though she has no idea exactly what it is. “Um, Callum, perhaps you should wait here with me.”

Right on cue, the dramatic, overconfident facade slips back into place. “But what if there’s a monster, dear? You would leave poor little me defenseless? Now who’s the monster?”

As always, she sees right through it. “Are you sure?”

He keeps at it. “Absolutely, darling. He’ll have me back within the hour.”

“Okay.” Tav has that wrinkle in her brow again and she crosses her arms. He is in for an interrogation later. “Be safe. Both of you.”

“Bye, Mama!”

She waves back. “Bye.”

Astarion catches her eye and gives a playful wink before speaking to Callum. “Let’s go, Mr. Monster Slayer. I think I saw a vendor in need of saving on our way in. He might give you some sweet treats as a reward.”

“Yay!”

The pair leaves as Astarion goes into some tall tale of his adventures since he’d visited last. Tav is left trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. They’re friends. Tav and Astarion are friends, nothing more. He made it abundantly clear in the past that he has no romantic interest in her. And she insisted they be friends. Not to mention she’s married now. To a widely known public figure. It can never happen. Never ever. As much as she wished it could.

And yet the druid can’t rid herself of the image of Callum’s face when he laid eyes on Astarion. He doesn’t even get that excited when Terrick, the man raising him, returns from his business trips. Not that she can blame her son. She definitely prefers the company of the vampire over her husband. She prefers any of her friends’ company over her pretentious husband.

Not that she’s ever voice that out loud.

She roughly has half an hour to get herself under control. When they return, she’ll send Dammon, Karlach, and Callum outside for the ‘sparring session.’ Inside, she’ll allow Astarion to feed then question him about whatever seems to be a bother. She won’t be able to focus properly if she’s too busy staring lovingly into his beautiful ruby red eyes or imagining herself dragging her fingers through his soft hair or—no, stop it. Stop it.

It’s been years. Get over it. Focus.

Tav suddenly claps her hands together, starling her remaining guests. “Okay. While you get settled in a guest room, I’ll put together some snacks. Dinner won’t be ready for another hour or so.”

Karlach opens her mouth to say something, but Dammon grabs her by the hand and starts pulling her out of the room. “Sounds perfect, Tav. Thank you for letting us stay the night.”

She’s too preoccupied with forcing herself to compartmentalize her feelings to realize she missed something. “You’re welcome.”

In their room, Dammon shuts the door and looks at his partner disapprovingly. He’s got his arms crossed and one foot tapping a steady rhythm on the rug. Karlach hates it. “What?” she whisper-yells.

“You know what.”

She begins to pace because she is not a fan of standing still. “They’re my best friends, Dammon! And they’re totally oblivious to each other's feelings.”

“I know, but it’s not your place.”

She smirks, hoping to lighten the mood. “Isn’t it?”

He pinches the ridge of his nose and sighs. “No, love, it’s not.”

She pouts. “Why not?”

He rolls his eyes. “Because they’re both adults. If they wanted to express how they felt for one another, they could do it themselves.”

Karlach throws her arms out, but keeps her voice at a whisper. “But they won’t express how they feel because they both think the other thinks of them as just a friend because of all the shit that happened when we had worms in our heads.” Miscommunication, manipulation, and misinformation. It was truly a mess back then. Still is, apparently.

Dammon sits down on the bed and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “That may be true, but it’s still not your place to speak on behalf of either of them.” He cocks an eyebrow. “Need I remind you that Tav is currently married.”

It’s her turn to roll her eyes. “She doesn’t love that soggy sponge, Terrick. She only did it so she could help the city. Bloody hells, she held her wedding outside, at night just so Astarion could attend.”

She makes a fair point. “I know, I know.”

The big red tiefling sits down next to him. “I want them to be happy, Dammon. They’re not happy.”

“Under these circumstances, they can’t be together.” Karlach lets out a frustrated growl. “Things can change though. Circumstances can change. There’s hope that one day those two will finally wake up and see what’s right in front of them with no obstacles in the way.”

“You really believe that?”

He straightens up and reaches for her hand again, this time meshing their fingers together. “That’s what I want to believe, love.”

She huffs. “Me too.”

He gives her hand a squeeze. “Promise to leave them be during our stay?”

And there’s that pout again. “Ugh, yes. Promise,” she grumbles.

“Thank you.” Dammon tilts towards her and places a light kiss on her cheek. Their tails intertwine behind them. “Now come on. She may not be happy, but I think having friends around makes things better.”

“I think so too.” They both stand up and head for the kitchen again. Just before opening the door, Karlach blocks it and grins wickedly at her partner. “But I know what would make her even happier .”

“Karlach.”

She relents. “Gods, kidding. Just kidding, Dammon.” Mostly.

…

Thank you so much for reading!

[bullet-prooflove]

Choices!Series Part 12: Home- Nestor Oceteva x Reader (Final Piece)

Tagging: @lyly00 @annetje @anime-weeb-4-life @danzer8705 @drabbles-mc @alwaysachorusgirl @witches-unruly-heart @mysoulisasunflower @im-just-a-mississippi-girl @the-wandering-lunatic @vannabanana1995 @camelia35 @multifandomloversworld @est1887 @lilvampirina @creativitybeware @genius2050 @gracerosaleigh @mortal--soul @buddinglinguist @spookyboogyuniverse @nessamc

Choices!Series:

Part One: First Date (NSFW) - Nester and you have an unusual first date.

Part Two: Familia - (Feat: Marcus Alvarez) - Marcus discovers your relationship.

Part Three: Fair Trade (Feat: Miguel Galindo) - Miguel puts you in a tough position.

Part Four: Slaughterhouse Rules - Miguel feeds you to the wolves.

Part Five: Stay With Me - Nestor deals with the aftermath.

Part 6: Run - Nestor can’t give you what you need.

Part Seven: Partners in Crime (Feat: Coco Cruz & Marcus Alvarez) - Marcus asks Coco to reach out.

Part Eight: What Happens In Reno - What you got up to in Reno.

Part Nine: Don’t Give Up - Nestor refuses to give up on you.

Part Ten: Bleeding Out - Coco finds you bleeding out.

Part Eleven: One Day At A Time - Nestor and you lay your cards out on the table.

You won’t work for Miguel after what happened with Christopher Howard, and it drives him fucking crazy. Both Marcus and Nestor get to hear about it on a regular basis. It’s been three months you returned and you’re still recovering from your trip to Reno.

“Why won’t she pick up the fucking phone?” He snarls at Marcus.

“You burned that bridge mijo.” Marcus sighs with his hands clasped in front of him.

You’ve never told Marcus what forced you into making the choice to become bait in the exchange, but he suspects. You are unrelenting when it comes to your decisions but there’s one thing that can cause you to bend and he hates that him and his family are it. He knows that Miguel used them as a tool to leverage you, that he probably threatened Izzy and Tessa, that you believed him enough to put yourself in a position that has irrevocably damaged you. Nestor’s told him as much.

They can both feel the wind shifting. Miguel has always been ruthless, but he’s always valued loyalty. He’d been unhinged when he’d killed Paco, and it only seems to be getting worse. Marcus thinks that Dita’s death is causing Miguel to spiral, that Potter’s involvement in the cartel is amplifying his paranoia. He’s glad you cut ties.

“There are others…” Marcus begins, although he knows its pointless. Miguel isn’t used to not getting what he wants, he doesn’t like other people playing with his things.

“Not with her skillset.” Miguel interrupts with the slash of his hand. “I need her to get out there and start doing the work she’s supposed to.”

What Miguel means is, he needs you to bolster his reputation. He needs you to get out there and desiccate his enemies, to show everyone that’s ever doubted him what it means to turns on the cartel. He needs you to put the fear of God in those people, to show them that he’s still as ferocious now as he has ever been. There’s a reputation that comes with having someone as brutal as El Cuchillo on his pay roll and without you he feels his grip starting to slip.

“I can’t help you.” Marcus tells him openly.

“Can’t or won’t?”

There’s a fire in those dark eyes of his, a rage that blazes. A muscle in his cheek twitches as he clenches his jaw and meets Marcus’s gaze. That question, it’s a loaded gun, a wrong answer leaves him dead in a ditch and if Miguel sniffs out a lie… The consequences don’t bear thinking about.

“Can’t.” Marcus informs him, straightening his spine and pulling himself up to his full height. “She’s not taking my calls either.”

It isn’t a lie because the truth is he doesn’t call you, he actually sees you. You and Nestor come over once a week for dinner, have been since the swelling died down on your face. Izzy likes to make sure you’re eating right, that you’re recovery is going as smoothly as possible, while Nestor plays Hungry Hippos and Pop Up Pirate on the floor with the kids.

“So you have no idea where she is, or what she’s doing?”

Marcus shakes his head. He doesn’t have a clue what you get up to in the time he doesn’t see you, Nestor would have more of an idea, but he knows the other man will never offer up that information.

“It looks like we’re both in the doghouse.” Miguel says, dropping down onto the couch and rubbing his hands together, his dark brows furrowed, and Marcus knows he is trying to contemplate his next steps.

Marcus says nothing, he doesn’t want Miguel to challenge that assumption, so he shrugs. Let him think whatever he wants, as long as you are safe and happy, Marcus doesn’t care. His eyes meet Nestor’s over Miguel’s head and he can tell that the other man is thinking the exact same thing. They need to keep Miguel Galindo as far away from you as humanly possible.

********************************

As long as Nestor had known you, you had always come with a go bag. He thought it was specifically for jobs, he hadn’t realised it was the only thing you had to your name.

Over the past three months while you’ve been living with him, it’s sat at the bottom of the closet, where every day you pull out the things you need before putting them back into it. He isn’t sure if you are actively ignoring the closet space he’s made for you, or the couple of drawers he’s emptied. There’s a lot going on in that head of yours and you don’t need the extra pressure, so he doesn’t mention it. He isn’t trying to domesticate you, he senses you need the time to adjust. You haven’t had a home of your own for a very long time and if this works for you then it works for him too.

The only evidence that he shares the space with another person is a second toothbrush in the cup in the bathroom and the black cotton panties that end up in the laundry. He sighs. It takes time he knows.

It’s been four months when he realises you’ve actually hung up some of your clothing. It’s unexpected, he doesn’t know what prompted the transition, but he likes the look of your clothes besides his, his fingertips trace over the fabric, and he smiles. Maybe you’re starting to think of this place as your home after all. The next day he realises you’ve filled the drawers with your underwear and some of his socks that you prefer to wear. He’s happy to give them up to you.

It’s a couple of weeks later things start appearing in the apartment. It’s little changes, a new mug, that’s white, sunshine yellow and vibrant orange. As long as he’s known you, you favour bright colours and blocky patterns. It sticks out like a sore thumb amongst his practical grey ones, but he doesn’t care. For Nestor it’s a sign, one that you’re here to stay.

When the dried wildflowers appear in a vase, he’s never owned on the coffee table, he compliments them. You’ve chosen autumn colours, with tiny sprigs of lavender threaded throughout. It gives the living room a soothing scent, makes the place seem warmer somehow. You seem anxious when he spots them, it’s the biggest change you’ve made so far. He runs his fingers over the delicate petals, the edges of his mouth tipping up into a smile.

“They’re pretty.” He tells you. “It makes this place feel more like a home.”

He feels like he’s said the right thing because your entire face lights up, it feels like he’s seeing the sun for the first time in eons. Nestor doesn’t think he could love you any more than in this moment.

It isn’t long after that he finds the go bag completely empty, folded up neatly in the top of the closet, ready for the next job.

Love Nestor? Get added to his tag list!

Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[twig-gy]

for the soul being trans in cacophony stuff, consider: he has a dream abt whole being trans (bc his brain is. throwing all the shit shes thinking about together) and is like {ah i see. this would be good for whole. this is what i am meant to be} and i mean maybe that'll just make being trans into another Thing for her but. idk i'm just throwing ideas at the wall for how she could do this and not feel blasphemous

AH. I SEE. REAL.

things:

this inexorably ties her being trans and his whole Whole thing. so if she ever wanted to heal from Whole. could he do it without detransitioning? is it that being trans is so clouded with being Whole it begins to make her sick, when he tries to heal? is it stained forever? could she learn to deal with it and work around it and feel the euphoria as something other than Whole's divinity/sickness?

this just makes me imagine him forcefemming heart and mind but not in a lighthearted and or silly way just legitimately? all the force of her being transphobic but in the other direction? like if he was threatening them with the trident to not be blasphemes (trans) now it's the exact same thing except she's okay with them being trans just. they have to do it in the way he wants. which like. the thing that fucks me up about soul talking about heart and mind's transition pre tlsa is no matter if she endorses it or not he is staining it with whole. making an act of self determination irrevocably ABOUT SOMEONE ELSE. (like the thing above.) and even if he wasn't doing it transphobically that's still WHAT SHE'S DOING. So

i do think soul would do this though. he would

[strawberryloveyyy]

You’d have to stop the world just to stop the feeling. That specific line drives me nuts in the best way ever, really. I find myself relating to it more than everything rn.

I like girls. I cannot help it. And it’s not something I don’t think anyone can change. No me, my mom, or anyone at all. No matter how hard you fight it or how much you try to deny it, it will always deep through all that denial, and rejection.

Even as a kid I wasn’t really aware I could like girls as one. The concept wasn’t something that crossed my mind at all actually. I always had these favourite characters as a kid that were always these female characters that I admired and found really pretty. And I would obsess over them a lot. And when I say obsess over them I mean, OBSESS over them. It was something I really enjoyed doing now that I think of it 😭

Of course as I said I wasn’t really aware of that yet. And as a kid I always dreamt of loving, and being loved by someone. To think of it, I never dreamt of loving a man specifically. I was detrimentally captivated at the thought of there being someone out there for you. And of course society has conformed us to think and do things with a shallow perspective, so I was under the impression that whom I’d end up with would be a man. Yet it always felt uncomfortable. It stirred pure discomfort whenever someone would bring up having a boyfriend in the future, it was so torturous and aggravating. I’m not quite sure why I hadn’t realized it sooner enough that I was a lesbian 😭

Right now the one thing that’s been bothering me is that my mom is pushing ideas that this guy friend I have could be a possible candidate or fucking whatever. She knows I’m a lesbian. I’ve been out for months. MONTHS. And I am irrevocably pissed. I am also now uncomfortable whenever I see him, just the thought of him liking me makes me want to kill myself. This has been a constant fear for months to be honest, I’ve observed that he tends to be someone who’s clingy and overly caring to people he likes. Which I’ve realized when he started to like one of my best friends which gave me the most relief. Then he got rejected by her … but now he’s starting to talk to me more often than he did and it’s making uncomfortable. I don’t blame him at all. And I really do think it’s just me and my own personal problems with myself. But I think I might start setting a boundary. Also what’s worse is we’re singing a duet at the end of the month which is pretty romantic song. It’s I see the light from tangled. And it’s hard to sing when you really can’t see yourself being that that person romantically ever. So goodluck to me.

But overall I’m so very pissed at my mother for denying my identity. I’m so angry I can’t even articulate my feelings properly. For MONTHS she’s known I liked girls, she’s done nothing but constantly belittle and deny it. She says and I kid you not quote “what purpose would you serve as a woman if you don’t have children”

EXCUSE ME?? EXCUSE ME. What world do you live in to make you say such a thing? There’s so much more to women than a mother. Not everyone is built for the kind of life society set as a standard.

[lawhurt]

alright welcome to jamie & beth class kiddos.

do i think jamie was justified in doing what he did to beth. no. do i think it was good, no. do i think there's any 'excuse' for doing what he did? no. do i think beth should forgive him? no. do i think beth should love him, or even be nice to him, in a general sense? no. i think she has a right to hate jamie and there's lots of things jamie could have done to try and make things right -- but he never did. and that's entirely, 100% on him. he did something irrevocable to his sister and that is 100% not okay.

i love beth as a character. i love strong females as one myself, and i love a women like her. i always have. that's why i encouraged my fiance to write her, and i do see so much of her in beth. i adore beth's dynamics with the characters on the show, and while i can't pretend i understand the fact that she's willing to lose the ranch, just to do whatever her father says at any given moment, i really couldn't care less if she's a nice person or not. i couldn't give a fuck, i think she's kickass and she's one of my favorite parts of the show / part of why i got invested. i remember her first scene and i loved her, no matter how much how she treats jamie can make me upset. but i ultimately have no way of knowing how she feels.

but i don't wanna hear that she's exempt from being a horrid, shrewd cunt because jamie did that, and her mother died. if i did half the things to my abuser that she did i would be in jail and the only reason she isn't is because of her name, and because she calls jamie because she knows he has to help her. do you know why? because even if someone hurts you, you cannot fucking spend the next three decades physically and mentally and verbally abusing someone. perhaps if he was the one performing the procedure and you killed him in self defense. but there's no self defense claim unless he presented a threat. and because jamie won't fucking call anyone, he won't defend himself.

not only does she beat him, break him down mentally, verbally put him down and emasculates him in front of people who need to respect him, and she told him to kill himself. NOT ONLY THAT, BUT SHE IS THREATENING TO HARM OR KILL HIS CHILD. AN INNOCENT TODDLER.. SHE MADE HIM KILL HIS OWN FATHER. THREATENED to take away any happiness he may have in his life, when she is allowed to have a husband and an adoptive son? their father? that kind of behavior on here would not garner the kind of fandom obsession that she does, LET ME TELL YOU. if i'm expected (and do openly) accept and not grapple with jamie's flaws, people must do the same for beth. i don't fucking care, i don't care.

you cannot, and will not convince me that a lifetime of abuse from 18 to forty FUCKING FIVE is justified by what he did. that's not how anything works.

i'm not mad about the plot-line or how the show treats jamie, bc i find wes gives him such an emotion. but this fandom likes to pretend that beth is so girlboss for doing what she does to jamie when it's just kind of pathetic to see her just bark at jamie now because "she knows everything and he knows nothing" (like how filing power of attorney works a-fucking-pparently) and he can't convince her of shit even tho she knows he's right. but he's the selfish one for not telling their dad exactly what he wants to hear at any given moment.

also what she did to rip is just in a whole nother league of fucked up and she doesn't deserve his forgiveness lmfao.

EDIT: she also blackmailed him lolol

[pulchrasilva]

1, 2, 5, 6, and 50! Feel free to answer any or all of them!

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Probably i know a place where the pain doesn't reach. I think it's the fic that best captured the exact Essence™️ of what I was going for and a lot of my best fics feature a similar kind of soft reconciliation hurt/comfort i think

2. Go to your AO3 “Works” page, to the sidebar with all the filters, and click the drop-down arrow for “Additional Tags.” What are your top 3-5 most used tags? Do you think they accurately represent your writing habits?

In order: Angst, Fluff, Polyamory, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Compliant

Yep that's extremely accurate. I feel a little called out actually lol. Just realising that all the fics I've written featuring a romantic relationship have been polyships wow

5. What do you wish someone would ask you about [insert fic]? Answer it now!

I think about this is where i leave you, I'd like someone to ask what actually happened to Romulus after his split himself. It's something that Janus wonders about in the first chapter. I'd like to think that his consciousness still exists somewhere in Thomas's mind, he just doesn't have the role of creativity anymore. He's like a kind of ghost, he has no body, floating around and watching over Janus and the twins. Grieving when they fight, grieving when Janus grieves him. He'd be really happy that Janus managed to make up with the twins I think.

6. What’s one fact about the universe of [insert fic] that you didn’t get a chance to mention in the fic itself?

Something Irrevocable never actually says what happened to Rowan (an oc)'s baby cousin. I mentioned that he made a lopsided little teddy bear for his cousin and then after the apocalypse happened we see a purple teddy bear on the side of the road and it's missing an arm. Tbh i don't really have an answer to this but I made myself so sad with that detail so I wanted to do something with it. He's definitely not dead, that would make me too sad. I have an idea for a hypothetical spin-off about Carlton Drake (who was the main villain in the movie but basically irrelevant and kinda pathetic in the fic) which was gonna use his affection for kids as a somewhat-redeeming quality, and I was gonna put Rowan's cousin in there.

50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!

Gonna choose 49: What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

You mayy or may not have heard a little about this fic, but I'm currently working on a fic for roleslaying week with the working title "flaredrum mft ftm solidarity fic". It's from Djembe's pov but it's about Youngblood's time at the Bard College pre-canon, her relationship with Noise and her gender. I wouldn't say it explores Djembe, but it does also explore who I like to imagine Djembe is (tbf we don't know much about him yet!) Oh and it's also about how the Bard College is a fucked up toxic environment in sooo many ways.

Here's an extract from the most recent scene I wrote:

You know," Viola said after a few minutes of silence, pointing a chip in his direction. "Sharpe's not wrong." "About what?" "Connections are just another thing to manipulate. People don't really have friends here." Djembe laughed. "So what are you and I then? "Are you kidding?" Viola said, not a trace of a smile on her face. "You're top of the class, all the teachers love you." His smile dropped. "So?" She shrugged. "I need to keep my grades up if I want to become a captain." Djembe felt something shatter.

Made myself real sad with this whole scene tbh

[truckfreaks]

i need to document this somewhere, anywhere, and then i am going back to hiatusland. but tonight, during my last session before i get switched off to someone else, my individual trauma therapist i think finally had the gumption to say some shit she's been holding back.

and she said that she's actually pissed for me, on my behalf. she said the way i was spoken to was both unprofessional and vindictive. she said that she *is* legitimately concerned that i am being ganged up on and scapegoated (whether it's intentional or unintentional) in those sessions. she said that it is not my fault or my responsibility that someone who claims to be trying to work things out with me simultaneously projects his own shame onto me, making him lash out at me as if it were my fault that he feels that way.

i know in my heart and i've known for months that this is probably not a direction in life that is compatible with me living a fulfilling life as myself while also being the person he wants me to be. i thought maybe there was some way i could make that work, and i tried really, really hard for almost two years now. but it's obvious to me that he is only happy when i neuter myself for the sake of his comfort. and i can't keep making myself smaller for another person, no matter how much you have tying you together.

despite how... idk, ambiguous things have been since last October, i did really give this my best shot. i really tried. but i think after hearing him say last night that i will never truly be myself ever again, maybe that's okay. maybe i would have changed anyway. maybe i am different now, irrevocably, and i no longer am willing to put up with the same shit i was willing to put up with a decade ago.

is that because i was assaulted by multiple people i trusted, or is that just who i am? the conclusion i came to today is that i don't give an iota of a fuck what caused it. it just is. and i think i've finally accepted what i've been venting about on here for months: that i DO deserve someone who will care to learn my favorite song, or get me flowers, or leave me notes, or gender me correctly, or follow through on things that benefit us as a whole with the same fervor they follow through on their own passions.

i'm sick of people using what happened to me as a boogeyman to explain away all of the problems around me. i experienced it, not you. i lived through it. you don't get to tell me about how that makes you feel but tell me it's "frustrating" when i try to talk about how it makes me feel.

you know what's frustrating? holding a man's hand and consoling him week after week after week about how the multiple sexual assaults you lived through, which he has never tried to talk to you about regarding your feelings, make him feel. consoling an adult about how they're personally affected by horrible, awful events you actually survived. which you very well might not have. i understand traumatic events affect everyone, even peripherally. but to shut me down for trying to talk about it on my own terms - it feels cruel.

you don't get to use my trauma as an excuse to rag on me week after week and then get pissed off when i voice that i had an upsetting reaction to something you enjoyed because i was triggered. that's not fair. and i'm tired of letting people treat like i'm a confused, damaged child instead of a 32 year old person perfectly capable of making my own decisions and asserting my own autonomy.

for the first time ever i am publicly open about who i am and what i want in life and i guess for some that is "too much". i think i just need to find people who it is enough for. i can keep trying a little longer to find them.

[girl4music]

Wow. No wonder this video game and its story is so beloved by horror enthusiasts. It essentially just goes on to prove what I’ve always said. You never see what’s outside of your own consciousness. You never see the world - your environment - for what it really, truly is …

Odds are it isn’t anything at all. But that’s such a meaningless understanding for someone who doesn’t believe that life and what it can mean is of your own making and therefore the way you see it is because you see it YOUR way. No other way. No one else’s way.

But Silent Hill 2 - if what was explained in this video is true - that is a piece of art/entertainment that just shows you that life is an interpretation station. That it’s based on conception and perception. You may repress what you think, feel, believe and so you hate the way that it is because you hate yourself and just view everyone and everything as your enemy even if they’ve never meant any harm to you or to ever come to you.

Or you may engage with it as a friend, a guide or a saviour. You may see it the way a child would see it because a child has no such preconceptions of evil so even if the world is truly bleak, hard and painful… a child’s innocence naturally colours, eases and heals it. And I think out of the very few characters in this game… I would say Laura is the most interesting one because of how much life experience she has yet to experience.

Everybody else is so full of lore of trauma and hardship. And then there’s Laura. Basically a blank slate aside from the few significant interactions she’s had in life. And it’s interesting how the only person she resents is James all because of what Mary told her about him. Which also proves how easily and quickly an adult can condition a child’s mind. Especially one they look up to.

So as for my take away on this story… I’m certainly not going to blame Mary for conditioning Laura as she probably never even meant to - diseased mind and all - but it does teach you something pretty damn profound about a lesson I remind myself of as often as possible.

Hurt people hurt people.

All of the characters I would say teach you this lesson in many different ways but I would say it’s most important and poignant with Laura because she still has way too many years to live and being that conditioned so early in life will take its toll all throughout those many years and she will unfortunately get to the same point as everyone else does in this game. Irrevocably damaged.

But as I said… I can see why this video game and story is both so beloved and reviled in equal measure by so many different people. You can’t really be indifferent to a game or story like this. You’ll either love it or hate it.

There’s just too much going on in it to be neutral on it.

So in saying this and despite how much I understand it… I love it. But that’s not a surprise. I love anything that makes me think. Especially if it challenges me.

I’ll never play this game. I’m too much of a coward to.

But I have to say that it’s a great fucking horror story!

Why is it a great fucking horror story?

We’re still talking about it to this day.

And I often find that’s the key to something being just pop culture or a full-on cult classic. We’re still talking. We’re still thinking. We’re still engaging and adding.

No true piece of art/entertainment ever dies when there’s consciousness around to keep giving it life. Art/entertainment comes and goes all the time. But what sticks around is timeless because life keeps it going.

It’s something not just remembered but repurposed. For an entirely new generation of people to latch on to.

I think that’s so incredible that I stay here to share what I can about what I love and am most passionate about because it gives me just as much life and purpose back and I think there’s value in people gaining life so much more so than there is than in consuming lifelessness because I don’t think of “life” as a permanent thing. I never have. I think of it as a continuation of things. And what happens when you consume any media that can give out what you’ve put in - that’s what really happens.

It continues. You exchange your energy with its energy and it grows with you and within you - and vice versa. So all true art/entertainment is timeless because it belongs to everybody and nobody at the same time.

[doux-amer]

This has been one of the shittiest days in a while and to top it all off, I go on social media for the first time today right before bed to relax and the first thing I see (well, second after my friend's response to a bday message to her) is a dongseng I haven't talked to much or seen in years dropping a post about his announcement with no comment whatsoever. The news wouldn't have been any easier, but to get that from someone who doesn't fucking understand how devastating it is even though she must know that it's sad is the worst possible thing. What the fuck am I supposed to do with you dropping that? I don't want to give you a response! I don't owe you a response! Get the fuck away from me! I don't care that you didn't want to upset me because what the HELL did you think would happen by doing that? I'll send some crying emojis and a broken heart and that's so goddamn empty, but I'm not performing this for you and this is actually upsetting me so bad????? But I wouldn't expect a casual fan of a club that will go unnamed to understand. This isn't just sports to me.

If I had to get this news, I wish I saw it from someone who loves Jürgen as much as I do, whose life was irrevocably changed for the better because of him, who was here in the Before Klopp times, who never had a manager to love as much as we love him. And look at me managing to make myself tear up again.

I understand. After watching the clips on IG and that second one especially...he wants to leave while he's okay, he wants to leave on good terms and if possible on a high note instead of being kicked out after overstaying his welcome, he wants to enjoy life. And he so deserves that. He deserves to know what it's like to just be Jürgen, to be with his loved ones, to do nothing but to simply live. I have so much respect for him that he's going out this way, that he didn't take this decision lightly when he felt differently before (that renewal he signed...), when it's not about how much he loves us. Or rather, it is because he wants to give us his best and his all and he feels that he can't anymore and he's listening to his body and his mind. And he's setting a good example by showing what's really important in the end and taking care of himself. To show there's more to life than this and to be grounded and be a normal guy like he remained throughout even as his life became very abnormal.

God. I love him like I've never loved any manager before. The ones I loved pale in comparison to him. He is and will forever be everything to me, not just for what he gave to the club on the pitch but everything off the pitch from the values he instilled and emphasized to his humor and honesty and big heart and humility and passion and everything, and I'm just so gutted right now thinking about how we had almost a decade with him and I never took it for granted, but I really thought we had a few more years with him. And I thought several years ago about how much I needed to return to Anfield to see how things changed, to experience Jürgen's Liverpool on home ground, and how now that I had a job and steady income that I would be able to go to more matches or at least do it once before the end. And I didn't because of this stupid pandemic. All of that passed without a chance and just. I'm glad I got to at least watch them in person when they came to the U.S. even if it's not the same, but I feel like our time has been cut short and I really can't imagine a Liverpool without him. I never wanted to. I know that there will be because that's the nature of this sport and life and this sport has taught me there's always a beginning and always an end, but...nothing's going to be the same. Nothing's going to be like this. There will never be an era like the one we got under him. There will never be a manager like him.

[philosophicalparadox]

Exactly lol

Obito is the most extreme version of what I call Psychological Retrograde

Which simply put is when you start out with a supposition, and in order to keep justifying how you feel about it, you just walk farther and farther “backwards” into that “logic”

I see it all the time with the “she has to be a virgin” pipeline. Yeah there’s religious reasons for that, but even non religious incel types can go from “she can’t have any other man before me” to “I need to ‘breed’ her as soon as possible” because of crippling, crippling insecurity. The sub thought process goes from “if she’s not a virgin she’ll compare me to others and I’ll never measure up” to “if I give this fertile woman even a chance to spread anyone else’s genes she will do it and I can’t chance that”. Many types of abuser get here by similar ways. Insecurity just does that to some people.

That uncomfortable demonstration aside, that is exactly what Obito does with his “Dream”. He’s constantly reaching backwards for ways to fix a problem that he didn’t create and can’t actually do anything to solve. It’s not at all uncommon for people to do this IRL, as demonstrated above, but it makes him to less delulu about it.

His biggest problem, as is so often the case, is that he’s trying to solve all these problems alone. Which also gets overlooked I feel despite it literally being a cornerstone of his arc and the manga at large. He’s one seriously traumatized and deeply deeply insecure dude who is trying so hard to fix a broken system all by himself, (…sort of. Depends who you ask and what your HC’s are about him) and in the face of such an enormously overwhelming situation 1. Falls for madara’s equally delulu bullshit and 2. Has to create layers and layers and layers of more BS to keep himself from going insane, all while actually losing his mind/self/grip on reality.

I love/hate Obito, I really do. He’s a fantastic character to study. But yeah, from a narrative perspective his story is a big ass deal for a reason, and that reason is not “love endures all” it’s “this is a fucked up world and this is what happens to people who try to tackle the worlds problems by themselves” WHICH is a very recurrent theme in Naruto. It’s why we get Itachi’s and Nagato’s backstory before we get Obito’s. Itachi did essentially the same thing on smaller scale and paid one hell of a price for it. Nagato tried to harbor the same type of ambition but was too stubborn to change until someone presented him with irrevocable proof that his thinking was flawed.

Obito knows his thinking is flawed, to a degree, but he doesn’t care. He’s the worst amalgamation of those two taken to the farthest extreme. In his mind all means are justified if they suit the ends. Nagato did have a similar thought process but he had friends. He had Konan. He still had Yahiko’s body. He had something left to hang on to. He was changing the world because he’d lost so much to it and didn’t want to lose more. Obito started out that way, but he had no one to be his voice of reason except himself, and that’s always a recipe for disaster.

It’s like those people who try to go back in time to stop something from happening. Obito is trying to eliminate the Problem of Suffering by eliminating it at the source, repercussions be damned. And he gets played like a fiddle because of it.

Aaaaah I can talk about this boy all day. You get my point. 🥲

Obito, literally explains to Kakashi that he didn't start the war over him or Rin. That the reason why he despair, meaning losing hope in the world and starting a war, was the circumtances that forced Kakashi and Rin into a position where Kakashi had to kill her and Rin had to kll herself. He literally says "The shinobi system, the village, they created this circumstances. What caused me to dispair was this world."

Most Naruto fans conclusion 'till this day: "Omg he loved Rin so much he started a war for her!!"

Like are y'all stupid? It's literally spelled out.

The point of Obito's character is to represent someone who had goodness, hope and dreams in his heart, and the reality of how the world works literally crushes all of that. He can't handle the reality, so he tries to create a fake reality to deal with his pain and despair.

[bradleysbradshaws]

Bella being back - or at least her stories being uploaded - makes me feel a little less insane now. The Roosmav fandom of the current day never knowing that she existed - she was one of its first and most formative writers - has also been hard on me; not to mention that Bella had been such a beautiful friend to me, and never knowing what happened to her this entire year has been killing me.

She left the server on the same morning that a certain formerly very-distressing fic to me had been posted - it's fine; I have re-read it, and it's fine (and kind of funny) to me now - and those two things happening at the same time just sent me spiraling. And someone I had been very close to at the time knows this because I had been crying to her every day at the time, and I know why she can't stand me now; I really put her through a lot of stress over fictional content that I could have always easily ignored. But I just want to make clear that I'm not making any of this up.

My mental state in those first two weeks of January was just in pieces. I do know I had been crying to that person about perfectly-innocuous things: even about the asshole-shaving fic, the bunny!Rooster fic (they are both hot stories to me now - I would like to write and draw Maverick giving Bradley a full-body shave now ; please, nobody steal this idea, lol). I literally had been having a psychotic break at the time, and I'm sorry for those who had to be around to withstand me at the time - especially that former friend of mine, because even after it all happened, I know she tried her best to be nice to and help me, and the last thing I had said to her was something extremely mentally-devastating. I do know I fucked a lot of things up, likely irrevocably, but none of it was ever ever because I didn't love Roosmav or that I didn't love the people who had been my friends. I had been having an actual real-life psychotic episode.

My brain had just been utterly destroyed at the time, and it has taken this year for me to heal myself and finally - honestly - be the person I wish I had always been in the Roosmav fandom. I joke about me intending to be One Of The Roosterfuckers Of All Time, but really - I just want to be an actually-contributive person...I didn't do that a lot last year for various reasons, but I want to be sure that this is what I do with the sliver of Roosmav experience I have going forward - I want to create things for them.

Bella - I love you, and even if we likely never speak again, I'm so glad you're still alive and doing well. I didn't want the Roosmav fandom to forget you, and I hope they haven't.