#the worst fandom trash fire I’ve ever personally been a part of and yet. the artists the writers the gifset makers we are all INCREDIBLY

[ongreenergrasses]

tog fandom is hell. absolute hell. but by gd we are creative

[saby-chan]

Why the ATLA comics fail when it comes to Zuko and his family

To whom ever took their time to actually stop and read this post, thank you in advance for not skipping my post and willing to stay and read my humble opinion! I hope I won’t disappoint you!

As a relatively newcomer to the ATLA fanbase since 2020, I’ve come across a lot of interesting debates, comments and rants about the show, characters and fandom in general, but nothing has captivated me as much as the dumpster-on-fire that are the ATLA comics, more specifically: The Promise and The Search. 

On one hand we have the hardcore fans who want them to be animated or serialized into the Netflix live action, praising the comics for the new views and subject matters they’ve brought into the show’s lore, while on the other hand we have the furious Azula fandom who is really angry for the fact that best girl didn’t get the redemption arc she rightfully deserved so much after the painful event that was the Last Agni Kai and the even more angry fans of the Urzai ship (yeah, the people who actually ship Zuko’s parents unironically) who hated the retconning of the show’s cannon since the comics basically took a huge fat dump on what was previously established as official cannon, when the Search entered the scene, but between these two sides, who has the more valid point? In the end, are the comics good cannon or bad written fanfiction?

Well... Here are my two cents on this matter since I myself happen to be an Azula and Zuko fan and had huge expectations from these comics (since I wanted more from my fave hot-headed fiery siblings duo) but ended up disappointed: the comics are indeed a huge mess and actually bad written fanfiction when it comes to Zuko and his family! Don’t click off yet, because I actually documented the reasons why exactly the comics fail in this area:

1. The author of these comics is not part of the BryKe duo

Yes, I would like to start with the fact that if you actually take a second to look up who in the heck took the time to write these two books, you won’t find Bryan, nor Mike, but a fellow man named Gene Yang. This is important because while the wiki of both The Promise and The Search state BryKe as the creators, that doesn’t mean that they were the actual minds behind these comics, but rather because ATLA is their “baby” and these comics involve their characters, over which they have copyright. Mr. Yang here is the actual brain behind the plot, as the main writer, which explains why we find huuuuge inconsistencies between the show lore and the comics, especially Zuko wise.

My main issue with Mr. Yang isn’t that he isn’t BryKe specifically, but because he did an unforgivable mistake in his writing process: He projected himself into Zuko’s character, based on the relationship Zuko had with his father. This is a documented fact from an interview in which he explains that he sees himself and his dad’s relationship into Zuko and Ozai and used that when writing their interactions and built Zuko’s character in the comics. And this is wrong because when you have an already very developed and complex character such as Zuko, you can’t just come in and be like “Oh, I was an angsty teen just like him in my teenage years, fighting with my dad and whatnot, so he must have the same thought process as me!”. NO! This is bad fanfiction writer behavior! Zuko has his own personality and philosophy, which he developed over the course of 3 seasons and is not defined by only 1 unfortunate aspect of his past, so you can’t just base his whole mindset and actions off of your own personal experience just because you had the same daddy issues he had!

2. The whole “Promise that you will kill me if I turn out like my dad!” nonsense in The Promise

Reason number 2 why these comics fail and go under the category of “bad fanfiction” is because they fail to convey the core essence of the source material. The whole point of Zuko’s redemption was that he realized the wrongdoings of his ancestors and his own mistakes. He outgrew his desire of gaining his father’s acknowledgement in favor of choosing his own destiny. Having him worry that he’ll turn into his father is utter nonsense and feels like poor angsty drama material for the sake of angst. At this point in time, Zuko has overcame that obstacle in his life a long time ago and should be at the level where he himself is the “Uncle Iroh” for other people and in no way someone concerned of becoming their own worst enemy!

Not only that, but the whole point of Aang’s journey and the story of the show as a whole was to teach us, the viewers, the importance of forgiveness, empathy and love in life. Aang didn’t spare Ozai, aka “the ultimate evil” just to flex in front of his pals or because he is a “ 12 y/o vegan pacifist monk kid”, but because he knew that killing someone, no matter of what they did or wanted to do, wouldn’t restore balance into the Universe, on the contrary, him killing the villain would have meant perpetuating the “endless cycle of hate” that plagued the world. So having Aang promise to kill his best friend in case “they turned into an evil maniac like their dad” contradicts Aang’s whole character and it’s a nonsense that throws into the trash what we’ve learnt throughout the entire TV series.

3. Azula deserved (and was supposed) to have a redemption ark

This might still be pure speculation, but I count it as a documented reason because I’ve heard quite a few people saying that there should’ve been a book 4 in the show, aka “Book 4: Air”, and no, it wasn’t The Search, but actually Zuko and Azula’s journey as Zuko helps his younger sister heal her broken mind by being her very own “Uncle Iroh”. Sure, they prolly were going to end up looking for Ursa, but the journey should’ve ended with them actually being happy and a family again and not the bs we got in The Search where a still very unstable Azula runs away and becomes the “Next Joker”! The only problem is that M. Night had to pop up and curse the world with his movie, which forced BryKe to delay the project (and eventually abandoned it in favor of Korra).

All in all, either if BryKe had this preplanned or not, it made sense for Azula to get a redemption ark, she deserved it because she was just a broken 14 y/o child! If Katara’s mom’s murderer deserved to be forgiven, so did this poor child who had no fault for what happened to her since she had a dysfunctional family! What Gene Yang did in his poorly written fanfiction was to just antagonize a broken child, turning her into a monster for the sake of friggin angst!

4. The Search is the worst of the two, being flat af character wise

And finally, getting to the point that I personally find the most annoying about these comics: The Search. This one... This one is a mess on a hella lot many levels, and just to list a few: characters are flat as fudge, being either black as vanta black (like Ozai and Azula) or pure white like Gene’s Gary Stue OC, Mr Ikem (or how I like to call him, IKEA man) and his ‘victim’ rendition of Ursa, Azula gets to suffer more for no reason (see reason number 3 to why I find this as a no no), Ursa’s whole character sucks ass (man, I could write a whole thesis on why Yang’s version of her is terrible and doesn’t match the strong woman we got in the show) and Zuko does morally wrong stuff (my man literally used his unstable sister to bribe their dad into spitting info about Ursa... Show Zuko would never do that!;-;)

Oh boy, as a person who’s seen a ton of anime and other media and read many books, I can’t begin on how much I despise this type of writing: flat characters are the worst!

 ATLA characters in the show are nothing close to being flat! What I mean by that is that none of them fall perfectly into pure white (aka goodest of good characters with no imperfections) or vanta black (aka lowest and darkest twisted monsters out there), each of them are various shades of grey (like Aang who is a very light grey because despite being a very kind and nice character, he still isn’t a “perfect hero” since he ran away from his duties, practiced tax fraud with Toph, had insecurities and even threatened to kill people on ocassions like with the sand benders who took Appa) and this is a good choice because that prevents them from becoming what’s globally known as Mary Sues and Gary Stues (aka those either “perfect” characters with no flaws and/or unlimited power, or the twisted monsters full of flaws).

And the other reason why many other people hate The Search: it literally negates previously established cannon. And here comes my short essay on why this comic fails Zuko’s family (since we’ve already talked enough about Zuko himself).

In cannon and even interviews with BryKe, it was clearly stated that Zuko’s family was “once happy”. Where is this “once happy” family in The Search? All I see is pain, deception, lies and betrayal, nothing close to anything that resembles happiness. Okay, some of you might come in and say that “It’s because it was never the case! It was only lies and Zuko trying to convince himself that he didn’t live in hell forever!” and here is WHERE YOU WERE ALL WRONG! And why? Because, my dear fella, where were depicted the flashbacks of Zuko’s “happy family” in The Beach? Ember Island. And what do we know and had been even quoted in the show?  "Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand, Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate. Ember Island reveals the true you." (direct quote from the show). Exactly, no matter who you are or how hard you try, you can’t hide your true self when you are on the Ember Island, best example being Azula, who’s impenetrable though shell cracked and revealed the true vulnerable child that was underneath. If Azula couldn’t resist the “spell of the island”, no one can. So this means that Zuko’s family was indeed happy once and yes, Ozai wasn’t always the douchebag we got to know in Season 3 (I have a whole nother essay on my theories regarding what could be his real past story and why he’s actually the “Zuko” of his generation, based on stuff I gathered from old wiki entries and character analyses I made, but that’s for another time, lemme know if ya’ll are interested).

And what I guess is the biggest proof why The Search did this family’s past trash is comics Ursa herself. My dude, if this woman were indeed the victim of years of endless abuse and never loved her husband, I guarantee you that she would’ve been closer to what we saw in Todoroki’s mom from BNHA and Zuko would’ve gotten that scar or even worse long before the Agni Kai, not from his “daddy dearest”, but from “mommy dearest” herself, because no sane woman would be soo affectionate and attached to a child that’s the perfect copy of their abuser, sepecially appearance wise (again see Todoroki’s mom’s case from BNHA because the stories are really similar) and in no way would’ve she been willing to sacrifice her life for said child’s sake. With this ocassion, I remind ya’ll folks that according to the ancient ATLA cannon wikis on Nick’s site, Ozai was designed with Zuko’s appearance in mind, being meant to be like a “grown up scarless version” of Zuko. So yeah, remember this with a grain of salt that whenever you simp over grown up Zuko, you involuntary simp for Ozai too.

So yeah, I guess this kinda concludes my “not so short” rant about why the comics fail and are bad fanfiction. Lemme hear your thoughts in the comments and if you agree, feel free to leave a like and even reblog.

Bye bye and remember that Momo is the true strongest character of the show!

 Saby out.

[i-did-not-mean-to]

Back to school - Chapter 3 - Kira

So, my first short AU has turned into a soap opera really fast...

Here's another Kira chapter...❤️👩🏻‍🏫

Fandom : The Hobbit

Characters : Oh everyone

Rating : Gen up to now

Warnings: Turns a bit dark, a tad of crying, histrionics and it's a dilettantish attempt at an AU

Kira watched them walk away, the new kid almost tripping over his own feet trying to catch up with that monstrosity of a teenager stomping away moodily.

She remembered vaguely what it had been like to be this young and to stumble upon a pretty face that hit one unawares like a right hook into the jaw; and, just as she had that thought, one of those faces appeared just above her.

“Miss Kira, I see you’re still hale.” That man had a voice like running rivers, cold and beautiful, Kira thought. As beautiful as her new colleague, Thranduil, was, she distrusted him instinctively. There seemed to be a lack of that kindness in him that she had come to expect in a teacher.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” She snapped, exhausted from this first day of work and troubled by all the secrets flitting around and nipping at her skin. “You’ve got the trash class.” He shrugged, his perfectly toned shoulders heaving with disgusting elegance and poise. Why could he not be as ugly as his words? It would make disliking him so much easier!

His freaking son was in that class, Kira thought, for crying out loud. How could anyone be that facetious?

“I’d be ever so grateful if you could refrain from making remarks such as these.” Her tone could grow just as cold and sharp as his, she decided. “Oh, you’ve warmed up to them, have you?”

There was a flash of something behind the obvious mockery; for a moment, Kira thought she had seen a hint of surprised joy, but the spark was gone before she could hold on to it or commit it to memory.

“They have been very nice. Your son has a rare talent for drawing.” She replied, carefully. “He’s a nitwit.”

Bitterness, Kira could taste it on her tongue as if that man in front of her was literally spewing acid. He was disappointed, but whether it was himself or that sweet-tempered boy of his who caused him such distress, Kira could not yet tell.

“He is not and you’re an asshole for saying so.” The words were out of her mouth before she could bite them back.

Wonderful, she had met exactly 3 other adults this far and she had managed to insult one of them to their face within the first day of her arriving at her new post. Kira deserved an award for hasty reactions that would lead to trouble and pain.

One thick eyebrow lifted with agonising slowness until it reached its zenith in a perfectly calm face.

“Strong words.” A drawling snarl, devoid of bite or anger; he seemed rather amused by her outburst that coloured her cheeks a flaming red and made her eyes shine with a ferocious fire. Kira liked to think that she looked intimidating or fierce, but she was old enough to be aware that she actually resembled a young girl running a fever when she got angry.

His eyes shifted into something that was now definitely mournful as he told her that there were many things she didn’t know and, with a sharp sadness, he added: “Maybe, someone with a soft heart like yours should not have come here.”

Bristling, she got up and pushed past him into the school building.

Who was he to tell her where she was to go or not? He knew nothing about her either, or about the things she had done and seen in her life. A soft heart, pfff, indeed.

Making her way through the halls and corridors, and getting turned around only twice, she finally entered the small administration office where a handsome woman with long, black hair was clacking away on her keyboard.

“I am…I have…I am new here and I’d like to see the files of the class I’ve been given.” Kira announced, rather badly, and the woman looked up with a disinterested face. “Which class would that be?”

Damn, she didn’t even know the name of the class, for she was sure that DD was not the official code. “Mister Gandalf’s class? I’ve taken over for Mister Smaug.” She mumbled, hoping that the lady would know which class she was talking about without her having to confess that she was a terrible teacher who had not done a rollcall or learned what the official denomination of her class was.

“You poor dear, how much time do you have?” The woman gave a wry chuckle. “Time?” Kira cocked her head.

“Go through to the library, I’ll bring you the files.” She patted Kira’s hand, lying cramped on the little counter before her. Those treacherous hands, she thought, always clenching without her knowledge, and betraying her inner turmoil.

As she sat in a corner of the library, she thought back on her first day: her colleague was like an ice-king from a fairy tale, cold and beautiful, and her class turned out to be a bunch of grumpy misfits.

Well no, only the two tall boys, the other ones seemed agreeable enough, but Kira was not used to scowling teenagers. It made her feel ill at ease and unwelcome; everything in this place made her feel unwelcome and she had half a mind to go home again and call it a day.

She had tried, but there was no place for her, not here, not anywhere else.

The door opened and the woman from before shoved a document cart piled high with folders in.

“You’re new to the town too, aren’t you?” The woman nodded slowly when Kira admitted that she was. “You and the curly boy, you don’t even know what mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Making a non-committal gesture, Kira encouraged her to go on. “You’ve met Dwalin and Thorin, I expect. They’re the local troublemakers. Hmmmm…” The woman pulled out a chair from under a deserted table and leant against it as if she couldn’t bear to sit down for this story.

“Their family, Thorin’s parents to be exact, they had a business. Beautiful it was. It burned down…some say, Smaug, the former teacher was behind it. We don’t know. There was some point of contention between them, but…”

“What about Thranduil?” Kira asked, the question falling from her numb lips.

“Oh…he…it was a beautiful business as I said and there have been important possessions of his lost in the fire. It…it is a time ago now. Thorin’s father has disappeared, you know, and Thranduil thinks he might have taken off with the most valuable parts. I don’t know if that’s true.”

The woman bit her lip, she knew she was gossiping, but she obviously thought that Kira had a right to know those things. Probably, she wanted to chase her away, but with every word, Kira’s faltering resoluteness firmed up again.

“Who is taking care of them? They’re kids.” Kira cried out, horrified by what she was hearing.

“Older cousins; they’re a strange clan. Secretive. Weird. Hostile. Thorin should have graduated, but he sticks around for his sister. Thranduil is her headteacher.” The woman sighed heavily. “We’re all one tangle of resentment and hate here.”

A fire, Kira thought, a future gone up in flames, a legacy fallen to ashes.

“What kind of person was this Smaug?” She then prodded on, curious about her predecessor.

“Smaug? Sly, charming, wickedly smart, very cunning…and dark. Oh, Kira, can I call you Kira? Leave girl, there is nothing here for you. Smaug and Thranduil? They survived here because their hearts have turned to stone a long time ago. The kids will hurt you; destruction is all they know.” She took a deep breath.

“Those children were raised on hatred, they absorbed distrust at their mother’s tit, they suckled on hostility. They will take everything from you if you let them.” The woman tapped the folders on the cart.

“I’m telling you, you don’t need to know. Leave this place. There’s too much death around here.”

Everything in Kira revolted.

“What made people that hard and bitter?” She asked, breathless with shock and pity.

“Loss. If you lose someone you love, you seek for culprits and there are more than enough potential candidates around here.”

Kira thought of young Bilbo’s flush, of Thorin’s shy smile and Legolas’ beautiful drawing, and grabbed the first one of the folders resolutely. “I have nothing to lose.” She whispered and plunged into the heart-breaking life story of one Tauriel; a girl who had impressed her with zealous interest and brave kindness.

The woman left and soon after, the door to the library was shoved open again and Gandalf strolled in, his grey wool cardigan stained with chalk and his beard hiding a sad smile.

“You’ve taken an interest in them, I see.” He said in a low voice, but his presence startled Kira so much that she uttered a frightened yelp. “Yes, yes, I wanted to know what all this talk of hate was about.”

Kira set aside the folder she had been browsing. “You have been crying.” Gandalf said softly, handing her a handkerchief and sitting down on the discarded chair the administrator had left pulled out.

She sniffed; she had just found out that the sweet-tempered blonde boy, son of the imperious colleague with the amazingly beautiful eyes, was semi-orphaned. His report cards said he was dumb, slow to understand and illiterate, but Kira had seen him read. All the notes about him betrayed a sense of impatience and exasperation that must have heightened the pressure on the poor kid, she thought. It was hard enough to be another teacher’s son, did people have to expect so much of a boy his age?

“Come, I’ll invite you to a milkshake, Miss Kira.” Gandalf extended his hand with the same natural friendliness as he had when handing her a handkerchief earlier. “Ah, you’ve kept the worst one for last.” He tapped on the thick folder bearing Thorin’s name.

Kira didn’t want to admit it, but she was frightened. The woman had been partly right and there was a lot of darkness in this town; shady things had happened, and Kira was unable to comprehend how people could burden mere children with past grievances they had not been a part of.

“There’s a little shop just down the main road.” Gandalf was chattering gently, shoving the last file into her satchel, and steering her out of the gloomy library carefully. “It will do you good to get out of this building.”

When she saw the blinking lights, her eyes burned and she wondered how long she had been sitting in the dark library, crying helplessly over the fate of children she had only met today.

“Miss Kira!” A honey-coloured mop of hair appeared in her blurry field of vision, and she was tempted to sling her arms around Bilbo. “Bilbo…” She sighed. “Oh, have you been crying?” Bilbo looked up, alarmed and worried.

“I’m okay, kiddo, it’s all fine.” She lied, she knew it and so did Bilbo.

“Oh, that girl over there, that’s Thorin’s sister.” Gandalf whispered into her ear. Kira looked up only to see the beautiful creature that had been with mopey Dwalin before class. She should have known, Kira thought, now that she saw them together, it was as clear as day that they were related.

“God, they’re such charming children.” Kira sighed under her breath. “Isn’t he just?” Bilbo sighed along, blushing a dark pink under Kira’s gaze that had snapped back to him. Kira didn’t know what this town’s ideas and beliefs were on that kind of crush; she had not been here long enough to gauge how people reacted to single women and same-sex couples, but it was clear that Bilbo himself felt terrible about his own words.

Kira wondered if there was no hairdresser in town, all the haircuts she had seen this far were exceptionally long and flowy, or awful like Ori’s, and the fact that half of all the people she had met this far were cramped into the small ice-cream shop reminded her of the woman’s words. They really were all packed one on top of another, all the time, no wonder there were frictions and animosities.

“Hello, are you the new teacher?” Kira snapped out of her reverie to be confronted with the fresh face of a young girl who looked up at her expectantly. “You sure are pretty.” She went on, which made Kira blush.

“I am Dís, I’ll introduce myself, old Thrandy interrupted me before and…my brother is useless.” She had the most dazzling smile, small dimples to either side of her generous mouth that was so unlike the grim line of her brother’s and eyes like a summer sky. She was the first happy person she had met, Kira realised, and her eyes flew to Thorin who observed them with meticulous sharpness.

His baby sister, of course, he’d throttle me on the spot if I threatened the girl in any way.

“I am…the new teacher. I’m not so sure about the pretty part.” Kira murmured, unsure how to proceed with Bilbo and the girl both now staring up at her as if she owed them some kind of explanation or answer to a question nobody had asked.

“Was Thorin very gruesome?” Dís asked with a mix of morbid pleasure and honest worry. Kira saw Bilbo flinch; so this was how they would handle things, she thought, Bilbo and her would be more or less mockingly warned so as to counteract every single potential disappointment…or expectation.

Squaring her shoulders, Kira lifted her chin and replied: “No, I expect great things of the young man.”

An eerie silence fell over the group and Kira could feel Gandalf stiffen just behind her; he was hovering in the door as if to keep her from retreating. Little did he know that Kira usually met her fears head-on, she would not back out of a shop because she happened upon a group of students; not even when it was obvious that she had been crying.

“Nothing ever happens here, so tell me, what did you think of old Thrandy? He was certainly flushed and a little grumpier than usual…” Dís had an infectious smile, Kira thought as she felt her own lips being pulled up by an unseen and unfathomable force. “Mister Thranduil was…very courteous.” She replied weakly, remembering with painful clarity how she had called him an asshole in the least civil display of discontentment possible, short of shoving him outright.

The idea of shoving someone that tall and strong made her giggle under her breath.

“He doesn’t like us much.” Dís said it off-handedly, but Kira had been a teacher for too long not to notice the tiny quiver that made her smile blur for a second. Once again, Kira wanted to protest and assuage the girl’s pain, but what did she really know? She had only arrived in this clusterfuck of a town.

“Do you think…could you like us? Please?” Her huge eyes shone like headlights. She looked so much like her brother, only softer, more open, and much more vulnerable. It was the age, Kira thought, it was the fact that he had always held his hand over her and, right now, he bulldozed towards them.

“Dís…leave the woman alone.” He gave her an apologetic smile; begging for affection was beneath his dignity apparently, so Kira turned her attention back to the girl and sighed: “I’m doing my utter best.”

“We’re not so bad, really. Don’t…don’t believe what people say.” She tapped her finger against the folder sticking out of Kira’s satchel. Her brother’s name was clearly visible and, unlike Kira, Dís seemed to know exactly what lay between the faded grey layers of cardboard.

“Dís, that is enough. Leave her be.” Thorin repeated, trying to pry his sister away. “Don’t mind her.” He said to Kira.

“Let go of me, you stupid oaf. How many times have you cornered old Thrandy in the hallway on my behalf? Can I not, for once, speak up for you?” Her eyes were flaming with blue fire now, reminding Kira of a copper flame.

“Don’t…don’t believe what people say, I can only ask you to make up your own mind. Both of you…” Dís then addressed both Bilbo and Kira who exchanged a puzzled look. “I don’t know anything about the idle tittle-tattle of the town.” Bilbo puffed up his chest and made a small gesture of dismissal.

Kira, on the other hand, did not know what to say. As a professional, she was bound to put at least some faith in the words of her colleagues and her predecessor; she knew teenagers to be manipulative, potentially mean-spirited, and profoundly selfish beings. It would have been more careful to heed the warnings others had given her.

“So…about your milkshake?” Gandalf prompted her from behind and Kira thought that she needed something stronger than a milkshake tonight to get settled into bed, but she would not get shit-faced in front of the students.

“The strawberry one is good.” Bilbo offered. Her eyes slid over the sign hanging on the wall.

“Chocolate-Mint?” She turned to Gandalf. “Unusual.” He commented. “Nobody likes that much.” He made a face.

“I am not everybody else…and I do.” Kira replied firmly and followed the man to the counter to escape the students.

The whole town seemed strangely informal to her and yet, there were so many things she could not quite understand, as if there was a deeper, darker truth hidden behind every brazen interaction.

“I see Thorin has taken a shine to the new kid.” Gandalf commented in a low voice when he returned with their drinks to the little booth Kira had taken in the meantime, far away from the kids, in a quiet corner. “At this time, he’s usually in the little hardware shop his family keeps.”

Kira could hear that Gandalf was trying to tell her something, but her head was still fuzzy with second-hand pain and first-rate confusion. “You’ll fit right in with us, I think.” Gandalf went on, nodding at her bare hands. No rings. For a woman her age, it was rare, and as her colleague and superior, he of course knew that she had come here alone.

No husband. No children. No emergency contact either.

“Young Bilbo is an orphan.” He murmured on. “There are too many orphans in this town.” Kira replied tonelessly.

“It wasn’t always like that…It won’t be like that forever.” Gandalf said and she had to believe in the faith vibrating strong in his voice. Of course, it wouldn’t stay like that, Kira thought, they would grow up and if this place was not right for them, they would find another one.

She drank her milkshake slowly, eager and reticent at the same time to take a look at that last file in her satchel. Her mind was full of what other people had told her: her colleagues, the administrator, that girl…

When she dared glance over, she saw Bilbo laughing at something Dís had said, and it seemed like the ghost of a smile danced on Thorin’s face. God, there were so many open scowls and just as many aborted smiles in this town.

“Are they…” Kira started to voice her concerns, but relapsed into silence, it was none of her business.

“Are they what, dear? Allowed to flirt? I’d hope so, these things come easier to the younger generation.” Gandalf tapped the side of his nose as if he knew that she was hopeless in the romantic department.

“I don’t need to know.” She said hastily, almost tipping over her empty glass as she got up and grabbed her satchel.

“Kira? You will soon learn that there is no escaping “knowing” in this town. I am so sorry, but you’ll eventually have to choose a side. Will you take the easy path?”

She froze.

“Here, take this. I’ll see you at work. Tomorrow.” He handed her yet another handkerchief, a beautiful, delicate thing that had no business being in the possession of a slightly scatter-brained, decidedly masculine headteacher.

“I bought it in the emporium that once was.” Gandalf said with a sad smile. “Before the fire.” Kira answered tonelessly.

“Thranduil said that someone with my soft heart should not be here.” She felt like telling on the colleague, but the recollection of his words cut deep, and she needed some kind of reassurance.

“Thranduil believes softness to be weakness. Do you have a strong heart, Kira?”

She did not know how to answer that question; it was novel to her, nobody had ever asked her anything remotely as confusing and irrelevant. She had never had any medical problems of the cardiovascular variety, but she doubted that this was the meaning he had been trying to convey.

“We’ll find out soon enough.” He grinned and when the door swung open, he sat back and waited.

“Miss Kira.” Already, she recognised the shy, quiet quality of the voice that reminded her of those wispy curtains her aunt Imelda used to have in her living room and that had ended up torn to shreds by her vicious Siamese cats.

“Legolas.” She turned around, satchel in hand, only to find her face almost pressed into the perfectly starched button-down of someone who has definitely not the nearly translucent boy.

“Mister…” – “If you can call me asshole, you can call me Thranduil.” His voice cut like a well-honed blade, slicing easily and elegantly through her defences…No jagged edges, no serrated indentations…Acid running like water and leaving nothing but burning pain behind.

She was tempted to call him asshole again, but she clenched her teeth before bowing her head slowly.

All the kids eyes were glued to her now; she could feel the prickling heat of their gaze on her neck. “Good evening. I’m on my way home.” She said courteously and tried to push past them.

“Legolas, go sit with your classmates, I’ll walk your teacher home.” Thranduil declared with icy determination.

“Why? What danger could lurk in the shadows for me when clearly, everyone is here?” Kira snapped.

“No, he’s right. It is not safe.” She had not noticed that the students had come up behind her, but she could hear that it pained Thorin to the core of his heart to admit that the hated teacher was, for once, not completely wrong.

“Stay with your classmates, Legolas, I will walk Miss Kira home.” Thranduil repeated and Legolas shuffled his feet for a moment before being pulled away by Bilbo. He didn’t get along with his classmates, Kira knew, but the fact that Thorin had not objected, told her that they all agreed to this plan.

Kira could not fathom what peril could hide in this sleepy, little town other than being smitten by a lightning bolt made of pure contempt and hatred, but when Thranduil held the door open for her, she moved outside readily enough.

For a while, they walked in resentful silence, each one thinking about the angry words that had been uttered between them. “I took…” She started, but he waved her words aside. “I know where you live.”

Of course, he knew. Everyone knew. Maybe, she’d be murdered in her sleep by the cloud of ominous darkness hovering over every square inch of this godforsaken place.

“Lock your door and say your prayers.” He mumbled, looking tired all of a sudden, as if the polish had worn away and washed off and all that was left was a middle-aged man who was alone in the world with a child he could not understand and a bunch of neighbours he didn’t like.

“If you see a fiery red sports car…” he started and waved her past her own building and towards a small corner shop.

“If ever anything feels amiss, you call Gandalf, the school, me…and you come here.” He went on insistently.

“Thranduil.” Another man stepped out, his eyes cautious and guarded as they fell on her tall companion. “Balin, this is Miss Kira. She’s your boys’ new teacher.”

The older cousin then, Kira thought, barely older. Where were the women in this town? Where were the mothers?

“It was mighty good of you to take her home.” Balin nodded slowly, giving Kira an appraising look.

“Now, look here lass, if anything happens, you come here.” – “What should happen?” Kira wanted to laugh, but she remembered: there had been a terrible fire, a man had disappeared, a car had been damaged, mothers had been lost. She was an outsider, and she knew nothing of the things that haunted these people.

“If he comes back.” Balin just replied and Kira was surprised at the grave nod Thranduil gave as a reply.

“Who? Smaug? What kind of guardians are you if you let someone that dangerous be alone with your little ones?” Kira exploded. “Little ones? Have you seen Thorin and Dwalin? They’re hardly little ones.” Balin laughed heartily.

“He held sway, let’s put it like that, and we could not dislodge him against his will.” Thranduil explained suavely.

“Not that you’ve tried really hard.” Balin mumbled into his beard.

“He was a fucking menace; he’s done terrible harm to those children!” Kira could not fathom how they could be so calm about that. “Aye, that’s a grief we all have to live with. I don’t think he’d come back, but if he does…well, we’ll know how to deal with him.” Balin said with pride in his voice.

“I’d rather let him tear me limb from limb than expose any of my students to that monster ever again!” Kira could feel the tears of anger and helpless indignation threaten to dash her brittle voice to pieces.

“You’re a fiery one, lass, I’ll give you that. Maybe, we all need more of this around here.” Balin chuckled and gave her a card. “Oi, Miss Kira, everything alright?” Dwalin came out, his hands covered in dark dust and his face glistening with sweat.

“Yes, I am fine. Suffocating on so much testosterone, but I am alright. One would think some evil power would send ghouls and dragons after me as soon as I step out alone.” She chuckled under her breath.

“Don’t wander around alone too much. I trust Thorin and Dís have taken care of the new kid?” Dwalin nodded when Kira’s eyes widened. They were being herded like sheep. With a tiny nod of the head, Dwalin and, what Kira surmised must have been his older brother, returned to their shop.

“They’re distasteful people, but they can protect you. We’re just up there.” Thranduil accompanied her back to her own suite of flats, pointing at a small rise where a beautiful white mansion peeked out from a patch of dark trees.

“Don’t call them distasteful.” Kira grumbled. “Lady, you call people assholes.” He reminded her.

“I’ll never live that one down.” She said through gritted teeth. “No, you won’t. We have a long memory when it comes to grievances and offenses.” It didn’t sound like a threat, there was no anger or even hurt in his voice; he was merely stating facts.

Rolling her eyes at him, she jangled her keys and made her way into the building. All of this was completely ludicrous, but she locked her door twice and fastened the bolt as well before taking off her shoes and cuddling up on the small sofa.

Kira wished she had someone to talk to, someone who would be interested in her first day at work and who would laugh and groan with her about that absurdly handsome, stuck-up, judgemental, overly sensitive colleague of hers whose eyes made her wish for summer and picnics outside.

Also, she yearned for someone to hold her as she opened the thick file and leafed through records of detentions and disciplinary procedures until she came to a clear line in Thorin’s academic career: he had been a good student, wild and impatient but also diligent and gifted, up to a certain point and only after that had he turned into a teacher’s nightmare.

Kira rubbed her eyes, she could barely believe that those words, “dangerous”, “vicious”, “devious”, “insane”, should be applied to a man that young. Thinking back, she saw a hunched-over youth, uncomfortable in his skin, wary, and definitely traumatised; she had never had the feeling that he had been threatening her in any way though.

One thing was for sure, Mister Smaug had hated the kid and he had not missed a single opportunity to make his life miserable, going as far as scribbling defamatory notes about Thorin’s family into the official records.

Piecing together what she could glimpse by reading between the lines, the family had built an emporium, but the grandfather’s megalomania had attracted the wrong kind of attention, and everything had literally gone up in flames. The father had disappeared, leaving the son to bear the burden of a reputation of being a greedy, thieving beggar – born and bred.

Nobody could see her now, so Kira lay down her head and cried.

It had been only one day, and already, she had no idea what to do and how to go on in this quagmire of secrets and lies.

Her mind wandered back to those fresh faces, to the willingness of Tauriel and Ori to work, to Bilbo’s calling out to her to give her opinion, to Legolas’ pride over a drawing, to Thorin’s and Dwalin’s surprising protectiveness, and she knew that even if Smaug came back and set her ravishing asshole of a colleague on fire in front of her eyes, what really mattered were the children. She would try her best to make a difference…at least for those who might change the fate of the world…in time.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #383

“the big bully try to stick his finger in my chest  /  try to tell me, tell me he’s the best  /  i don’t really give a good goddamn ‘cuz i got my lunchbox & i’m armed real well”

Ever had a friend online for a long time without seeing a photo of them? Well yeah. Most of my friends are online, and while I've seen pictures of most at least once or twice, some I still haven't. The last time you threw up, what caused it? It was a side effect of a mood stabilizer I started. Any foods from other countries you would like to try but haven’t yet? I'm sure there's something, idk. Do you think the world would be more peaceful without any religion? Yes. Have you ever had a stalker? No. Does it hurt your feelings when people talk shit about things you love? It makes me self-conscious way more than anything. I start to obsess over whether or not the person things poorly or weirdly of me for liking what I like. I just feel judged for liking it, but that's my problem. Do you like it when people give you nicknames? I do, actually. It feels kinda affectionate to me. Do you often find yourself checking out people’s butts? Haha I'm not gonna say it's never happened, but it's not something I make a habit out of for sure. What fandoms are you in? MEERKAT MANOR IS BACK BAYBEEEE, Markiplier, Silent Hill, Shadow of the Colossus, World of Warcraft, Spyro, Wings of Fire, and lots more, honestly. I'm into a lot of stuff, and I don't love in moderation, haha. Are there any fandoms you used to be in, but left? Yeah, like Supernatural, Good Mythical Morning, or Warriors, but it wasn't out of "I don't like it anymore" or anything, I just drifted away. Anything the fans in your fandoms do that pisses you off? World of Warcraft if particular has one of the most toxic fucking fanbases. There are so many goddamn elitists and people who whine about "boohoo WoW is dying" and "omg this game has been trash since Wrath" and yada yada yada and it's annoying as hell. They always find some shit to complain about. Then Silent Hill... ugh. I think people just hop onto the "the series sux after 1-4" bandwagon to fit in with a certain crowd, but that's not the main thing that annoys me; rather, it's the fact the former main admin of the SH wiki made a fucking joke out of us there. He was clearly having personal issues and made a HUGE and utterly ridiculous deal of Silent Hill 4 having heavy symbolism to the main character being obsessed with the bullshit idea of him being circumcised, and it led to a maaaassive thread of us members trying to talk some damn sense into him as he abused his power. He was finally banned by the Wikia staff, but not in time for some gaming websites to publish "news" stories about it because it was just that ludicrous. Now, YEARS later, we still get trolls coming onto the site to try and revive the drama by inserting absolute rubbish into pages or making new ones. Nowadays I'm the main administrator there, and it's fucking embarrassing sometimes. I'm supposed to keep the wiki under control and respected, you know? Ugh, I'll stop. I could rant for a very long time about this. Do you prefer ruffly or regular potato chips? Ruffly. Do you write down your own recipes, or just commit them to memory? I don’t cook. What color do you want to dye your hair? My top three are pastel pink, lilac, and a light creamsicle orange. I REALLY want to dye it SOMETHING. :( How do you like your chicken? Of course breaded (like nuggets, tenders) is my favorite, but I also enjoy is broiled and seasoned well. There's other ways, but because I don't cook, I, uh... don't know how a lot are made lmao. Do you enjoy cheese fries? UUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH YES. Do you eat refried beans? I absolutely hate beans, so no. What is a food you enjoy, but don’t have very often? A whole lot because a lot of it is from restaurants and we don't eat out all that much. As well, my diet is very narrow just because of how picky I am. Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn? Why? I mean, what are we comparing them for? I think Audrey is fucking gorgeous, though. Marilyn is also beautiful. Favorite fictional world? Uh, I dunno. Do you use lint rollers often? No. Do you carry pepper spray? No, but I want to. Has your power ever gone out for more than a day? I think so. Other than a dislike button, what’s something you wish Facebook had? Hm, I dunno. What time do your parents normally get home from work? Mom can't work right now, but I think Dad gets off around 5PM. Are you afraid to ask people out on dates? Yep. Do you think it’s better to look for love or let it find you? Both can work, but I definitely prefer to let it find me. I feel that *in general* that usually has better results. Have you ever found yourself worrying about commitment? No. I'm a very committed person romantically. Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already? No. Have you ever had a rash from poison ivy? I don't believe so, no. Do you have any chairs in your bedroom? No. Did you watch Elmo as a child? Some, yeah. Do you know anyone who doesn’t eat meat? I don't think so, off the top of my head. When you throw up, do you cry? No, but I'm a whiner and will also shake from fear because I have such a phobia of vomiting. Doing it totally turns me into a baby. Who was the last person to carry you? I couldn't tell you the last person to full-on carry me, but back when I tore a ligament in my foot, my mom kinda had me lifted when she would help me walk. Is it easy for you to accept loss? Absolutely not. I handle it very, very poorly. Have you done anything sneaky lately? No. Have you ever had a rolling back pack? Yes. Who knows you better than anyone else? My mom, probably. Would you ever want to go to Brazil? Sure, if the opportunity came up. Are there any medical conditions that run in your family? A lot, mostly heart problems. What band has the best guitar solos? Metallica imo. Who is the biggest jerk you've ever met? She was somehow my former best friend. Have you ever swerved off the road to avoid hitting an animal? I've never been in that situation, thankfully. What's a charity you would never donate to? I'm really not familiar enough with charities and their practices to know which ones are sketch or not. Have you ever grown your own herbs? No. Do you have any exes you'd consider dating again? Yes. What were some of your favorite classes you took in high school? Art and German. Mythology was fun, too. Do you know anyone with a profession in law? Yeah, I have a cousin that's a lawyer. Have you ever Googled yourself? Yeah, outta curiosity. What's the shortest amount of time you've had between relationships? Like, two days. Part of the reason I left Girt was because I liked Sara. As a child, what comfort foods did your parents make for you when you were sick with a cold or flu? Chicken noodle soup. What's a movie series where the sequel was better than the original? Ha, for some reason Inspector Gadget came to mind. I guess from mentioning my childhood. I was FUCKING OBSESSED with that movie as a kid. The first one's fine, but I love the second one. Does your car have heated seats? Mom's doesn't. What is the strangest pizza topping you've ever eaten? Nothing strange, really. Describe your hometown. What’s it like there? Small and dangerous. Lots of run-down areas. A gang nearly broke into our house once, if that helps you get the picture. What was the last video game you beat? I replayed Silent Hill 2 forever ago. What did you learn from your last failed relationship? It really just taught me that you need to take care of your own mental health before you can effectively handle another's properly and strike a healthy balance. What country does your favorite band hail from? Britain. What’s something on your to-do list that never actually gets done? Finish decorating my room. -_- Have you ever been really passionate about something but then lost interest? If so, what was it? Good Mythical Morning, I suppose. I used to be OB-SESSED. I still adore Rhett and Link as people, they are fucking wonderful human beings and excellent entertainers, I just drifted away from their content. I don't really know why. Do you sleep with the TV or the radio on? No. What’s the worst thing about being male/female (whichever you are)? Menstrual cycles, I'd say. It affects your mood so much, and as someone who's bipolar, it can be very confusing. I like to know why I'm feeling a certain way. What movie has the best special effects? /shrug How many work hours per week is too much for you? I wouldn't know, I've never really worked long enough to figure this out. Can you remember your first day of school? I think I have the faintest memory of it. I know I was very scared to leave my mom (I had absolutely awful separation anxiety from her) and I MIGHT have cried, but I don't really recall with certainty. Have you ever entered a modelling competition? Would you? No thanks. Did you keep any drawings/stories from when you were younger? Most, no, because the level of cringe is LITERALLY unbearable for me. Do you have a safe? Mom does somewhere. What’s the scariest thing to happen to you so far? The breakup. That night was just fucking terrifying. I was so certain my life was over, like the situation was so, so impossible in my head. What was your last dream about? (or your daydream if you don’t remember) My memory's faint, but I just remember I had a nightmare where a LOT of my bones were totally snapped in half. When was the last time you saw a relative? Excluding my immediate family, I last saw my now-departed grandmother and my uncle a while back at a hotel as they were passing through. Have you ever been in a TV audience? No. Are you in any way close to reaching a personal goal? Not really... Do you prefer crosswords or word searches? Word searches. Do you like making collages? Not really. Do you remember any inside jokes from childhood? No. What would you love to learn to do? Digital art, like drawing on a tablet. Do you prefer monkeys or lemurs? Lemurs. Do you watch movies based on the actors or the movie plot? The plot, 100%. Are you more shy in real life or on the internet? I am WAY more shy irl.

[quinnybee-writes]

Title: Fire Meet Gasoline

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Rating: T+

Part: 4/?

Story Summary: A chance encounter between a villain and vigilante leads to an unwise deal made between unlikely allies; an unwise deal made between unlikely allies ends in a final stand neither would have ever dared to take on alone. Together, though, they just might have a fighting chance.

Part 4 Summary: Purposefully misconstrued dating advice leads to a deal being struck between the villain and the vigilante.

Part 1 on  Tumblr / AO3

Part 2 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 3 on Tumblr / AO3

Part 4 on AO3

Three days later and Aizawa had yet to make contact. Hizashi frowned to himself, watching the dark subway walls speed past the train’s window. He kept having to remind himself to not pick at the cork stoppering the bottle of wine in his lap but his hands grew fiddly and nervous when his mind wandered too far back towards the vigilante’s radio silence. What was the reason behind it? Was he trying to force Hizashi into contacting him instead as some kind of lazy entrapment attempt? Hizashi couldn’t bring himself to believe that. Aizawa was a lot of things but half-assed wasn’t one of them. If he wanted to get to Hizashi he would make sure he did so in the middle of something he could use to nail Hizashi to the wall. If he followed that thought to the logical end, however, Aizawa protecting him made even less sense; it would have been the perfect opportunity to drag Hizashi to the cops by the collar like a self-satisfied house cat bringing its owner a dead pigeon. Why would someone so careful in everything otherwise make such a glaring error and then spend three silent days failing to do anything about it? Aizawa was a mystery of motivation; every time Hizashi thought he’d gotten a handle on the type of person he was, something new came along to prove him wrong. Hizashi grimaced and shook himself mentally as the train slowed at his stop, tugging his thumbnail out of the rut he had carved into the top of the cork. He’d been chasing himself in circles all week, and now wasn’t the time to throw himself back into the spiral.

Standing in front of the apartment door, Hizashi took a minute to center himself with a deep breath and fixed his expression into a relaxed-ish smile before knocking. The chatter of conversation on the other side quieted as footsteps approached. There was a short pause, then the door swung wide to reveal his mother’s elated face.

“Hizashi!” she exclaimed. Before he could return the greeting, her expression fell into one of shocked concern. “Oh my god, what happened to you?”

“Mm? Oh, this,” Hizashi said with a forced chuckle. He cleared his throat and tried to sound nonchalant about his half-healed double black eye and two-inch headwound as he rattled off the cover story he’d been practicing for this moment. “I, uh, tripped over a couple of trash bags behind the studio, ended up clocking myself on a dumpster,” he said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “Real graceful, huh?”

“Heavens,” his mother said as she ushered him inside. “You went to the ER and got checked out, right? Head injuries like that can turn nasty out of nowhere.”

“Yeah, Ma, I took care of it,” Hizashi said, giving her an appreciative kiss on the cheek. “Didn’t really have a choice, actually, the night delivery guy found me out cold in the alley and called an ambulance. I think I might have traumatized the poor guy.”

“With a face like that how could you not?” Haru teased as Hizashi came into the kitchen to set down the wine. She took the bottle from him before giving him a quick, tight hug. “Good to see you, Zash.”

“You’re heartless but I love you anyway,” Hizashi replied, squeezing her back.

“Whatever, we both know I’m the cute one,” Haru said. She pulled back and gently prodded him in the chest with her ladle. “Now go mingle, I’ve got a curry to keep from burning.”

“Yes’m,” Hizashi said with a salute.

“If it isn’t everyone’s favorite problem child back from the dead!” Hizashi’s sibling Hoshi said in mock surprise as Hizashi dropped into one of the empty living room chairs. “It’s lucky you showed up, Zash, Hitoshi and I were about to ro-sham-bo for who gets your cat.”

Hizashi turned a grin on his nephew, who was perched on the arm of the sofa next to his mothers. “If you can get Ai-chan to leave the apartment with all your limbs intact, you’re welcome to her, Shortstack,” he said.

“Don’t you even think about it, Hitoshi Shinsou,” his mother Mara said, nudging her son in the leg to reclaim his attention from the video he was watching on his phone. “If I wanted a pet chainsaw, I’d live in a hardware store.”

Hitoshi snorted. “Don’t worry, Mama, I’d rather step on a beartrap than make that cat do anything. Baji can have her,” he replied, punctuating with a “have at it” gesture to Hoshi.

“Yes!” Hoshi said, pumping their fist in the air. “Dibs on the attack gremlin maintained!”

“Are we just ignoring the fact that I’m not actually dead, or…?” Hizashi asked, crossing his arms and trying not to smile as he arched an eyebrow at his sibling.

“I mean, at this point we kind of have to,” his sister Hinako said from the other side of her wife. “Mara and I claimed your TV and that fancy toaster oven Mom and Dad got you for Christmas last year, Haruko gets your new laptop and router, and Hiro beat everyone else out in the tournament for your apartment lease. Ai-chan was the last thing we had to divvy up.”

“You guys are the absolute worst,” Hizashi said, trying and failing to keep a straight face as he said it. “I take time out of my busy schedule of being attacked by trash bags and getting bullied by my cat and this is the thanks I get?”

“Truly, we aren’t worthy,” Haru said from behind him, ruffling his hair. “Time to set the table, busy boy, Mom said Dad’s almost home.”

Dinner with his family was like finally being allowed to exhale after months of holding his breath. Deep down he’d known having to isolate himself from them to prevent them from getting wrapped up in things had weighed on him, but the full extent of it didn’t hit him until here and now. It took less time than Hizashi had expected to get back into the flow of the family conversation, a chaotic blend of speech, signing, and the kind of sweeping gestures that came from being raised by an opera singer and a very emphatic law professor. The constant sting of edginess that kept him from ever really relaxing melted away to nothing, no match for the rapid-fire retellings of weird life moments and accompanying bouts of breathless laughter from around the table.

“Speaking of tired,” his father said, bouncing off the tail end of a story Hiro had told about a toddler at his daycare center who had somehow gifted three other children and one of his coworkers with a combination of chicken pox and flu, “you’re looking a little wilted, Shortstack. High school applications getting to you?”

“Actually, Hitoshi has some news about that he was going to share tonight,” Hinako said. She beamed over at her son, giving him an encouraging squeeze on the shoulder. Hitoshi cleared his throat, the look of someone who had hoped they weren’t going to have to talk in front of people written plain on his face. Hizashi gave a sympathetic wince; growing up as an introvert in a family full of dramatic hams and public speakers had to be a lot to handle when the spotlight was suddenly on you.

“I decided to take the UA High entrance exam,” Hitoshi said, managing a small smile in spite of himself.

Despite his sympathy a moment earlier, Hizashi couldn’t help joining in the excited uproar from around the table that followed Hitoshi’s announcement. “Hell yeah, dude!” he crowed. “Carrying on the family tradition!”

“Does it really count as a tradition if only one of us made it in?” Hiro asked. He seemed to realize how the question had sounded a moment later as Hoshi elbowed him in the side. A strained flicker of sideways glances at HIzashi followed. Hizashi just grinned despite the sudden jolt the words had sent through the pit of his stomach.

“Don’t be such a wet blanket, Hiro,” Hizashi said, shaking his head. “If people are allowed to call things ‘first annual’ then Haru has every right to be a family tradition all by herself.”

“Aww, thanks, Zash,” Haru said, reaching across the table to pinch his cheek. Hizashi swatted her hand away with a snort.

“You went to UA, Aunt Haru?” Hitoshi asked, sounding surprised. Haru preened.

“Sure did! Three years strong in the A-class Hero Course, graduated seventh in my class. Not high enough to get snapped up by one of the famous agencies, but good enough for some solid sidekick gigs,” Haru said.

“That’s right, you’ve been doing temporary assignments at a bunch of agencies, haven’t you? How’s that going?” their mother asked quickly. Everyone seemed eager to sidestep the pit of discomfort Hiro had accidentally opened up, especially Hiro. As everyone’s attention turned to Haru’s newest temp assignment at Loud Cloud’s agency Hiro caught Hizashi’s eye and mouthed “dude, sorry”, grimacing at himself. Hizashi shook his head and signed “no worries” back. The words still burned in his gut, but Hizashi did his best to ignore it and listen to Haru’s story.

Too soon for his liking, Hizashi hit his soft out time, his middle out time, and finally his hard out before the trains stopped running and he’d have to take an overpriced cab home. He said his goodbyes, promising without much hope that it wouldn’t be this long before he saw them all again. As he was putting on his shoes, Haru threw her coat over her shoulders and offered to walk him to the station to make sure he got there okay. Not about to turn down a lingering moment of normalcy before he had to go back to being himself in the morning, he accepted.

“Hey. You okay?” Haru said as they headed up the sidewalk.

“Mm? Yeah, why?” Hizashi said. Haru gave him a Look and Hizashi relented. “I mean, he wasn’t wrong,” he said grudgingly.

“Being right isn’t the same as not being a dick,” Haru pointed out. Hizashi waved a hand as if wafting away the accusation.

“Honestly, Haru, it’s not a big deal. Some of us grow up to be heroes--” Hizashi said, gesturing to Haru-- “and some of us have to make do being the family disappointment,” he finished, gesturing back at himself. “It’s the circle of life.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Haru snapped, surprising him with the sternness in her voice. “You aren’t a disappointment to anyone. Especially me. All right?”

Hizashi smiled at her, shoulders relaxing back out of the sarcastic hunch they had started to reflexively tighten into. “Yeah. Thanks, Haru.”

Haru nodded authoritatively. “So. On to other things, namely this dashing, courageous night delivery guy you mentioned,” she went on, a sly smile creeping over her face. Hizashi tried to ignore the way his face immediately heated up at the implication in her tone.

“What about him?” he asked, amused in spite of himself at the word “dashing” being used for the scruffy, monotone Aizawa.

“I mean, he was gallant enough to come swooping in to your rescue to save you from your own klutziness,” Haru said. “Seems like something you’d want to repay with some kind of favor, don’tcha think? Like one that starts with ‘thank you’ and ends with ‘drinks after work, my treat’?”

Hizashi scoffed, about to blurt out that under no circumstances whatsoever was something like that going to be on the table, but the word “favor” sparked off a half-formed idea in his head. Repaying favors with favors was practically his side business, after all. There might be something in that, though far from the path Haru’s mind seemed to be going down. “You might be on to something there,” he conceded. “I’ll let you know if it works.”

“Make me your best man at the wedding and we’ll call it even,” Haru teased, holding the station door open for him. “Text me when you get back to your place, okay? There’s some bad shit going around right now.”

“Will do. Thanks again, Haru.”

“Just doing my job.” Haru gave him another quick hug-and-hair-ruffling before bidding him goodnight.

Hizashi lay in bed with a very disgruntled Ai-chan snoozing on his chest, burning his eyes with the light from his phone screen. The more he considered what Haru had said, the more the idea appealed to him. The only roadblock now was Aizawa and his apparent determination to freeze Hizashi out. Still, there was more than one way to catch a delivery man, Hizashi thought as he double-checked the station’s equipment budget for this quarter and opened their online supplier in a new browser tab.

It seemed like in aside from “multi-platinum criminal mastermind” and “epicenter of most of the trouble in his life right now”, Shouta could add “compulsive online shopper” to the list of traits Hizashi Yamada was using to intrude on his day-to-day life.

Shouta had done his best to put the confused night he’d helped Yamada avoid arrest out of his mind, ignoring the paper bag of Yamada’s belongings where he’d stuffed it into the back of his closet and getting back to his life. At first Shouta had thought Yamada had either been doing the same, or at the very least avoiding stirring things up while the dust was still settling. Yamada hadn’t made any kind of contact and was keeping quiet about his misadventures in his public life as far as Shouta could tell from the bits and pieces of Yamada’s show he’d caught while on patrol. Instead, however, Yamada appeared to have been just saving up energy for the marathon of attention-seeking he had planned. Nearly every day Asahi Radio was one of his scheduled stops with some new item listed as needing delivered to HIzashi Yamada, signature required. Shouta managed to very calmly beg a few of his coworkers to switch routes with him for the day, making sure to ask the ones with longer routes who would be more than willing to switch him for a shorter day for the same pay. After several days of running unfamiliar routes and going through every willing coworker he had, however, he found himself railroaded back into taking his route back by a politely-worded “friendly reminder” from his supervisor about making sure to get his own work done. Shouta checked his delivery manifest, saying a short, silent prayer to not see what he knew he was going to see down at the bottom: Asahi Radio, three kilogram package for Hizashi Yamada, signature required on delivery. He gritted his teeth, throwing himself into the front seat of his truck and slamming the door behind him. Today was going to be a very long week.

As soon as Chiyaki saw Shouta shuffling through the front door with the box tucked under his arm, they were already hitting Yamada’s extension on their phone. “You got another one, boss,” they said, waving Shouta inside.

“On my way,” Yamada’s voice replied. Shouta was darkly pleased to hear that he sounded almost defeated when he said it, like the week of not getting what he wanted was starting to grate on him as much as his pestering was grating on Shouta. Yamada came slouching out from the back room of the studio. He didn’t look much better than the last time Shouta had seen him; the bruising around his eyes had faded from midnight purple to a sickly pond scum grey-yellow-green and the gash on his forehead seemed to be healing well, but he held neck and upper body stiffly like he was trying very hard not to move too quickly and risk wrenching something. Despite this, his whole posture straightened as he saw that it was Shouta making the delivery today. Shouta sighed internally as Yamada swaggered up to him with a suspiciously cheerful grin.

“Haven’t seen too much of you around here lately,” Yamada said, the barest note of challenge to his tone. Shouta gave him the flattest, most disinterested look he could manage in return.

“We’ve been moving people around,” he said, handing Yamada the clipboard. “Sign here, please.”

“Right, right,” Yamada said. He stamped the bottom of the delivery slip and made to claim is carbon copy. As he started pulling the perforation, he paused as if he’d just thought of something. “Are you allowed to pick up something since you’re already here, or do I have to call in for that?” Yamada asked.

“I can take it for processing if it’s properly addressed, but they’ll charge your account after the fact for the delivery costs. And since it’s Friday it probably won’t get delivered until Monday,” Shouta said. It was technically against policy do it things that way, but a little bit of policy finagling was worth cutting this conversation as short as he could.

“Oh, that’s fine, it’s nothing urgent. Just something I owe a colleague of mine,” Yamada said. “It should still be in the outbox, Chii,” he added, turning to Chiyaki and pointing to a pair of mail trays behind their desk. Shouta collected the envelope from Chiyaki and tucked it under his arm, reclaiming the clipboard from Yamada as well.

“Thanks for your patronage,” Shouta said, already turning and heading towards the door. He tossed the envelope into an empty bin in the back of his truck and was mostly successful in putting it out of his mind.

“Aizawa!”

Shouta halted on the threshold of the employee entrance at the sound of a voice behind him. He sighed, wondering what new impediment was about to be added to his day. When he turned around, however, he was surprised to find Takeshiro, one of the night crew in package processing, approaching him with an envelope clipped to a clipboard.

“Something I can help you with?” Aizawa asked warily. Takeshiro held the clipboard out to him.

“Found somethin’ for you in one of the bins,” Takeshiro replied. “Figured you could sign for it now. No point sendin’ someone all the way uptown for someone who works here, y’know?”

He wasn’t wrong, Shouta supposed, though it seemed strange that someone would be sending him something through the company he worked for. If they knew him well enough to send him things he would have assumed they knew to just use the postal service and save themselves the handling fees.. He set his bag down, having to dig through a few different pockets before he found his spare stamp. Takeshiro watched him with disinterest bordering on impatience. Shouta signed for the envelope and barely had time to tear off his copy of the form before Takeshiro reclaimed the clipboard and bid him a perfunctory good night. Shouta watched him go, eyebrow raised, then shrugged. He would have considered himself a man of few words, but Takeshiro was about as talkative as a tree stump.

Turning back to the envelope, Shouta was somewhat unsurprised to recognize it; the envelope Yamada had gotten him to take for processing earlier that day. Shouta grimaced at the thought that Yamada considered him in any way a “colleague”. The envelope itself was heavier than he would have expected for its size and rattled when he turned it over in his hands. The noise was not encouraging. Shouta slid the envelope into his bag, careful not to jostle it too much as he made his way back to his apartment.

Once there, Shouta dug a filtration mask, a pair of thick leather gloves, and a long-handled pair of chemistry tongs out of the jumble of spare parts and unused equipment in his linen cabinet. It would be somewhat out of character for Yamada to resort to some kind of long-distance assassination via courier package but Shouta wasn’t in the business of being careless around villains. He knelt on his entryway floor, envelope in front of him. Using the tongs he grasped the tab of the envelope and pulled it open. Nothing happened, which was equal parts a relief and suspicious. He took the bottom corner of the envelope between two fingers and pulled the edge of the opening wider with the tongs, sliding the contents of the envelope out onto the floor.

A zip-top sandwich bag full of cash clattered out, landing with a metallic splat. Holding the envelope at arms’s length Shouta peeked inside and saw something square and yellow stuck to the inside; pulling it out revealed a pair of yellow sticky notes stapled together at the top corner that appeared to have been shaken off of the sandwich bag in transit. The note on top read “they took a stupid route and overcharged you”. Dumping out the sandwich bag, Shouta found it contained five thousand, one hundred sixty-nine yen in small bills and change; rounded up, the fare from the hospital to Yamada’s apartment building. A roundabout way of deciding to repay him, Shouta thought, but it showed more discretion that he’d honestly expected out of Yamada. Flipping to the second note, he saw it was an address and a small but detailed hand-drawn map from his apartment to the destination and a meeting time of 8:30pm, signed off with Yamada’s stylized M signature. One step forward, two steps back, Shouta thought as he pulled the respirator mask off with a sigh. The invitation wasn’t a binding agreement, but Yamada had already proved he was willing to go utterly over the top to force Shouta into an interaction. Either Shouta bit the bullet and went now, or he had at least another week of near-constant deliveries to look forward to. At least this way he could return Yamada’s things and not have to look at the accusatory paper bag every time he went to get dressed in the morning. One look at the clock told him he was already destined to be late, but Shouta didn’t bother rushing as he collected the bag and kicked on his shoes to head out again. Whether Yamada waited to see if he was coming or stood him up was the other man’s prerogative.

The address was for a small bistro-style cafe with a rooftop veranda that overlooked the sidewalk. Yamada was hovering beside the door with his phone in his hand, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was on the screen but keeping a sharp eye on passersby. He looked like he had come straight from work, still dressed in the same clothes Shouta had seen him in earlier with a leather laptop bag over one shoulder. The smile he gave Shouta as he approached was as close to genuinely friendly as Shouta had ever seen from him.

“I already got us a table,” Yamada said, nodding to one of the tables on the veranda. He motioned for Shouta to follow him into the restaurant and up a claustrophobically narrow set of stairs next to the door to the kitchen. The two of them sat across from one another at the table, a tension settling between them as soon as they did. Shouta ordered a black coffee without looking at the menu and Yamada requested the server come back in a few minutes to give him time to look things over.

“I’ve never actually been here before,” Yamada admitted when the server left. “I saw it when I was walking home the other day and it struck me as a good place to get some privacy, you know?”

“Hn,” Shouta replied. The veranda was abandoned other than the two of them, with only the tiny staircase or vaulting the safety rail as viable exits. A quiet laugh from Yamada interrupted Shouta’s train of thought. He looked over to see Yamada trying to hide a smirk behind his hand.

“You do that too?” Yamada asked.

“Do what?”

“Tally up every escape route the second you get into a place,” Yamada said. “Hopping the railing wouldn’t be my first choice, but you seemed to be staring at it pretty hard. Bored with me already?”

Shouta scowled at him, trying to ignore the heat in his cheeks at being called out. Instead of answering, he grabbed the paper bag and set it on the table in front of Yamada. Yamada looked at it, then up at Shouta with his head cocked to the side. “I would have returned it sooner, but things came up,” Shouta said, only lying slightly. Things had come up, they were just mostly intangible things like the unmistakable feeling that he didn’t want to see Yamada. Bemused by the roundabout explanation, Yamada unrolled the top of the bag and looked inside. He paused, seeming taken aback when he saw what the bag held.

“So you’re the one who made off with all of this,” Yamada said, not quite managing to keep the surprise out of his voice. He pawed through the bag’s contents and pulled out the tangle of wires and audio parts Shouta had yanked from around his neck.

“I...may have broken that,” Shouta admitted grudgingly. “Sorry. There wasn’t a lot of time.”

Yamada looked it over, running it through his fingers like a jeweler inspecting a string of pearls, then shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it. I worked some break points into it when I built it, like those elastic loops they put in cat collars so they don’t strangle themselves.” He shrugged. “Might be time for an upgrade anyway.” He seemed to catch himself lapsing into thought and shook out of it, holding the handful of assorted technology up like Shouta was supposed to have any idea what he was looking at. “It’s a vocal directional focus,” Yamada explained. “Depending on the combination of switches I use, it activates the speakers to give me a little boost in sending my voice where I want it to go. The only downside is smaller parts burn out twice as fast, and that’s if you’re using them for what they’re meant to do. You can only fight obsolescence for so long.” He shrugged again, setting the gear aside to continue poking through the bag.

Yamada picked up his mask, making a face at the jagged crack across the brow, then his jacket. He inspected the jacket even more closely than he’d looked at his gear, clicking his tongue in annoyance and running his thumb over some deep scuffs on the lapels and sleeves. “A little polish and she’ll be good as new,” he muttered, more to himself than Shouta. As he moved it to the side, something fell out of the pocket and clattered onto the table. Yamada picked it up. “Is this yours?” Yamada asked, holding up a small matte black USB drive between finger and thumb.

“No,” Shouta said, shaking his head. He had quite a few storage drives, but he kept them in a secure pocket elsewhere in his bag from where he’d stowed Yamada’s things.

“Huh.” Yamada looked it over, but from what Shouta could see there didn’t seem to be any kind of label on it. “Do you mind?” Yamada asked, pulling his laptop case up onto the table. Shouta shrugged. Personally he thought the mystery flash drive could wait until Yamada was done with whatever he had called him here for, but Yamada had already packed away his other belonging and was halfway into booting up his computer heedless of Shouta’s waning patience. Yamada’s eyebrows furrowed closer and closer together and he scrolled through the drive’s contents, occasionally making small “hmm”s or “huh”s.

After one especially scathing noise of curiosity, Shouta lost the last of his composure and half-snapped, “Something interesting?”

Yamada blinked, seeming to come back to himself but not looking away from the computer screen. “Possibly,” he said, sounding like he was more thinking out loud than anything. “Looks like the two you chased off were trying to do a little bit of revisionist evidence-planting. Some of these transcripts are mine, but some of them are definitely not. They are very interesting, though. If the night had gone a little differently those two would’ve had a nice feather in their cap.” Saying that seemed to jog him fully back to the present. “Anyway,” he said, pulling the drive out of his laptop and stowing both back in the case. “That actually brings me to what I actually wanted to talk to you about.”

“Which is?” Shouta asked. He couldn’t help feeling relieved that they had finally gotten to the point of this tiresome meeting.

“I wanted to thank you,” Yamada said. His expression was as close to serious as Shouta had seen from him and his voice lacked any of the attention-seeking cheeriness or slick smarm he usually used. “You stuck your neck out for me when you didn’t have to, and things would have broken pretty bad for me if you hadn’t been there.”

“Er. You’re welcome,” Shouta said. The words felt very awkward in his mouth. The corner of Yamada’s mouth flickered up into an almost-smile but it was gone again a moment later.

“That’s only half of why I asked you to meet me, if I’m honest,” Yamada continued. Shouta frowned, a sinking feeling settling into his gut. Of course there was a catch, he thought irritably. When he didn’t respond, Yamada went on without him. “Since I owe you for saving my skin, I want to offer you a deal. It’s something I think will solve this stalemate we keep finding ourselves in,” Yamada said. He was back in his element, posture too languid and his voice picking up a calculating breeziness. The return to status quo wasn’t completely unexpected but was completely unwelcome.

Shouta waited for Yamada to keep talking, but Yamada seemed to be waiting for him to make the next move. Gritting his teeth, Shouta asked, “What kind of deal?”

Yamada’s renewed grin widened at the acquiescence. “It’s nothing too complicated,” he said. He held up a hand, long fingers spread. “The deal is ‘first to five wins.’ Each of us gets to ask the other five favors, no strings attached, no questions asked. The first one to use up all five has to willingly turn themself over to the authorities and never breathe a word about what they know about the other.”

Shouta stared at him, taken aback. He’d expected something sneaky that would keep the scales tipped in Yamada’s favor, but turning the situation into some inane rivalry game was a twist he hadn’t seen coming. As far as he could tell, Yamada was completely serious about the suggestion; he seemed proud of both the idea and the reaction it had gotten out of Shouta.

“You said no questions asked. You mean, no matter what the favor is, we’re required to do it because we agreed to the deal?” Shouta asked. Yamada nodded. “So what’s stopping one of us from saying, ‘do me a favor and go turn yourself at the nearest police station and pretend you never met me’?”

Yamada frowned. “Nothing, I guess, other than a sense of fair play,” he said coolly. “Deals like this require a certain level of trust to work.”

Shouta snorted. “What makes you think I trust you?”

“There has to be some reason for a guy like you to lie to the police and withhold evidence, then let the only other person who knows the truth walk away from you,” Yamada said, shrugging one shoulder.

He had a point, much to Shouta’s annoyance. His choice to let Yamada go that night and then do everything he could to not see him until now was more one of exhaustion mixed with avoidance, but not once in the midst of it had it occurred to him that he might have to worry about Yamada turning him in to the police. He must have been silent long enough that Yamada could sense him coming around to the idea, as Yamada’s grin returned in all its toothy, rankling glory.

“So, is that a yes?” Five strikes for each of us. Well,” he corrected himself, “five and four. I’m guessing I’ve probably already burned one free pass at your good will.”

Shouta shook his head. “No,” he said. “If this is to level the playing field, it’s going to be level. Five for each of us, like you said. What happened before was a...lapse in judgement,” he finished, scowling at himself. His moment of ill-advised altruism had officially overstayed its welcome.

“To lapses in judgement,” Yamada said, extending a hand across the table. Shouta shook hands with him, hating the finality of it. With the rules as they were set out, all Shouta had to do to win this ridiculous bet was hold off on asking Yamada for anything other than some peace and quiet and wait for Yamada to burn himself out. It was too simple of a solution for Yamada to have not thought of it before he offered the deal, and Shouta had a sneaking suspicion that they would end up clashing at the finish line anyway. For right now, though, it seemed like playing along might be his best option.

[side-effect-of-the-meds]

Can you write Erin with OCD (like intrusive thoughts, obsessive fears, compulsions)? and her and Matt (since you said they’re friends) having a convo about it? (Matt forces the conversation ofc lol)

And here it is!!!!!!!!!! Disclaimer time: I’ve had like three people read this. The first one didn’t talk to me for a few days after it and kind of retreated into herself bc it hit too close to home for her. The second couldn’t make it past the first few paragraphs bc it was too painful for him. The last was shook bc he knew I wrote to escape some of my own pain. As desensitized as our fandom is to the phrase “I’m fine”, I really am fine. I’ve gotten a lot better than I used to be and am well on my own road to recovery so don’t worry. 

Trigger warnings: extreme descriptions of blood + self harm, violent thoughts, suicidal thoughts, generally heavy themes including vague allusions to homophobia and rape and body-shaming, substance abuse, pain and angst beyond compare. If you survive all that, you can see Matt taking care of Erin at the end. 

Blood runs in rivers down Erin’s forearms, thick and hot pouring slowly but steadily from the freshly parted flesh. Glass bottles are lined up on the counter, waiting for their turn. Every person has their coping mechanisms. Kevin’s was drinking and Erin’s was cutting. It was the worst symbiotic relationship in the world. Every time Kevin finished a bottle, Erin had a new one to slit her wrists with. 

A shaky breath left Erin’s lips as she leaned heavily on the sink. Pressing her forehead to the cool marble counter, a savage smile tinged her lips. It hurt. The stinging of her cuts sliced through the emptiness that has consumed her for so long. More, she thought. I want more. 

Pain was the easiest thing for Erin to feel. Most days it was the only thing she could feel. Day in and day out, Erin found her drugged haze parted by bouts of immense anguish. Laying alone in her bed, she found herself assaulted by memories of lecherous old men making her bed frame creak. Seated beside Aaron as he hisses at her in sharp German, she can practically feel the savage yank of a woman’s hand in her hair. Changing out in the locker room she hears the laughter and banter of the other girls and has to force back memories of girls jeering as they forced her face into another girl’s chest. 

Pain was the easiest thing for Erin to feel. Most days it was the only thing she felt but emotional pain wasn’t something she knew how to deal with. It wasn’t until Drake that she’d found this sinful pleasure. Just like Kevin, Drake drank like his life depended on it. Collecting the empty beer cans littered around her room, she carted them to the bathroom. Ripping one open, she rolled her sleeves up and brought the jagged edge to her skin. Screwing her eyes shut, she ran it against her skin, forcefully down the length of her forearm. The first time was the worst. The first time was the best. Pain and pleasure flooded her systems. Her eyes blew wide at the ecstasy rushing to her head. She hissed a breath through her teeth. It hurt so, so fucking good. 

From there, Erin only got worse. Kitchen knives danced across her skin. Lighter flames burned away the lingering weight of Drake’s rough hands on her hips. Walking home from school one day, Erin passed a trash can brimming with broken bottles. Her heart pounded in her chest as a smile split her face. With every step she took, she could feel the euphoric rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins. Her veins soon to be split open. Maybe one day Drake would find her bleeding out. 

“Tell me what you’ll do then, brother dear?” she cooed to herself. Sucking in a shaky breath she tossed the trash can lid away. Sunlight glinted off the jagged bottles. Erin plunged both her arms into the bin. A groan tore from her throat. For a few blissful seconds Erin was alone, swaddled in the blinding pain of glass parting the delicate skin on her arms to reveal the red sea. Pain and pleasure wound themselves together until Erin could no longer discern where one started and the other stopped. 

Neither her departure from the Spear’s nor the love of her cousin and the attempts of her brother to bond with her changed things for her. In fact, they only made it worse. All her life, there’d been a part of Erin hellbent on her survival. It was the part of her that always seemed to get her in the most trouble. Any time someone brushed past her it screamed for her to shove them away. Every time someone smiled at her it urged her to claw it right off their face. These thoughts made sense when it came to Tilda and Luther but Nicky? Aaron? It took every ounce of Erin’s willpower not to throw them down on the floor and close her hands around their throats. Every day as she passed Aaron in the halls at school she stared straight ahead. The very sight of him sent fire coursing through her veins. She feared that one day she’d snap and break his neck in front of everyone. 

Her instincts had made sense long ago. Back in California, Erin had always had to watch her back. Far too many innocent touches had gone too far. Far too many sweet smiles had twisted into wicked things that sent shivers racing down her spine. Deep down, she knew that Nicky would never hurt her. He was just a big, dopey puppy that had spent its whole life getting kicked but was too stupid to learn. Aaron was too. He wasn’t quite as stupid as Nicky but Erin never missed the desperation in his eyes as they tracked Tilda moving across the room. She never missed the softening of his frame when Tilda dragged an idle hand through his hair or pressed a kiss to his temple. Aaron and Nicky’s blind loyalty to their parents were their only faults. 

That alone didn’t justify the vicious violent thoughts plaguing Erin as she lay awake, staring up at the mattress above her. More than once she’d climbed the ladder to Aaron’s bunk and watched him sleep, her hands hovering around his throat. Unlike Drake, Aaron was far smaller. His muscles had just started gaining some definition as his exy training grew more and more rigorous. Aaron also couldn’t fight if his life depended on it. Often, it did. Erin had had to bail her brother out of more than one scrape in the six months they’d lived together. One night as her fingers brushed up against his throat a single thought cut through her paranoia. Unlike Drake, Aaron was her brother. Her real brother. Alone before the mirror in the bathroom, she traced the planes of her own face, so reminiscent of her brother’s. 

Maybe that was why she hated him so much. All her life there had been another little voice chanting alongside the other. Much like Erin and her brother, they were the exact same and yet nothing alike. Where one was hellbent on her survival, the other raged against it. Erin stared deep into the eyes of the girl in the mirror. She blinked and the reflection shifted. Dark circles rimmed blood shot eyes. Chapped lips pressed together into a hard line until they had almost entirely disappeared. A far more sickly frame replaced Erin’s own. Track marks raced up and down the exposed arms. 

Lifting her own arm, she saw the reflection mirroring her. Bringing a shard of glass to her skin, the reflection brought a needle to his. Viciously, she tore her arms open with the little sliver of glass. Feeling flooded Erin’s sense for the first time in months and she groaned, squeezing her eyes shut. As the feelings began to ebb away, she peeled her eyes open. In the mirror the reflection smiled savagely at her. A needle was embedded neatly into the crook of its arms. 

“Aaron, no,” she begged. Tears ran like rivers down her face. Laughter filled her head, echoing through her skull. “Aaron,” she pleaded. She collapsed on the floor, clawing at the cabinets and smearing blood over them.  Every person has their coping mechanisms. Erin’s was cutting and Aaron’s was getting high. If Erin wanted to save her brother, she’d have to save herself first. 

Erin swept the shards of glass into a dustpan and emptied them into a bag to throw out the next morning. She scrubbed every drop of blood off the counter, cabinets, and floor. Winding bandages around her arm, she made a mental note to invest in more long-sleeved shirts. A lot of Nicky’s clothes were long sleeved. They were perfect for hiding Erin’s scars from her brother and, more importantly, her body from men. 

Erin’s body was hers. She wasn’t ashamed of it but she certainly wasn’t proud of it either. Everyone she’d ever met faulted her for not taking pride in her beauty. Every one of them had been told to fuck off. Erin’s body had gotten her into far more trouble than it was worth. Hiding it seemed like the logical thing to do. 

Nicky was elated when Erin came to see him of her own volition. When she’d asked for his old clothes, he’d been overjoyed, babbling about how he’d always wanted a younger sibling to hand his clothes down to. His eyes grew wide as if he’d just realized something. From the bright shine of his eyes, Erin knew it couldn’t be anything good. It wasn’t.

“We could go shopping!” Nicky exclaimed. “Oh my god, we could go to the mall and take Aaron-” The scathing look Erin sent him had him cut him off. “Or you could just pick out whatever you want,” he said, softly. Watching  Nicky curl into his shoulders, sent a pang through Erin’s chest that she squashed quickly. Skirting around him, she threw open his closet to examine the contents. Up until Nicky’s disastrous attempt at coming out, Luther had been the one picking out his clothes. All of them were incredibly conservative pieces in dark, muted shades. They were exactly what Erin needed. With her scars out of sight, Erin hoped they’d stay out of mind as well. They didn’t. 

The self-destructive voice in her head began whispering soft, sweet lies to her. It told her if she did it just one more time everything would be okay. It’ll make you feel so good, it cooed. Don’t you want to feel good? Don’t you want to feel something- anything! Don’t you want to feel again? When that failed, the voice took a darker turn. You aren’t worth shit. You think you’re something great now that you’re Erin Minyard? Wrong. You’ll never be a Minyard. All you’ll ever be is Erin Doe, a little slut from San Jose. You’re not even a good whore either. Who’s going to want a girl covered in scars? No one was ever going to love you. At least you could have sold you’re body but now? There isn’t a soul on the face of the Earth that would touch you with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole much less pay to do so. There’s no point. Just do it. Just slit those little wrists and let yourself bleed out. Maybe it’ll earn Aaron a sympathy vote and he’ll get into college with it. Maybe you’ll finally be of some use. It wasn’t until Aaron had gone sober that the voices got too much for Erin to bear. The timing couldn’t have been better.  

All the pieces of Erin’s plan had fallen into place. Buckling her seatbelt, she sat beside her mother as they sped down the highway. Do it. Kill her. Kill yourself, the voice chanted. Steeling her nerves, Erin reached across her mother and yanked the wheel as hard as she could. Tires screeched. Tilda screamed. Erin’s pulse pounded in her ears. Adrenaline flooded her system. She felt the savage curve of her smile and leaned back into her seat, basking in the familiar high that preceded the pain as the car careened towards the barrier. Glass shattered and flew, embedding itself in Erin’s skin. A gasp escaped her lips. It felt so, so fucking good. Bathed in blood with her brain swimming in ecstasy, Erin barely registered the arrival of the paramedics. Her time at the hospital passed in a foggy haze on account of the pain meds. The only thing she remembered with any clarity was Aaron’s sobs. She was certain everyone in the hospital could hear his drunken wailing but the hospital staff had long ago given up trying to quiet him. Keeping him out entirely hadn’t worked either. He’d scaled the drain pipe and broken into Erin’s room. A small part of her was impressed by his tenacity. The rest was angered by his stupidity. What would have happened if he had fallen? He’d have died, is what. 

The hospital couldn’t have his death on their hands so they simply moved Erin to a secluded ward so her brother wouldn’t bother the rest of the patients. Everyday after school, Aaron came to the hospital and did his homework on the floor beside Erin’s bed. Whenever he thought she was asleep, he’d crawl into her tiny hospital bed and wrap his arms around her, crying into the crook of her neck. The first time it happened, every one of Erin’s survival instincts kicked in. For once, all the voices in her head agreed. They screamed for her to throw him off of her and shatter his skull on the too white walls of the hospital. Aaron’s voice cut through her drugged haze, silencing all of them.

“Don’t go, Erin. Please, don’t go,” he had whispered, smoothing her hair down. “Don’t leave me here alone.” He isn’t like the others, Erin thought. Learning to love Aaron wasn’t going to be easy and Erin knew it. Baby steps, she told herself. Pain coursed through her body as she lifted her arm, winding it around her brother’s shoulders. Threading her fingers through his hair, she lay her head atop his and waited for him to cry himself to sleep. 

Once Erin was discharged, Aaron retreated back into his shell and Erin’s heart sank. Communication wasn’t Erin’s forte. As if seemed, it wasn’t her brother’s either. She wanted things to work between the two of them. She really did but if Aaron wouldn’t talk to her, they weren’t going to get through this. Despite Nicky’s relentless effort, the twins’ relationship deteriorated exponentially. Not a single word passed between the two of them. Not unless Aaron was drunk anyway. That Aaron didn’t count. People always said stupid things when they were intoxicated. Knowing that only made everything so much worse. After tucking her brother back into his own bed, Erin would retreat to the bathroom. Locked away all alone, Erin fell back to old habits. It was Erin’s only indulgence, her only reward for all she did to protect her family. 

It was a habit she kept up until she met him. Matt. Mother. Fucking. Boyd. At six feet, seven inches, he towered over Erin. She didn’t even reach his shoulders. Appearance aside, Matt wasn’t like anyone Erin had ever met before. He was quiet and kind and awkward and incredibly genuine. She hated him immediately. 

As wary as she was off the lanky bastard, she couldn’t help but wonder what secrets lurked beneath his own sleeves. She’d seen him take his shirt off to wipe the sweat off his body, only to reveal armbands stretched from mid-bicep to mid-forearm. None of the upperclassmen ever questioned him about it. Erin had a hunch it was because they knew something she didn’t. Swallowing her pride, Erin sought out Renee for some answers. Of all the upperclassmen, Erin liked Renee best. She couldn’t quite place why, though. It definitely had nothing to do with the delicate beauty that threaded through her solid frame or the fact that Erin had once seen Renee crush a watermelon with her thighs. Nope. Not at all.

Whatever the reason, Erin decided it didn’t matter so long as she got the answers she needed. Cornering Renee in the locker room, Erin sorted through her drugged haze. No matter the answer, Erin knew she needed her full attention for it. A somber look overtook Renee’s features as she told Erin what she knew of Matt’s tale. Erin felt her heart clench. She told herself it was just a side effect of the drugs but she couldn’t quite shake it. Some small part of her wondered what would have happened to Aaron if she hadn’t forced him through withdrawal. Would he have ended up the same shy and fearful creature as Matt? There was nothing wrong with being quiet. Erin herself hardly ever spoke while off her meds, but something about Matt’s reservedness wasn’t quite right. There was so much light and life just waiting to burst out of him but something was holding him back. Erin theorized that it may have been growing fear of falling back into old patterns. Unlike Erin, Matt had managed to keep his urges chained down. But at what cost? 

Matt rarely ventured far from Dan, Allison, and Renee. There was nothing wrong with maintaining a close circle but Matt’s dire longing for friends was bright as day. Erin would never knock her own bad habits and she knew why. No one had ever cared for her. No one had ever been there to help her and no one ever would. Matt’s father was a dick and his mother was at wit’s end. 

Erin groaned and let her head fall onto her desk. She picked it and let it drop again and again as if the action could physically dislodge the thoughts from her brain. Eventually, she gave up and dug her phone out of her pocket, along with a slip of paper Renee has given her. Erin dialed the number on it. Matt’s mother picked up on the second ring. Her voice was bright and cheery, exactly as Erin hoped Matt’s would be if he survived what she had planned for him. 

Convincing her of Erin’s plan was unsettlingly easy. She had severely underestimated his mother’s desperation. Regardless, she invited Matt to Eden’s with his mother’s blessing. Leaving Aaron at Fox Tower, Erin pulled out all the stops for Matt’s party. Cracker dust, pills, and a wide selection of syringes were laid out for him like a feast fit for a king. Erin, Nicky, and Kevin watched as Matt trashed himself. About an hour later, they found him dangerously close to meeting his maker on the floor of the men’s bathroom. Squatting down beside him, Erin gave him a sharp smile. 

“Oh, Matthew,” she said, shaking her head. “If only your mother could see you now. What would she say if she saw you like this?” Erin watched as Matt’s eyes grew impossibly wider. 

“Mom,” he croaked. Tears rushed down his face. 

“Guess you’ll just have to hope you’ll see her again in the next life. Good luck with that,” Erin said as she straightened. She left Matt alone in a pool of his own vomit to mull over her words. The Monsters crashed at Eden’s for the night so that they wouldn’t have to move Matt or leave him behind. A massive weight dropped off her chest when she saw Matt hobbling around the next morning. Matt spent the next few months keeping his distance from Erin and The Monsters. It wasn’t until he found Erin shadowboxing alongside a video of his mother that the rift between the two of them began to heal. 

“You’re putting too much weight on your front foot,” he said as he stood at the base of the basement stairs. Erin whirled around, knife out. Matt raised his hands in surrender, a quiet calm had settled over him, a bored look in his eyes. It wasn’t the Matt that Erin had come to know these last few months. This Matt was something else. Something monstrous. He stared emptily at her until she lowered the knife. A small, sharp smile tugged at the edge of his lips. He knew he’d won. Dropping his hands, he strode past Erin to her laptop. He rewound the video until he found whatever it was he was looking for. “Here it is,” he said as he turned the laptop for her to see. “You’re balance is off and it’s skewing the rest of your footwork.” Erin turned a steely gaze at him. He set the laptop back on the table Erin had found. “Watch.” He stood beside her, leaving a healthy space between the two of them. He took up a fighting stance and waited for Erin to copy it. He threw a punch at the empty air in front of him. Erin mimicked it and he shook his head. “You’re throwing your body forward. If you lose your balance, you’re done.” Matt spent the better part of an hour unteaching all of Erin’s misconceptions of fighting. When Erin came down to the basement the next night, she found Matt waiting for her. It soon became apparent to Erin that their post-practice lessons would now be a nightly occurrence. To her surprise, she didn't quite mind it. In fact, she sort of... enjoyed them? 

Night after night, Erin channeled her frustrations from the day into punching punching bags across the room. It soon evolved into sparring matches between her and Matt. He was far bigger and far more experienced than she was but that only made her small victories all that more satisfying. Above all else, Erin found herself inexplicably drawn to this Matt. It wasn’t a mask he pulled out just for her. No, it was like looking through a diamond in which each image was just slightly distorted and none in the same way. This Matt was rough and mean and he fought dirty. He was just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. At the end of each night, that Matt slipped away. In his place was the one everyone else knew. It took Erin a while but, gradually, she started to grow fond of that Matt too. Sitting side by side, she watched him ramble on and on about Dan.  

“She’s just so amazing, ya know?” he said, starry-eyed. 

“She’s pretty badass,” Erin admitted softly. 

“Hey, mind if I ask you something?” Matt asked, snapping his gaze back to Erin.

“You just did.” Matt returned her empty stare with a wry smile. 

“What exactly is up with you and Kevin?” he asked. Erin let her eyes fall shut and leaned her head back against the wall. Of course he’d ask about that. She really didn’t want to talk about Kevin that night. Just a few hours ago, he’d been getting on her about her diet. He’d accounted her recent weight gain to her sudden increase in ice cream intake. He wasn’t wrong but that didn’t mean he should say it, especially in front of Seth. Erin took more than enough of his shit without Kevin handing over more fuel for his fire.  

“He’s not my type,” Erin said finally. 

“Oh? Not into snobby rich guys?” he teased. 

“I’m not into guys,” Erin replied. She peeled her eyes open to watch her words register across his face. His eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open. Light danced in his eyes as a smile began to curve his lips. 

“Does that mean you and Renee-” 

“I’m not fucking Renee,” Erin said. 

“Not yet you’re not,” Matt said. “We’ll see if I can change that for you.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Erin glared at him. 

“No.” End of conversation.

“Why?” Erin sighed, dropping her head into her hands. Why did he have to be like this. 

“Because I said so.” It was Matt’s turn to sigh. He finished unwrapping his hands in silence and let the conversation drop. Until late Sunday night. 

“Why?” he asked again. Erin already knew what he was talking about but she feigned ignorance. “Erin.” She didn’t answer. “Jude.” She dragged her gaze up to meet his. “Why?

“No one wants a girl covered in scars,” she replied. 

“Scars?” She watched his brows knit together. Erin took in a breath to brace herself. Keeping her eyes glued to Matt’s face, she pushed the sleeves of her sweatshirt up to her elbows. She heard the strangled cry escape his throat and watched him clasp a hand over his mouth. Tears flooded his face as he reached a hand out to her arms. He stopped just before he could touch them. “Oh, Erin. What have you done?” he whispered. With her permission, he wrapped his hands around her forearms, swiping his thumbs across the ruined skin. He kept his head bent, studying Erin’s scars. She couldn’t see it but she knew he was still crying because every few seconds, another tear would slip down his face and fall onto her own skin. 

“I’m going to bed,” Erin said finally, yanking her arms out of his grasp. As she left the basement, she could feel his eyes on her but she refused to look back. She didn’t think she’d survive seeing the anguish painted across his features again. 

Laying in bed that night, Erin stared up at Renee’s bunk. Sleeping in a room with three other women took a serious toll on Erin’s mental stability. Changing in the locker room alongside them was hard enough but to constantly contend with them walking around without bras or pants drove her mad. As such, Erin spent as little time in her dorm as she could get away with. Much of her day was whiled away in class, on the court, or in her brother’s room. Night was the only time she couldn’t find a legitimate excuse to avoid them. It was her lack of hiding places so late at night that resulted in her discovery of the roof access. Slipping silently out of bed, Erin grabbed her pack of cigarettes and her lighter from the nightstand. Making sure she locked the door behind her, she padded down the hall to the stairwell. Erin’s eidetic memory easily recalled which steps squeaked and she hopped easily over them. The cool metal felt nice pressed against her bare feet. Not as good as what she had planned for herself. At the top of the stairs, she spent a moment jimmying the lock open before stepping into the cool fall air. Venturing towards the unguarded edge, Erin felt the adrenaline rushing through her. Seated at the edge, her breath caught in her lungs every time she peered down. It hurt. Not quite the same as cutting did but it did the job just as well. 

Lighting a cigarette, she took a drag from it. She sang softly to herself, a trick she’d learned to calm herself when she was five. The combination of her own voice and the nicotine soothed her fraying nerves. All her hard work crumbled to nothing as she stood up, glimpsing the fall. 

“Fuck,” she muttered. Turning her back on the dizzying drop, she trudged back to the door, singing to herself once more. Her body craved release. She stubbed her cigarette out on one of her arms, hissing at the pain. Discarding the butt, she pulled her lighter out of the other pocket and set to work on the other. Once she’d satisfied her urges, she trailed back down to her room. This time, when her head hit the pillow, sleep dragged her under.  

The next morning, Matt refused to look her in the eye. Instead, he settled down in the bleachers away from the others and waved Erin towards Renee. As she ran laps with Renee, Erin couldn’t help glancing over at Matt in his lonely seat halfway up the bleachers. She wondered if they still had their late-night sparring session. God, she needed that sparring session. Kevin’s anxiety had been slowly but surely infecting her. If she couldn’t get rid of all the stress that had built up before she had to drive him out to another midnight practice, she might just kill him herself.

Fortunately, Matt was waiting for her in the basement that night. However, his usual smile was gone. Instead, his lips were pressed into a hard line. “We need to talk,” he said. 

“Sounds like my cue to leave,” Erin said as she turned back towards the stairs. 

“Erin, please,” he called. 

“I don’t like that word,” Erin could feel the sharp edge to her words.

“Come here, Erin.” Erin let her shoulders sag as she turned to face Matt again. He beckoned her forward and she went. He took a seat on the floor. Erin sat down on the table. 

“What did you use?” he asked.

“Knives. Glass. Lighters,” she replied. She kept her face as blank and her voice as disinterested as she could but it couldn’t stop the roiling of her stomach. Abby and Bee were the only people who ever asked her about her scars. Of course they did. It was their job. It wasn’t Matt’s, though. Why did he care what she did to herself? 

“How long?” Matt pressed on. 

“Since, I was thirteen so… going on six years?”

“Why? What does it do for you?” Erin stared at the floor. The weight of Matt’s gaze forced the answer out of her. 

“Sometimes, I want to hurt people. I have these thoughts that happen at the worst of times. Last week, I saw a little kid walking her dog and my first thought is to rip it open and smear it’s blood all over her. I don’t know why. I just did. I didn’t want to hurt her. Or the dog. It was so small. So fluffy. Neither of them had even done anything to me. I think I just wanted to see blood. So I thought mine would be enough.”

“Was it?”

“Yes,” she whispered. 

“And what does your family have to say? What did Nicky and Aaron say?” A beat of silence passed. 

“They don’t know,” Erin said.

“What do you mean they don’t know?” Matt exploded. “How the fuck can they not know?”

“Because I didn’t tell them.”

“Why not?” he demanded. Erin could feel facade cracking. Her hands curled into fists and she shoved them into her pockets. 

“What if-” she stopped. “What if they don’t care?” Her voice trailed off. Angry tears welled in her eyes. Why was she telling him this?

“Erin,” Matt said, his voice cracking. 

“Stop it!” she screamed. She slammed her hands over her ears as if they could block out his voice. “I don’t want your pity.” She screwed her eyes shut, trying to will the tears away. 

“Does that mean Dan won’t love me?” Erin’s eyes shot open. “If no one wants a person covered in scars, does that mean Dan won’t love me?” Matt asked again. Erin dropped her hands as she watched him tug the armbands off his arms. Track marks raced up into the crook of his elbow. “Aaron’s got track marks, too. Does that mean no one will love him either? I’ve seen Nicky’s scars. He’s covered in them. That hasn’t stopped Erik from loving him. Wymack’s got scars. That’s why he got the tattoos; to cover them. Abby still loves him.” 

“I said no one wants a girl covered in scars,” Erin snapped. 

“Has that girl from Eden’s seen them? The one that served our drinks, I mean.”

“Ronnie? Yeah. What about her?”

“Well,” Matt said, his cheeks turning a little pink. “I heard her talking to one of the other servers and it kinda sounded like she might want you.” The words knocked the air from Erin’s lungs. Ronnie… wanted her? Ronnie had gone to school with Erin. She’d seen all of Erin’s scars, not just the ones on her arms. She knew where Erin had gotten them and why. But… she still wanted her? 

“Oh,” was all Erin could manage. 

Reaching a hand out, Matt stopped half an inch from Erin’s cheek. “Let me help,” he whispered. Matt wasn’t like anyone Erin had ever met before. He was kind and awkward and incredibly genuine. It was the reason she had hated him so much. 

“I don’t need your help.”

“Never said you did. Erin, you saved my life. Let me save your body.” A tear trickled down Erin’s cheek. A finger brushed it away. 

“I hate you,” she hissed at Matt. A soft smile tugged at his lips. He knew he’d won. 

“I can live with that.”

In the following weeks, Matt begins devoting a portion of his time with Erin to teaching her coping methods. He teaches her to mix fake blood and sits with her, watching her paint it across her skin. It soothes her cravings and, as it turns out, she’d quite the artist. She paints artful swirls that slowly but surely turn into vines and chains and flowers and birds. Matt is in awe. Some days, he even lets her paint across his back and over his track marks. At some point, he gives up his armbands. 

“I’ve already won my war,” he said, sliding the bands up over Erin’s arms. “You have not. Don’t you dare be ashamed of your scars, Erin. One day, you’re going to win your war. When you do, either you're going to give these to someone else or you’ll bring them back to me, alright?”He waited for her to nod, before smiling at her. 

“Ronnie doesn’t love me,” Erin said. 

“You’ll find someone, man. I promise you will and she’s going to be kind and pretty and she’s going to love you, scars and all.” Matt hesitated for a second. “Not that it’s much conciliation but I love you. No hetero, though.”

A bark of laughter escaped Erin before she could stop it. “No hetero,” she replied, returning his shy smile with a sharp one of her own. 

[agirlinhell]

my blog: [reaches 100+ followers]

my eyes: ey yo look like i’m goin for a swim

HOLY SHIT IT’S BEEN A BIT OVER A YEAR AND Y’ALL ARE STILL HERE?? jfc I LOVE YOU GUYS. in all seriousness, though, i met just the greatest people ever while i’ve been here and uuuuuuuugh, I LOVE interacting with each and every one of you, i love seeing you guys on my dash and I JUST AGLGGALJGAGALJGAGLAJ so thank you all so much for sticking with me through this. i probably don’t deserve it and you’re all here anyway<333

before we get real deep into this: thank you. whoever you are, if you’re reading this, i’m thanking you. for being here, for following this trash ass blog and loving this muse as much as i do. also i’m thanking you for waking up today, for drinking water and eating your food, for doing your chores, for taking a shower, brushing your teeth, for taking a nap, for getting through yet ANOTHER DAY OF THIS BITCH OF A PLANET. and even if you did none of those things — thank you. stay with us. this world needs you. all of us are unique. there’s no one like you, 

thank you for existing - i love you.

NOW LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS TO DEFEAT THE HUNS

i hope you’re all ready bitches bc IMMA SHOWER Y’ALL WITH LOVE:

@keptmanners​ / @morefinesse​ / @worldendured​ : I’VE SAID THIS SO MANY TIMES BUT UUUUUUUUUGH, this person right here, ande, is one of the people responsible for this blog being what it is today. no joke. when i was at my worst (activity wise) ande was always here, replying to our shit, plotting and discussing concepts and screaming about our muses and just being nice and kind and understanding to me whenever we talked. the relationship we built between clem and ruby/louis/your muses was one of the things that kept me from leaving this blog altogether, so thank you so much - i honestly really appreciate and admire you.

@taggedbastard​ / @paulklee-guild​: listen to me YOU LITTLE SHIT AKJAJGAGLJGA no jk, i love you so much and that’s so crazy because we haven’t even been talking for that long - we deadass started talking like two-three days ago? like, we fell in love with each other bc we’re cancerians and with the OTP in like 0.2 seconds and it was beautiful??? UGH I LOVE YOU BITCH AND I AIN’T NEVER GONNA STOP LOVING YOU BITCH.

@prctecthem​ : TSUKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!! i got you, okay? but seriously, thank you for becoming such a good friend and great person to talk to these last few weeks. i am so glad to have met you <3 AND I LOVE OUR THREADS WHAT THE FUCK?? like we should have hundreds of them, honestly. no jk <3 bUT MAYBE???

@weprevail​ : BABEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!!!!! I LOVE HOPE SO MUCH??? A VALID LEGEND IN THE RPC!! SHE SPOILS ME WITH LEE, DUCK, MITCHENTNE AND VIOLETINE CONTENT AND I CR Y!!! i love when we talk about stuff!! you can do it, you can accomplish your dreams, i believe in you - i’ve got your back okay??<33

@rcdhccdie​ : IRL BESTIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! I’M SO HAPPY YOU’RE GRADUATING AND THAT YOU’RE ABLE TO KICK SCHOOL RIGHT IN THE ASS!! ILY ILY ILY ILY - I’LL SEE YOU SOON, OKAY??<333

the bad bitch brigade:

@dcadrct​, @stillgcod​ & @mortuism​: MY HOMIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. no seriously like, artie, merc and jude are the some of the bestest friends on tumblr/discord that i could have ever asked for and i can’t imagine my life without them anymore. i mean, lmao, i have more verses with them combined than anyone else in the world, artie and merc are just ALWAYS THERE WHEN I WANT TO TALK TO THEM AND I JUST !!!! <#3333 AND JUDE IS DOING HIS BEST AND I LOVE AND SUPPORT A LEGEND!! artie destroys my ass with marlontine / clouis angst/fluff, merc has me crying up in the club about sophietine and jaiko and jude makes me cry like a little bitch with his lee, carl, violet, brody and lilly content  i am truly honored and glad to share this muse with such wonderful people ( or at least formerly in merc’s case ALGJGAAGLAGALJ ) and to just be your friend???? y’all have always been there to call me out on my shit if i ever fuck up and i get my shit together accordingly so i really appreciate it - y’all are also some HILARIOUS ASF PEOPLE

the gay juicebox squad

(or people i love interacting with and want to interact with/talk to even MORE &&& people that i JUST started interacting with and WANT TO KEEP GOING BC YOU’RE PERFECTION – &&&&&&& PEOPLE I HAVE PLOTTED WITH BUT I STILL OWE A STARTER / REPLY TO BC I SUCK, BUT I’M EXCITED TO RP WITH AAAAAAAA ):

@twdgdeadmanwalking, @rcdhccdie @creolejesus, @corpsepaintd, @zombeam, @pyrrhaeic, @weprevail , @crackinthewhip, @youngshct @we-are-strcng @livesrot @reekcd @corpsepaintd​ @forgedvalor @goldenngore @emsorcism @thecomplication @sympaheart @almostskylight @agirlofwinterfell​

the SENPAIS

(bc i stalk you from far, far away and we either don’t talk much/at all and never interacted and i want that to change but i’m too intimidated by your everyday PERFECTION AND FLAWLESSNESS ON MY DASH):

@killthebxy​ @sevenbled​ @plannedahead​ @zaldrczes​ @highhking​ @creaturologist​ @dracharenae​

IF I FORGOT ANYONE: i am sorry. i occasionally suck. plus, it’s deadass late. but i suck. yeah. love y’all <3

now let’s do the giveaway thing!!!

MY APPRECIATION FOR THE GOOD, ACTIVE (some inactive bc i’m trash) & TALENTED PEOPLE THAT I FOLLOW & THAT FOLLOW ME, CATEGORIZED.

THE WALKING DEAD

@twdgdeadmanwalking​, @crackinthewhip​, @keptmanners​ @prctecthem​ @morefinesse​ @stillgcod​ @dcadrct​ @victuus​ @weprevail​ @mortuism​ @shitbircl​ @ofstonerisms​ @worldendured​  @childtroubled​ AND SO MANY MORE

A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE/GAME OF THRONES

@killthebxy, @longmayshereignxcersei @reekcd, @zaldrczes, @dracharenae @goldenngore @mcsttrusted @bcarexiled​ AND SO MANY MORE

HARRY POTTER

@creaturologist​

                      NARUTO

@bitiing​ @cursemcrked​

GANGSTA.

@taggedbastard​ @paulklee-guild​ @forgedvalor​

FANDOMLESS & MUMU & OTHER FANDOMS & FANDOMS I’M NOT TOO FAMILIAR WITH

@emsorcism @ncvabcrn @illicios @corpsepaintd @creolejesus @xendure @sevenbled @bonezone @bloominghands​ AND SO MANY MORE

;& PERSONALS

YOU’RE LIKE THE BEST? i have no idea why so many of you follow me, but i’m super happy to know that you like this blog for some reason. thank you for being here with me. you ROCK!!! ALL OF YOU!!! 

a few honorable mentions: @aesthetic-survivor-of-twd​ @thewalkingclementine​ @rascet​ and @twdgjames​!!<3

____________________________________________________________________________________________

As for the giveaway, I offer the following prizes: one drabble, one edit/promo, five to ten icons, or an aesthetic / moodboard - the choice is entirely yours.

-None of the art unless otherwise stated that will be used in aesthetics and edits are mine.

-I will mostly be doing individuals for aesthetics/drabbles/promo’s/icons, but if you want me to have it ship related, and if i can find the right pictures for aesthetics and icons, this will be done, too.

-If a winner desires a drabble for a prize, I will write any genre you want me to, but you must tell me what exactly you want. The genre, the characters, the settings, the events, canon or alternate universe, what happens in a plot ( if there is any ), whether or not there’s a ship. Lengths and verses may vary. Oneshot, only, no multichapters.

-For aesthetics, the programs I use are ipiccy because unfortunately I don’t have nor use photoshop at the moment. You must tell me exactly what you want.

-My drabbles / aesthetics / icons DO NOT HAVE TO BE THE WALKING DEAD RELATED. I’m perfectly happy with doing prizes in relation to our muses and in other fandoms / alternate universes / crossovers.

-I can show you previews of icons, drabbles, aesthetics and edits while I am doing them, but once I am done with the results, I will not be doing a second version or an update.

-THERE WILL BE FOUR WINNERS.

-We MUST be mutuals - meaning you must be following me in order to have a chance to win.

-Feel free to like and reblog this as many times as you want - it increases your chances.

-However, I must warn you that, due to time restrictions on my part, your prizes might possibly come in a bit slower, I apologize, but it’s the constraints that bind me to this.

-The winners have until tonight at 8:00PM EST, approximately TWELVE HOURS FROM NOW, to be exact, due to time constraints on my part, to contact me. If you do not contact me after tonight is over, you will not earn your prize and it will be given to someone else at random, just as it is with the chosen winners.

[kopfkinoes]

I’ve been a Naruto fan for like 13 years now but after the manga ended I pretty much left the fandom because I anticipated the vitriol that was going to follow after the ending. Every once in a while I stumbled upon a Naruto post that made me realize I had been right and I didn’t interact. But at the end of 2017 I came back and…nothing has changed. I honestly think this is one of the worst, most immature fandoms out there. I feel like so many of the people in the fandom are perpetual twelve year olds. And it kind of bothers me that Sasuke and Sakura, my absolute favourites since day one, are still disrespected as fuck. Now, mind you, I’m not talking about the ship, I’m talking about them as individual characters although I do ship them. I’ve multishipped for a long, long time but not anymore.

They are the first ones I shipped because I had a feeling stuff was bound to happen between them but then I discovered the wonders of the web and instantly moved to ship Naruto and Sasuke. I never once hated Sakura and Hinata though and even in the later years when “feminist” rhetoric moved into fandoms, I took the “these women are strong and powerful and I love them, they don’t need no man” thing to be good. But after the ending, and now seeing how many of the people who ship Naruto and Sasuke are downright anti-Sakura and insult and disrespect her in so many ways I realized “Wow! I had been an idiot all along. These people never gave a shit about Sakura, they were saying all of that stuff to get her out of the way.” I don’t see people talking about how Naruto and Sasuke’s bond diminishes their battle abilities, I see none of the shippers implying that their development would be flushed down the drain if they ended up in a relationship. Yet, that is apparently true for the women. Right.

Sasuke is a character with a lot of potential. But he was never able to evolve. And do you know why? Because of Naruto. Sasuke was created in order to be the opposite of Naruto and, for the most part, that is all remains to be. I’ve been staning Sasuke forever but this is the truth. He exists in order to be Naruto’s rival and in order to be pissed that he, a guy coming from a clan of prodigies, keeps falling behind the class clown and loser (who is anything but that when you think of it, Minato was anything but a weak guy and Kushina, while we don’t get a good look at her abilities, has loads of stamina and healing powers and her abilities were considered exceptional even among the Uzumaki, not to mention how easily Naruto masters everything new he tries). In the end, he is subdued by Naruto and the Will of Fire.

Even after all of this, he is still not allowed to be around his family. Why? Simply because he needs to be the opposite of Naruto. He needed to point a sword at his own daughter and it was Naruto who had to comfort and reassure her. Sasuke will never be an overly affectionate person, I don’t think he will ever realistically go back to his pre-massacre personality (he wasn’t exactly super bubbly as a child either, he was reserved around other people but very happy around his family) and frankly, he doesn’t need to. He wouldn’t ever be a husband who does grand romantic gestures or a super cuddly father but he’s loyal and devoted and these things shouldn’t be brushed away for some mission or for creating angst just to prove that Naruto is a better, more understanding person that he’ll ever be, even when it comes to Sarada. Like, for fuck’s sake, does everything Sasuke does need to happen right before Naruto waltzes in and puts him in his place by being a better person? Can Sasuke not be a person in his own right without the constant comparisons to Naruto?

What I also find interesting is how often I see Sasuke becoming completely OOC when paired with Naruto. Of course everybody says Sasuke is OOC when paired with Sakura but frankly I’ve rarely seen Sasuke presented as lovey dovey around Sakura, people usually want him to be proud of her but he stays his usual tepid self. Because that’s Sasuke’s personality, he’s not a conventionally affectionate person and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why it bothers me when I see Sasuke made to be a soft, sensitive, pastel boy aesthetic. He’s not that and he wouldn’t be that even if he were gay. I mean, I understand headcanons but don’t root them in the “seme and uke” dynamics, please.

Moving on, I have a particular kind of contempt for people suggesting Sasuke cheated on Sakura with Karin. It makes absolutely no sense character-wise and it just shits all over Sasuke by assuming he’s a disgusting fucker who would cheat. Are you telling me that the dude who didn’t even consider taking advantage of even a single one of the girls who were fawning over him would have a face-heel turn and cheat? Yeah, right. I don’t understand how you can call yourself a Sasuke fan and genuinely support cheating. Why would Sasuke wait to be with Sakura in order to have sex with Karin when he and Karin had so many opportunities to bang prior to this while they were travelling together as a team? Why would he have a child with Karin and just dump the child on Sakura’s head? I don’t even want to hear superiority arguments that go along the lines of “Karin is an Uzumaki so she has superior genes compared to Sakura who doesn’t come from a clan” because…arguments like these are disgusting. I don’t think it was ever even slightly implied that Sasuke (or the Uchiha for that matter) held beliefs like this. If anything, these guys didn’t like being othered and set apart from the rest of the village. I don’t think Sasuke ever implied that he believes some vaginas are not genetically pure enough for him to get into so please don’t put these shitty beliefs on him. Sasuke was described as “pure”. It’s simply the way he is. I really don’t care that you think he’s not a “True Hetero Guy” unless he cheats and/or has sex with loads of women.

I always see people saying fans who ship Sasuke and Sakura are “disgusted” by the thought of Sasuke having sex with someone else. But do you know how many people I’ve seen saying how grossed out Sasuke must be by being around pussy (specifically Sakura’s) and how he probably cries and is traumatized by the experience? I’ve yet to see people talking about how Sasuke must be super disgusted by dick.

Moving on to Sakura, pretty much 100% of the vitriol I’ve seen thrown at her comes from misogyny. People always like to say it’s not misogyny and yet it always is. It comes from Kishimoto himself and his ideas of women. He constantly described Sakura as “not cute” and “a hard woman”. And it’s true, Sakura’s not demure or submissive and doesn’t appear to be very suited for domesticity.  I don’t believe that just because she is loud and outspoken she would make a dreadful wife and mother. She was very shy as a child (mostly because she was insecure) but she grew into herself. About her not being cute, I’d say that’s debatable. Kishimoto said she’s not cute in the beginning and I see a lot of haters talking about “that ugly bitch Sakura” but let me tell you this, Naruto and Rock Lee had pretty intense crushes on her and Jiraiya compared her appearance to Tsunade’s (although the man’s trash when it comes to women but you get my point). What do people base their opinions on when they say she’s ugly? On her exaggerated anger expressions? Because Sakura is not drawn as prettier or uglier than any of the other female characters. Is it based on the fact that people love to bring up time and time again, that she doesn’t have big breasts? Yeah, she doesn’t have breasts as big as Tsunade’s or Hinata’s or even Ino’s but what does that have to do with anything? Nope, this is rooted in misogyny because, just like in real life, when you don’t like a woman you insult her based on her body and appearance because you believe that’s where all the worth of a woman is. Besides, don’t you think there something wrong with focusing so much on the body type of a girl aged 12 to 17? Because I think there is.

I always feel like laughing at people who call her stupid because Sakura is a nerd. This is why she was paired with the more battle prone Naruto and Sasuke because she was too much brains and not enough brawn. I know that it was Ino, Shino and Sasuke that graduated top of the class but, according to the Databooks, none of them beat Sakura in intelligence, she is equal to Shino and higher than Ino and Sasuke. People love to say that her being able to do the written part of the Chunin Exam all by herself doesn’t prove that she’s actually smart, buddy, it does. The fact that she’s smart doesn’t make the rest of the students who cheated idiots. That was the point of the test, the questions were too difficult for 12 year old genin to answer. The fact that Sakura could, however, isn’t bullshit. You wouldn’t call an exceptionally gifted kid who can answer really advanced academic questions “not that smart really, it doesn’t prove anything”. Freaking Sasuke commented on her analytical abilities, she’s an extremely skilled med-nin, she is able to put pieces of information she’s previously learnt together in order to form a present opinion, her hobbies are trivia games and memorizing medical ninjutsu material for God’s sake.

I definitely don’t think comparing her to Hinata achieves anything. Hinata does represent the ideas Kishimoto seems to have about women. She is soft-spoken, she is never confrontational, she never wants to offend anybody. Sure, Hinata also has her insecurities and doesn’t place much value on herself (we have her father to thank for that) but even after getting out of that shell and discovering she has some iron at her core, she is still mostly soft. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s simply who she is as a person and it doesn’t make her better or worse than Sakura. I know that Sakura fans have always been bullied online, from forums to YouTube to tumblr to any other comment section of blogs and stuff, people have always thrown shit at Sakura, saying she’s useless, a whore, an idiot. The amount of times I’ve seen people wish violent, horrible deaths on Sakura (for the sole reason that she didn’t spread her legs for Naruto being the catalyst in pretty much 100% of the cases) is immense. The amount of times I’ve seen people wishing Hinata would kill Sakura “for what she did to Naruto” is huge. So based on this, I understand why Sakura fans feel the need to get defensive. I don’t agree with putting Hinata down but I understand why some people might do it. I’ll never put down someone’s fav (especially when the fav is as unproblematic as Hinata who honestly did nothing wrong) but I definitely understand why some people will do it.

Naruto is a shonen, battle manga. We will never get 100% healthy relationships in this because the manga is not focused on romance. It is why the relationships between Sasuke and Sakura and Naruto and Hinata were not greatly developed and why there was an overemphasis on Naruto and Sasuke’s bond which is basically “we’re forever competing to see who’s better”. Kishimoto based it on his relationship with his brother but I’m pretty sure he took it up to eleven in the manga. Because Naruto is a manga for whom the target audience is boys, female characters will never be 100% appreciated. Most of the boys watching identify with the downtrodden outcast, guys such as Lee or Naruto. It’s a thing, associated with the stereotype of the Western man who watches anime, a stereotype that is proved to be correct in most cases, sadly. How many of these guys think they’re gems, that they’re precious souls to have around and girls just don’t see them for what they are? Both Naruto and Lee are very loved among male fans and they are both rejected by Sakura. (I could also say something about the stereotypes Western anime watching men place on Japanese women, namely “the pliant, submissive wife, who would do house chores all day, would never say no to sex and worship them as the much better versions of Japanese men that they are” but I’m not going there.) Never cruelly though, she remains friendly with both of them. Her bond with Naruto is very strong and they’re actually a pretty rare example of a good male and female friendship (the violence that is played for laughs doesn’t really mean much to me).

However, for the male fans that is never enough. How many times did I see stuff like “She chose Sasuke although Naruto never left the village” or “Naruto did so many things for her yet she still chose Sasuke”. Dude, there was never a competition. Sakura loves Sasuke, plain and simple. You can disagree with that if you want, you can disagree with how she expresses her love for him but there was never competition. Sakura has always loved Sasuke, what she feels for him is true love. Many people don’t believe it exists but it is what it is. I find it funny (and by funny I mean idiotic to the heavens) that people always say her development was crushed because she didn’t give up on Sasuke but Naruto’s was improved by not giving up on Sasuke. This is bias and misogyny at its finest. Sasuke is not just a crush to Sakura. People always want to say Sakura was a fangirl to Sasuke and nothing more and that she simply needed to get over her obsessive crush. She wouldn’t have said all she wanted was for him to acknowledge her if he were just a crush, she wouldn’t have suffered so badly over him. Many of the village girls had a thing for Sasuke and I doubt all of them cried over Sasuke at night after he left. Only Sakura anticipated when he was going to leave. People always say that Sakura maturing would have meant her understanding that her and Sasuke are just not meant to be a thing. The thing is, she wasn’t holding on to the idea that her and Sasuke would be “a thing”. Kakashi made it pretty clear (to Sasuke and to all fans who just can’t get it in their heads) that Sakura only wanted to help him, not to get into his pants.

People are also super quick to judge the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura as abusive. Why though? All the times they were violent towards each other (and there weren’t even that many times) they weren’t dating, they were combatants on opposite sides of battle. There is nobody in this series that Sasuke is more violent towards than Naruto and yet I never see this relationship classified as abusive, instead it is considered romantic and heartfelt that he wanted to sever his bonds with Naruto in order to make a martyr out of himself and be consumed by darkness. Like, yeah, that’s super healthy. I see the same thing being said with Karin, that Sasuke impaled her simply because he wanted to cut all of his bonds, not because he actually wanted to kill her. Which is…stupid to say the least. Like, cool story, still murder. He knew that impaling her would result in killing her but damn, was he willing to make that sacrifice. The reasons why Sasuke wanted to murder the people in his life are not important. In truth, all the murder he wanted to commit was because people were getting in the way of killing Itachi and, after killing Itachi, people were getting in the way of his goal to be completely alone in order to destroy/reform Konoha. Sasuke is not a psychopath who murders for fun but that doesn’t mean he was in a good place.

I shipped Sasuke with Karin but I never saw their bond as overly emotional or true love. I’m not saying Karin doesn’t care about him but I do think her feelings for him are more in the realm of sexual than the romantic. She does care for his well-being, she wants him to be happy, she is impressed by him and wants to be around him but it’s not romantic. Does she suffer when she thinks he’s dead? Naturally. Because she cares about him and she does love him but, again, not romantically. Karin’s sexual feelings for Sasuke are not bad, they don’t make her a whore or whatever. But it’s quite silly in my opinion to mistake them for some sort of pure, true love. They’re not that and it’s fine that they’re not. We see Sakura wanting to be alone with Sasuke but she never thinks of how she’s so excited she can barely stand it and how she wants to “ravage Sasuke like crazy”. We don’t see Sakura’s reaction, upon seeing Sasuke arrive on the battlefield to be “I want to lick Sasuke all over right now”.

People always like to remind everyone that Sakura ended her friendship with Ino over Sasuke. However, we never see Sakura and Ino be hostile to each other. Compare their rivalry to the one between Sasuke and Naruto to understand what I’m saying. They had a mild dislike going on but we see them quickly overcome it in the Chunin Exams. Sakura and Ino never really gave up on their friendship, their rivalry was mostly played for laughs, I never took it seriously because I don’t think it was presented in a way that was saying “you need to take this seriously, this is the real deal”. Mostly because it dealt with who has prettier hair and who can get the seat next to Sasuke first. Nope, not serious.

Back to Hinata, this is the reason why so many of the fanboys prefer her. Look at the opinions Shikamaru, another character the fanboys adore, has about women. He is downright misogynistic but that gets overlooked in fandom time after time because of his 200 IQ. Instead, I see people saying it is Sasuke who hates women when there is no indication of that, except, you know, people who think he’s gay and because he’s gay he MUST hate all women and consider them absolutely gross (except for the, sometimes OC, self-insert in fanfiction). Just like his father, Shikamaru has this thing that women should be sweet, soft and tender not headstrong, demanding and even harsh (women like his mother, Yoshino, Ino, Temari, Tayuya). He hates receiving help from women, he is frustrated when he has to fight women. He sums up his views of women himself by saying “C'mon. You know what they’re like. You can never figure them out. You never know where you could stand with them. The smallest things could put you in their bad side. Always playing little mind games with you. Trying to make you do what they want. They’re just a big pain basically.”

For the most part, many fans linked Sakura to Kushina because of her fiery personality. Minato kinda sealed this comparison when saying Sakura reminded him of Kushina. So a lot of people, while calling Sakura an ugly bitch and a whore who needs to be raped and die, still wanted her for Naruto and believed she will ultimately change her mind and go for Naruto. Personally, I don’t care about that because so many characters in Naruto are carbon copies of people who came before them, enough similarities are enough. This idea that a guy should marry a woman just like his mother is weird for many reasons to me. It’s only men that have unhealthy relationships with their mothers that want a woman exactly like their mothers. Then the ending came so Hinata, being the embodiment of what a woman “should be” became more appropriate for Naruto in the eyes of so many fans. The fact that she fits these patterns doesn’t take away or add to Hinata’s character in any way. It just is. However, fanboys will use it in a sexist way. I definitely don’t agree with the criticism for Hinata that it’s wrong her motivation for becoming strong is Naruto. The motivation of pretty much all characters in becoming stronger is in order to protect others and there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself because you feel that would put you on more equal grounds with the one you love. This manga places great value on the power of unity and community and people who seek power for power’s sake, for revenge or for evil don’t do well. They are either defeated or they change their minds. Great emphasis is placed on the “you only become strong when you have someone you need to protect” mentality. And women are allowed to make connections in this life, they don’t have to live “lone wolf” lives in order to be “truly strong”. Loneliness is an enemy in and of itself in Naruto.

Kishimoto’s views on women are not necessarily progressive but they’re not exactly bad in my opinion. It all has to do with how fanboys twist his ideas and make them bad. Because I don’t think he ever blamed Sakura for not hooking up with Naruto. I know there are people who believe that he’s holding onto the belief that people (and women especially) must forever be with their first love. I think it just so happens that Naruto and Sasuke were Hinata’s and Sakura’s first loves but, more important, they are their true loves. Ino moved on and I see people saying she shouldn’t have. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t I guess. To sum up, I’ve yet to see dislike for Sakura that’s not misogynistic. I’m not even talking about people who think she’s weak. She is the only one who’s not from a clan and yet she managed to surpass Tsunade, a Sannin. She was impaled by Madara and shook it off immediately, she saved Naruto’s, Kankuro’s, Hinata’s and Karin’s lives, she saved Sasuke from an infinte desert, she saved Obito from a sea of acid, she punched an alien all-powerful goddess in the face.

People saying shipping Sakura and Hinata with the guys they’re canonically in love with proves their fans are selfish because they just want them to look cute next to Sasuke and Naruto amuse me. That if you really cared about them you’d ship them with guys who “actually” care about them like Lee or Kiba or whatever. Dude, people love who they love. And a woman has no obligation to be with a man who was friendly and nice to her, not even a man who has a crush on her if she’s not attracted to him or doesn’t love him.

[valeriemperez]

I screenshot these from a forum. What do you think? imgur(.)com/a/VSj3a

This is very eloquently speaking, and I understand all of this person’s points. Which forum is it from?

Can we please still do the WestAllen deserved better tag. I still can’t believe they really pulled that 😭

I’m not the arbiter of trends, promise. I only make the posters and stuff because people ask. If someone wants to do Westallen Deserved Better, I will support and reblog it.

Long ask about WA/OF below, among others:

Part 1: Me again, thanks for answering. I'l probably take a little break from fandom if that’s the only way I can enjoy Barry/Iris being married. do what I gotta do. yk ;) About your other point, in the context of this story at least F is not just a white woman. She’s a Jewish woman, one whose E-X version we saw brutally mistreated. In a story with nzis invading her character (and other jewish characters) should have got more focus, not less.part 2, I was not talking about you when I mentioned the more about x than x stuff, fyi. I think you’ve made your opinion very clear. Was more talking about people who didn’t say/retweet anything (which has so many possible reasons depending on comfort level so I don'blame anyone for not saying anything) but then I see them fire off post after post about this dw like it’s the worst thing in the world, and that does make me shake my head because the comparison of the responses.part 3, Yes, as a black woman Iris should have gotten her say, but a jewish character getting her say and story this crossover was very important to me. Her romance getting focus felt correct in a story with invading nzis. I feel like part of this crossover has really shown how insensitive some people are with regards to antisemitism and see other issues as more important. (me talking generally again, not about you!)Part 4 (fandom general stuff, not wa fandom:) Then there’s people joking about how nzi version Ollie and Kara r still a better couple than K*ramel (which I don’t ship, but come on). Apparently there’s also a ‘funny’ twitter poll about which is worse, OF or nzis, and some r voting for OF. idk who made it, only saw a post about it. That’s vile. We can care about more than 1 thing, yes, but i'v come to to point of shaking my head when I see yet another wa was wronged and its the worst thing evapostpart 5/ sorry for dumping all this on you! It’s one thing when we fight hate for WA/Iris together, but when you’re kind of disappointed in your own fandom it’s hard to give your feelings a place. Crossover aside, I suppose I expected more from people. It was kinda self absorbed decision, but is that a reason to trash the entire character? Sounds too much like how people scream Iris needs to die if she has 1 episode they don’t like her in.part 6/ almost done, promise. The way I see it, there are WA fans that are upset (which I get) and then there are people who hate f and/or of and are using this to hate them more. I can support the former (to a point), but not the latter. Barring some overlap, those people don’t care about WA/Iris and will drop them as soon as they can’t use them anymore (which is exactly what happened last season when they thought OF wasn’t happening anymore).Part 7/ final part! And what gets me is I’ve seen people being immediately super hostile to some of the same of fans that have been defending Iris in the vile stuff that went down against her this season because they understood it with F. (not trying to paint them as saints, bec oh boy are there mean people in their fandom, jikes) but..yk what I’ll stop because I can never fully explain how it makes me feel. Thanks for listening :)

Yeah, fandom can make things worse for you as an individual instead of better a lot of times, so I totally get stepping back. And I agree that it makes sense for Felicity as a Jewish woman to have a central story when the villains are Nzis.

I’m glad the crossover worked for you on that front, and I agree that plenty of people don’t see antisemitism as serious because it’s not something they’ve ever experienced or witnessed. 

And, yes, joking about Nzis or OF being worse than them is fucking gross. The account that made that poll is an Arrow fandom troll who has been around for years: @LoveOverwatch on Twtter, btw. Steer clear of them.

I also totally understand what you’re saying about some people aligning themselves with garbage misogynists who have already shat on Iris and will continue to do so next week, just because they’re shitting on a different woman this week. That’s why I try to avoid publicly airing out my hatred of any female character, no matter how much I may dislike her. I never know how much of it is rooted is misogyny or the “there can only be one” mentality, and I don’t want to give a voice to those people.

I am not sure which fans from their fandom have defended Iris from vile stuff, but I trust there are some.

I believe the Flash show was used for ratings. Nearly every character got to shine on their own respective shows, but Barry barely got a few lines in his. I’m glad that Queen Iris got to kick some ass. But the writing for her on Error was OOC to an extent. Now I know what happens when Iris crosses over. I’d rather she stays on the Flash where she gets some respect.

You’re not wrong.

ugh, imagine cheering on some of the same people who treat Iris like trash just because this time it’s directed at something else. smh (not you!)

Yeah, I’m not here for that. I know those POS will be back at it again the second Iris breathes too loudly for their comfort.

Will Barry and Iris ever get a dance scene? The most basic stuff they don’t get. I won’t even ask about a love scene. I question the reasoning behind it all.

There’s definitely a reason to question it, and I hope you direct some of those questions to @gberlanti @flashtvwriters etc.

[tangledfan]

70 horrible questions … I’m bored and my tumblr messages won’t work

01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents? Not at all, unfortunately.. I always wanted a healthy relationship with them. Things haven’t worked out but I’m ok about it now

02: Who did you last say “I love you” to? My best friends… Rosie and Rosie ahha. One is my cat and the other is a human being haha!!

03: Do you regret anything? I have a lot of regrets, I think regret is one of the worst feelings but.. I guess I wouldn’t be exactly what I am now without those choices I made back then- good and bad.

04: Are you insecure? I have my days if I’m honest.. but I’d say I love my mind and I love my personality and there are times I question my physical beauty but that’s nothing to do with me, that’s what society tries to push as beautiful. As a whole I love myself and you should love yourself too and give yourself what you deserve..

05: What is your relationship status? Relationship?? What is that??

06: How do you want to die? Oh wow, dramatically where no one else is hurt lmfao. If I’m going to be remembered let it be from choking on a sandwich.

07: What did you last eat? Rice and a cookie🔥😂

08: Played any sports? OMG a few years back I literally played every sport under the sun, Football, netball, rounders, tennis, athletics, dance, swimming, baseball, rugby… but yknow life hit love and then I died

09: Do you bite your nails? No I don’t! When I was 13 I did kind of but I mean I don’t ever do it now

10: When was your last physical fight? I don’t do physical fights but 6 years ago lol (me and my sister were arguing over food I think)

11: Do you like someone? Ugh… I don’t even really know what it feels like to like someone.. No one sticks around long enough for me to develop emotional and mental connection (For me that’s so important)

12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours? Oh my gawd yes and you know what? I’m either really hyper because I’m so tired or I’m the biggest bore ever, there is no middle.

13: Do you hate anyone at the moment? All I’m going to say is.. this person is trash who shits on good people because they are bored with their own life. SORRY BUT I HATE BULLYING IN ANY FORM. Do I hate her? I don’t know.. do I have little respect for her? Yes.

14: Do you miss someone? I miss a lot of people, for different reasons. I miss my childhood best friend. I miss my all my ex’s who decided it wasn’t worth being friends with me.. do you know why? Because these people shaped me, I still think they are good people. I’d still invest time into them. I don’t just miss the memories, I miss the friendship.

15: Have any pets? A few! But only 3 that I could truly class as my pets, my best friends. Smokey my hamster (I miss you buddy, I miss carrying you on my shoulder and sharing cucumber with you while I watched Lizzie McGuire. I will always love you, you made me such a happy 10 year old, you were my first proper pet and I just loved you so much, you were my best friend and I was so weird with you) Spot my rabbit (ah you were so fluffy and cute and so bad, like you broke everyone’s things because I REFUSED to put you in a cage lol. I liked having you hop around and be a asshole to everyone but you were only ever nice to me. I love you and I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you when you needed me, I regretted going to school that day, I came home and cried.. I didn’t know what death meant until then) Lastly Rosie… wow you are my child. I would protect you from everything and anything. I look at you and want to cry sometimes because your eyes are so expressive. You don’t need to talk because I feel you bro, I feel your presence and you know exactly when I need to have you around. When I can’t sleep in the night and you make sure I can hear you purring. I have spent the last 3 years revolving my life for you and everyone thinks I’m crazy mad for loving you so much because you are unfriendly- truth is, you are just friendly with me haha, I like the loyalty in you cat.. even when I don’t feed you, I’m still your mom. You came in my life just when I needed you and honestly it wasn’t a coincidence how I got you. You fixed a part in me that was slowly dying, my will to carry on.. it was nice to speak to someone who wouldn’t just tell me to “stop being silly” partly cause you couldn’t communicate with me 😉 but y'know you are my absolute best friend, I love you more than I ever have any human, no one comes close and thank you for helping my get back on the right path through my mental health and my bad habits.. knowing I had you to look after made me stop being selfish. (I had to write this shit out because I really love my animals deeply, they have been there for me when humans couldn’t.)

16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment? Lucky, passionate and yet somewhat disappointed.

17: Ever made out in the bathroom? It was the best kiss I have ever had. Fire works. It was the kiss that mattered but didn’t last lmfao and it happened in a fucking bathroom and I’m so pressed over that 😂

18: Are you scared of spiders? I’m sorry for being scared of you spiders but I’d never hurt you

19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? YES!! I want to look into history but also my own history. I want to maybe see myself from a distant.. to know what others see.

20: Where was the last place you snogged someone? In the middle of no where while the moon was high in the sky and your dimples were just about visible and I knew I had to kiss you then as you passionately spoke about music. You were such a puppy, man it was a good time but we are just friends now.

21: What are your plans for this weekend? Record- hopefully! Going to spend time with my best friend and her girlfriend yay! (Mom and dad TBH) Maybe if I have time I’ll do some writing and reading :)

22: Do you want to have kids? How many? It depends on my resources! I find it hard to share love out equally though and I wouldn’t want anyone I love to think I love one more than the other due to the attention I give. I’m game for however many. I have no set amount.. I kind of want a big family. I want to adopt as well! If the feelings right and mutual.

23: Do you have piercings? How many? Just ear piercings! Used to have my lips and nose done.. that being said I want my nose ring back but it’s difficult I want to work at Disneyland and I hate taking out studs and nose rings.

24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)? Drama, music, English, Art, Maths, History and PE!

25: Do you miss anyone from your past? Practically everyone. I have at least one thought of you a day.

26: What are you craving right now? Chocolate anything😍

27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart? unfortunately yes.. but we are all very good friends now, in fact we are soulmates but in the platonic sense.

28: Have you ever been cheated on? Yes but it’s ok, we are soooo past that. I made terrible mistakes to begin with. Having gone through that.. I now realise how damaging cheating truly is haha! I needed it however to know what it felt like and how bad it truly was. Just because I don’t feel as deeply as the other doesn’t mean I should be irresponsible with someone’s feelings.

29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry? Good and bad tears, for all my past lovers that I hurt, I’m awful sorry, I was childish and unready to fully open up.

30: What’s irritating you right now? My eagerness to explore the past… I should leave it there and focus on the future. TRUMP. BREXIT. Dramatic fandoms.. it was fine to a certain point until y'all say horrible shit about eachother and drag down other humans who btw have feelings regardless of how many people look up to them, your comments still fucking hurt.

31: Does somebody love you? Yes someone loves me

32: What is your favourite color? I love all colours but dark purple and baby blue, pink and the shade black 😂

33: Do you have trust issues? I wish I didn’t but yes… It’s quite bad.

34: Who/what was your last dream about? Weird dream but I fell asleep reading a fan fic so it was to do with that. Gotta love the fluffy cuteness.

35: Who was the last person you cried in front of? Myself, I like to watch myself cry in the mirror lol (don’t ask me why, I’m a freak lol)

36: Do you give out second chances too easily? Those that know me think I do because I’m civil and don’t like to argue but nah, trust issues. I hate that about myself.

37: Is it easier to forgive or forget? Forgive. I forget nothing.

38: Is this year the best year of your life? No.

39: How old were you when you had your first kiss? 6? Maybe 7? Proper kiss however was at 10!

40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked? Yes and it was liberating

51: Favourite food? Mmmm… that’s so hard😔😭 I love all food if I’m honest. I do love the taste of delusions tho lmfao #Camren

52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? Mmmm… not everything but in a way sometimes….I guess yes.

53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night? Read a book and cuddled with Rosie (my equal, my baby cattttt).❤️

54: Is cheating ever okay? No. I’ve made mistakes and it’s not worth it hurting someone like that EVER.

55: Are you mean? Honestly I’d say I’m the complete opposite of mean.

56: How many people have you fist fought? Two, I don’t promote violence lol but yeah that happened (with siblings)

57: Do you believe in true love? Yes. I absolutely believe in true love but you have to accept the idea of it and be ready for it. Both of you do.

58: Favourite weather? I like all weather rain, sun, wind… but of lately I’ve just loved walking in the rain.

59: Do you like the snow? I love the snow!!! When the snow is fresh and everything looks beautiful and new.

60: Do you wanna get married? Eventually, yes. Once I know.. it will be magical and painful but worth it.

61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby? I don’t mind it :)

62: What makes you happy? Freedom, laughter, kindness, deep conversations, music… passion.

63: Would you change your name? Yes, yes, yes.

64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? No they have soft lips and we are good friends, affection is best haha!

65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? I’d make sure they were OK and make them see that our friendship is worth more than a relationship between us could ever be.. plus I’m 99.9% gay

66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around? Most of them :) I have a different array of personalities depending on the person and situation, I have 1 friend however who knows everything about me and she is my soulmate in every single way. I love her just as deeply as I love my cat. I’d do almost anything for them.

67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to? Dave who is saved as “caMEEEEELAAA” on my phone lmfao, I love when he rings me because it’s like “Camila is calling you” and I’m like “AYYYEEE SON DAMM RIGHT SHE IS”

68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? Lauren’s lover @goodgirlsbettergetbad (p.s thanks for the kind words.. I needed them💜) and my best friend Rosie who lives miles away😭 which by the way really freaking sucks, it's hard when we both work to get a hold of one another but I never fear for our friendship, she'll always be in my life plus we had a wonderful talk last night, voice of reason always. Also another best friend of mine @let-me-make-this-queer thank you for being there. Thank you for letting me annoyingly hug you all the time! @invisibleandmagicaalthank you for just being so kind and messaging me while I was sad and listening to me in the nights!

69: Do you believe in soulmates? Oh my goodness yes. I think you have more than 1 soulmate and I don’t always think it’s romantic btw. It’s beautiful when you click mentally and emotionally with someone it can be platonic but it’s a great feeling. Twin flames tho…. ah my heart races.

70: Is there anyone you would die for? Yes. I’d die for most, it depends on circumstance.

[kirkwallgirlesque]

Finally got some of these Shoker / ME3 Control Ending feels onto paper, and to go with an old scribble (included), too! Whee! The joy of fairly open endings is that you can do a lot of things with them afterwards. xD Also wow it feels so very weird to write for a different fandom than what you’re used to...? what are voices? I have no idea.

Angst with an eventually happy ending, control ending, fluffy memories, *author has a crisis about keys*, mention of bad dentist experiences and hangover; alcohol mention. Also obviously discussion of death.

Notes feat. credits (one), my brand new Key Headcanon, and some discussion about the Citadel and the condition of the apartment at the end. :D

As usual, I’ve read this about a million times but still there are bound to be oopsies there. xD I’ll weed them out when I notice them haha!

UNDERTONES (part 1/2)

Joker had to stop at the door to Shepard’s – Anderson’s - apartment because the sucking black hole inside his chest swelled with every step he took and became so heavy that it was hard to breathe. He didn’t know if he’d be able to bear the empty apartment, but EDI seemed to think that it would be a good idea to visit the memories in the apartment even if it did hurt, and pick up any of Shepard’s personal belongings that were still there, as well as check whatever it was that she wanted to check on the terminal, Joker wasn’t sure. Maybe clean up a little if the place all a mess. In fact, she’d suggested it. “I believe it would be beneficial for healing,” she’d said.

“You know what? I think I forgot the key—“, Joker tried, turning on his heel, patting his pockets to hide how badly his hands were shaking. A single look from EDI told him she wasn’t buying it.

“You didn’t. You checked four times after leaving the Normandy,” EDI said, and her deadpan was flawless, as usual. “You put it in the bottle of painkillers in your pocket just to be sure.”

Joker sighed and let his shoulders slump.

“All right, you don’t have to rub it in,” he said, and turned back to the door, rubbing his arms. “Look, I just don’t know if I can do this.”

“Jeff, you said yourself that you might as well do this now if you ever wanted to come back because delaying would not make it any easier, and I quote: just ripping the band-aid off in one go is supposed to be better anyway. I can play the recording for you if you wish.”

“Oh, har har, very clever. But all right, you’re right... Thanks.” Joker sighed again, clenched his jaw, and then fished out the key. She was right. He did want to go back, and he would have already turned away without EDI there to gently kick him to it. He shook himself a couple times, and then took a deep breath and ripped the band-aid, half-expecting the lock mechanism to be broken; it would have been just his luck. But no - the key whirred inside the lock as the programming kicked in, and the bolts disengaged. Band-aid gone. One of them anyway.

Shepard would have said it’s better to pull the tooth out in one go instead of fucking pecking at it a for half an hour, he thought, and the thought made him first almost laugh and then almost cry. It came out as a shaky breath. He was pretty sure the words were based on personal experience, but Shepard -

(just shudders and sinks deeper into the tangle of blankets, pulls joker closer and stalls getting up a little longer – so much for throwing the warm blankets off quickly and facing the day and the aftermath of the party head-on)

- had never volunteered the full story.

Stepping into the apartment didn’t feel as much like a punch in the gut as he’d imagined over and over and over when he couldn’t sleep at night. Instead of ruin and devastation from his worst nightmares it surrounded him with an empty hush, and left him feeling shaken and out of place even though really the place was mostly just as he remembered it, just... eerier. His footsteps echoed too loudly in the silence.

The last time he’d walked through the living room there had been a fire crackling in the living room fireplace, beaty music playing, people and laughter everywhere, and Shepard had been there in the middle of it all, laughing and smiling –

(and revealing his teeth in a crooked smirk that makes joker’s heart skip beats. come on, you have to dance! the coffee table is not going anywhere so don’t try to pull that one on me again! come ooooon, I want you to dance with me. are you going to make me beg because I’ll do it--)

- in his stupid yellow top that was too short for him, stealing chips and grapes from other people’s plates. Now the whole apartment was just lifeless and empty; even the waterfall had been turned off. The signs of life were still there – there were the empty bottles from the party still in the kitchen, some shattered on the floor but some still standing and waiting by some miracle to be either trashed or recycled; a few forgotten hair ties thrown on the coffee table along with a scattered deck of cards that had been drunk doodled on and thus ruined; a towel thrown on the back of a chair to dry. If it hadn’t been for the antique shop quiet, it would have been so easy to imagine Shepard appearing from behind a corner-

(loose-limbed, face washed, hair a soft mess from sleep, a mug of tea in each hand. he is wearing the same teasing smirk from last night, only this time it’s because joker has a hangover even after saying he would stay away from the drinks, and not because he joker to get up so they can dance with edi and be silly in the middle of the living room. joker would sooner drink coffee but takes the offered cup anyway, and then scoots sideways when shepard kicks his ankle softly with bare toes and moves to squeeze himself into the corner of the couch – not the other corner where there is plenty of space, but his corner)

- and that nearly squeezed the air out of Joker; the image was so vivid and so sudden. He leaned heavily against the counter between the kitchen and the living room and curled around his aching chest, bowed his head in a way that might have made the cap hide his tears if they hadn’t tap-tap-tapped right onto the polished surface. He pressed the back of his hand against his mouth and tried not to sob.

“Man, if this is what the Drell feel like all the time, I do not envy them. This feels a lot like pulling a tooth very slowly,” he managed shakily after a couple of breaths and false starts, but EDI had wandered deeper into the apartment in search of whatever it was she had meant to pick up, and if she heard him, she made no reply.

“There is an incoming call on the line to the apartment,” she announced instead, and Joker made an annoyed sound, blinking more tears from his eyes. “Shall I connect it?”

“No,” Joker said grumpily and followed EDI’s voice into the study where she sat in front of the terminal, legs crossed. She had an odd expression on her face when she turned to look at him. “How the hell do you even answer a call to a dead person’s apartment? They don’t teach that anywhere. And who the hell even would call this place now, hasn’t the line been disconnected? A telemarketer selling one of those sock subscriptions? Do the lines even work anymore? The whole Citadel was pretty fucked after the war and they haven’t even managed to restore the more important bits completely yet.”

“I cannot verify the source of the call exactly, but it seems to be coming from somewhere within the Citadel. It seems… important.”

Joker stared at her, but when she offered no further explanation, he threw his hands into the air half-heartedly, shaking his head.

“Well that wasn’t cryptic and slightly ominous. What the heck, let’s do it. Go on, EDI.” And then, to the caller when the line connected: “Hello, this is Admiral Anderson’s apartment, Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau speaking.” He almost laughed. The greeting sounded absurd even in his own ears.

“JOKER”, boomed a voice through the voice system, and all the hair on Joker’s body stood up in an unpleasant start. He took a couple of slow steps backwards and more slumped than sat down into a convenient chair. His mouth had gone completely dry and his heart was hammering so hard it almost hurt. 

The multi-layered harmonics of the voice were horrifyingly familiar – the deep, rumbling voice made the glassware in the kitchen ring and small items rattle and skitter across surfaces in the apartment. EDI only squinted curiously at the terminal, fired off a quick message, and then smiled when a replying message’s beep arrived immediately. Joker was too shocked and too wired up to pay attention.

“What the shit,” he hissed, dragging his hands over his face  and covering his mouth. The Reapers just stopping after whatever Shepard had done and leaving had been too good to be true, hadn’t it? “Shit, shit, shit-“

“JOKER”, the voice repeated, but with less rumble this time. “PLEASE JUST for once bE COOL and shut up and LISTEN. I KNOw I’m nOT EXACTLY... me anymore, not the same as before, but...  we need to talk.” It sounded almost like the voice was looking for a frequency, wavering between a Reaper’s rumble and something quieter, somethng more… human, in the lack of a better word, and underneath it all there was a constant undertone coming through clearer and clearer that sounded like-

(magpies, or some other bird like that, hoarse and raspy and always a little amused)

“Damir?” Joker breathed, turning his eyes to EDI. Now he could see her knowing smile.

“YES,” said the voice. “Yes.”

end of part 1.

note 1: this fic was largely inspired by a line in a chat from a while ago with @losebetter because it just was very perfect. I just tag you into everything these days sorry but you are somehow inspiring like half of this stuff nowadays or pulling me into new & exciting fandoms. xD Here it’s because I borrowed AI Shepard’s line from that chat. Not word for word, but still. ^u^ Close enough!

note 2: So I had a moment of jaw-dropping epiphany when i was writing this where I suddenly went ‘WAIT WAIT. ARE KEYS EVEN A THING ANYMORE.” I'm gonna make up a headcanon that because humans are sentimental about stuff they could have these kind of. novelty locks and manual that act a lot like normal keys would but in truth aren't very different from an omni-tool activated lock, so there IS programming in work when you actually use the key. Like especially on human colonies or old buildings on Earth, and maybe especially especially if you're rich and have a fancy schmancy place because it's custom work and installing a system like that to an antique door is like. super craftsmanship. They're more inconvenient because you have to actually have the key with you but it's uh. vintage. xD Maybe there's a way to override it with the omni-tool if you forget the key though because otherwise you'd be screwed if you really lost the key. that is my key headcanon now’

note 3: I actually have no idea how badly the Citadel is supposed to be damaged in the end if you take the Control ending...? It’s not supposed to fry the systems, but that much power may have still done a number on some of the non-reaper systems especially and fried some things. Maybe the whole debackle might have shaken places a bit, maybe some places are worse than others, maybe some places are completely and utterly FUBAR. Corpses we know there are everywhere and clean-up will take a while even with huge efforts put into it. :c I’m kind of. going for a best case scenario here and saying the apartment is mostly okay. xD

note 4. as I’ll probably repeat in part 2, EDI absolutely knew something was up from the moment they docked on the Citadel and connected with what systems worked there again. xD

[thecarelessmint]

Dear Me,

Its been a while. It’s been a little over a year and things have changed, 

How am I? I’ve changed, I’m colder, I’m much more closed off, I cry a lot, I’m still hypersensitive but I don’t think that’s going anywhere.

I have some good news though, that horrible thing we went through, depersonalization, it’s gone. 

I wrote the first dear me in August before drama camp, which I was unfortunately depersonalized for, but coming September, it was gone. I don’t know if it was the familiar atmosphere of being back in school and being consistently surrounded my people and emotions, but it left.  

That following winter, S.A.D wasn’t all that bad either, it was definitely there but it wasn’t the worst it’s been. 

It’s easy to say that last July (2016), was the worst month of my life, I had never been so lost in my 15 years of living (at the time, and yes I’ve accepted my real age and since it’s just between me and you, I’m using it), it was also one of the most alone I had ever felt. 

Mental Health wise: I think I suffer from anxiety, I say suffer because truly I’m suffering. 

Recently, the family and myself went to Seattle and Phoenix. It was probably the most anxiety ridden I had ever been.

Everything made me angry, I snapped at every single minor inconvenience, and I just wanted to be left alone, I still do, I just want to be alone. 

Being with other people has caused me a lot of issues, I love being with people and conversing, but I’d rather just stay alone, it causes less to worry about, no more stress about being home on time, how I’m going to get home, remembering to have fun. 

I guess a lot of it has to do with how I was raised, going out was much harder than simply staying home, having to ask for permission to simply see my friends outside an adult controlled environment and knowing that I was going to be turned down the offer was given me too much anxiety over making plans that I usually just bail out on them.

This makes me feel extremely guilty because I genuinely like the people, but I JUST CAN’T LEAVE THE HOUSE. 

Going out itself is a hassle, the pressure to consistently be happy during the few hours you spend with another person in order to leave it a happy memory shouldn’t be as hard as it is. 

On a happier note, reading last year’s ‘Dear Me’, I can say the love for myself has only grown, I love me, so much! I love my quirks and the stupid things I do. I love how I completely bop out to a song and then realize how stupid I look but keep going. I love that I’m in love with myself. I raked myself through the mud with hate but here I am treating myself with gentle care. 

Removing myself from situations that make me upset, feeding myself regardless of how late it is because I’m hungry and who cares about weight. Wearing whatever I feel happy in, (like that pompom hair piece from F21) understanding that I am probably the weirdest person to have walked this Earth but also I’m cute as heck. I’m trying my /best/ to stay hydrated but I don’t even have a water bottle so ya girl is struggling. 

I’m slowly improving myself and paying more attention to how I react to things. I’ve become really picky with what I eat after I puked for 12 hours that one day in March, it was fucking shit, I deadass have a fear of puking now. It hurts.

I’m still hella into space and deep sea, I went to the aquarium in Phoenix and cried cause I love the sea. The entire family went, but as much as I was having fun, as soon as I found out that everyone else found it boring, the entire experience was ruined, I was more or less upset the rest of the day, do you see the problem? Stuff like this shouldn’t happen, it was an amazing experience but whenever I think back, all I can feel is this heavy weight because of how sad I felt that I was basically dragging them around but also because we left really early. Man, I really wanted to stay but it was 1 against so 5, so who was I to make them stay. 

Anime is still a huge part of my life, Naruto ended and I’m /hurt/. Yuri On Ice came out that November-December and honestly, what a life changing show, it was so gay, and canon. I miss, I can’t wait for season 2. I watched Kimi No Na Wa (a movie) and truly what a beautiful movie, that’s all I can say, visually it’s stunning. The characters are amazing but can I remember their names? Nope. 

Remember how we saw that ad for Goblin on Facebook and had it bookmarked for weeks but never watched it. WELL, LET ME TELL YOU (sit down this is going to take a while). So, because I watched anime and it was in another language, why couldn’t I give Kdramas a try, LITTLE DID I KNOW. I never ended up watching Goblin on my own. 

Months passed and it was around February when I started getting into Korean girl groups, that’s right, Kpop. Oh My Girl was too cute for me to ignore so I stanned them (YooA and Binnie, my kids), time passed and I couldn’t quite get into their music, so I just stopped. I stayed away from the boy groups because of the drama that came along with them (a misteak). 

Even more time passed, Patty recommended a Kdrama called Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, LIFE CHANGING, REVOLUTIONARY, THE PUREST! I watched 11 hours worth of it in one day, sleep who? Needless to say I loved it, I loved every single character, Nam Joo Hyuk could kill me and I’d say thanks.

On April 15th, 2017, (that fateful day) I watched Unfair - EXO for the first time and my life was changed, Kim Jongdae stole my heart. This was bad though, it was towards the middle of the second semester, I didn’t have time for this, but did I care? No. Sleep became foreign to me, I needed to catch up on the 5 years I missed. I somehow graduated. 

My bias list is a mess, it ranges from Jongdae, Minseok, Kyungsoo, BBH, Junmeyon, Sehun, Jongin, Yixing and PCY, oh would you look at that, it’s the entire group, ha AHAHAHHAHAHAHAH, let me live. 

It only got worse from there, I watched hella Kdramas but did I ever finish them? No. Why? I truly don’t know. 

As soon as it gets angsty and yeet out so fast, I can’t handle angst, I don’t like sad things, my life’s already a mess, I came here for a good time. 

If you’re reading this a year later and still haven’t finished The Entertainer I will come to the future and fight you, fucking finish it, I understand you’ll cry, we’re the same person, but finish it! It deserves better than this, you’re deadass on the last episode you hoe, (love you). 

Also finish My Shy Boss, but I feel like you’ll have that one done, it’s harder to watch but it hurts less. It makes sense, I know what I mean.

Moving on, you see I was avoiding BTS like the plague, their fandom is terrifying and there was too much going on, I was safe and happy with EXO (featuring NCT127), I was proud of them for their Billboard Award, like yes you did that congrats, but that was all. 

Fast forward to me just chilling and deciding to finally give them a try, I turned to their MV’s, Spring Day was cute and I got it stuck in my head a lot, Fire was too much and I instantly closed the tab. I wanted to see my sister’s reaction to Fire and she liked them. I was confused, my sister hates KPOP (bc of me), so I delved in, did my research trying to find out who was who, this was where it started. 

I knew, I knew, I had no chance, it was over. My first bias was that bastard Jeon Jungkook, at this time, I always forgot Suga, Jimin and Rap Monster looked too similar to me (forgive me, I was young) V? Jhope? Jin? 

I got better with names, but EXO was still #1 for me, what changed all of this was RUN BTS. I was watching it the same time I was watching EXO - Showtime, but slowly stopped watching Showtime, to Y’know, ‘savour it’, (I wasn’t going to admit to myself that I liked another group more.

Run BTS helped with recognition and learning about their character, this is where it went wrong, these idiots are extremely lovable so I fell in head first. I quickly learned I was Min Yoongi and Park Jimin trash, only later did I find out their was a ship for them (we aren’t gonna talk about this, you already now). 

I could talk for days about Jimin, I remember I would cry every time I saw photos of him because HE WAS TOO MUCH FOR ME. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD I CRIED WHEN I LATER FOUND OUT THE SHIT THAT HE WENT THROUGH AND IS STILL GOING THROUGH ABOUT HIS WEIGHT AND HIS IMAGE, HE DESERVES SO MUCH FUCKING BETTER. 

AND FUCKING AGUST D OVER THERE, THAT CINNAMON ROLL’S STORY HURT ME, I haven’t listened to the mix tape yet (It’s a year old now) because I need to recover from simply knowing that he went through that. 

I am Bangtan SonyeonDONE WITH THIS GROUP. I have this odd love for them, and I couldn’t tell you why. If this is a phase, this is the best damn phase of my life, I was miserable in the One Direction fandom, everyone was fighting, but the KPOP fandom, still filled with fan wars, is too funny. The memes are why I stay, music? what music? 

(I hope you still listen to the evening acoustic playlist on Spotify, it got me through the States trip.))

I’m gonna continue talking about BTS because I just need to let all this out, I might not do a whole paragraph on each member but don’t fight me on this alright. 

Kim Namjoon,  the good lord, the savior, the leader of Bangtan, the one I want to meet most. I feel so many feelings for this man, I just want to go to a coffee shop and talk about life. I watch his vlives when looking for comfort because HE GETS IT! He thinks the things I thought only I did and never speak about because they’re ‘not normal’. I see him less as this celebrity and more as a friend, and I know how cringey and all that this is but listen, hear me out, I’ve only ever wanted to meet two celebrities in my life and they are Misha Collins and now Joon, and that’s on the sole fact that I feel I can talk to them, just talk.

This is not to say I wouldn’t want to meet the rest of Bangtan, I love them all, heck Jimin is my bias, but there’s something about Namjoon I can’t put my finger on. 

(Also this is hella long compared to last year’s and I’m not sorry, It’s been a whole year soooo.)

Moving on from Kpop, relationships in my life. 

Maria - we talk on snapchat, we met up at the Mac grad, its causal. 

Bruno - best friend, love of my life, my boyfriend, he doesn’t judge me and gives me my space, love this kid.

Patty - my kid! we talk everyday and we’re about to hit 100 on snapchat, planning a trip to Tokyo and Seoul. 

Tanika - madre, I love:), she’s leaving Edmonton in January though, and that’s honestly just hella sad

Erika - baby buhler who’s also my mom, the most accepting, i love her so much, i appreciate so much 

Danait - my kid pt.2, always listens to me rant about kpop, became a BTS fan 

Blake - i’m only adding him because he’s comfortable, a smiley baby 

Yadiel - A SMILEY BABY, i love him :(

Dead Relationships:

Talia - I’m burning this one to the ground, it was fucking ridiculous, her mom messaged me like ???, 10/10 glad I ended it. 

Lucas - can fucking suck my ass, I hate this kid so much, why did I let this drag on for so long 

That entire girl group - I don’t know man, it’s really weird but I can’t stay friends with them, Igtg 

Jordan - we stopped talking because I’m gr8 at talking 

That’s all for that.

I love myself, I love you, I love my friends, we’re starting uni !!

We got accepted into the UofA & Macewan, (going to macewan though)

I hope you survive! I honestly don’t know how you’re going to do this, but you got this !! I believe in you !

(Stand Talent, Stan Beyond The Scene (I still love EXO very much)) 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #382

“’cuz if i stand up, i’ll break my bones, and everybody loves to see a fall unfold”

Ever had a friend online for a long time without seeing a photo of them? Well yeah. Most of my friends are online, and while I've seen pictures of most at least once or twice, some I still haven't. The last time you threw up, what caused it? It was a side effect of a mood stabilizer I started. Any foods from other countries you would like to try but haven’t yet? I'm sure there's something, idk. Do you think the world would be more peaceful without any religion? Yes. Have you ever had a stalker? No. Does it hurt your feelings when people talk shit about things you love? It makes me self-conscious way more than anything. I start to obsess over whether or not the person things poorly or weirdly of me for liking what I like. I just feel judged for liking it, but that's my problem. Do you like it when people give you nicknames? I do, actually. It feels kinda affectionate to me. Do you often find yourself checking out people’s butts? Haha I'm not gonna say it's never happened, but it's not something I make a habit out of for sure. What fandoms are you in? MEERKAT MANOR IS BACK BAYBEEEE, Markiplier, Silent Hill, Shadow of the Colossus, World of Warcraft, Spyro, Wings of Fire, and lots more, honestly. I'm into a lot of stuff, and I don't love in moderation, haha. Are there any fandoms you used to be in, but left? Yeah, like Supernatural, Good Mythical Morning, or Warriors, but it wasn't out of "I don't like it anymore" or anything, I just drifted away. Anything the fans in your fandoms do that pisses you off? World of Warcraft if particular has one of the most toxic fucking fanbases. There are so many goddamn elitists and people who whine about "boohoo WoW is dying" and "omg this game has been trash since Wrath" and yada yada yada and it's annoying as hell. They always find some shit to complain about. Then Silent Hill... ugh. I think people just hop onto the "the series sux after 1-4" bandwagon to fit in with a certain crowd, but that's not the main thing that annoys me; rather, it's the fact the former main admin of the SH wiki made a fucking joke out of us there. He was clearly having personal issues and made a HUGE and utterly ridiculous deal of Silent Hill 4 having heavy symbolism to the main character being obsessed with the bullshit idea of him being circumcised, and it led to a maaaassive thread of us members trying to talk some damn sense into him as he abused his power. He was finally banned by the Wikia staff, but not in time for some gaming websites to publish "news" stories about it because it was just that ludicrous. Now, YEARS later, we still get trolls coming onto the site to try and revive the drama by inserting absolute rubbish into pages or making new ones. Nowadays I'm the main administrator there, and it's fucking embarrassing sometimes. I'm supposed to keep the wiki under control and respected, you know? Ugh, I'll stop. I could rant for a very long time about this. Do you prefer ruffly or regular potato chips? Ruffly. Do you write down your own recipes, or just commit them to memory? I don’t cook. What color do you want to dye your hair? My top three are pastel pink, lilac, and a light creamsicle orange. I REALLY want to dye it SOMETHING. :( How do you like your chicken? Of course breaded (like nuggets, tenders) is my favorite, but I also enjoy is broiled and seasoned well. There's other ways, but because I don't cook, I, uh... don't know how a lot are made lmao. Do you enjoy cheese fries? UUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHH YES. Do you eat refried beans? I absolutely hate beans, so no. What is a food you enjoy, but don’t have very often? A whole lot because a lot of it is from restaurants and we don't eat out all that much. As well, my diet is very narrow just because of how picky I am. Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn? Why? I mean, what are we comparing them for? I think Audrey is fucking gorgeous, though. Marilyn is also beautiful. Favorite fictional world? Uh, I dunno. Do you use lint rollers often? No. Do you carry pepper spray? No, but I want to. Has your power ever gone out for more than a day? I think so. Other than a dislike button, what’s something you wish Facebook had? Hm, I dunno. What time do your parents normally get home from work? Mom can't work right now, but I think Dad gets off around 5PM. Are you afraid to ask people out on dates? Yep. Do you think it’s better to look for love or let it find you? Both can work, but I definitely prefer to let it find me. I feel that *in general* that usually has better results. Have you ever found yourself worrying about commitment? No. I'm a very committed person romantically. Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already? No. Have you ever had a rash from poison ivy? I don't believe so, no. Do you have any chairs in your bedroom? No. Did you watch Elmo as a child? Some, yeah. Do you know anyone who doesn’t eat meat? I don't think so, off the top of my head. When you throw up, do you cry? No, but I'm a whiner and will also shake from fear because I have such a phobia of vomiting. Doing it totally turns me into a baby. Who was the last person to carry you? I couldn't tell you the last person to full-on carry me, but back when I tore a ligament in my foot, my mom kinda had me lifted when she would help me walk. Is it easy for you to accept loss? Absolutely not. I handle it very, very poorly. Have you done anything sneaky lately? No. Have you ever had a rolling back pack? Yes. Who knows you better than anyone else? My mom, probably. Would you ever want to go to Brazil? Sure, if the opportunity came up. Are there any medical conditions that run in your family? A lot, mostly heart problems. What band has the best guitar solos? Metallica imo. Who is the biggest jerk you've ever met? She was somehow my former best friend. Have you ever swerved off the road to avoid hitting an animal? I've never been in that situation, thankfully. What's a charity you would never donate to? I'm really not familiar enough with charities and their practices to know which ones are sketch or not. Have you ever grown your own herbs? No. Do you have any exes you'd consider dating again? Yes. What were some of your favorite classes you took in high school? Art and German. Mythology was fun, too. Do you know anyone with a profession in law? Yeah, I have a cousin that's a lawyer. Have you ever Googled yourself? Yeah, outta curiosity. What's the shortest amount of time you've had between relationships? Like, two days. Part of the reason I left Girt was because I liked Sara. As a child, what comfort foods did your parents make for you when you were sick with a cold or flu? Chicken noodle soup. What's a movie series where the sequel was better than the original? Ha, for some reason Inspector Gadget came to mind. I guess from mentioning my childhood. I was FUCKING OBSESSED with that movie as a kid. The first one's fine, but I love the second one. Does your car have heated seats? Mom's doesn't. What is the strangest pizza topping you've ever eaten? Nothing strange, really. Describe your hometown. What’s it like there? Small and dangerous. Lots of run-down areas. A gang nearly broke into our house once, if that helps you get the picture. What was the last video game you beat? I replayed Silent Hill 2 forever ago. What did you learn from your last failed relationship? It really just taught me that you need to take care of your own mental health before you can effectively handle another's properly and strike a healthy balance. What country does your favorite band hail from? Britain. What’s something on your to-do list that never actually gets done? Finish decorating my room. -_- Have you ever been really passionate about something but then lost interest? If so, what was it? Good Mythical Morning, I suppose. I used to be OB-SESSED. I still adore Rhett and Link as people, they are fucking wonderful human beings and excellent entertainers, I just drifted away from their content. I don't really know why. Do you sleep with the TV or the radio on? No. What’s the worst thing about being male/female (whichever you are)? Menstrual cycles, I'd say. It affects your mood so much, and as someone who's bipolar, it can be very confusing. I like to know why I'm feeling a certain way. What movie has the best special effects? /shrug How many work hours per week is too much for you? I wouldn't know, I've never really worked long enough to figure this out. Can you remember your first day of school? I think I have the faintest memory of it. I know I was very scared to leave my mom (I had absolutely awful separation anxiety from her) and I MIGHT have cried, but I don't really recall with certainty. Have you ever entered a modelling competition? Would you? No thanks. Did you keep any drawings/stories from when you were younger? Most, no, because the level of cringe is LITERALLY unbearable for me. Do you have a safe? Mom does somewhere. What’s the scariest thing to happen to you so far? The breakup. That night was just fucking terrifying. I was so certain my life was over, like the situation was so, so impossible in my head. What was your last dream about? (or your daydream if you don’t remember) My memory's faint, but I just remember I had a nightmare where a LOT of my bones were totally snapped in half. When was the last time you saw a relative? Excluding my immediate family, I last saw my now-departed grandmother and my uncle a while back at a hotel as they were passing through. Have you ever been in a TV audience? No. Are you in any way close to reaching a personal goal? Not really... Do you prefer crosswords or word searches? Word searches. Do you like making collages? Not really. Do you remember any inside jokes from childhood? No. What would you love to learn to do? Digital art, like drawing on a tablet. Do you prefer monkeys or lemurs? Lemurs. Do you watch movies based on the actors or the movie plot? The plot, 100%. Are you more shy in real life or on the internet? I am WAY more shy irl.