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sugarcoatedstarkey · 1 year

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Tear stained pillow case

Pairings- Drew Starkey x Fem!reader

Summary- reader is in a long distance relationship with Drew and the constant shipping of him with his cast mate (Odessa) and hate get to her.

Warnings- Angst, yelling, swearing, a smidge of domestic abuse, cheating.

A/n: to the anon who requested a sad Drew fic, I’m sorry this isn’t the best. I hope I kind of got what you were looking for but I need to work on my angst! Please send me a message when you read this xxx

“YOU, you can’t keep going on like this?!” You shouted; anger bled through your veins. You felt sick, the bile rising in your throat. “You’ve got to be fucking joking me!”.

The nerve of your boyfriend, he spends months away from home. Spends every waking minute with his co-star Odessa, he kisses his co-star off screen and he’s the one who can’t keep going on?!

“Yes Y/N” Drew begins to argue, you cut him off by throwing his pillow at him. He doesn't even flinch, his face screwed up in anger. “No Drew, I’m not fucking done” you yell, you look crazy.

You look like the crazy jealous girlfriend his fans had painted you out to be, and you had every right to be.

“You don’t get to put this shit on me Drew, YOU KISSED HER!”.

-Previously-

You couldn’t take it anymore; his face was all over your FYP. You were stupid enough to create a TikTok account, scrolling endlessly and searching the tags for your boyfriend Drew.

You knew what you would see, thirst traps and edits of him and his cast mate Odessa. Edits of the sex scenes they had to film, everyone shipping them together. You were trying to make yourself hurt, you sat there reading the comments. Reading the hateful things they said about you, the words cutting you like tiny knives.

Ugly

Not good enough for Drew

She’s not even famous

Fat

You were ugly crying at this point, unsure why you put yourself through the pain day in day out. Drew had told you a handful of times not to go searching for these things, to pretend like the fans didn’t exist.

But how could he expect you to pretend? He was famous and there was no hiding it. He had been away for 3 months now; you had a routine of face timing every night around 6pm, but tonight was different. He had an event. An event with Odessa.

“GOD Y/N! What are you doing?!” You shouted, staring up at the ceiling. You roughly rubbed your face, your mascara smearing under your eyes. The tears didn’t stop falling down your cheeks. “STOP!” You ordered yourself, but it only made it worse.

Hyperventilating at this stage, gripping the blankets under you. Pressing your face into the white pillowcase, you were pathetic. A pathetic mess. You were so glad Drew was 12 hours away, there was no chance he’d walk through the doors and see you right now.

You hated that you were being so jealous, you knew he loved you. He adored you. Whenever someone tries to hint at him and Odessa in interviews, he always mentions you, you’re all over his Instagram.

You had never met Odessa; you never had the opportunity to. You did think that meeting her might make you feel less jealous, seeing how they act together in person and not from stupid TikTok clips that were edited purely to make people think they were together.

Your phone ringing cuts your crying short, you sit up quickly and reached for your phone. Seeing his face flash on the screen had you nervous, your skin clammy and heart racing.

You wiped away as much mascara as possible and dimmed the bedside lamp, pressing answer on the screen. His smile appearing on your screen moments later, he was in dark room with a small yellow overhead light.

“Hi baby” he grinned; you could see the glimmer in his eyes. You wanted to burst out crying again but instead you dig your fingernails in your thigh and gave him a fake smile. “Hey baby” you whispered, worried your voice would be husky from all the screaming and crying.

“Why is it so dark?” He questioned, his eyes darting around the screen as though he was trying to look over your shoulder. You shrugged and moved to lay on your stomach. “Going to bed early” your voice cracked, and you quickly hid it behind a cough, you could see a shift in his face.

“What’s wrong babe?” He questions, his eyebrows crease together. He looks over his phone for a second and mouths ‘hold on’ and his eyes dart back to you on the screen. “Nothing, I’m okay. You need to go babe, we can talk later” you smile, brushing him off, you wanted to go back to your sob fess.

“Your lying” he states, his features have hardened. You know he doesn’t like it when you keep things from him, he likes you to be open about your feelings. But right now, you didn’t have the energy to discuss why you were spending your Saturday night crying in bed at 6pm.

“Babe, we can talk about it when your home” “No, tell me now”

“Drew!” His eyes dart over his phone again and he lets out an exasperated sigh, he runs his hand over his face and squeezes the bridge of him nose.

It’s as though you can see the tension building in his shoulder blades, you so badly wanted to be there to offer him comfort. You wanted to be the one to rub his shoulders and whisper ‘you got this’

“Okay, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you tomorrow”.

He ends the call without an I love you, that just sets you off again and you spend the next 2 hours crying your eyes out until you pass out against his pillow.

—-

When you awaken the next morning, you’ve rolled over onto Drew’s side of the bed. Squeezing his pillow tightly against your body. Breathing in his scent that barely lingered anymore.

“Such a loser” you mumble to yourself; you reach for your phone that’s hidden under the blankets.

No notifications

You let out a defeated sigh and make yourself get ready for the day; you had planned to clean the apartment. Drew would be home in a few days, and you wanted him to come home to some normality.

And that’s exactly how you spent your Sunday, cleaning and staying off your phone. It was much harder to do the latter, you were itching to call Drew.

You usually sent texts back and forth every day, sent a couple of pics and just tried not to go crazy without one another. You had hoped listening to music and keeping you busy would stop the incessant thoughts that were flying around your head.

But you found yourself battling with your thoughts more than listening to the music. By the time nightfall came you had scrubbed every corner of the apartment. You had lit a candle in the living room and taken a seat when your phone lit up, the music travelling through the empty room.

You answer, plastering a smile on your face. He gives you a soft smile, he’s dressed in a green button up. The button up you had brought him for his birthday, you loved that colour oh him.

“Hey babe” you both say at the same time, letting out a chuckle at the two of you being awkward around each other. “How are you?” You ask, eyes flickering around the screen.

You can’t see much from where he is sat, you can hear voices and assume he’s just got back from the poguelandia event. You don’t even realise he hasn’t answered, too focused on who’s voice you can hear so close to the phone.

That’s when you look back at him, he’s not even looking at the phone. He’s looking over it again, mourning something and rolling his eyes.

“Why are you acting strange?”

“I’m not?”

“Okay.. why do you keep looking over the phone?”

“Oh, just watching something”

I’m that moment you knew something was going on, Drew always gave you his undivided attention even when he was mad. You didn’t like this, it made you feel sick again.

You were so sick of feeling unwell and anxious. “I’m going to bed”

Drew nods his head and finally looks at you, you press the end call button. You didn’t want to look at his face, you didn’t want to hear his voice. You wouldn’t be able to handle not hearing I love you back. It was easier this way.

You don’t know why you do it, but you don’t go to bed. Instead, you go searching on tiktok again. And that’s where you see it, the videos from poguelandia.

How close he and Odessa are, the way she dances with him. The whispering, the walking close together. You knew it, you just needed confirmation. He liked her, he didn’t want to be with you anymore and that’s why he’s distancing himself.

The tears don’t come though, your body seems to go into denial. Your stomach still unsettled, and your mouth feels dry but you place your phone on the counter and stare at the wall.

- 2 days dater -

“Hey, babe” you’re aroused from sleep, somebody shaking your arms. You jump, gripping the blankets around your chest. “Oh, it’s you”.

“Don’t seem so happy to see me?”

You don’t answer him, instead you stare at him. He takes a seat at the edge of the bed; he smells like the cologne you had brought him for his birthday.

He showered and is dressed in jeans and an oversized white shirt, hair a little messy since he’s growing it out for a project. “I missed you” Drew smiles, it’s a fake smile. You can tell them apart now.

He moves to give you a kiss, but you press your palm to his shoulder, giving your head a small shake.

You’re not dressed for an argument, so you pull yourself to stand and grab an oversized shirt. Not really sure if it’s one of yours or Drew’s but it really didn’t matter at the time.

“What’s wrong babe?” He questions, pulling himself to stand. He towers over you, making you feel small. The tough exterior you had been working on, crumbling slowly.

“Stop calling me babe... just, tell me the truth Drew”.

You don’t even need to clarify what you’re talking about; he runs a palm down his face. He begins to pace the bedroom floor; you had hoped he would deny it.

“I knew it”.

“It was a kiss” Drew states, your heart breaks. You feel as though you can physically hear the cracking of your heart, the bile rises in your throat and the tears pierce your tear ducts begging to be released.

“W-what?” You whisper, your voice wobbles. Your hands shaking as you move to hold yourself against the desk chair. You needed stability or you’d fall to your knees.

“I kissed Odessa, the night of poguelandia”

Your nails carve deep crescent moons into the wooden chair, your chest rising and falling heavier as you try to calm yourself down.

You can’t let yourself fall apart in front of him, he didn’t deserve to see you crumble.

“What the fuck Drew?” You yell, but your voice cracks and you slam your palm over your mouth to stop the hysterics from starting.

Turning your body so you’re not looking at him as the tears cascade down the apples of your cheeks, biting harshly on the skin of your lip. The familiar metallic taste fill your senses.

“It meant nothing”

“FUCK OFF with it meant nothing, why did you do it then?!”

This just seems to set him off, igniting something inside of him that he’s been holding onto for a long time. He’s stepping towards you and you’re taking steps back.

You’re back meeting the wall as he towers over you once more, making you feel smaller than you were. “Because Y/N, you’ve been acting weird. You’ve been distant and quiet; you’ve been making me feel bad for having a career”.

His voice is low and threatening, his hand hits at the wall behind you. You push on his chest, making him stumble back slightly.

“No Drew, I would NEVER make you feel bad for your career choice. However, I would distance myself so that I wasn’t sitting at home crying over you every night, missing you. Wishing I was with you, do you know how hard it is for me?!” You cry, you poke at his chest with your pointer finger. His larger hand grabbing yours to stop you from doing it.

You fight against him until he drops your hand, and you step away from him, your cheeks burnt red with frustration.

“How hard you’ve got it? What about me Y/N? Why is it always about you? I’m the one having to leave, do you know how hard that is on me?”

You shake your head, of course he was turning this all back around to the two of your issues. Acting as though kissing Odessa was okay, that it was just something he needed to do to forget about the issue at home.

“Don’t, don’t bring up all this. You kissed another woman; this is on you. Yea we have problems, every couple does. Yeah, we all have it hard, doesn’t make it okay for you to kiss your co-star” you shout.

You grab your phone; you don’t know why you want to add fuel to the fire. You’re on tiktok before you can rationalise with your brain, the second you’re on the app. The videos are there waiting.

“You see the shit that I have to deal with, go on, watch it”.

You throw the phone across the bed, his eyes falling to the screen of the iPhone. The video loops over the two of them dancing and whispering at the event, you can see him swallow harshly.

“This is a fan editing videos- “Drew begins to argue, and you let out a grunt of frustration, running your hands through your messy bed head.

“I can’t keep going on like this”

“YOU, you can’t keep going on like this?!” You shouted; anger bled through your veins. You felt sick, the bile rising in your throat. “You’ve got to be fucking joking me!”.

The nerve of your boyfriend, he spends months away from home. Spends every waking minute with his co-star Odessa, he kisses his co-star off screen and he’s the one who can’t keep going on?!

You knew you looked like the crazy jealous girlfriend his fans had painted you out to be, and you had every right to be. Your boyfriend of three years had kissed someone who wasn’t you and it wasn’t for a movie.

“You don’t get to put this shit on me Drew, YOU KISSED HER!” You cry, you can’t stop the tears now. You’re hyperventilating again, pressing the palms of your hands into your eyes.

He’s stepping around the bed and pulling you against his chest, you want to fight against him. You want to tell him to get out of the apartment.

But you also want to beg him to stay, beg him to stop seeing Odessa. Beg him to start fresh with you, move on and be happy.

“This is the end, isn’t it?” He questions, you pull away from him slightly. Mascara pooling in your lower lashes, you probably should have washed that off before you went to bed.

“It has to be” you breath, tears begin to fall from his own eyes. This only makes you hysterical, sobbing into his chest as he holds you tighter. You don’t even want him to let go.

“I’ll always love you Y/N, I’ll always think about you when I walk past a bookstore or see those fancy chocolate donuts in the bakery down town” he whispers, his lips are pressed against your hair. His grip is tight around your body, he doesn’t want to let go either.

“I was lucky enough to love you, I’ll always remember that” You whisper, tears fall harder as you look at one another.

“Oh.. if we are doing the right thing, why does it hurt so much?”

“I don’t know”

His thumb wipes away the tears on your cheek, pressing his forehead to yours. You let him kiss you one last time. His lips are soft, and they feel like they always do, they were made for you.

“I should go... I’m so sorry Y/N, truly so sorry”.

You watch him leave, you wait for the front door to close and that’s when you let yourself fall. Knees meeting the hardwood floor, the draft from under the bedroom door kiss your toes. You let out a gut-wrenching sob, praying he would come back and fight.

Taglist- @novxturient @kookypogue111

Part 2

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youremyheaven · 6 months

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Ashlesha & Toxic Relationships

Tw: abuse, incest, rape, death, domestic violence

I feel like Ashlesha's mommy issues have been covered by others before but I really wanted to explore how Ashlesha nakshatra natives often find themselves in toxic relationships, be it in their own homes or in romantic relationships. I think many of the patterns many people repeat in adult relationships has its roots in their childhood relationships with their family and I see this very evident with many Ashlesha natives. They're often abused at home and later suffer abuse at the hands of partners.

Halle Berry Ashlesha Sun

Halle's father was a violent man who abused her mother repeatedly. He abandoned them when she was 4 and she's been estranged from him since.

She moved with her mother and sister to an all-white neighbourhood where she was exposed to racial discrimination while attending school. Halle admits that these struggles motivated her to succeed. Later in the ’90s, when she moved to New York to pursue her acting career, she was forced to stay in a homeless shelter for a while because she couldn’t afford accommodations.

In 2011, Halle said: "It was only when I was in an abusive relationship and blood squirted on the ceiling of my apartment and I lost 80% of my hearing in my ear that I realised, I have to break the cycle."

Halle is divorced from Gabriel Aubry (in photo with her above) who, she accused of being a racist (he used racial slurs towards her and their daughter), refused to acknowledge their daughter as biracial and court documents revealed that Berry accused him of having been in an incestuous relationship with a family member, abusing their daughter and even revealed the couple only had sex three times a year, with Aubry struggling with the effects of his incestuous relationship.

Charlize Theron- Ashlesha Sun, Moon & Mercury

One night, when her verbally abusive alcoholic father came home with his brother after drinking heavily, he threatened her mother with a gun. He began shooting and Theron's mother grabbed her gun and shot back, killing Theron's father and wounding his brother. Police later determined it was self-defence. They later moved to America so Charlize could pursue an acting career.

Lily Collins, Ashlesha Moon

Lily Collins says she was once in a toxic relationship where she faced "verbal and emotional abuse" that made her feel "very small." Looking back, Lily says her then-boyfriend silenced her feelings and even fuelled emotions of "panic" and "anxiety" -- and it's something that still affects her even though she’s now in a healthy relationship.

"He would call me 'Little Lily'…and he'd use awful words about me in terms of what I was wearing and would call me a whore and all these things," she said on the "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast. "There were awful words and then there were belittling words. I became quite silent and comfortable in silence and feeling like I had to make myself small to feel super safe."

Tina Turner, Ashlesha Rising

Tina’s violent marriage with Ike Turner is well known, largely thanks to the film based on her life, What’s Love Got To Do With It. In the film the singer suffered severe beatings, was raped and had cigarettes stubbed out on her body. Her husband Ike is portrayed as a violent, controlling sociopath, and when Tina’s autobiography was published Ike actually admitted that the book was largely accurate. The pair were married for 16 years before Tina had the courage to leave. Ike is now dead.

I found something she said in an interview to closely correlate to Ashlesha:

"Part of my spiritual practice is to “change poison into medicine,” to take negative situations or roadblocks and transform or remove them through positivity. The force of my positivity pushed all the discriminatory “isms” standing in my way right out the window."

Whitney Houston- Ashlesha Sun & Venus

Their turbulent relationship is well documented, but even though the rumors were that Bobby used to hit Whitney, she actually claimed it was the other way round. In an interview with the Associated Press over 10 years ago, the singing star said: “Contrary to belief, I do the hitting, he doesn’t. He has never put his hands on me. We are crazy for one another. I mean crazy in love, love, love, love, love. When we’re fighting, it’s like that’s love for us. We’re fighting for our love.” Brown, however, was later arrested in 2003 for misdemeanour battery, several years after Whitney said this. The pair eventually divorced after 15 years of marriage in 2007.

Unfortunately, Whitney passed away in 2012 and I firmly believe Bobby did it. Her daughter, Bobbi Brown also passed away in the exact same way in 2015 and there's just no way those 2 deaths were a coincidence. Anytime I hear news of anybody dying in their bathtub after overdosing on a cocktail of drugs, I just know they were murdered. Its very easy to write off deaths as suicide or to make it look like one. Its all the more convincing if the person has a history of drug abuse.

Sridevi, Ashlesha Sun & Rising

Sridevi was forced into acting by her mother (who aspired to be an actress and had failed in her pursuit) when she was 2-3yrs old. Sridevi never received formal education and appeared in 200 films by the time she was 25 years old (she did 300 films total). Her mother and stepfather had another daughter whom they favoured. Sridevi was the cash cow of the household. It was once reported that Sridevi would come home from a long day of filming and spend many hours massaging her mother's feet at night instead of sleeping. Her mother once locked up Sridevi in a dark room and starved her as a 5-year-old because she was too scared to do a scene that involved fire. She became a heroine at the age of 11 years and was paired opposite men who had played her grandad onscreen when she was a child star🤮🤮🤮she was sexually assaulted by many of these men as a child and teenager. Sridevi's mother managed all her finances and did not permit her to go out or meet others and she did not even know how to do virtually anything by herself as her mother kept her under lock and key.

Her husband Boney Kapoor is a movie producer who was married to another woman and had 2 kids when he first met Sridevi. He creepily wooed her for 10 years but Sridevi paid him no mind. In 1995, Sridevi's mother passed away and Boney took full advantage of her vulnerability because even though she was 32, she was basically a child due to the way her mother forced her to live. Sridevi had no one to rely on (her stepfather had died many years prior and her sister sued her for properties and since she was so isolated, she had no friends despite being such a huge star) and Boney took her in. She lived with Boney and his wife and kids but before you knew it, Sridevi was impregnated by him and he soon divorced his wife and married her. In 2018, Sridevi was found dead in a bathtub in Dubai under suspicious circumstances. The case was wrapped up pretty quickly and no one really knows what happened. She allegedly "drowned" but like I said, I dont think all these celebs drowning in their bathtubs is a coincidence.

Zsa Zsa Gabor- Ashlesha Moon

She was married 9 times and many of those marriages were hella toxic. She was married to Conrad Hilton (Paris Hilton's great-grandfather)

She said of the marriage:

"Conrad's decision to change my name from Zsa Zsa to Georgia symbolized everything my marriage to him would eventually become. My Hungarian roots were to be ripped out and my background ignored. ... I soon discovered that my marriage to Conrad meant the end of my freedom. My own needs were completely ignored: I belonged to Conrad."

Gabor's only child, daughter Constance Francesca Hilton, was born in 1947. According to Gabor's 1991 autobiography, One Lifetime Is Not Enough, her pregnancy resulted from rape by then-husband Conrad Hilton.

Marilyn Monroe- Ashlesha Rising

Marilyn had a very difficult life. She grew up in foster homes, her mother was schizophrenic and her father was an alcoholic. Her marriages were unhappy and she was treated like shit by the industry. I don't want to elaborate too much because I feel like everyone already knows about her life story but its truly tragic how things were for her :((

Lucille Ball- Ashlesha Sun

She was married to her onscreen husband Desi Arnaz and they had a horrible toxic marriage where he cheated on her repeatedly and emotionally abused her. He was also an alcoholic.

Bella Hadid, Mars in Ashlesha atmakaraka

"I constantly went back to men -- and also, women -- that had abused me, and that's where the people-pleasing came in," Hadid said on the Victoria's Secret podcast, "VS Voices." "I started to not have boundaries, not only sexually, physically, emotionally, but then it went into my workspace….I began to be a people-pleaser with my job and it was everyone else's opinion of me that mattered except for my own, because I essentially was putting my worth into the hands of everyone else and that was the detriment of it."

Everybody already knows that Yolanda is toxic as hell, made Bella get a nose job at 14yrs of age and in Bella's own words she was made to feel like the "uglier sister".

Viola Davis, Ashlesha Sun

She and her sisters were sexually abused by their brother. "Sexual abuse back in the day didn't have a name. The abusers were called 'dirty old men' and the abused were called 'fast' or 'heifers,'" she wrote in her memoir.

Davis wrote about the volatile relationship between her empathetic mother and her violent, alcoholic father. With brutal candidness, she channels the unrelenting terror of living in a household of domestic abuse: “There are not enough pages to mention the fights, the constantly being awakened in the middle of the night or coming home after school to my dad’s rages and praying he wouldn’t lose so much control that he would kill my mom.”

Lil Kim, Ashlesha Moon

When she sat down for a candid interview with Newsweek back in 2000, the rapper revealed that she developed a complex about her appearance thanks to a string of unsavory suitors. "All my life men have told me I wasn't pretty enough — even the men I was dating," she revealed. "I'd be like, 'Well, why are you with me, then? I have low self-esteem and I always have," she admitted. "Guys always cheated on me with women who were European-looking. You know, the long-hair type. Really beautiful women. That left me thinking, 'How can I compete with that?' Being a regular black girl wasn't good enough."

It wasn't just the men she dated in her early days that messed with Lil Kim's head — according to the rapper, her own father added to her issues. Her parents divorced when she was 8 and, despite the fact that she wanted to remain with her mother, her dad won custody. When she spoke to Newsweek ahead of the release of her second studio album, The Notorious K.I.M, she revealed that her father would regularly make her feel as though she wasn't good enough. "It was like I could do nothing right," she recalled. "Everything about me was wrong — my hair, my clothes, just me."

Ella Fitzgerald, Ashlesha Rising

At a young 15 years old, Fitzgerald was left motherless and fatherless. To make matters worse, she began being abused by her stepfather. The beatings were physical, but they scared her emotionally as well. She was a beaten and battered child. Her grades fell to be nearly unrecoverable, and she began skipping school regularly. It was an era of racial segregation and Ella is also believed to have been physically abused by her teachers along with some other black students.

Ella and Marilyn were good friends and are said to have bonded over their similarly traumatic lives.

Katie Holmes, Ashlesha Moon & Rising

She escaped an abusive marriage with the sociopathic Tom Cruise and his cult??? need I say more?? I am so happy she is alive and well and that she has managed to protect her daughter as well. Scientologists are insane people who absolutely destroy the lives of anybody who tries to leave their system so its a miracle that Katie is alive and doing well.

Glenn Close, Ashlesha Rising

I don't know what it is about Ashleshas and being trapped/escaping a cult but I've noticed several Ashlesha natives all have this experience

Oscar-nominated actress Glenn Close, for example, was part of a cult called the Moral Re-Armament, from the young age of 7 all the way up to 22. “If you talk to anybody who was in a group that basically dictates how you’re supposed to live and what you’re supposed to say and how you’re supposed to feel, from the time you’re 7 till the time you’re 22, it has a profound impact on you,” she once told The Hollywood Reporter.

Patricia Arquette- Ashlesha Moon

Oscar winner Patricia Arquette wasn’t just raised in Virginia’s Skymont Subud cult, but her parents were the founders of it. The so-called “spiritual movement” was known for not allowing access to bathrooms, electricity, or running water in the name of “inner guidance.”

While still living with her family, she and her family left the commune to return to a more conventional life. Per ABC, however, the Arquette family wasn’t any better at that time either. “There was a lot of drama in the house,” Arquette said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. “There were a lot of chairs flying around.”

Brie Larson- Ketu in Ashlesha

Brie starred in two movies, The Glass Castle & The Room that both deal with abusive relationships (she is the one stuck in them)

Our Ketu placement is where we draw our creativity from, so its interesting that Brie has played so many characters who have to deal with toxicity.

According to Hindu mythology, Ashlesha nakshatra is associated with the story of the Naga King Vasuki. It is said that Vasuki and his wife were cursed by a sage to become snakes. In order to lift the curse, they sought the help of Lord Vishnu, who advised them to perform a penance in the ashram of a sage named Jaratkaru. After performing the penance, the sage granted their wish and they were able to regain their human form. Since then, Ashlesha nakshatra has been associated with transformation and the power of penance.

In the list of celebrities I have mentioned, many of them survived their abuse and went on to live good lives but many others met with tragic ends. Being "cursed" is part of Ashlesha's mythology, which is why they receive an unfair share of bad experiences and abuse but to perform penance is very very important and something not many are going to be able to do. When so many terrible things happen to you, you're bound to think "why me? I'm a good person, I don't deserve this" and that's absolutely true, no one deserves abuse but the ones who can outlive these negative circumstances are the ones who can in Tina Turner's words "turn poison into medicine". Penance literally means inflicting punishment upon oneself but what it actually means in this context is to turn all your negative experiences that feel like you're being punished into something you can rise up above against. Poison is also part of Ashlesha's lore and while this does make Ashlesha natives rather malicious and manipulative towards others, they need to be able to use this poison as medicine to heal themselves. Otherwise, they end up succumbing to it.

#astrology notes #vedic astro notes #astrology observations #sidereal astrology #nakshatras #astrology #vedic astrology #astro observations #astroblr #astro notes #ashlesha #mercury #jyotish #astro community

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bonny-kookoo · 1 year

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Jungkook

X♡X♡ [SEVEN DAYS] Intro

He says he can make you understand his way of love, that he can help you awaken desires you never knew you had. You give him seven days to prove it.

Tags/Warnings: Porn with a lot of plot basically, inexperienced!reader, Dom!Jungkook, BDSM themes and elements (only discussed), mild Angst, mentions of body dismorphia, mentions of past trauma and low self-esteem, fluff, slow burn, they have chemistry but mc has trust issues, mentions of revenge porn, mentions of past domestic abuse (mental), it's not a heavy chapter but people complain I don't tag enough so here you go, SFW

Length: 2k

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜.♡

A/N: This is an intro post which contains no smut. You can skip this one if other works have been posted, but much of the plot won't make sense without this.

-> Masterlist

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Jungkook is a pretty talented guy.

Film director, photographer, occasional model by accident whenever he's seen at events. Apart from that, he values his privacy, has it all figured out how to keep his friends and family and everything else behind closed doors, and it's how you met him- a simple friend of Taehyung's, your former roommate and now best friend of almost five years. At first, Jungkook had thought you and Tae were more than friends- but he had quickly figured it out, had explained that he's got simply good senses when it came to reading people.

You didn't think much of it.

Then, a few weeks later after getting to know him, you had all sat in Jungkook's living room, eating takeout and drinking a little, when Taehyung had to leave early after a friend had called him. It was the first time you were left alone with Jungkook, who had kindly offered to drive you home later, once you want to leave. You'd told him about your hobbies- crocheting being one of them, and he had smiled about that. And excited as you were, you had mentioned how the top you'd been wearing was actually made by you- but that you thought the back looked boring, so you never wore it without a little jacket. He had offered to tie some decorative knots in the back, later showing his work off to you- and you had asked how he knew how to do that.

It's how you found out about that.. other side of him.

It took you weeks of dancing around the topic, until you were finally back at his place, as he wipes his hands with a wet wipe, leaning back against his couch. Evenings like these are common between you two, after all, Jungkook is a safe person to you- he won't ever make you uncomfortable, and if he does, you can just say so, and he'll adjust accordingly. It's something you really like about him- one of many things. "You can ask about it, you know?" He chuckles out of nowhere, and you look up at him. "You're curious. Taehyung had told me." He explains, and you can't help but groan dramatically, well aware what Taehyung had told him you were curious about.

"Taehyung can't ever really not spill secrets, can he?" You mumble angrily at yourself, putting down your chopsticks as you lean back, and Jungkook notices immediately how you seem to close off from him at the topic. He knows a lot more about you than you think- but still. He wants you to tell him yourself, too.

"Well, that's who he is." Jungkook shrugs because of that, trying to make you as comfortable as he can by treating the topic as something normal- which is exactly what it is to him, after all. "So?" He asks, and you squirm around a bit.

"So like.. you tie people up?" You ask, and he can't help but laugh. He get's this a lot after all, Taehyung having worried Jungkook might be some sort of sadist who hurts people in a dungeon of some sorts- something that happens, true, but always consensual, down the line. It's a pretty complicated topic, he admits that, and because of that, he can understand both the curiosity and judgement towards it.

It's not everyone's cup of tea, and that's fine, too.

"If they want me to, sure." He shrugs, smiling. "Some people like that. It gives them a feeling of comfort and security, and I like the aesthetic of it." Jungkook explains, picking up his glass of water, to take a sip, watching how you seem to think about it. "Not your thing?" He wonders, and you shake your head.

"Like, what if you want to get out or something?" You ask, and Jungkook across from you seems nonchalant about it. After all, shibari and bondage are the most.. tame things he practices and enjoys.

"Then I'll let them out. Either untie them or cut the ropes, easy." He shrugs again, leaning back. "Saying No makes everything stop, after all." He easily mentions- and you grow silent at that.

You remember when you said no back in your last relationship. Sure, things stop- but the uncomfortable aftermath of it is all your fault, awkward silence and the weight of having ruined a perfectly fine experience hanging heavy on your mind for the rest of the day- sometimes even several days. Saying no is weird, it's awkward, especially when you're just being overly anxious about things that aren't even all that bad.

You've decided that sex just isn't for you, ever since then. You'll just.. do it yourself.

"A no is a no." Jungkook suddenly says, and when you look up, he looks awfully serious. "No matter what." He underlines his statement, and you shrug uncomfortably. He knows from Taehyung that your last relationship wasn't a good one- mental abuse and pressure put on you to fit you into a mold made for you by the guy you'd loved. He'd told you he was 'fixing' you, constantly belittled or ignored you, and even threatened to release intimate videos of you allegedly taken by him if you were to ever say something bad about him.

Jungkook had been worried, but Taehyung insisted that after helping you find a lawyer, it had been revealed that none of those videos even existed, because you rarely ever even had sex to begin with.

"Yeah maybe- but then it's awkward and weird." You shake your head as you explain your standpoint. "Like, I can't imagine doing stuff like that. Taehyung said you do a whole lot of other stuff too- and like, I don't judge, really!" You explain yourself, waving him off. "Sex, like, with another person is just not my thing. I don't like it." You shake your head, closing the empty cardboard food container in front of you.

"Feel free to correct me-" He starts his sentence carefully, not looking at you as to not pressure you with eye contact. After all, he knows how to behave around people, it's one of the most important skills as someone in his position. "-but it sounds more like something has made you dislike sex with someone else." He offers.

"Yeah maybe." You mumble. "Or maybe I just realized that I'm better off.. doing it myself." You say mostly to yourself. "I'm not good at this stuff. Having sex with someone else is awkward, and weird."

"Is that why you never let me close?" He asks, and you freeze.

Caught you.

It's true that you and Jungkook have undeniable.. chemistry. He's nice, kind, a little childish but in a good way- he plays around with you with such ease, makes it clear that he's seriously interested in you by not only flirting, but also actively trying to participate in your life. He offers to drive you to appointments, texts daily, meets up with you whenever he's got the time for it. He initiates physical touch whenever appropriate, praises you, and it's also pretty obvious on your side that all these things affect you. You like him, you really do-

but that side of him intimidates you too much to really involve yourself with him. Once you have.. or more so, try to have sex with him, your friendship will be ruined, and any potential for a romance with him shattered. But considering how he loves intimacy, there's no chance for a relationship anyways, right?

"…maybe." You mumble, not looking at him.

"What exactly scares you about that part?" He wonders. He's genuinely curious if he can do anything to help you be more comfortable with the idea of loving someone physically again. It's fine if you really just don't want this- he won't ever push you into anything, but considering your past experiences and clear interest in him, he wants to at least try. Not just to figure out what's making you this anxious about this aspect of a relationship, but more so, to figure out how he can make you feel comfortable with him.

He likes you, after all, he really does. And he wants to somehow make this work between you both, even if that means that he will have to adjust his sex-life.

"It doesn't scare me.." You try and deny as if to defend yourself, but he just leans back a little, relaxing in his posture.

"Sounds like it, though. And it's not stupid to be scared of sex if you've made bad experiences in the past." He offers. "Natural reaction. Nothing bad about it, really." He says further.

"Okay, yeah, I'm scared of it!" You wave your hands up in defeat. "Because I suck at it, I don't like stuff, it's weird-" You start, and he chuckles.

"What did you do?" He wonders. "Genuinely. I'm curious." He asks. You shrug. But you don't shut him out, and he eagerly takes that chance.

"What you do, you know. Like, normal stuff." You shrug. "But I don't know- it was uncomfortable, and hurt, and so we stopped back then and it got super awkward." You explain in shame. "He said I just can't take anything and that I'm too sensitive. So I guess I'll just do stuff myself and that's it." You reveal, making Jungkook hum in thought.

"Was it your first time?" He wonders, and you shake your head.

"My first time was fine. Not like, great, but it was fine." You say, unsure as you reach for a glass of water on the table.

"So he was just shit in bed, got it." Jungkook nods to himself. "Is that why you seem so uncomfortable with yourself?" He asks, and you look up at him, confused. "You always adjust the way you sit, you cover up even when it's hot, you don't like pictures taken of you and you basically hide yourself whenever you can. Which is confusing, because you're honestly really pretty." He tells you, and you sigh. "No, really." He adds on. "There's nothing wrong with your body or your looks. It's pretty frustrating to me to see you so insecure and anxious about it when there's nothing to hide or be ashamed of." He tells you.

"You say that 'cause you wanna be like, the cool guy who shows the poor shy girl what sex is like." You huff, crossing your legs as you look at your hands.

"Not quite. I don't just want to fuck you." He chuckles. "But I wouldn't say no if you were to let me show you a thing or two." He laughs playfully.

"I'm not letting you tie me up." You threaten.

"Yet." He responds teasingly, and you turn a bit red at that, unable to not think about a scenario like that. Now that you think about it.. would it be that bad? You trust Jungkook, after all. In a way, you'd probably let him do that.

"You act like you could change my mind about your whole… BDSM thing in, like a week." You scoff, and he grins.

"Interesting that you know what the scene is called." He calls you out, and your eyes widen a bit as you realize you've been caught red handed. Because in reality, you have done some research into this whole stuff, just to kind of.. look around, so to say. "And a week seems.. a bit short, but sure." He shrugs, watching you.

"Wait, what?" You wonder, looking at him.

"Sure, let's start Monday, right after this weekend." He proposes. "One week, and if I don't find anything that's your taste, anything you like, I'll admit defeat." He tells you.

"One week?" You ask, and he nods, holding out his hand for you to take.

"One week." He repeats again, as you take his hand-

sealing the deal.

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook imagine #bts smut #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook imagine #jungkook imagines #bts jungkook imagine #bts jungkook fanfic #bts jungkook x reader #bts jeon jungkook x reader #bts jeon jungkook imagine

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impale-me-radio-daddy · 4 months

Text

Masterlist

Hi, I'm impale-me-radio-daddy, otherwise known as Big Antler Steve, The Antlers Guy, a pun or play on words, alright mate, and, in exceptional circumstances, oh no. Contrary to popular belief, I am not the acclaimed self-insert author cocksleeve4deerman69- we are in fact entirely different entities.

But enough about me, here's a list of things I've written, for your amusement and elucidation.

The Lookalike (completed series)

☒ Summary: The first thing you remembered after your death was an argument. “No, this isn’t one of my fucking sluts.” The man behind you exhaled, frustrated. “This is a present for you. Something to help you work through your Alastor fixation.” You awaken in Hell as the near-spitting image of a certain infamous radio host. Unfortunately for you, you immediately fall into the clutches of his nemesis, then into the arms of the Radio Demon himself.

☒ Warnings: hermaphrodite!reader, deer!reader, crying!reader, they/them pronouns used, explicit sexual content, reader is in Hell for a reason, reader x Alastor, reader x Vox, Valentino, canon typical scenarios, Vox-based voyeurism, minor use of aphrodisiacs, tentacle sex, Vox in a cuck chair, erotic cannibalism, Alastor x reader x Vox threesome in the finale.

☒ Length: 43k words total

☒ Series links: Part I Part2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 6 BONUS SCENE Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Epilogue

☒ Bonus vignettes: Hoof trimming, Lucifer seducing (slight AU)

Reddest Flags, Longest Nights (one-shot)

⩙ Summary: The year is 1989. The Berlin Wall has fallen, and Nintendo have just overseen the release of the Game Boy. The first ever episode of Baywatch has just aired, and Ted Bundy has just been executed by electric chair. Vox's relationship with the Radio Demon is on the rocks. Their solution? To add a third person to their bedroom: you

⩙ Warnings: Explicit sexual content, Vox X reader X Alastor, Radiostatic is a committed relationship (well, they're trying), Reader is a girl and she has a pussy, tentacle sex

⩙ Length: 5.5k words

⩙ Other notes: This is set in a sexy alternate universe for the characters in @bapple117's Bluest Monday

Return to Radio Hall (one-shot)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an alternate universe, once conceptualised, must be in want of a fic.

⚜Summary: Having made his fortune in the New World, Vox Vee returns to visit his former benefactor, Lord Alastor.

⚜Pairings: Vox/Alastor

⚜Length: 2.1k words

⚜Content Notes: Unrequited love, Regency era AU, depiction of illness

The Alibi (I have a couple ideas for continuation, but stand-alone for now)

⚜ Pairing: human!Alastor X reader

⚜ Content notes: Reader is a sex worker, Alastor is a serial killer, brief reference to domestic abuse and injury, explicit sexual content, reader is a woman, reader has a pussy, bathtime, cum pooling in the collarbones, the sex is transactional but not like that.

⚜ Wordcount: 4.5k words

In Your Dreams, Old Pal (4-part story with an epilogue in the comments)

⛃ Pairing: Alastor/Vox

⛃ Summary: Alastor had never wanted to murder anyone as badly as he wanted to murder the version of Alastor that Vox dreamed of. The creature was, put simply, a simpering, effete idiot.

They were in a high class restaurant in some part of the states Alastor didn’t recognize, all art deco paneling and chandeliers that glowed a soft gold, the kind of lighting that made every patron look like they were being filmed through a Vaseline smeared lens; good skin, bright eyes. Even Alastor was pressed to admit it was a classy joint. Why Vox was dreaming of taking Alastor here was anyone's guess.

Alastor intrudes on the dreams of his friend and assistant, Vox.

⛃ Content notes: Explicit sexual content, dream sex, wet dreams, jizz in their pants, extremely dubious consent, virginity??, church sex, creampie, bottom Alastor, bottom Vox, incidental cannibalism, not much antler stuff.

⛃ Word count: 18k

Nothing Above the Knee (one-shot)

⪫ Pairing: Alastor/Vox (Radiostatic)

⪫ Wordcount: 4k

⪫ Summary: Alastor wants something from Vox. All Vox asks in return is a few hours with Alastor's hooves.

⪫ Content notes: Explicit sexual content, hoof stuff, contractual obligation, interdigital scent gland play, hoof licking, hoof fucking, electrostimulation, Vox is very much on top here, did I mention this is about hooves?

Heaven Spent (Part 1/2)

℣ Pairing: Vox X angelic!reader

℣ Summary: A naïve angel descends to Hell looking for her best friend Vagina. Finds Vox instead.

℣ Content notes: Voyeurism, first time for everything, explicit sexual content, thigh riding, guided masturbation, Vox being Vox, pet names: mostly sweetheart, babydoll and baby, reader is a girl, reader has a pussy and tits, reader has a name and it's a fucking stupid one.

℣ Word count: 6.5k

#antlerposting #lookalikeposting

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 1 year

Text

PROPAGANDA

PADMÉ AMIDALA (STAR WARS) (CW: Pregnancy)

1.) From the beginning, she only existed to be Anakin's love interest and Luke and Leia's mother. Although she's an important political figure in all three prequels, her characterization in being Anakin's crush/maternal figure in Phantom Menace, Anakin's love interest in Attack of the Clones, and Anakin's wife and baby mama in Revenge of the Sith. She literally dies of a broken heart when Anakin turns to the dark side in RotS, right after giving birth to the twins, because her whole purpose in that movie was to motivate Anakin's fall and be the twins' incubator. What's more, she didn't even know she was carrying twins until after Luke was born because George Lucas apparently gave no thought to what prenatal care would have been like in a universe with futuristic technology despite the whole main plot revolving around Anakin thinking Padme was going to die in childbirth. There was also a subplot cut from RotS where Padme helped found the rebellion with Bail and Mon and then goes to Mustafar to kill Anakin after he falls, but it was apparently deemed not important enough to keep.

2.) Her characterization was drastically forgotten about in the prequel films in favor of her husband's (despite her being one of three main characters in the prequel franchise). She went from queen of an entire planet to a senator of a galaxy-wide political body to dying of a broken heart. She does not question the actions of those close to her despite them contradicting her character morals (which her character was built on!!). Plus, she is rarely mentioned outside of the animated series. The show, Kenobi, doesn't even mention her name, only that she was essentially kind and brave. Also, she was not approached for a cameo in any of the largest related media while the men have.

3.) oh boy. she basically dies because apparently George Lucas doesn’t realize that women’s healthcare exists??? like you could argue that she wouldn’t have died if she just had an OBGYN. in 2/3 of the movies she’s basically just used as a tool for the main male character’s development. then there’s this whole plotline in The Clone Wars (aka TCW) series where there’s all this gross stuff with her ex who literally tries to kiss her when she’s actively saying no, then her husband proceeds to lowkey victim blame her??? it’s just so unnecessary. I could go on

BUMBLE (WARRIOR CATS) (CW: Domestic Abuse)

1.) Back with another Warriors submission, I bet you’ll be getting a lot from other people too LMAO. Bumble is a kittypet (housecat) who befriends the male protagonist Gray Wing’s girlfriend, Turtle Tail, and lets her stay in her house. This gets Gray Wing all pissy because he’s controlling of Turtle Tail and shares most of the wild/clan cat’s proclivity for looking down upon kittypets. Turtle Tail gets pregnant by another kittypet, Tom, who tries to control her by hiding the fact that humans take away kittens after they’re born. Eventually Bumble comes clean about it so Turtle Tail returns to the forest. Some time later, Bumble is found in the forest seeking refuge because Tom has been physically abusing her, scratching her where the humans can’t see. So, she’s CANONICALLY ACKNOWLEDGED as a domestic abuse victim (unlike Squirrelflight who meets all the textbook signs but the narrative and authors deny it). How do you think our good guy protagonists, i.e. Gray Wing “The Wise” and Turtle Tail, respond to an abuse victim seeking refuge? They tell Bumble to go home, thinking to themselves that she’s fat and soft and therefore would be useless in their group. Bumble stands up for herself and asks to speak with the leaders of the group. One of them asks if Bumble could just get along with Tom better (bro???) and when Bumble says it’s not within her control, the leader suggests being nicer to the humans instead. Another rival leader butts in and verbally abuses Bumble again by ripping into how fat and lazy and useless she would be. Despite Turtle Tail having been friends with Bumble and Bumble had helped her through her own hard times, to Gray Wing’s approval Turtle Tail chooses not to intervene as Bumble is forcibly escorted back to her abuser. But that’s not all. Later Bumble is found in the forest maimed and dying, and it seems likely that Gray Wing’s brother Clear Sky, a male with a long history of violence, is the culprit. Rather than mourn the dying innocent cat, Gray Wing’s primary concern is how other cats might be mean to Clear Sky if they think he’s a murderer, and reassures himself that refusing to help Bumble in her time of need was still the right decision.

2.) I have no idea how she managed to be written so horrifically from an abuse victim and woman (/she-cat I guess) standpoint but here we are. Okay so my memory is a bit fuzzy but basically Bumble was a character in Dawn of the Clans and a close friend to Turtle Tail, a major character, as well as a character who lived close to Tom, an abusive dickhead of a cat. Bumble was largely depicted as just a really sweet cat. Turtle Tail was very briefly the mate of Turtle Tail, but once she got pregnant, he became super violent towards both her and our gal Bumble. Tom actively hid the fact that, once her kits were old enough, Turtle Tail’s kits would probably be taken from her, and made Bumble keep quiet about this too, but Bumble eventually told Turtle Tail the truth, Turtle Tail left and Tom became extremely violent towards Bumble because of this, and was extremely abusive towards her. Eventually, Bumble ran away from him to where Turtle Tail and co were and begged to stay, since the wilderness as a whole was genuinely more safe than being around Tom was. Naturally, this meant kitty xenophobia from cats who had only arrived in that area recently, because everybody was insistent than, since she was a kittypet/house cat, things wouldn’t work out, and even her friend Turtle Tail denied her on this, insisted she was too soft to live in the wild and only sent her towards a cat Bumble wanted to convince because she was absolutely certain she’d be denied. Also our good old protagonist Gray Wing got to spend this scene being all upset about this soft cat wanting to join them to escape an abuser and was all bitter about the fact that Turtle Tail lived with her for a short period of time, and he also got to have a sweet romantic moment with Turtle Tail after denying an abuse victim an escape from her abuser. Also as much as I like Tall Shadow usually she sucked ass in the following scene because she was essentially telling Bumble to go find a way to make peace with Tom as if she was not the one being abused (Bumble pointed out that Tom was the one who would need to make peace for it to happen, not her) and that she should just make life better by going back to being a housecat and being spoiled despite the fact that she was actively at risk with her owners because of Tom. Then she leaves after being threatened by several cats there and is called soft on the way out. The next time she appears she is literally dying, and her death is just a plot device to create a stupid little mystery which is solved in a very stupid way. Also her abuser does continue to be a shithead and for some reason is fully permitted to kidnap his own children but he also gets a heroic death and the only reason I will not rant more about him is because this is too long already. Long story short Bumble deserves the world and everybody who decided not to let her escape her abuser just because they thought she was soft sucks

3.) Is nice to the group of starving, feral wild cats that left the mountains so their friends and family could have more food to eat and befriends one of them to the point of opening her home to her after she leaves the group because the guy she likes is too dumb to notice she likes him and keeps falling for his brother’s love interests.

Unfortunately, because Bumble is a house cat who lives in a house with people and not a Wild and Free cat, this is a grave and horrible crime (luring a wild cat into the safety and comforts of domesticity) and is villainized for the rest of the arc, including for things wildly out of her control

I.E.

Her owners taking in an aggressive male cat that bullies and abuses the two female cats already living there

When Bumble’s friend leaves and goes back to the wild cats, Bumble leaves her home (as the abuse as has gotten worse) to see if she could either get help or have her friend return so the abuse isn’t as bad again)

Bumble eventually dies in the wild because the feral cats all hate her for ‘stealing’ their friend and tricking her into becoming a kittypet for awhile and refuse to help Bumble adjust to wild life or even teaching her how to hunt.

They are littl e to no hard feelings at her death beyond 'good riddance’ but the aggressive tomcat that chased her out of her home is later regarded with good feelings and regret at such a 'good, heroic cat’ passing when he dies despite him literally never doing a good or kind thing in his life and actually causing trouble for the wild cats right before dying

#polls #round 1 #week 1 #new #cw pregnancy #cw domestic abuse

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dearestspirit · 10 months

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a note heard in heaven - 03

mizu x fem!reader | au based on the film the handmaiden | word count: 4,414 | warnings: mdni. this series will contain sexual and dark themes, including: abuse, sex, sexual assault/harrasment, period typical misogyny, murder, allusions to suicide, and period typical stigmas against mental health.

series masterlist | previous part | next part

You’re fanning your face, trying to combat the heat the alcohol you drank at dinner brings to your cheeks.

“The Count just kept pouring me more.” You whine, eyes closing with how exhausted you feel.

“Mhm, poor you.” Mizu nods, still trying to quell the burning in her chest.

She reaches out, gingerly taking the buttons of your dress between her fingers to undo them. You meet her eyes in the long mirror standing in front of you. Before she can finish unbuttoning, you turn to her with an idea. Your hands land on her upper arms, grinning up at her.

“Have you ever worn fancy clothes like this, Mizu?” You’re suddenly dashing around your room, rummaging through your Western styled fabrics. “Let me dress you up!”

“I don’t think that’s the greatest idea.” She shrugs, unsure.

“Why not?” Your head turns over your shoulder to pout. “It’ll be fun.”

She notices that your frantic searching through your clothes has slowed down to a more… gloomy pace. A hint of guilt churns her stomach. Tutting her tongue, she shakes her head. Coming to stand next to you, she sighs and knocks her shoulder into yours.

“Fine, but I pick.” Mizu grumbles.

That light returns to your eyes, the gleam of your smile making her lips curl. It mystifies her, the way she’s grown so fond of your antics. Your everyday interactions started to feel mundane… domestic, even. Mizu had somehow comfortably settled into her role alongside you, your handmaiden. Taigen and your money were the last things on her mind. Part of her wanted to take your face in her hand, stroke her thumb across your cheek. Show you some whisper of affection; the kind you had clearly never gotten, the kind she could tell you craved, but… maybe she craved it too. Flinching was always her base instinct whenever anyone tried to touch her. With you, though? She found she didn’t mind it when your warm hands clasped around her arm. Of course she’d still roll her eyes and let out a huff of feigned annoyance at you, even though she liked when you were close to her. Would it be so wrong of her to think that for once in her life she could protect rather than hurt?

“Well go on, get undressed!” You tell her, bouncing on your feet waiting to shower her in all the elegance you could.

“Are you gonna turn around?” She asks.

“I will, sorry… Looks like The Count gave me too much wine.” You mumble with a nervous chuckle, blaming the heat you feel on your cheeks to the alcohol once more.

After you finally turn, Mizu tries her best to shake the tingle of nerves she feels. She had already seen you unclothed before, but there was never a reason for you to see her. Though, she figured she’d at least still have her underclothes on. She wonders if your eyes would follow the natural lines of her body. Always, your skin had been separated from hers by way of gloves or sleeves or something. Besides that bath she had given you, where you had shallowly dug your nails into her elbow… she wanted more of it. The heat of your palm, the pinch of your fingers. A lump in her throat forms, taking a shaky swallow to steady herself. She disrobes, doing so leisurely as to avoid whatever your reaction would be to seeing her bare. She’s sure there’s probably a few scars here and there, that hopefully you’d avoid questioning– how many household incidents could she conjure up on the spot before you got suspicious, after all– and maybe for this sole moment, she cares about what someone else will think. Taking a deep breath, she kicks her clothes to the side.

“There, I’m done.” Mizu says. “The dress… it’s probably too complicated for me to put on myself.”

“Oh, I’m sure you can figure it out,” Your voice is breathy, and you’re waving your hands around to gesture to her that she can do it. “You’re smart after all!”

Mizu pinches the bridge of her nose, shaking her head. “I’m asking for your help. Just turn around already. It’s not a big deal if you don’t make it one.”

“Okay.” You think that once you turn around, Mizu will see the beat of your heart through your chest.

She’s just… standing there. Awkwardly alluring, somehow. You can tell her stare is dead set on you, observing the way your gaze moves from floorboards to up her calves to her abdomen to her chest to her face to the hair framing her. She’d usually take it down for bed to be more comfortable, but always put it up when in your presence. To think that you could reach out, brush your nails down her scalp and twirl the long strands in your fingers; or that one day you could lay beside her and see it fan out on the pillow beneath her. You wanted it, and the grief that you might not get it made your chest constrict. Meticulously treading towards her, you gather up the dress and hold it out for her to step into.

“You’re awfully quiet.” Mizu says, and you wonder if you can hear some sort of trepidation in her voice.

“Sorry.” You mutter sheepishly, avoiding eye contact.

She doesn’t say anything in response, letting you go through the motions of dressing her up. Turning when you tell her to, watching your eyes rake over her reflection. When you take her hair into your hands to brush it, she lets out a groan of contentment. You hope she can’t feel the way your movements grow wobbly. There's a few tangles in her hair that you mutter apologies for snagging with your comb.

“So jittery,” Mizu looks over her shoulder at you. “Do I make you nervous?”

“Maybe.” You’re whispering, gathering her hair together and putting it into a low bun.

She can’t say she was expecting anything other than a ‘no’ to that question. All she could do was nod, letting the conversation die before it became a mistake she couldn’t afford to make. She’d ignore the way your fingers swept across the back of her neck, despite the touch making her want to turn around and reciprocate. When she suddenly hears you shuffling through some things behind her, she moves to face you.

“These,” You’re handing her those blue spinel earrings, the ones you said reminded you of her eyes. “They’ll suit you.”

Your words could’ve made her laugh, the way they were exactly what she thought of you. “Alright, alright.”

Mizu had doubts about how they’d look on her. She takes them from you– being very mindful that they’re worth more than anything she’s held before– until they finally sit, gems dangling from her ears. You circle around her, standing beside the mirror as she looks at herself.

“You look like a Lady when you’re all dressed up like this,” You’re giggling, hand to your mouth. “I think I understand what The Count means, now.”

“About what?” She asks, still tilting her head at her image in the mirror.

“At night, in bed…” Your eyes become glossy, lips parted. “I think of your face.”

Blindsided, Mizu’s reaction is to scoff, pushing away whatever emotion she might’ve genuinely felt in that moment. “I’m your handmaiden, I’m the last person you see before bed. Of course you think of me.”

She watches you shrug, and it’s as if she can see you curl in on yourself. That’s how it should be, she knows this. Her job was to get close to you, but not this close. Still, she contemplates if she was a little harsh, taking notice of the pinprick of tears at the corner of your eyes.

“Look, this was fun, sure,” Mizu sighs, moving behind you. “Let’s just get you ready for bed, okay?”

She’s faced with the plethora of buttons lining the back of your dress. It reminded her of when she was once a child– the old woman taking care of her had stolen a doll for her. The clothes, made to resemble one of your status, were just like this. Buttons, frills. Fragile, delicate, cute. Did you pick this dress on purpose? Knowing she’d stand behind you, amused to undo them all one by one. To reveal yourself to her. To bare your everything to her. It’d be laughably easy, considering her experience as a pickpocket, to guide her hand inside and couple that softness of yours with the roughness of her palm. Graze that callous skin over the peak of your breast and hear your breath hitch as it catches in your throat. She guides your sleeves down your arms, surprised when you turn around.

“I’ll take care of you, too.”

She sucks in a breath, wondering if you too are going through the same thoughts as her. Undoing the laces, pulling at the cords for them to loosen, did it excite you? Your arms wrap around her as you reach for the strings in front. Curiosity gets the better of you as you bring a gloved hand to her back, finger gliding down the top of her spine.

She arches away from your featherlight touch in an instant. Her brows are furrowed when she looks at you, causing you to shrug with a smile.

“Miss…” Mizu starts, still forming her next sentence in her mind. “Are you really going to marry your fiance?”

“It’s what I’m supposed to do,” That smile slips off your face, rendering you to a neutral expression. “He needs my fortune to buy the collection of an esteemed Frenchman.”

She frowns, even as she helps disrobe you of the bothersome corset you wore. Lowering your underclothes, as well. You were obviously not thrilled at the idea of who you were set to marry. It aggravated her. You've been forced into this life, when you deserved to be taken far, far away from any selfish man who tried to prey upon you.

But wasn’t she doing the same?

“Do you ever think about marrying someone else?” She’s leading you, dropping you into unforgiving hands. “Like The Count?”

“You…” Your hands coming up to cover your chest, you clicked your tongue, hiding your words behind a stutter. “You’re asking a lot of questions.”

Mizu is shocked when you turn her around forcefully– how many times would you two go through this back and forth tonight– deciding to avoid that topic as you rid her of her underclothes.

“I’ll get my resting clothes on myself.” You whisper, throat scratchy and she’s sure she can guess why.

She wants to take you by the arms, tell you to not think about these men. To run. To escape the teeth that are begging to pierce into you. The pounding in her chest made her lightheaded, thinking of you, fragile you, wounded and alone with no one’s love.

If only she was here to save you.

Tomorrow’s the day your fiance leaves for his week-long escapade to check in on your family’s businesses accumulating wealth. You’d be free of your readings, and The Count would come give you painting lessons in the afternoon.

Mizu’s pretending to wipe down a table as you longingly gaze out the window. It’s nearing the time for Taigen to come to your rescue, ridding you of your loneliness. At least for a few hours. She frowns, shaking her head. How unfortunate, she thinks, that you’ve lost your heart to some phony like him. You’re skittering around the room, rearranging things and busying yourself. It’s… a little pathetic, but Mizu figures she shouldn’t judge. After all, you’ve basically been forced into this love. Her eyes never leave you, even as you check on your appearance in the mirror. Fiddling with your sleeves and how they sit on your shoulders, making sure your skirt is clean and wrinkle free. When the clock sounds off, alerting the turn of the hour, you’re smiling. All bashful and innocent as you tuck your chin to your chest, waiting for The Count to come through that door.

He doesn’t.

Mizu watches the clock tick, and as it does, your face falls ever further into a deep gloom. She takes it upon herself to head out the door and search for him. Greeted by Taigen blatantly flirting with one of the other maids, she coughs. The maid is giggling up a storm, somehow charmed by him, if the red flush on her face was anything to go by. Mizu jerks her head in your direction. Taigen shakes his head, holding up a finger to tell her to wait. Right, his obsession with making you wait, as if that’d make you fall for him even more. She honestly can’t wait to be rid of this bastard.

Shutting the door behind her, she meets your eyes, shaking her head. The pout on your face lingers. Her lids droop a little, as she takes in the sight of your lips. Could she make you smile if her own lips met at the corner of your mouth? If she petted your head and told you not to worry? Just a little bit of affection, enough to perk you back up. Instead, you two sit in silence for the next ten minutes, waiting for The Count. She feels a crack form somewhere deep within her, watching you jump out of your seat as the door bursts open to reveal him.

He’s sitting you down in front of an easel, a still life of peaches and other various objects already sorted out on the table. The Count leans over your shoulder, breath rolling over your skin. Mizu can tell he’s spewing nonsense he made up on the spot, complimenting your ‘vision’ and ability to transcend art. You’ve got three somewhat peach colored blobs on a piece of paper. Not that you couldn’t eventually grow your skill, but… he was reaching. Needlessly laying it on thick to try to pry you out of your shell.

Mizu nearly pukes.

At the sound of her groan, you peek over at her. She’s smiling at you– you think, at least– and all of a sudden you’re shining.

“That’s enough for today,” The Count declares, picking up one of the peaches used for your painting. Biting down into it, the fruit’s juices spray. “Almost fully ripe.”

Mizu tries to disguise her look of disgust, but nods. Did he really already think you were on your way to being in love with him? Enough to say yes to a spontaneous proposal? Though, your behavior around him… she had to guess that you were, too. All shy glances and hushed whispers, hiding your face when he looked at you. Your heart… your poor heart that you’d never again open up to anyone in the world.

It’s a bit later, the two of you taking a walk through some of the paths on your estate. You’re taking slow steps, behind her by a fair amount. When she turns to look at you, she grins.

“You know, ever since The Count showed up you’ve been all shy,” Mizu teases, poking at your face. “All red and embarrassed.”

“Really?” You mumble, your own palm coming up to touch your cheek.

She laughs, amused at your reaction. Maybe Taigen was right, you are almost fully ripe.

“Mizu,” The way you call her name silences her laugh. “How did your mom die?”

That was the last thing she expected you to ask, but she swallowed anyway, preparing herself to answer. “When I was a baby, she was hanged-”

“She hanged herself?” Your eyes are once again full of tears. “That’s how my aunt died.”

She wants to shush you, press a sympathetic kiss to your forehead, anything if it means never seeing your eyes like that again. To tuck the flyaways of your hair back to their respective place, to rub your back until you have no tears left to give.

“Yeah, something like that.” Mizu chuckles, but you continue to stare at her intently.

“Did your mom hug you a lot? My mother died while giving birth to me… it’s like I did it myself,” You stride towards her, taking her arms in your hands, thumbs caressing her elbows. She can hear you gulp, she sees your eyes look up at the cloud filled sky. “I shouldn’t have been born.”

Oh, you really were a poor thing. Those thoughts of yours, she recalls the times they’d cross her own mind. When she’d see her eyes staring back at her in the mirror, a pool of water; when someone would look at her strangely, or run from her in fear. Being here, though, at your home with you… you’d never reacted to her in such a way. You called her eyes pretty. You filled your time with her with smiles, laughs, even when you were being a bratty princess. It's as if those moments were in the far reaches of her mind around you. She wished, and maybe hoped, that she could do the same for you. Mizu knew you weren’t the most chipper, but this? Trying to insert The Count into this would be too far, even for her.

Mizu’s mouth falls open, shaking her head. “What?”

“Sorry.” You hiccup, sniffling, and she can see the sob rack through your chest. You give her a sorrowful smile, waving your hand to drop the conversation. “It’s just been on my mind.”

“Miss…” Mizu frowns, a real one, worried for you. She puts the basket she was holding on the ground next to her, hands now free to cup your face. “I’m sure your mother thought she was very lucky to have you before she died. If she could’ve told you that, she would’ve. Don’t feel guilty for being born.”

You nuzzle your cheek deeper into her palm, grasping at her wrist. Fearing that once she let go of you, she’d disappear. That closeness you haven’t felt since your aunt died, the heat of another human’s skin, meant just to comfort you rather than take. When her hands slip from your face, you can’t help but follow after her.

“Wait here,” She takes a towel out of the basket she held, laying it out on top of a rock. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll go with you.” She can barely take a step before you’re already trying to get up.

“I said wait.” Her hands press down on your thighs to make you sit, though you would’ve obeyed just because of her authoritative voice alone.

Mizu hurries back down the path, plan in mind. The woods surrounding the estate had lots of tasty forage– mushrooms, herbs, flowers. She used to survive off of the land, even when it didn’t give much. She’d come home, personally make you a warm meal– to the best of her lackluster ability, at least– and she’d see you smile. Your chest would fall with a sigh of relief, she’d get to watch your muscles ease from their normally tensed positions. You’d settle back into your bed, tired eyes and deep breaths. Mizu would kiss your forehead, your cheek, the junction between neck and shoulder. Her determination grows until she knocks into Taigen, taking her out of her daydream.

“Thanks for getting me alone with her,” He lowers his mouth close to her so only she can hear. “Good girl.”

“Fuck off.” She hisses, batting his hand away from her.

She’s stomping away until she gets the bright idea to hide behind a tree and eavesdrop. Something about leaving you alone with him felt wrong, at least this early on in the plan. There was a whole week before your fiance would be back, giving her plenty of time to ease her nerves. Nerves she wasn’t fully sure why they were there to begin with, but they were. She’d just have to make do and deal with them. Meaning spying on Taigen.

Nothing even happens between the two of you, so she’s not sure why she was worried. All he did was ask to sit by you. Mizu eventually ran off into the woods to do what she originally set out to do. At some point the weather had turned, rain coming down in heavy splatters. She hoped Taigen had enough sense to take you inside. She returns to the estate with a full basket, coming upon one of the windows that looks inside.

You’re there, hair down and damp, as Taigen sits next to you. You must’ve gotten caught in the rain together. He’s started a fire for the two of you, which makes her grin. He must be doing a good job at getting your attention, surely. She falters only when she notices him lean closer. His hands crawl across your body, from cheek to upper arm to ass. Mizu scowls at his impatience. His greed, his selfishness. He laughs, a wide, fang-bearing smile that’s disconcerting. You’re wriggling away from his grasp, and Mizu swears her veins sear with the rage that flares inside her. It takes a mere minute for her to storm inside, being scolded by another maid for using the wrong entrance.

“I don’t fucking care.” She spats, bounding up the stairs.

She tosses aside the basket of everything she had painstakingly picked for you, watching the goods roll down the steps.

It didn’t matter.

You were fully ripe, and Taigen had plucked you.

Mizu’s exhausted. She had gotten next to no sleep the day before, even though she retired to bed early, feigning sickness to Madame Kaji so that she didn’t have to put up with you. Not like you’d mind, probably off giggling and twirling your hair with fucking Taigen.

It didn’t help that she had to third wheel on this little painting excursion he’d insisted upon. She’s got an easel hanging off her back, canvases in her arm, and the many watercolor supplies that Taigen asked her to bring. Far behind you two, she simmered. Wishing to have never come here, to have never met you.

“Mizu,” Taigen calls out for her. “You brought watercolors, right?”

“Mhm. The paints and brushes.” Mizu nods.

“Ah, on second thought…” He scratches his chin. “Go get the oils instead.”

Looking at the path behind her, she exhales. Ungracefully dropping half the supplies on the ground, she runs off back to the estate. You were going to be alone with him. Were you okay with that? Yesterday, you had tried to writhe out of his touch, but was that just you being coy? She’s panting, sprinting across the house’s perfected grass yard, not caring about the walkway of stepping stones. It’s the fastest she’s ever run in her fucking life, she thinks, taking the stairs two at a time. Finally in the room you usually have your lessons in, she hurriedly gathers up all the oil paints and brushes. She nearly trips going back down the stairs, dropping the case of them.

“Shit!” She shrieks, not bothering to neatly place them back in their container.

Heading back down the trail, she’s calling out for The Count. There’s a moment of relief when she spots the bright color of the kimono you’d chosen to wear that day, before her world stops. Those cracks that lurk within her– they shatter, rending her to pieces.

You’re perched in his lap, mouths locked together in a passionate kiss. His hands creep up the parted length of your kimono, brushing against your bare calf and up to the backs of your thighs. Further. Frantically, your hands paw at his shoulder blades, nails digging into the fabric of his well-kept suit, wrinkling it. Even from a distance, she can hear your sighs of pleasure, she can hear your lips part to let his tongue enter your mouth. She can hear the rustling, the crotch of his pants rolling against the front of your kimono.

“Miss?” Mizu asks, breath hitched.

You’re in shock when you hear her, pulling yourself out of The Count’s hold and standing up. Your hair, mussed-up by his hands, flutters behind you in the breeze. To her, you’d look beautiful, if it weren’t for your lips stained by another man's kiss, if it weren’t for Taigen sitting under you. He doesn’t even fucking look guilty. Not even meeting her eyes, either. If looks could kill, Taigen would’ve been six feet underground yesterday. And you? You look like a kicked puppy, big, apologetic, wet eyes pleading with her. It almost works, before she scoffs, turning heel. This was all one big mistake. One after the other. Agreeing to Taigen’s plan, meeting you, enjoying your time together. It was nothing, she tried to reason with herself. You were a brat. Rich, spoiled, and maybe you deserved what was coming your way.

Nightfall does little to assuage her animosity. There’s a blackout tonight, but she didn’t care. Her eyes burnt holes into the sliding screen that led to your room, right across from her bedroll. She hated it. Hated you. She couldn’t wait until Taigen threw you away. She’d get her fair share of the money, travel to some distant part of the world. Gorge herself on all the food she could never afford, saturate her home with shiny gems and extravagant clothes. You, her Lady, would never cross her mind again. Not your face, not your body, nothing. She had her whole life ahead of her, a life devoid of you. She hisses, blinking back the suffocating heat she feels behind her eyes. The rest of her time here, she’d ignore you. She’ll keep faking sick to Madame Kaji, or ask Ise to fill in for her, or something. Anything to stay away from you.

How could she look at you again? You, fully ripe. You, who once called her pretty. You, who she once briefly thought she could protect. But she can’t save you from your own foolishness, so what can she do besides continue to lead you towards that guillotine? Your heart will split in two, and she and Taigen are destined to feast upon the scraps.

The bell outside your door rings.

She knows you need her.

It’s connected to a string next to your bed that you can pull, requesting her presence. It’s loud enough to wake her up if she’s ever asleep.

She knows you need her.

She rolls over in her bed, forcibly closing her eyes.

a/n: part 3!! sorry for the delay between last part and this one, life has been hectic!! hopefully i'll be able to get another 2 parts out before the end of the year. i can say already that there won't be another part until at least next week, so again sorry for the long stretch between updates!! <3

#mizu x reader #mizu x you #mizu #blue eye samurai x reader #blue eye samurai x you #bes x reader #bes x you

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lexisecretaccx · 6 months

Text

High school Sweethearts pt.8 - Chris Sturniolo

PT1, PT2, PT3, PT4, PT5, PT6, PT7, PT9, PT10, rest of the parts on my Masterlist!

(Femreader x Chris Sturniolo, fighting, MENTIONS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, A TOXIC HOUSEHOLD AND CHEATING, blood, light fluff)

A/n: poor y/n (sorry if this is a sensitive subject (family abuse etc.) if you don’t want to read about Y/n’s abusive past I put a bold red marker to let you know when it starts to talk abt it in detail and when it finishes so you can skip that part, you won’t miss much except a bit of y/n’s backstory! ily and don’t want y’all to be uncomfortable x)

Michael looks down at me as I walk towards him, he laughs sarcastically “I’m terrifie..” I throw my fist towards his nose and his head throws back and he stumbles, losing his balance.

He falls onto the floor blinking quickly as his hand flies up to his nose and I see blood dripping down, his eyes water. “Oh shit..” matt chuckles. I stand there in shock that I just hit him, “I’m gonna fucking kill you..” Michael hisses as he leans forward to lift himself up and he reaches out to try and pull my leg.

I kick my foot forward, straight into the bottom of his chin. Still feeling angry, somewhat at Michael but also to do with my mother, his comments fuelling my already intense anger begging to be let out. He falls onto his back and I lean down on top of him and grab his shirt, I punch him straight in the side of the jaw.

A crowd has already gathered, some filming with their phones, Matt just standing next to me nervously fidgeting with the rings on his fingers, wanting to stop me but not knowing how. Michael is still conscious, “shit you’re..” he splutters as I breathe heavily, “just like your father..” his voice quivers but he still try’s to keep a snarky look on his face, I start to punch him in the face repeatedly, not realising how much damage I was doing.

Those words ring through my head, being the same ones my mother had said to me the night before. I grip his shirt tightly, my knees situated either side of his waist. His eyes watering from the impact, “you gonna cry?” I spit sarcastically, his hand comes up to my hip and grips it tightly, “this is kinda hot..” he mumbles.

I instantly stand up, “what the fuck?” My face shifts from anger to disgust. “Pervert.” He lays on the floor, blood all over his face, dripping from his mouth, his nose and the cuts on his face from the ring that I have on my middle finger.

“Shit..” I whisper to myself, realising what I just did to him. “Didn’t realise you packed such a punch.” Matt whispers to me, laughing softly in disbelief. I glare at him, blood splattered over my top and my knuckles cut up and his smile drops. Adrenaline rushes through my body.

I hear people running from behind the crowd of people and they all move out the way, “What the fuck?!” Evan yells. My head shoots up and I see him standing there, looking between the bloody mess on the floor and up at me. “Nate get Chris to come here..” Evan calls back into the crowd and about 30 seconds later Chris pushes through the crowd.

His face dropping as he notices Michael writhing in pain on the floor, “what the..” he whispers and Evan points at me and I feel my heart drop as Chris looks up at me.

Chris’ POV

“What the..” I breathe out and I notice Evan pointing so I look up, I see y/n standing there, her hairs a mess and her hands and shirt are covered in blood. “Y/n?” I ask and she looks away from me, embarrassment plastered across her face.

I walk towards her and she steps back, I see Matt to the side of her I look at him and he is clearly scared. “He started it..” Matt whispered to me, y/n looks at Matt and then swallows hardly before looking up at me, her eyes full of regret but also her pupils wide. “I’m sorry..” her voice cracks and a tear falls down her cheek.

“Where’s the fucking teachers when you need them?!” I hear Evan shout from behind me. Her eyes widen and she moves out of my way, grabbing her bag and darting up the stairs behind her. A few teachers finally push through the crowd and make eye contact with me. “I should’ve known it’d be you Chris.” My science teacher yells, “it was y/n.” Evan corrects him.

No matter how much I wanted to take the blame for it, people are recording so it’s obvious it wasn’t me. “What?” The teacher shouts in disbelief. “It’s true sir I have a video.” A girl speaks from further into the crowd and others agree.

“You okay Michael?” A teacher leans down to him, “maybe?” Michael replies, “can you move?” The teacher spoke with concern, “I can move my body but she was attacking my face, I didn’t do nothing.” He barely spoke, his voice hoarse.

“That’s not true, he was provoking her.” Matt spoke out from next to me, the teacher looks up, “you were there the whole time?” They ask Matt. He nods, confusion washes over my face, “wait why..” I’m cut off by the teacher, “come with us we need a statement, and someone go find Y/n.”

I wait for the teachers attention to leave me and I run up the stairs following where y/n had gone.

It was a fucking scene, his face was puffy and blood everywhere, he must’ve really provoked her. I notice a light on in the closet that we passed the day we met each other, I push down on the handle and notice it’s locked, I knock the door. “It’s me..” I whisper and I hear the lock click.

I walk in and see y/n sat on a stool in there, her makeup smudged and blood on her chin. I lock the door behind me and turn off the light, “they’ll see you.. if you have that on.” I hesitantly say.

“Do you hate me?” She asks, her voice breaking. I shake my head, “no.” I sigh and grab a bucket and turn it upside down before sitting in front of her, her face slightly illuminated from the light coming from the cracks around the door.

“I really didn’t mean to hurt him, that badly anyway.” She goes to wipe her eyes and disgustedly looks at her blood covered hands before placing them back in her lap. “I know.” I speak calmly before looking around at the shelves, there was a box. ‘Cleaning supplies’ I grab it and open it up before digging through for something to clean her up with.

I find cleaning wipes, I place my hand out for her and she puts her hand in mine, I start to wipe softly removing the blood, I wipe over her knuckles and she sharply inhales, I notice the cuts on her knuckles “sorry.” I whisper.

After I clean up her hands I discard of the wipe on the floor. “He said the same thing that my mom said, which is when I started to punch him more..” she spoke lightly, trying to keep herself from crying. I think back to what she told me last night, “that you were..” I wait for her to finish it, “just like my father yeah.” She breathed out, her voice wobbling.

I shake my head and lower it, I’m not sure what her father did for it to be such a bad thing to compare her to but I understand that that’s her struggles and I’m not gonna pry.

IF UR SENSITIVE TO THIS SUBJECT I ADVISE SKIPPING THIS PART.. I HAVE MADE ANOTHER ONE OF THESE TEXTS TO SAY WHEN ITS NOT TOO BAD! (IF UR FINE W IT THEN CARRY ON READING x)

“I know you want to ask me..” she brings me out of my daydream, “what?” I ask, “about my father,” my eyes widen, “how did you know?” I hesitantly reply. “I can see it in your face.” She sighs.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, I was just.. curious.” I smile at her to try to let her know I’m not judging her.

Y/n’s POV

I breathe in, “you know it’s just me and my mom yeah?” He nods, “my dad walked out on us like 3 years ago.” I swallow the lump in my throat, Chris nods again, not saying anything to allow me to talk. “He wasn’t a nice person, to say the least, since I can remember he used to, hit my mom.” I feel tears in my eyes.

“She used to hit him too it was like a double sided abusive relationship, and he didn’t hit me..” I feel tears falling out my eyes and dripping onto my blood stained shirt, “until he did.” I choke. Chris’ eyes widen and he grabs my hand. “Shit y/n..” his eyes gloss over.

“He hit me almost everyday for about, less than a year before my mother cheated on him, he found out..” I wipe my eyes, “and beat the guy up and just packed up and I watched him walk out the door, not knowing he wasn’t coming back.” I break down into tears and Chris stands up, pulling me into a hug. “I don’t know how Michael knew to say that to piss me off, maybe Evan told him but Evan only knew my dad hit my mom because my mom was telling him ages ago..”

FROM HERE AND ON IT DOESN’T MENTION IN DETAIL BUT MIGHT STILL TALK ABOUT IT SLIGHTLY! (ily❤️)

Chris plants a kiss on the top of my head, “Evan will do anything to try to upset or piss someone off, he did it to Matt.” Chris replied, I nodded, “that’s the whole reason I was by the stairs with Matt, he looked sad and I asked him what’s up and then Michael told me to, and I quote ‘pick a triplet’ or something.” I roll my eyes and Chris smiles.

“Little does he know you have.” Chris sits back down on the bucket. I nod and smile back at him. “I think I’m gonna go let the teachers yell at me or whatever they’re gonna do.” I sigh, “they took Matt to the principals office for a statement and if he saw and heard everything I think you won’t be in too much trouble.” Chris reassures me.

I walk down the stairs to see the janitor mopping up the spot where Michael once lay, I keep my head down and I make my way to the principals office, next door to the principal’s office is the nurses office, I look through the glass on the door and see Michael sat up, the nurse cleaning up his face.

I knock the principal’s door and his secretary opens it. Her face drops, and she turns back, “here she is.” She says bluntly before ushering me into the room. Matt is sat infront of the desk writing down on a piece of paper, probably the statement they wanted. The principal motions for me to sit down next to Matt.

The principal clears his throat and his eyes travel to the blood stained shirt that I’m wearing, I uncomfortably look to the side not wanting to make eye contact. Matt looks to me and smiles softly and I smile back, “so, y/n it has come to my attention that you and Michael had an altercation not long ago.. am I correct?”

I nod “yes that’s right.” I stutter nervously, Matt puts the pen and paper down, “sorry to interrupt but I finished writing that.” The principal nods and Matt leaves the room, placing his hand on my shoulder before walking out.

“Before we make any assumptions or conclusions, I want to hear your side of the story.” The principal leans forward and grabs the paper Matt had just written on, “okay.” I breathe in before explaining the situation in detail.

“After Evan asked where the teachers were, I ran upstairs in fear.” I lean back in my chair, “okay.. reading Matts statement, yours and his stories match up, you both mentioned Michael bringing up your father?” The principal asked me, interlocking his fingers and staring at me. I nod, “knowing what went on with your father we can understand how that would anger you.” One of my old friends told the school when they found out about what my father did.

“Yep.” I scratch my nose. “You are very much in trouble because of the intensity of his injuries, his nose is broken but other than that he will have a black eye for a while and some cuts on his face.” I nod in agreement, “we will have to let your mother know,” I inhale and bite the inside of my mouth “but you are allowed to return to school tomorrow, since this is a first for you.” I swallow nervously.

“Okay thanks.” I mumble, “also something you missed out but Matt has written is that Michael gripped your hip when you were on top of him and said something inappropriate to you?” Shit I forgot to mention that, “oh yeah, sorry I forgot that.” I clear my throat and the principal nods.

“We will make sure he gets punished also, you’re a good kid y/n, keep it that way.” He spoke sternly but calmly. “My secretary is on the phone to your mother who will have to pick you up. She is explaining what has happened and I trust you will fill your mom in on the blanks.” I nod.

I sit in the reception, my leg shaking knowing I’m going to get yelled at by my mother, I feel my phone buzz, chris texted me “you goin to jail? x” I let out a chuckle before replying “no, they actually were understanding and now I’m getting picked up by my mom x” I see the typing bubble, “hope she’s not too hard on you x” I smile. “She probably will, doesn’t matter tho x” I put my phone in my pocket.

I hear the sliding doors open and my mother walks over to me.

A/n: omg I litro got carried away sorry if this part is long, what’s y’all’s thoughts on the situation. I feel so bad for y/n knowing her background now (I was the one who wrote it and im crying like wtf😂😭) anyways i love you all and thanks for 400 followers!

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athanza · 5 months

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Starlett - Final part

Cooper Howard/fem!OC (not self-insert)

Tags: Hurt/comfort (sort of?), non-allowed romantic connection, lots of tention, pre and post war drama, romance, some fluff

Warnings: Mentions of domestic abuse (no graphic scenes or descriptions of that nature), angst, canon wasteland violence

This branches out from canon but I thought it was a cute story idea so I had to write it. Enjoy! ♡

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

2077

That night, after dinner, Irene found Cooper on the sofa with Janey asleep on his lap, watching an old noire film with the volume down low.

"Thank you very much for dinner Mr. H- Cooper." She corrected herself, speaking low so as not to wake Janey. "It was lovely."

He looked up as she walked over. "It was no trouble at all. Janey loved having you here."

She smiled at his daughters sleeping face as she sat down on the edge of the sofa. "You've got a good kid there."

He looked down at her proudly. "Yeah, I sure do."

"She reminds me of my baby sister, she lives with my folks in Sacramento. I don't get to see her much anymore with my work and everything with Frank and Lee. It'll be good to see her again."

"How long has it been?"

"Almost 2 years. I know my sister resents me for how much I'm away, but hopefully that'll change now that I'll be away from Frank, at least until the divorce proceedings." She sighed with uneasiness.

"You'll be fine." Said Cooper encouragingly. "You're stronger than you think."

"Ditto." She smiled warmly. "And don't worry about Janey, you both love her so much. She'll understand when she's older, I promise."

He smiled, touched by her words. "Thank you."

She looked into his eyes and saw something she never had, a good man, a man who loves unconditionally and stands up for his family.

She, just for a moment, imagined what it would be like if he was her husband instead of Frank, if Janey were their daughter, if this was her life and not the daily abuse she had been going home to every night.

She could feel emotions begin to well behind her eyes and she snapped out of it before she embarrassed herself.

"Well, I should get some sleep, I'll be leaving early tomorrow. Thank you again."

The warmness that emanated from her was a welcome comfort in the midst of everything that had happened in the last few months. He almost didn't want her to leave, but he couldn't let himself fall, not now, not for her. They were meant for another time, another world, not this one.

"Irene?" Said Cooper, stopping her before she left. "This whole thing with Vault Tec...something's happening, something I'm not sure we'll ever come back from.

You're free from it now. Whatever's coming...it won't be worth giving up your happiness."

What he said about Vault Tec concerned her, not that it was surprising, but he was right about her happiness, he was right about everything. She wasn't going to be held back any longer.

"Thank you." She said, smiling softly.

2296

The sky was still dark when he left the cave. He'd covered Irene with whatever he could find to try to conceal her from raiders, hoping nothing else would find her while he was gone.

He knew there was a clinic in this area somewhere but whether it had anything left in it was a gamble.

As he made his way hastily through the area, he couldn't stop thinking about her and it just made him angry, 219 years of trying to become the monster that he had to be in order to survive, only for her to show up and remind him of that warmth that he'd long since forgotten. It made him weak, but he couldn't let her die, not now.

He heard movement up ahead, two men laughing drunkenly as they stumbled to find somewhere to relieve themselves.

Raiders.

The cages and skewered bodies around the building were a dead give-away and their little base just happened to be the clinic he was looking for.

Jackpot. They definitely had a stash in there somewhere.

The two men separated to find somewhere to piss but just as one got comfortable, Cooper blast his head off and took the other one out just a split second later.

"Oh HELL no!" Came a voice from the doorway of the clinic.

Without hesitation, Cooper shot him too, a bloody mess left on the door frame behind where he had been standing.

He stormed inside, his pump-action shotgun in hand, willing to use up all of his ammo to get what he needed.

Bullets and wood chips were flying every which way, and he took a bullet or two, but it took him no time at all to obliterate every person in that building.

He searched hastily for supplies, and when he found a first aid box full of stimpaks and cotton thread, he grabbed it and left, picking up several blood packs on his way out.

2077

The next morning, Irene was up early, her bag already in her car when Cooper came out to meet her.

"You weren't kiddin' about leavin' early." He said, the clock in the hallway reading 7:12am.

"I thought it'd be best if I left earlier rather than later."

He knew why. He didn't argue.

"Give this to Janey for me, would you? I noticed she liked it and I know it'll be in good hands."

She handed Cooper a silver locket with a daisy engraved delicately on the front.

He looked at it a bit surprised. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I don't much care for it anymore. It'll be more appreciated with her." She smiled.

She did one last check of her purse to make sure she had everything and the tention in the air was starting to thicken. When she knew she had everything, she looked back up at him.

"Cooper?" She asked. "Do me a favour and don't let the world harden that heart of yours, ok? That part of people is important, even if it makes us feel weak, always remember that, ok?"

She leant forward and kissed his cheek. "See you 'round cowboy."

She smiled at him one last time before getting in her car, and as he watched her drive away he felt his heart ache a little. He would miss her, her warm smiles, and how she made Janey laugh, but it wasn't meant to be, and he knew that.

2296

He pulled off the foliage covering her now pale body and opened the case.

Her breathing was shallow and laboured, a puddle of blood underneath her that had started to coagulate.

He used one of the stimpaks, then another, then another until he had used all six, then pulled out the thread and started sewing up the deep gashes on her side that were sticky with blood.

He remembered the last time he saw her, her smile, the kiss. He remembered watching her drive away and wishing she hadn't. He remembered the last things she said to him.

"...don't let the world harden that heart of yours, ok? That part of people is important, even if it makes us feel weak..."

When he finished sewing, he hung up one of the blood bags and attached the long tube to her arm.

He was still and focused, hoping he wasn't too late, his hands now covered in her blood.

When she woke up after only a few minutes, she saw him sitting by the fire beside her and smiled sleepily.

"Hey there cowboy."

The End

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moremaybank · 1 year

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THIS LOVE — j.m

pairing actor!jj maybank x actress!reader

chapter summary jj faces the possibility of his scandal going public. then, he ends up reconnecting with you after five years. what happens when the two of you end up as costars for your upcoming romantic comedy?

warnings mentions of a sex tape, mentions of domestic abuse (jj and luke), language, violence, sexual content/eventual smut, anxiety. ex best friends to lovers, fake dating. this will be updated as the story develops. [2.2k]

author's note just a little post of the first chapter to build the hype! hope you enjoy and decide to continue reading ♡︎ also special s/o to @mvybanks and @jjsbank444 for beta reading and quelling my nerves <3

recommended listening second chances by kiana ledé ft. 6lack

this love — the complete playlist ;; the masterlist ;; the tag list

❝ CHAPTER ONE ❞

Threesomes are fun. Foursomes, however, are a blast.

At least, JJ Maybank seems to think so.

“You have three different women threatening to release your sex tape. It’s not a good look for you, JJ.”

Well, he does when they don’t include a secretly-filmed sex tape and three fame-thirsty girls trying to ruin his career for a quick cash grab.

“It’s not like they’re three separate tapes. We were all together when it was made,” JJ smirks.

Josh, his manager, lets out an exasperated sigh. “That doesn’t make things any better, and it does nothing to help our circumstances. You need to clean up your act and you need to start doing it now, Maybank, or you’re going to lose everything.”

JJ rolls his eyes for what feels like the millionth time in the fifteen minutes that this meeting has been going on. It’s bullshit, really. He’s one of the hottest actors in Hollywood right now. He’s youthful, dashingly handsome, and loaded. The world is his freakin’ oyster, and he deserves to have some fun.

“You’re supposed to keep up your whole approachable, goofy, boy-next-door image intact, and having a ménage à…quatre, is not the way to do it.” my publicist, Andrea, chimes in. “If you aren’t careful, you’re going to lose your entire fanbase. You’re one of the most universally-liked celebrities in the business, right now. If this gets out, you’re going to have to kiss your crystal clear reputation goodbye.”

“So, let’s just pay ‘em the hush money. What do I care?” JJ says, taking his cap off and running a hand through his unruly strands.

“And you’re fine with forking over ten million dollars? Just like that?” Andrea scowls. “What if they take the money and still decide to release the tape? Or demand more?”

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, Andrea. Now, are we done here? I’m supposed to meet my co-star for my new movie in an hour and I’d really like to get in another — how did you put it? Ah, yes. Ménage á quatre — before I go.”

Josh runs a hand over his face, “Do you care about anything anymore?”

JJ ignores his statement, putting his hat back on and sitting up in his chair. “Can I leave?”

He can tell that Josh wants to scold him or make some witty remark in return, but he bites his tongue.

“Go. And, please, for the love of all things holy, do not screw this up.”

If JJ had a penny for every time he’s heard that, he’d be richer than Jeff fucking Bezos.

Y/N

“And last but not least, this is your dressing room. You’ll have your own trailer, but this is more for when we’re actually on set and in between takes.”

You grin as you look around the luxurious room. There’s a huge vanity in front of you, as well as some plush couches, and you don’t fail to notice the large mini-fridge in the corner of the room or the flat-screen TV plastered onto the wall. There’s a window as well, letting in the California sunshine you’ve come to love and appreciate beyond your beliefs.

“Wow, this is…amazing. I can’t thank you guys enough for this opportunity. I’m so grateful, I hope you know that.”

“Don’t be silly, Y/N. You’re the very reason we wanted to do this project in the first place. If anything, we’re the lucky ones,” Derek, the director states with a grin. “So, you ready to meet your co-star, or what?”

“Yeah! I mean, I’m nervous, but, beyond excited.”

Derek leads you back into the hallway, and you make your way to one of the offices.

“I think you’ll love him. Word is, he comes from the Outer Banks just like you. Who knows, you’ve probably met him in passing.”

Wait…what? He’s from OBX? No. No way. He couldn’t possibly mean—

“Y/N Y/L/N, meet the esteemed JJ Maybank,” Derek states, his proud smile growing sizeably larger than you thought possible.

It doesn’t matter how excited he is, though. All you can focus on is your heart beating out of your chest and the ringing in your ears. You see Derek’s lips moving but you can’t hear a thing. Your eyes are caught on the blonde in front of you, and all you can think about is how painful it is to look into those oceanic eyes after five years.

It’s equally as painful as it was the last time you saw him. If not, more.

“Uh— Y/N, I…it’s— it’s been a while,” JJ stutters out.

It’s all too much. Seeing him here, in front of you. His eyes locked on yours, his hand reaching out to touch you but retracting once he notices the fear in your gaze. Your eyes flit over to Derek, whose face has a more than confused look painted over his features.

“Excuse me, Derek, I— I need to get out of here.”

You speed into the restroom, locking the door behind you and setting your hands on the counter. Your chest tightens, and your breathing speeds up. She shudders, trying to shake it out as the room starts to feel like it’s closing in on you.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. You can do this. Don’t let him get to you,” you say, staring at yourself in the mirror. “It’s just…it’s just JJ.”

You feel the tears start to well in your eyes and you watch as they overtake their boundaries and roll down your flushed cheeks. You’re quick to wipe them away, though, refusing to admit defeat.

“Stop,” you tell yourself. “It’s been five years. You’re better than this.”

You aren’t sure if the words are true to your heart, because all you can think about is how the boy you loved from the ages seven to eighteen — the one who betrayed you and shattered you into a million pieces — is now your co-star for the romantic comedy you’ve just been cast in.

What could possibly go wrong?

A lot, you think. A lot could go wrong.

JJ watches as you make your way back into Derek’s office, shooting him a convincing smile.

“My apologies, Derek. Girl troubles,” you say.

JJ still knows you well enough to see that you’re hoping Derek will believe your bullshit excuse.

“Oh, uh, no worries at all, Y/N. I completely understand. I’ve got three daughters at home,” he speaks, trying to assure you that everything is fine. He places this hand on JJ’s shoulder, squeezing slightly. “JJ, here, was just telling me how the two of you have known each other since you were in elementary school. It must be quite the hell of a reunion, huh?”

You plaster a fake grin onto your lips, “One hell of a reunion, indeed.”

JJ refuses to look at you, his ex-best friend, and vice-versa. Truthfully, he’s terrified to catch your eye again. He’s not sure if he’ll be able to form a coherent sentence if he does.

“Well, I’ve got some stuff to take care of, so I’ll leave you two to catch up.”

Derek exits his office, and you and JJ are left in complete and utter silence.

God, JJ missed you so much. He’d seen you making headlines just as you always said you would, but he was always quick to click away, deciding not to dwell on everything he’d lost. But this, now, seeing you right in front of him as gorgeous as ever…it made the walls he’d worked so hard to put up begin to crack.

Then again, you’d always had that effect on him.

Even after all these years, he was still a complete wreck over you. You held his heart in the palm of your hand and he wasn’t even sure if you knew it.

Your scent was still etched into his mind, still buzzing deep within his senses and his memory. You smelled of the saltwater beaches of the Outer Banks. The notes of coconut from the shampoo he’d recognized still lingering in the tresses of your hair. The sweet hints of vanilla that clutched to your skin are prominent as ever. The combination sounds like a lot, and it was, but not in the overpowering way one would assume. They blended into one heavenly and unique fragrance.

She smelled like her, he thought. She smelled like home.

To be honest, JJ wasn’t sure whether or not this was a reminder he wanted to welcome with open arms, but either way, here it was. Here you were. After the way he’d hurt you and destroyed your relationship forever.

After he lost himself.

Funnily enough, you’d always had a way of popping up whenever he needed and longed for you. He never even had to speak a single word. You just always knew. And you might not have guessed it now, but he needed you more than he ever had before.

JJ scratches his brow with his index finger. “So, um…how have you been?”

“Don’t. Just…don’t.”

“Y/N, please,” he pleads. He almost wants to get down on his knees and beg. You can’t even look at him, and that hurts more than he could ever put into words.

“No. I don’t wanna hear it. I’m fine with being professional while we film this movie, but I’m not getting into this with you. I’m not getting into any of it.”

JJ remains silent, choosing to nod because he’s not totally sure he can find his voice.

As much as he hated to let the thought in, you were a walking reminder of every bad decision he’d made since he left the island and never looked back. He looked at you, and he saw two things. The first being the crinkling of your bright eyes when you smiled. The melodic laugh he could pull from your lips at a moment’s notice. Your hair blowing in the wind as you stuck your head out the window of John B’s Twinkie. And the second being the look of despise and pain on your face as you confronted him. The mascara-stained tears flowing down your heated cheeks. The way you walked away from him and deliberately chose not to look back and steal a second glance at him.

How was he expected to act all suave and cool when you were right there in front of him, actively choosing not to even look in his direction?

Truth is, he doesn’t think he can.

JJ glances at his phone once he leaves the production office still shaken by the day’s events.

2 Missed FaceTime Calls from John B

JJ swipes to the right and watches as his phone rings, awaiting his best friend’s answer while he plops down on the steps in front of the building. The line rings for a few moments before he hears shuffling through the speaker, followed by John B’s face appearing on his screen.

“Hey, man. how was your meeting? Your new costar as hot as we imagined?”

JJ tears his eyes away from the camera, his lip sinking between his teeth. His complexion pales, and John B picks up on it.

“Jeez. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Because I have,” JJ deadpans. He’s still reeling from your presence, and it shows.

“Huh?”

“It’s Y/N…my costar is Y/N.”

“Ooh, yikes,” John B responds. “Did she nut-punch you?”

“It’s not funny.”

JJ tugs his cap off as he always does when he’s stressed, and his fingers card through his hair. He tugs lightly at the strands as he tries to alleviate the tension building up in his head.

“She couldn’t even look at me, John B. Her eyes were on me for all of five seconds before she made an excuse to go to the bathroom. Then, when she came back, she looked at everything but me. She barely even let me speak to her.”

“Well, to be fair, you guys didn’t exactly leave things on the best of terms.”

“Yeah, JB. I know. Thanks for the reminder, as if I didn’t fucking know that already.”

“All right, look. Did you fuck up majorly? Yeah. But the love the two of you had…it ran deep. It doesn’t just disappear without a trace, especially if things are this heated after five years. I think you can get her to forgive you.”

JJ scoffs, “Yeah? And how do you suppose I do that?”

John B gives him a knowing look through the screen.

“You have to tell her the truth, JJ.”

“Funny.”

“J,” John B mildly scolds. “The reason she hates you right now is because you weren’t honest with her. The JJ she knew before that night never would’ve treated her the way you did. Buck up. Tell her.”

The call disconnects, and JJ is left staring at his screen with a tense jaw. He knew John B was right. He was always right. But how on earth was he expected to muster up the courage and tell you the truth about that night? He doubted — no. He knew it’d be impossible to convince you to hear him out.

Then again, he also knew he had to try. Because he couldn’t stand to be around you nearly every single day for the next few months, knowing that you wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire.

jj tag list: @pankowperfection @oncasette @taintedxkisses @maybankslover @goldenroutledge @penny4yourthoughts @bmo-bri @hemogloban @princessbetsy123-blog @slytherhoes @maybank-archives @whoisdrewstarkey @aliyahsomerhalder @dreamingwithrafe @vigilanteshitposting @poppet05 @adoreyouusugar @f4ll-for-you @slytheringirlthatkillpeople @tell-me-when-ur-ready @bbycowboi @jjmaybankisbae @enhypens-hoe @pankhoeforlife @cecesrings @wildflwrdarlin @loverofdrewstarkey @earth2starkey @angelofcigs @topper-thornton @em0-b0ysworld @koalalafications @aerangi @cantstoptherecs @bloody-mf-bsc @maybanksbabe @sarah5462 @slut4drudy @lvvrgrl @dancinglikeaballerina @somerandos-world @shahanaazsoumah @peachpitlover @pinkpantheris @julesmendoza890 @emmalandry @blueicequeen19 @madelynie

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the-breath-in-air · 9 months

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9 Queer Movies from the 1990s You May Not Have Heard Of

It's New Years, which means it's time for lists. And while everyone else is doing 'top X of 2023,' I've decided to list 9 queer movies from the 1990s. Why? Because I wanna. Plus, in discussions of representation, I often see folks talk about it with a heavy focus on mainstream 'Hollywood' produced movies, which leads folks to talk as though progress has been linear. As if, in the past there was no/'bad' queer representation and now there is 'good' representation. But of course it's not that simple. Plenty of amazing queer movies were produced in the past decades...they were just indie movies and thus difficult to find in a world prior to Netflix and Mubi and whatnot. But now we have streaming services, so allow me to share some of my favorites from the before times (specifically the 1990s).

Without further ado....here is an alphabetical list of queer movies from the 90s you may not have heard of (especially if you're under 30).

Beautiful Thing (1996) (dir. Hettie Macdonald)

Before there was Heartstopper, there was Beautiful Thing. It's a story about two gay teens, one sporty and one very much not sporty...and about how they deal with pressure to come out and pressure to hide who they are. It's a very sweet coming of age story, really. However, unlike Heartstopper, in Beautiful Thing the economic class of the protagonists plays an important role in the story (the characters all live on a counsel estate in London). The characters stories are nearly as much about them being working class as it is about the two main character being gay. It's one of the first movies I ever saw about gay teens, and I loved it. I still get a wistful smile every time I hear Mama Cass Elliot's "Make Your Own Kind of Music." (cw for parental abuse)

Edward II (1991) (dir. Derek Jarman)

The real Edward II was King of England for 20 years in the 14th century. At the end of the 16th century, Christopher Marlowe wrote a play about Edward's reign and eventual downfall. In 1991, Derek Jarman streamlined Marlowe's play and brought all the homosexual subtext between Edward and Gaveston way out front. In the film, Edward II is in prison and reflects on the events which have led him to that point. The trouble begins when Edward takes the throne and brings his exiled lover, Gaveston, back to England. All around them the rest of the aristocracy (including Edward's wife) conspire to bring Gaveston down. The movie itself is anachronistic (set in 1991), with minimal sets and costume, and staged a lot like a play. A lot of the dialogue is right out of Marlowe's play, though there are some changes to the story (notably at the end). It's honestly my favorite Derek Jarman movie, and frankly one of my favorite movies, full stop. (cw for blood, animal corpses, violent death)

Fire (1996) (dir. Deepa Mehta)

Fire is the first film in the Elements Trilogy written and directed by Deepa Mehta. Each film in the trilogy is about different characters in India, with the connection between the three being thematic rather than plot or character. Fire is about two Indian women, Radha and Sita, who form a bond through their struggles living within a traditional "joint-family" (i.e. a family where all extended family live together and all money and resources are shared). The women in this family have very little agency and this film explores how the two main characters navigate through it. The men in this film are also repressed by the social structure in which they live, and this film spends some time looking at that as well. It's a film about queer desire between women living under patriarchy. (All the movies on this list are available on streaming services in the US, except Fire. However, I was able to find it uploaded to a random YouTube channel) (cw for someone catching on fire, brief domestic violence (a slap), and non-consensual kissing)

Happy Together (1997) (dir. Wong Kar-wai)

In Happy Together, two men from Hong Kong travel to Argentina and eventually get stuck there when they run out of money and are unable to return home. The relationship between these two men is very tumultuous, with a lot of arguing and breaking up and getting back together. It's one of the first movies I saw in which queer folks have, just, regular ol' relationship drama - exasperated by the regular ol' struggles of life. (i cant remember if there are any content warnings i should put here; it's been a few years since i've seen it)

Lilies (1996) (dir. John Greyson)

Lilies is a Canadian film in which a prisoner requests a bishop come to the prison to hear the prisoner's last confession. It quickly becomes clear, however, that the prisoners have something else in mind when they begin staging a play. It turns out the bishop and prisoner knew each other as teens, and the play is about the events in their lives that led up to the prisoner being put on trial. So you end up with a play-within-a-play (or rather a play-within-a-movie). The film weaves between the production staged in the prison and the memory of the events in a really fluid way. All the prisoners portray their characters in the 'memory' sections, which lends itself to some really great moments in the prison sections. And at the heart of this memory/story is a queer love story. (cw for parental abuse, murder, fire, and suicide)

The Living End (1992) (dir. Gregg Araki)

This is a film about two young gay men who are diagnosed HIV positive. Unlike more mainstream films about HIV that came before (and after), The Living End wears its anger and pain on its sleeve. The entire world is entirely fucked up, and so these two men turn to a nihilistic outlook. The acting is just okay and some of the dialog is a bit ridiculous...but what draws me to rewatch this movie is the way that it conveys the emotion of the time. It's a ball of rage manifest on film. (cw for attempted suicide, rape, murder)

Love is the Devil (1998) (dir. John Maybury)

One of the problems with the average biopic is that it attempts to portray a person's entire life in a single movie. Thankfully, Love is the Devil doesn't have that problem; it focuses on only 8 years of Francis Bacon's life - the time he spent with a man named George Dyer. By this point, Bacon was already an extremely famous artist (and, at least in the film, a bit of an asshole). Bacon meets Dyer as Dyer attempts to burgle Bacon's studio - and thus begins an extremely dysfunctional love affair. If you want to see Derek Jacobi and Daniel Craig portray this dysfunctional relationship, then this is the movie for you. Also, if you want to see a biopic that lets the subject of the film be portrayed as a shitty person, this is a film for you. (cw for bdsm, drug use, untreated mental illness, and suicide)

Orlando (1992) (dir. Sally Potter)

From right out the gate, Orlando announces its queer themes by having Quentin Crisp portray Queen Elizabeth I, and Tilda Swinton portray Orlando (a man). From the first scenes it becomes clear that gender is going to be a main theme in the movie. Orlando is a young man who will never grow old and never die. He begins life in the 1500s, during Queen Elizabeth's reign, and we see him (and later, her) throughout the centuries between then and 'present' day (1992). The film is broken into thematic chunks (poetry, politics, society, etc). In each of these chunks we see Orlando's life as it reflects the social norms of the time (especially gender norms).

Swoon (1992) (dir. Tom Kalin)

Like Rope (1948) and Compulsion (1959), Swoon is a film about the Leopold and Loeb murder. Unlike the earlier films, Swoon makes the gay relationship between Leopold and Loeb explicit. Their relationship in the film is fairly uneven, with Loeb being characterized as more of an explicit manipulator. Leopold, on the other hand, is driven more by wanting to please Leob. Complicating this dynamic is the way that Leopold is the one more interested in their sexual relationship. Is Loeb exchanging sex for help with his criminal activities? Or is Leopold committing crimes in order to elicit sex from Loeb? Or both...something a bit more complicated than either/or? The film, especially the latter half, eschews and lampoons the sensationalism of the reporting of the crime from the time. (cw for murder, blood (in black and white), and animal corpses)

Honorable mention goes to more well-known movies I didn't put on this list, such as: But I'm a Cheerleader, Velvet Goldmine, Bound, Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Birdcage, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, My Own Private Idaho, Bent...there are actually a whole lot of queer movies from the 1990s, now that I think about it.

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ancaporado · 3 months

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I know that many ancaps/libertarians are pro population growth and pro development, I however think that the global population and megacities are a government abomination. I keep thinking that places like the UK/Beltway/LA of USA are so fucked up because they don't have any real wilderness left. it's just a cultivated grid of human housing, industry, agriculture, the largest undomesticated creature being a racoon or fox or something pathetically small and unthreatening. Even the meme "birds aren't real" I think is a riff on this; you live in a 100% man-made environment, even the birds might as well be government spy robots.

When you fundamentally have to interact with an artificial rules based world all the time you have a tendency to systematize everything, and believe the lie that imaginary things like laws and governments are real physical things, and not just the whims of the police officer on the corner. Somewhat like abuse victims internalize the rules of their abuser to avoid punishment and cope. The urban landscape is the breeding ground of the cancerous and parasitic human survival strategy we identify as socialism/collectivism/progressivism.

The only real laws are those of nature, physics, chemistry, biology, evolution. Humans are an animal and we adapt to our environment, which is a mouse utopia. The modern world is so sick and against nature because our power to wall it out of our lives has created a hubris to rebel against these things. Progressivism in a sense, is rejection of natural order, a rejection of subjection to nature or nature's God. This is how you get to where we are today. I don't need to list the examples, but the unreality of thinking we can abolish scarcity, inequality, sex, the family, etc...

I don't want civilization and cities and humans not to exist. I just want radical concentrations of those things. We had 2.5% the global population in antiquity and still got innovative and talented thinkers that we still discuss today, artists, engineers, etc. These people had ample access to an untamed world, one that was unpredictable, and challenged them.

The urban human is a domesticated one. They have no real self-determination. Without a world unmade by humans, they have no reference for something beyond the imagination of another human, no blank canvas to make their own. Like the shadows of Plato's cave I'd wager it's like a person forced to look into a mirror their entire life. They would have no ability to identify themselves in the mirror as they have no reference that the mirror isn't just the entire world.

Climbing mountains, navigating rapids, scaling rock walls, skiing couloirs... the physical conquest of nature yields a surprise that cannot be claimed from an artificial challenge.

Think of the sweating, yelling, heaving mass of Cairo,

Bangladesh

Lagos

Mexico city

You might just assume they make great films, music, art, thinkers, engineers, and we just don't hear about them because they don't get distributed here or something. No it's just a mass of human flesh consuming the natural world, no ability to reflect and create, just consume.

Almost all of these places import food from the temperate climates of developed nations. A two year breakdown of global supply chains would result in them starving in the millions.

Even here in western civilization we yield the prime 'high-density walkable" real-estate to degenerates via council and section 8 housing.

Government programs of fiat currency, the welfare-warfare state, followed by deindustrialization has resulted in a massive mismatch in human population and economic/environmental capacity. Sure, here's where someone could politely chime in that "humans have infinite creative capacity, we just need to unlock their potential and your Malthusian doomsday is no more" and I grant that to a degree.

But massive declines in human population, the standard of living, and technology are regular historical occurrences. Western science has had an absolute "ick" towards actually understanding and implementing Darwinism towards human populations. Country-wide datasets of IQ probably remain stable due to the continuing rise/Flynn effect of the middle/upper class offsetting the sliding downward of the welfare class. There's no evolutionary biologist who wouldn't recognize that the market economy selects for intelligence and the welfare state was our feeble altruistic effort to carry the "but I did have breakfast" population along with us.

We've had nearly a century and, in some cases of repeated teen pregnancies, 6 or 7 generations who were never asked to provide for themselves meaningfully. They live in an ever more confusing world of late payments, cash advances, welfare office applications, prison stints, evictions, and unplanned pregnancies. Each generation more befuddled than the last. Recent studies show that there have been population bottlenecks through human evolution. In the bronze age as few as 1 in 17 men reproduced at all.

Biological imperatives of reproduction rule over all other sentiments and altruistic masochism. For the silent generation and the boomers, the welfare state was a token price they agreed to pay to keep the peace and they could afford it as they got race-rioted out of their downtown homes into the suburbs. Now the jig is up and millennials en-masse are finding that they can't afford to have kids *intentionally*. They look at their pay stub getting taxed at 40% so that, over at the section 8 housing, "baby mamas" collect government checks for the consequence of a hookup with serial felons, who are also housed and fed with working people's taxes. The boomers made a devil's bargain, they cucked their children!

Now we enter the final death spiral of empires and welfare states: below replacement fertility rates and above GDP national debt!

The group most prepared for the coming calamity, the group who predicted it, and who will emerge as victors are those who are internally pro-growth/pro population but maintain in-group preferences. The stats bear out:

Now this shift isn't just conservatives but libertarians also. In a couple generations we have gone from 1% in the 70's to 10% in the 2010s and now easily 25% in the 2020's (many libertarians simply don't vote or vote republican). We will replace left-wingers, who only reproduce vampirically via public education, in the next generation. There is hope at the end of this journey but it will be difficult in the mean time. Prepare yourself accordingly.

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nothingenoughao3 · 2 months

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hai i'm curious about what twin peaks is, can you explain it to me (preferably without spoilers) /nf

Oh, is it my birthday?! Yes I can do that!

I will say that I generally do not consider things that happen in the pilot or first episode of a TV series to be "spoilers" so much as "premise". So anything I say here that's direct plot-stuff will only come from the pilot. All right? Let's dig in!

CAPSULE SUMMARY

Twin Peaks is a surreal/magical realism/police procedural/drama/horror/soap opera produced by David Lynch and Mark Frost. It had two seasons of 30 episodes total, a film (Fire Walk With Me), and a third season that came out 25 years later in 2017.

In the pilot episode, a teenaged young woman who everyone in town knows, Laura Palmer, is found murdered. The town reels to cope with her demise and the investigation. A second young woman is found alive and wandering--and she crossed state lines as she wandered. The police call in the FBI, since it's now a multi-state case, and in walks Special Agent Dale Cooper.

As Cooper begins his investigation, he discovers that there's far, far more going on in Twin Peaks than he'd first anticipated.

[NOTE HERE that Twin Peaks covers a LOT of extremely tough and triggering topics over the course of its run. DoesTheDogDie should have a list of all triggers, although those will come with spoilers. The main one to be aware of is that sexual assault, domestic abuse, and rape are discussed. The aftermath of these crimes is depicted. It's 1990, so it's not graphic as in Law & Order: SVU, but it is very much present. Please take care of yourself first!]

NOT-SPOILER REASONS TO WATCH IT

It is a vital historical work of art. Twin Peaks revived the police procedural, popularized soap operas as an art form, launched and relaunched multiple acting careers, introduced surrealism to multiple generations of TV watchers, taught basics of Buddhism, helped spread awareness of the Free Tibet movement, and inspired countless references and imitators. When you watch Twin Peaks, you'll feel like you've seen it before... because you've almost certainly seen something which only exists because of Twin Peaks.

David Lynch is Autism Patient Zero who does not compromise his writing or his vision for NT audiences. He writes dialogue and directs actors in a way that can only be described as "everybody's got the autism accent", and it is a DELIGHT to experience.

The visuals are, often, so strong that you will forget how to breathe. Many of the sets and locations are treated like characters in and of themselves.

The title, Twin Peaks, ties into the show's central themes about identity, which is one of my favorite themes in fiction. What makes you who you are? If there was someone who looked a lot like you, would that compromise who you are? What if they have the same name as you? Are you no longer who you are if you can't remember your past? Is it sometimes a good thing to change your identity? What if everybody thinks you did something unforgivable, but you don't remember it? Does society require all of us to have public faces and private faces? Does anyone really know another person's private face?

When I first watched it, nobody shipped Trucoop (Cooper with the local police sheriff, Harry S. Truman). Now it seems like everybody does and I am not alone, yaaay.

Features one of the very few trans characters in media at the time who was unambiguously positive!

Watch an episode, then pull up the IMDB and see who everyone is. I guarantee that you'll almost always find SOMEone who was famous for other stuff. If you like Star Trek, you'll find that half the damn cast was either on TNG or DS9. It is honestly astounding to me that Jeff Combs wasn't on the series (because, I assume, he was shooting Bride of Re-Animator and other stuff).

THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR

The subtitling in some versions of the show (on DVD specifically) is really bad and unreliable. I found that the Netflix subtitles were OK. If you don't know about OpenSubtitle, I recommend using them to find better subtitles in case you need them.

As stated above, the show gets into really dark themes, and it does not shy away from them when necessary. I feel that these things are addressed in a sensitive way and frequently related to plot, but it hits everyone different.

The music... eh. I like the electro/late 80s theme and the instrumentals that back most of the scenes. But every time someone sings, I get the cringe. I've never been able to get on board with what Lynch thinks good music sounds like. But a lot of people do, so that could just be me.

It takes a lot of work to watch this show. Since so much of it is visual, it is absolutely a show you have to watch with no distractions. I found it to be worth it--past a certain point, I didn't want any distractions. But I get where it's a sacrifice of time and concentration.

If you watch it and enjoy it, you will probably end up with Lynchian Syndrome, where you are compelled to watch every other thing David Lynch has ever made and develop elaborate hypotheses on how they're all in the same universe and suchlike.

So yeah! I hope this gives you an spoiler-free idea of why this show is so special, and if you had any other questions about it, let me know!

#twin peaks #special agent dale cooper #asked and answered #nothingenough speaks #sheriff harry s truman #laura palmer #who killed laura palmer #trucoop #c'mon you guys we can call it trooper #autism patient zero #david lynch

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