#this ones kind of major ass but whatever who even cares anymore

[cara-carabowditbowdit]

will my hanging leave me indecent? will they have to cross my legs?

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

Gonna be real under the cut

As someone who has been bullied all of my schooltime because I was too awkward, too fat, because my dad left us, because of how my hair looked, because I was wearing the same pants for two days in a row, because I had respect for my teachers, because i never had a boyfriend, because i didn't drink....

I am so glad the internet wasn't around back then.

If shit like what is happening currently in this fandom would have been happened to me twenty years ago?

I don't want to imagine what I would have done to make it stop.

Bullies have always been the same.

Mirroring their insecurites on someone who thinks won't fight back (or in this day and age can't because you can't censor the internet and reporting will only get you so far)

If you are one of the people "confessing" on that certain blog

You are nothing more than a bully.

If you have a problem with someone and don't want to use the block button for whatever reason, you get into the inbox of the person you feel is "mistreating you" and ask them why. You don't go around sending hateful messages hiding behind the anonymity this website provides under the impression that it's "confessing".

If you genuinely feel offended that not everyone (of the so called big blogs) talks to you, that you're not instantly are getting the notes on the fics you post, that you don't have enough followers, that you dont feel welcome in a fandom....

Things like this can take years.

And it takes work. It takes constant writing. It takes constant making gifs. Constant making art.

And yeah sometimes people chose to not reblog other fics/content? So what? Big deal. No one has to!

Like it is some kind of obligation once you hit your made up big blog follower number to reblog every single content from anyone. wtf?

Of course things mutuals post get reblogged more often, because they are on our dashboards.

Personally I used to find new writers/fics by going into the Pedro tag. The tag that is now swamped with hatefull "confessions" so I just don't go looking anymore. You think this will get you the exposure you want to?

Maybe it will, but not in the way you have been dreaming of.

And you bet your ass we are gonna reblog our shit as often as we want to. . And if I want to reblog my own fic twenty times because i am proud of it? Not your problem. The unfollow and block button is there for a reason. USE IT.

Because, newsflash, these are our own fucking blogs and we can do whatever we want with it

Like you.

Who choses to bully people for the fucked up reasons your little brains think are valid.

But bullying is never okay and I hope one day you realize and care that you actually hurt people. Sometimes to a point where you can't be sorry anymore cause they're gone.

I guess what I wanna say with this post is grow up.

And don't even get me started on how people over the age of 30 are creepy for still being in fandom.

You do know what a hobby is, right?

The majority of the content you love so much would be gone if we all would be gone. Maybe keep that in mind the next time you get into some inbox to call people out you never have bothered to get to know in the first place.

[suffarustuffaru]

why the emilia camp thinks otto is their most threatening member 👍

i see some people being confused on why the emilia camp collectively seems to agree that otto is the biggest threat there for some reason and like. yeah. i get it.

but let me explain real quick why i think it makes sense for the emilia camp to think that :O !!

otto though is disarming because. well okay look at him he doesnt look threatening at all. he has the looks and personality of a wet cat. hes whiny. hes cringe fail. he gets stressed out with paperwork. he looks like you could just smack him around like a bug. he HAS been smacked around like a bug. but that makes him unpredictable because apart from roswaal, he is the Most Amoral one there. you can expect roswaal to be trying some shit, but youd never know when to expect otto is planning something. his moral compass is just “does this benefit me or my loved ones in some way? if not, then its gonna be gone 🥺”.

sure, he does nice things sometimes out of the goodness of his heart. he genuinely means well a lot of the time.

but also then you read the shit hes thinking in his internal dialogue and its like.

“should i go save some girl i dont even know from bandits??? hmm lemme think for a couple minutes. im the only one that can help rn… some guy claiming to be her dad is begging me to help his daughter, but also hes kind of annoying… but i dont even live in this city so why should i help… or Care. actually. but i feel kinda bad about this girl… but also this is gonna put me and my profits in danger… but if i reject helping then im forever gonna be known as the guy who abandoned them and then i wont be able to make any sales in this city anymore :<<<< ……anyway im gonna help them then lol im so smart.” and then he gets captured by the exact same bandits anyway so hes like “well okay now me and this girl might be sold into slavery so i might as well save both of us or ill feel bad ☝️☝️”

(yes. yes this is genuinely ottos thought process if you read through the Otto's Bittersweet Peddling Log side story.)

except all the back and forth Calculation he does in his head Stays In His Head and doesnt match up with his outward appearance most of the time. which means that sometimes his words dont match up with his actions. “dont be surprised if i leave at the first sign of danger,” he says, right after risking his life and writing a suicide note over a dude hes known for like four days. “ahah thanks for giving me a vacation to see my family…” he says, damn well knowing he cant go back home yet otherwise he’ll get sniped by assassins. “im gonna give you some of my own money bounty money to help you BUT BUT BUT DONT THINK THAT IM NICE OR ANYTHING I NEED MOST OF THE MONEY FOR REPAIRS OK YOU CAN ONLY HAVE A BIT :<<<“

this also means that whenever otto says or does something Particularly Questionable, all his friends are still kinda blindsided by it because otherwise otto seems Mostly Fine in comparison to whatever the hell everyone else has going on. hes just a wet pathetic cat of a guy ahah. theres nothing more going on with h—

“if everyone in vollachia dies but rem and natsuki-san live, then we’ve won. if everyone in vollachia lives but rem and natsuki-san die, then we’ve lost.”

um otto can you repeat that. what the fuck did you just say.

otto looks Mostly Normal, Just Stressed Out or Somewhat Chilling the vast majority of the time, and then he whacks you over the head with a steel chair. like can you imagine being garfiel and learning that this pathetic rag of a man is actually pretty brave when it counts. youre like “oh cool lol we kinda beat each others asses and i was Annoyed but now that thats all over i got some newfound respect for you!!” and then you read through his diary and hes got a suicide note in there, which is like. okay fine whatever hes kind of a clown just like my New Captain lol but hes dedicated to his friends, ill give him that. and then a year later you find your now brother figure (whos also lowkey highkey an alcoholic) with a broken hand after punching a wall because he couldnt do his Lets Abandon 50 Million People Plan and youre just sitting there going

and okay dont get me wrong—subaru is Batshit Crazy. in Multiple Incomprehensible Ways. if the emilia camp (or Anyone. At All.) knew about all the shit hes done and been through with rbd, subaru would INSTANTLY be skyrocketing up the Most Threatening People list. but at the same time subarus less threatening than otto in the sense that subarus Always going to want to do good. hes Always going to want to save everyone. hes Extremely forgiving, on top of that. he goes along picking up friends everywhere he goes in his own Incomprehensible Unhinged Way and hes fond of All of them.

otto? yeah his opinion of you could shift on a dime and you could end up in his personal shit list unless youre one of the *checks list* *clears throat* maybe like ten people he cares about. and even if youre on the I Care About You! :) list, he could still get pissed enough at you to, i dont know, punch a wall over you? and spiral into obsession? and even if hes not upset at you hes still gonna mansplain manipulate malewife his way to his goals <33

and yeah of course subaru is also Mansplain Manipulate and Gaslight Gatekeep but at least he has way more good intentions AND his attitude about it is gonna be like "sorry :<<< i just gotta do this for your sake :<<<<<< :((( haha dont worry about it". subaru would never ever want to do anything big to hurt his loved ones (except for rbd). while otto doesnt even bat an eye. everyone can be manipulated if he has to. he goes down his list of Things I Need To Do and goes "yeah that had to be done. oh well. anyway i got more shit to do (like maybe kill a toddler lol)"

also lets talk about roswaal's perspective really quick. post-arc 4 hes like "well subaru-kun is always gonna want to save everyone and hes doing a pretty good job of things in general so whatever lol. i can still keep him in check by killing everyone if even one of his friends dies :)". so its like. YEAH subarus an Unhinged Wildcard. roswaal knows that. but right now subaru is more predictable and also again, roswaal knows he can keep subaru in check by making subaru have to reset if roswaal really needs to.

but otto? yeah ottos second in line for being an Unhinged Wildcard. but whats even worse is that otto is Basically Subaru but More Calculating and with a moral backbone thats Near Nonexistent. roswaal was genuinely concerned for otto in arc 8 for once and there was still Literally No Stopping Otto from being a stubborn little shit whos hell bent on all the maladjusted insane mentalities hes got floating around in his head, half of which he doesnt even say out loud, and all of which he thinks is Completely Right and that theres Nothing Wrong with what hes doing.

and also otto being underestimated and Not In The Tome was a big help as to how subaru got the win over roswaal in arc 4 👍and then otto Continues to try keeping an eye on roswaal after arc 4, to the point of getting roswaal's tome and actively trying to investigate roswaal's actions, so roswaal is Very Aware that otto is. a bit of a threat. roswaal of course is smarter and more powerful than otto though, but that still doesnt change the fact that otto is still capable of being a threat if roswaal doesnt Also kind of keep an eye on otto back. because roswaal kind of lost to otto already in arc 4!!

but okay, on top of all of this, no one knows the full extent of whats going on with otto, not even roswaal (though he has his Suspicions), and most definitely not subaru yet (whos Still a bit of an otto apologist anyway), and otto is already a bit menacing even without knowing All of that. and the rest of the emilia camp are already a bit more lenient with roswaal (as hes seemingly chilled out after arc 4 + they all need him still). that, and you can easily Expect roswaal post-arc 4 to be suspicious and Probably up to something. you wont know what it is, but you wont Exactly be surprised when it happens.

and also roswaal isnt publicly batshit crazy like otto is. otto of course isnt as Openly Weird as subaru, but otto is still Openly Unhinged and Pathetic. just look at him declaring julius and anastasia, HIS CAMP'S ALLIES, as enemies right to their faces alsdfjlsdjfl.

and with subaru, there is Zero doubt in the emilia camp's minds that subaru wants the best for them and everyone around them.

otto though? yeah he also wants whats best for the camp. he Cares about them, he really does. but hes so obviously Questionable by the time you get to arc 8 to the point where the entire rest of the camp starts eyeing him like this:

theres also the fact that ottos dp allows him to have eyes and ears Everywhere so long as he doesnt overuse it. that paired with his Intelligence, Stubbornness, and Lack of Morals or self-awareness/sometimes guilt/regret over his actions is dangerous. theres a reason why gluttony if subaru decided to flood The Entire Surrounding Area Around Otto. the flood took away the potential army otto couldve made out of the animals and allies otto had in the city, and once you do that, whats otto going to do against someone like shaula? all of ottos power regarding his People Skills and Animal DP was stripped away.

but if that Isnt stripped away... well honestly otto can do whatever the hell he wants the moment he figures out a solid plan to try and get what he wants. his biggest ability at the core of what makes him dangerous is his ability to quite Literally be in the background. so long as hes underestimated, so long as he still has secrets, no ones gonna know the full extent of his bullshit!! you cant stop him if you dont even realize what hes going to do, and hes Good at doing that!!

and if gluttonybaru hadnt taken out otto, subaru would be skyrocketing right to the top of ottos shit list after subaru literally just killed All of ottos (and previously subarus.) loved ones. otto wouldnt stop until he figured out how to destroy subaru. its to the point where im pretty sure if otto had to choose between destroying half the world vs kill gluttonybaru once and for all, otto would certainly choose one of those options in a Heartbeat.

anyway. if youre an emilia camp member, and you see the dude whos in charge of the Vast Majority of the factions political affairs, the guy who you Know is very intelligent and competent and determined when it counts, say shit like "if everyone dies in this entire country i wouldnt even give a single flying fuck as long as our friends get back safe and sound :) it would be such a loss if the entire country lived but our friends didnt :<<<" OF COURSE I WOULD BE LIKE YEAH THAT GUY IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ONE HERE. HE HAS THE SKILLS AND THE MOTIVATION TO BACK UP THAT STATEMENT AND I WONT EVEN KNOW WHEN ITD HAPPEN. he also has the Mental Instability to back that up too, given the amount of times he spends drinking and Raging and Being Terribly Anxious over Every Little Thing.

youll be sweating buckets being wary of otto while ottos casually standing there with his wet cat looks and a knife in your back.

and otto has, for the most part, some of the most normal trauma compared to a bunch of people in this cast (not to discount ottos trauma and pain or anything but its true lajdsfls sorry otto. but also im not sorry because arc 5 was partially on you T^T). he doesnt have rbd, he doesnt have some weird family drama bullshit going on like the astreas or emilias family or the segmunts, he hasnt been erased by gluttony, etc etc. but hes still like this. if you put him in subarus position and gave him rbd, he would get even worse than he already is.

yeah so anyway thats my quick rambley psa about why i think it makes sense that the emilia camp's voted otto as the most threatening one there 👍

but the fact that we (the audience) (or at least some of us!!) keep questioning why the hell the emilia camp thinks otto is the biggest threat there is means that otto's funny silly guy image is. Kind of Working??? just a little bit.

because. granted. of course i think subaru is easily the most threatening person there with both His Flavor of Insanity and rbd. subaru is an eldritch horror in every single way. but at the same time - hes an eldritch horror who thinks friendship is the best magic of all T^TT !!! he FORGIVES PEOPLE WHO'VE KILLED AND TORTURED HIM. hes not threatening in this sense - the fact that hes kind of just way too nice in this sense!!! granted yes, he IS abusing rbd and Terrifying and Threatening in a multitude of ways, but i'd rather take my chances with mainbaru over main otto right now HAH T^TT at least subaru will apologize and start bawling his eyes out if he stabs some random innocent civilian and stranger in the gut for Some Necessary Reason!! otto would feel a bit bad and then completely Eradicate that feeling of guilt with "i had to do it. it was them or me so no regrets <3".

because otto..................... yeah otto is the Worlds Most Pathetic Yandere to his whole camp.

[glubandeepspace]

what goes hard- rafayel (not like that, although yes like that, but not right now, bc im still thinking of oceanic nightfall)-

falling back into various poor coping mechanisms he used when he was more alone because being partners with mc doesnt mean he'll stop being lonely especially whenever mc has to be away and hes still spent centuries longer facing all kinds of isolation despite other company available or welcomed (humans he didnt want to / couldnt befriend, lemurians he loves but could still be aloof to).

his comfortability being real but also as gradual as the love and with a part of him remaining somewhat resigned to the possibility of losing his happiness again one way or another (abt both mc & other things/people), some of this communicated blithely because vulnerability can still be scary, and if someone doesnt see past his half-assed acts / occasional testingly ambiguous phrases (and instead maybe sees him as some fickle failure or burden or w/e) then thats totally their fault,

except mc almost always understands and calls him out, calls him annoying or whatever whenever right to his face unlike most other people bc mc is like that with anyone/anything and he loves that about mc, needs that, as much as he does for mc's assurances in times even hes unsure about himself.

the sea god's first love was a more equally lonely person but got remade into someone who knows what it's like to care and be cared for and in that they still achieve a balance—not mc "fixing" him, but being an anchor and a reason for him to hold onto other anchors too and be mc's in turn instead of going the convenient route of accidentally/semi-accidentally letting others define what he does or feels he has to for the dozenth time.

rafayel (seeming so composed n sure of himself & a lot of things most of the time abt the major things) messing up sometimes in ways that are major without quite being a matter of life or death anymore, and rafayel resting.

[rotblut]

Likes and dislikes about Sweet Home S2? Saw you gave it 1 star on MDL (agree☠️) and I luv reading your opinions!

.

ok, first s2 was useless. in my humble opinion, at least 80% of the storyline was a waste of time and money. it felt more like filler scenes to me overall. the new minor side characters were flat, generic, annoying, and overall unlikeable and felt out of place? and it's not the actor's fault because all the actors that they got for the side characters are good fucking actors that know how to act and deliver a charming performance but the writing was annoying af for them all. like the first 3 eps span a time of a few days right? in ep4 there was a 3-year-ish timejump. you'd think that the people adapted to the change of lifestyle yet they acted so useless. THE NEW CHARS DIDN'T EVEN HAVE COOL ASS WEAPONS OR FIGHTING STYLES????????? BORING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! especially the female chars (not wanting to call it sexism but calling it like that) in that residence whatever that was were dumb bishes. instant skip. military homoeroticism subplot??????????? don't care. should have been left in the drafts. the whole science doctor subplot?????????? generic shit that's overused in that kind of drama. who carers about the scientific reason and how to get a cure or whatever they tried to find like??????????????? NO ONE GIVES A SINGLE FUCKING FUCK for the scientific side and they always push that side into the narrative fuck. it was an instant skip for me even tho i like oh jung se as well but that shit wasn't interesting enough or different to make me care and keep my attention focused. the fucking rapist istg instant skip was pissed off that he had all the scenes with song kang like i had to skip and when he died he came back ???????????? fuck was that for????????????? can he stay dead irl and in that drama?????? fuck

also didn't help that cha hyun soo's char for the majority of the season felt isolated and different. couldn't really connect with him because, in the first part, he had the most scenes with the rapist and was in that basement doing weird shit and being handcuffed. 2nd half definitely felt better with him being with other characters and especially with eunyoo and he was back to the guy we knew and cared about.

also lmaooooooooooooo the way they tried to include some key moments from the webtoon into season 2 but it felt flat because it made no sense and was confusing. like tthe whole title *sweet home* makes no sense anymore since the apartment complex they lived in was destroyed by the end of s1. never cared for drama jisu and webtoon jisu was a million times better but them killing drama jisu off in ep3 just like that was so underwhelming and anti-climatic and boring. it was expected ngl i knew she would be killed off but like YIKES. why even kill chars when the most annoying ass chars always come back???????????

firefighter woman and her story with renesmee????????? MESS. in a few minutes growing her belly and giving birth on top of a frozen lake, falling into that lake, idk how she pushed out that abomination and stayed alive after all that but lmaooooooo and her not giving a fuck about her daughter so daddy hyun soo had to step up and raise her only for her to want to be with her daughter again just to abuse and treat her horribly?????? ARE WE FRFR RIGHT NOW?? and i should feel some kind of love and care for her and that relationship?????? nah not on my watch. also i normally love the characters that kim shi ah plays in any drama or movie but the daughter character felt so generic and flat that i didn't give a fuck.

also the weird ass old grandpa guy with that young molester girl that was drugging chan young and pushing into his personal space???????? disliked them soooooooooo much. they were just a cheap and rude version of yuri and her old guy from s1.

more or less the writing really reused all the character tropes and relationship formats from season 1 in season 2.

perfect example was eunyoo and her subplot with park chan young (the warm and soft-hearted military guy that had million heart eyes for her). 90% of his scenes with eunyoo parallel the scenes that she had with eunhyuk in s1. literally will make a compilation set in the next few days. and don't get me wrong i kinda can see some form of *poetic parallelism* to that specific choice but it makes his character more of a eunhyuk replacement (even tho both characters are 100% different from each other when it comes to their personalities and the only common thing they have is wanting to protect eunyoo). but i still kinda wished that they went into a different way and made their scenes more original and not just a copy of her and eunhyuk's scenes from s1. but i did enjoy their dynamic compared to the other shit we got but the sparks were missing for most of their scenes. it was nice and the 2 of them together definitely carried the season overall. he was such a babygirl it was def cute the way he was just willing to support her even tho she pushed him a way all of the time. ngl i would have loved for her to have more flashbacks from s1 with her and eunhyuk or her alone in this season and that we haven't seen before. because I'm sure when they filmed s1 they filmed some more scenes that didn't make it. I feel like cha hyun soo was underused and he hardly showed up at all in a lot of the episodes. minshi definitely had the most screen time and i think was the true main character of this season because her goal and arc were consistent from start to finish whereas the other character arcs changed or stopped completely and felt flat.

also, i don't even complain about the cgi because for me that's just the aesthetic and vibe at this point and i feel like they embrace the tacky-looking cgi and honestly it was giving camp and really funny to me. the lil baby monster was cute i hope it shows up in s3. all the other monsters were whatever tho like wasn't really interested in them. and since people complained about the lack of monsters in s1 the director included a bunch just so people wouldn't complain this time around and tick it off from the list. the background ost was also better this time around i think. idk what else to write but yeah that's it for now.

ngl I'll be sat for summer 2024 and s3 just so i'll get full-time eunyoo+eunhyuk back on the menu. we're so fucking back!

tell me what was pissing you off as well and what you liked

[thatpunkmaximoff]

Story: 5 out of 5 Smut: 0 out of 5

Holy… WHAT?! How was that bombshell just dropped in the epilogue like it was nothing!!!

This book had me hating each of the main characters! I seriously wished bad for all their endings, haha. But just as I was getting super annoyed with one character, I actually started to feel for them. And then just when you think that one nice character is making a bad judgment call, you realize it was all intentional!! And though another character wasn’t good, but wasn’t totally bad, it turns out they’re just as bad as the other character! I’m sorry that’s confusing, but I can’t spoil it!!!

This was such an intense ride and though you think you’ll have it all figured out, I assure you, you won’t. Hence the bombshell in that epilogue.

Seriously, this was insane.

Major spoilers below the cut...

* Who the fuck is burying a body?!

* Wow. Eve’s husband, Nate, is really just… even-tempered. I don’t trust him already. You’re married to Eve for 8 YEARS and you kiss her three times a day and fuck only once a month? You’re sketch, dude.

* Oohhhh, Addie. What did you do? Inquiring minds want to know.

* Enter mean girl Kenzie. Yeah, I’d have picked up her bag and flung it down the stairs. Fuck that petty bs.

* Oohhh. So Addie accused Arthur Tuttle, a teacher, of something and made him resign..? And Eve is totally in Arthur’s corner and disliked Addie because “Arthur is a nice man” 🤔

* Wait… so wtf happened? They’re alluding that Addie accused Mr. Tuttle of something but she’s saying she didn’t..?

* Her husband is being hit on by the new, young hot teacher? And he’s not dissuading anything? He’s totally cheating. Maybe not with the new teacher, but with someone.

* Oh lord. Addie said she didn’t care if Mr. Bennett was hot and now she’s smitten because he likes Edgar Allen Poe and he WINKED at her. This is gonna be a rollercoaster.

* Did Eve really try to steal some shoes? What a dumbass. I hope she gets caught, but I have a feeling she’ll get away with it.

* So the best friend Hudson isn’t speaking to Addie anymore..? They led us to believe it’s because whatever they think she accused the teacher of, but it’s not..? And Addie’s mom can never know..? I have so many questions.

* Goddamn. Eve got lucky.

* Oh so the rumor is that Mr. Tuttle was in a relationship with a student… and all signs pointed to Addie. But she’s saying it was never like that..? THE WHAT WAS IT LIKE?!

* “Addie is a troubled girl.” - Why did Mr. Tuttle have that mini freak out? wtf is wrong with Addie..?

* Holy shit. Eve is cheating on her husband?! Then why the fuck is she so possessive over her husband?!

* High school girls and Eve are such bitches.

* Eve is seriously pissing me off.

* I mean, I don’t trust Addie, but Eve is a grown ass woman who’s cheating on her husband and being a cunt (mentally) towards a student.

* Case in point, Addie’s mental monologue about being in the same restaurant as Mr. Bennett is weird af.

* Oh. Wait! WHAT!?WHO HELPED WHO KILLED WHO NOW!?!?

* I don’t know whether Mr. Bennett is actually just kind or what… I don’t want him to be a bad guy 😩 but that stiffie is making me think things..

* He’s totally a pedo. This is no excuse. And Addie is no better!

* Fuck, man. He just crossed the line. This is so bad.

* I’ve never read a book where I hated every character 😂 They’re all terrible people! And I have a feeling that if everything comes to light, Addie will get away with it because they’re gonna say “she’s vulnerable.”

* Addie is a little psycho.

* Mr. Bennett is not only a pedo, but a lying one as well so he can get what he wants from Addie. Smh.

* Oh shit 😂 Mrs. Bennett caught her husband kissing the student. Bring on the drama.

* So they are gonna run with the “he took advantage of her” even though she’s a little lunatic herself. They’re all terrible people!

* Well would you look at that, Addie. Mr. Bennett is a terrible person and now you know it hahahahaha. I don’t feel bad for her at all.

* So he reported his missing wife and offered up Addie as a suspect. wtf is going on 😂 and he handed over a “letter” that Addie supposedly left in his wife’s inbox, but I have a feeling it’s the letter he told her to write to her bully and explain what she would like to do to that bully 🤦🏻‍♀️

* There’s someone else who knows Mr. Bennett’s secrets.. and it’s not Addie or Mrs. Bennett’s lover..? And now Kenzie- MEAN GIRL KENZIE- has shown up to Addie’s house, exclaiming they need to talk?! Mr. Bennett was totally fucking Kenzie and that’s why Kenzie hates Addie because his attention diverted from her. I’m calling it rn.

* I fucking called it!

* SHE’S ALIVE!?

* Wait, WHAT!?

* Hudson, the best friend, is Jay!!! The same Jay who MRS. BENNETT WAS FUCKING!!!!! Holy shit. Way to end a goddamn book!!

[just-a-side-piece]

A random one but I saw a thing and it really took me back 😂

But I had this incident, let’s say, when I was like 12-ish years old with my parents. Keep in mind I was in kind of a bad mental space cause of some other string of events that had happened, so to be fair I had been a downer and a bit of an asshole to my family throughout the weeks. But!

My parents had kinda been shitting on me for like a week or two. Just saying things like I was being a dumbass for not doing one thing proper, or I was being a bitch cause I’d been a bit meaner to my little sister and it’d gotten to me over the course of time. My mental space really hadn’t helped either.

But I was in a bad spot, all this shit had been said to me and one night at dinner my dad had asked me some rhetoric question (I can’t even remember what it was anymore) and I’d responded with, “How am I supposed to know? I’m just a dumbass.”

And I’ll admit, I kinda said it to maybe try and get some pity out of them. Some guilt that they’d put these thoughts in my head and made me feel like shit.

What I didn’t account for is the absolute ‘no fucks given’ attitude ethnic parents hold for the shit they put their kids through. So my mum, no shame or hesitance or nothing, turned to me immediately after and went, “Hey, your shitty attitude has been a real downer recently. If you’re not gonna say anything useful, shut up.”

And that fucked me up 😂 I’d immediately stopped eating and got up to go do my chores, and my parents didn’t see a single thing wrong with what they’d just done.

I spent two weeks after that not saying a single word to anyone. The only people who could get anything out of me was my brother and sister and that was only if we were alone.

But in that two weeks neither of my parents really cared. My dad tried bribing me to talk like twice and my mum asked me what was wrong once. But she did it in that way where parents are very obviously tired and don’t really care, but they’re your parent so they know they’re supposed to.

Other than that they just ignored it and didn’t really do much. Eventually I started to drag myself out of that depressive pit though. I slowly started to brighten up and began talking a little more.

My dad was really happy. Immediately took me to get a treat and just hung out with me for a bit. Unfortunately he didn’t actually know what trauma or mental health issues was at the time, and didn’t really believe in therapy, so he was kind of just hoping that what he was doing was making me feel better.

My mum on the other hand 😮‍💨 she fucking spartan kicked me back into that spiral. I had finally started talking to her again and immediately she decided to joke about it. I said two words and she went, “Oh so you’re no longer doing the silent treatment? Got over whatever that was?”

And I crashed. It sucked fucking ass 😂

Luckily this one didn’t last as long. Dad was pretty determined to not be shut out this time so he actually tried hanging out with me and talking with me about whatever the hell came to his mind. Plus my sister was with me when mum had said that so in classic sibling fashion, she talked the maddest shit behind closed doors with me.

But yeah! Some prompt post reminded me of this one and it took me a minute to recover from it. It’s one of my like major trauma points of when my depression got pretty bad.

[choshasan]

random rant caused by a dumb argument with my mother last night ✨️

I never liked generation wars and shitting on other generations and bashing them, because stereotyping a generation on just it's bad people is dumb as fuck,

But istg, Gen X is the only generation I've personaly encountered that like..

One person, or one person and their imediate friend group, does [x] and then you tell them, heyy.. uhm.. y'know.. that's.. pretty fucking rude, right? And they be like

NO. Everyone does that! You should change your mindset and go out more if you don't notice everyone does that!

Like????

I literally had a horrible argument with my mother last night cuz we stopped at a drive through and she started off with "you're gonna give me" (in french "Tu vas m'donner") and I told her "hey. You're not gonna talk to the worker like that, she's a human not your bitch, and that's rude as fuck, we don't talk to people like that, that ain't how you fucking raised me." And she went on this entire rant about how everyone talks like that and how that's fully acceptable to talk to workers like that and it's not rude and if I can't see that everyone talks like that, then I need to get out of the house more. And just so much more nonsencical Shit and like ?!?!?!

Bitch what??

Literally, 1. You work custommer service, I KNOW you don't got people talking to u like that all day, cuz I can hear them talking to u on the phone and the vast majority of them are super fucking polite.

And 2. I GO OUT MORE OFTEN THAT THIS BITCH BRUH!! Like, she goes out once or twice a week, to buy groceries and shit, and then she be like i KnOw hOw ThE wOrLd Is BeCaUsE i HaD a LiFe In ThE '70s AnD '80's

Like gurl- wake the fuck up. It's not socailly acceptable anymore to call women "skirts" and smoke indoors and smack ur waitress on the ass cuz she's cute or whatever. Y'all just old, entitled as fuck, and reffuse to let go of the past.

And like, I know it's not all Gen X, cuz most of the people I know's parents are Gen X, and they're such kind and accepting people who accept the changing of times and recognise that someday, the world will be left to the younger generations, so they gotta addapt to them and make the world a better place for them,

But jesus fuck the entitled Gen X who act like it's the fucking 40's - 60's still in the fucking 2000s, like?! You've had 40+ years to addapt bruh, where'd your brain fucking stop??? I know change is scarry and you won't always understand the younger generations and the weird shit we do, but remember, you guys did weird shit too when you were young, and your parents were assholes about it, and you resented them for not understanding you.. like?? Remember Queen?? They had a whole music video where they cross dressed. Remember the beasty boys?? Who did satirical rap-rock?? Remember twisted sister?? Kiss?? And all those other bands??

And most importantly, remember how you were taught basic human respect?? Remember that first retail job you really didn't like when you had rude clients but you didn't have a choice to put up with them because you needed the job?? Or maybe even you chewed them out and kicked theor asses cuz you didn't care, you could just get another job??

Lets not make others lives a hell for no reason, kay? Lets be kind and polite to eachother, cuz seeing grown ass adults be more impolite than a toddler is legit embarassing bruh- 💀

And god knows how much y'all care 'bout appearances 💀

[lightdragonman1]

Been rewatching Valvrave recently, and remembered how much I love these two together. Which just makes it all the more infuriating how this relationship was treated.

Warning for a long post.

A huge problem I felt that kept Haruto from growing as a character was his relationship with Shouko. To me, that ship was doomed the instant he became a Valvrave pilot, given his inhuman nature meaning that he'll inevitably see her wither and die. But fine, I'm all for seeing tragic romances. Unfortunately, all it really did was stifle any growth he could've had. His refusal to tell her the truth about him really felt like he was trying to hold onto whatever he could. Okay, I get it. But as it went on, this really started to get on my nerves, especially once Saki entered the fray.

Rukino Saki. My favorite character in that show, and one who I still think is one of Sunrise's best heroines. Sure, she may have started out with less than stellar reasons for being a pilot, but she was unique in the cast in that she actually got character development and had more layers to her compared to the rest (L-Elf and Akira were the other ones that got that as well). Throughout the show, she showed that she was willing to always be there for Haruto. As controversial as the most infamous moment was, it still showed that she cared so much for him that she didn't hold it against him, saying it was the curse, not him.

Moreover, she was someone who shared his inhuman nature, and again I stress, never blamed him for anything she went through. And that even included how she was completely screwed over by the writers in the second half (abandonment, torture, public execution, all of which angered me to see). Heck, even though she loved him, she was willing to allow him to be with Shouko, despite her admitting that him losing his memories of Shouko meant that she may have had a chance.

I know some say that her asking him to feed on her and all that was a betrayal on her part to him, as this is just feeding into his self-loathing due to his nature, rather than him choosing L-Elf to feed on because he promises that he will stop him should he turn back. But honestly, that demonstrates a huge amount of self-loathing on Haruto's part.

It may not have been what he wanted, but Saki's acceptance of his Kamitsuki nature is more or less what he needed. Someone who won't stop him when his urges occur, but rather, accepts him and all his flaws. And that is something that Saki can provide to him.

But no, Haruto doesn't see what's right in front of him, and instead still chooses Shouko. Saki doesn't even appear in many of the memory runes that are lost, even the one that featured the other pilots (a stupid Ass Pull in my opinion), with the majority still being that of Shouko. Shouko this, Shouko that.

The thing is though, the fact that he didn't want to share his true nature with Shouko for fear of how she would react (along with feeling that he didn't have the right to have feelings) just says to me that it wasn't going to work. Relationships have to be built on trust, and if you don't have enough faith that they'll still accept you, then how are you going to function as a couple?

It didn't even work on Shouko's end either. She has a responsibility to do what is best for the new citizens that she now governs as PM, and trying to hold onto a childhood crush that now has his own responsibilities as a Valvrave pilot, and unknown to her, is also not human anymore is just begging for trouble. They just simply clash too much, all of which culminates in the infamous betrayal once she learns the truth. And to be frank, I kind of see why she was so upset, at least in terms of him not trusting her with the truth. But getting upset that he forgot the childhood promise. Girl, you've got bigger things to worry about than that right now.

Again, it just shows how I feel that holding on to this relationship really prevented either character from maturing. Why they decided to make this the main one is beyond me, unless it was because of melodrama. All I could think was why in the world Haruto didn't get together with Saki, as I felt both characters grew thanks to it, which I much prefer seeing in a relationship.

TL;DR: Valvrave really is screwed up when it comes to which pairings to focus on.

[troidatoi]

Day 5 - 9/6/2023

Hello!

I went on a water fast because it was so painful for me to eat and I just didn't want my body to be in pain anymore and I lost 12 pounds. lmao. I cancelled my appointment with my holistic doctor and went to a gastro doctor today and cried before he even came in. He saw that I was crying and immediately asked me what's wrong and gave me tissues. The way I cry over everything should be studied. lol. I guess I was really tired and scared and I have major health anxiety. He was so nice and patient with me. He said he doesn't think I have leaky gut but something else and gave me medication to lessen the symptoms until we can figure out what's wrong. He looked at the test I've taken previously and doesn't think it's accurate so he wants to take it from there. He checked my abdominal area and asked if it hurt when he pushed down on it and I said no and he was like so that's not concerning! That's a good thing. I told him I haven't been eating because I didn't want to deal with the pain and he was like I need you to eat! The holistic doctor was telling me to not eat gluten and all this shit and the gastro was like you can eat whatever you want. lmfao. I like that he was just straight forward and didn't push me to do anything I didn't want to do and was even like we can test you for this and that but it's so expensive and I love doctors who are like we don't want you to spend this much. Healthcare in America is so atrocious. But it was nice that he was so reassuring because I want to fix whatever is going on in my digestive system and be able to eat without pain and not bloat so much. I'm spending so much time and money right now for my health and I hope it's worth the investment so I'm not in so much pain in the future. I just want to eat all the goods things again and I know I will. Thank you to the gastro doctor and I hope he can fix me. Wait, I know he will fix me.

I went to UPS after to return something and it took awhile because someone brought a bunch of boxes to ship out so I was there for a minute but I know there's a shortage of UPS workers so I was patient. I went home after and cried again and took a fat ass nap before going to Erewhon to see one of my besties and trade Dodgers' bobbleheads with him because he's moving to Australia for work. I gave him a Cody Bellinger one and he gave me the new Chris Taylor one that they gave out this year. I think it's times like these where life isn't as terrible because as much I spent a lot of my life resisting the urge to end it, I have to remember that so many people love and care about me. I was there for like 3 fucking hours because we were talking and I wanted a tuna sandwich but they ran out so he asked someone from the deli to make it for me and I also got a slice of pizza. I was lowkey scared to eat it cause gluten! I took the pills the doctor gave me and I feel fine right now. It was nice to eat after not eating for 10 days. The upstairs neighbors also gave us pasta. It kind of reminds you that people are nice to you, you know? Food is definitely a love language of mine. I can't wait until I fix my digestive issues and can eat without pain and have my clothes fit again and not have so much bloat and inflammation. I had a field day today with all the food I ate but I don't regret it and I hope my body was okay with it. Things seem to be looking up. I've been in limbo as of late with the job hunt, with the debt and my health issues but I know that one by one, everything's going to work out. Just one of those phases where you're kind of stuck in this gray area but you know at the end of the day it's going to be okay because you're putting in the work to make sure it's going to be okay. Someone is going to hire me this month, I'm going to fix my digestive system this year, I'll pay off all my debt. There's nothing to worry about and this isn't something I necessarily want to stress over because that doesn't help me at all. Manifesting and claiming with so much love and gratitude. <3

[9mt7vcoec0snpczpztn9m5foxwjtis2p]

tbh I'm a little hesitant to use the word transandrophobia/whatever the accepted term is now for it. I think most people don't have bad intentions with it, the way I see it is its just for discussing anti transmasculinity - but ppl who make the most shit ass actual transphobic or misogynistic takes using this term get the most visibility by ppl against that term and seem to provide a misconception of the entire point of it. I will still listen to the ppl who use transandrophobia bc the vast majority of the community is being normal about it. but I think "anti-transmasculinity" feels like a word where I don't have to walk on eggshells to clarify exactly what I mean at every single point all the time since it doesn't immediately make ppl think I'm referring to other trans people thru false parallels.

anyway. I am kind of remembering a ton of microagressions I've experienced as a trans man and it sucks so bad bc most of my friend groups, I'm one of the few transmasculine people and it feels like I have to be very very careful. I don't really feel confident in speaking up for myself, but my stomach twists every time I remember the conversations I had with someone about how trans men are better and they can "always tell" by looking at their hands... negative reaction when I said not really the case... I am constantly treated like I'm nonbinary or basically just one of the girls, people I'm out to (other trans people, especially nonbinary people are the worst offender of this for some reason!!! idgi) constantly use they/them pronouns for me despite me correcting them repeatedly since they're "not sure" (see: I'm pre-everything and don't pass, and they don't know how to gender me bc I still move through the world as a woman if I don't come out to everyone). no resources for trans guys, very little positivity for them until recently, I don't get compliments anymore and people seem distant until they start pretending I'm just a girl again, I constantly have to prove my gender to others, dealing with "suggestions" and ppl asking why I don't id as nonbinary whenever I talk about my complex relationship with gender... people saying it'll be easy for me to pass because I'm transmasc and hormones do their job better, hell even shit about how "testosterone is so much stronger than estrogen". ok why do trans men sometimes have issues with high estrogen levels impeding their medical transition then? Testosterone doesn't fucking "overpower" estrogen it just suppresses the production of it sometimes so it seems like it works better to some. im sick ajd tired of hearing people say how testosterone is poisoning their bodies and when i say the same of estrogen, i get heavily criticized. I'm sure not all of this is unique to trans men but why have I never seen any discussion of it till this year? or maybe I wasn't online enough and didn't find it till I went looking

[nanaarchy]

it's 2am and i'm waking up early tomorrow but do I care? no

i'm gonna summarize it and go straight to the main points because hooooo boy could I ramble about this headcanon/au/theory for hours (my friends can attest that I already have). BASICALLY.

part 1: the nature of cores

okay. so ghost cores are the metaphysical manifestations of an entity's soul. there's a lot of different variations on where they come from and their effects on a ghost's abilities. amber, died in a house fire, has fire powers. klemper, died alone and miserable, has ice powers. ghost cores also tend to be associated with a ghost's obsession (like technus), but they aren't exactly one-to-one. skulker has a hunting obsession but he's a simple ghost, basic plasma core (maybe with techy/electrical details but I digress). an obsession brings purpose to what a ghost is, and it's a part of what makes the core, but it's not all it is. this is straightforward enough: they stem from either the way a person dies or major aspect of their personalities. it represents them, and more importantly, grants them their abilities.

part 2: halfas

we only have four examples of halfas, and three of them suck ass. danielle has an entirely ectoplasm core, because she does not have and is not danny's soul. she was made in a lab, so her abilities are very limited. having danny's dna and ectosignature shoved into a lab-made core won't transform it. vlad is the closest thing we have to a full halfa, not counting danny, and he evidently has a fire/plasma core. guy is pink and fire and full of rage. that not only reflects his abilities with ectoblasts and creating shapes out of ecto, but also the manner of his ecto-contamination. getting blasted in the face with leftover ectoplasm burns, but the fact is that not only was that ectoplasm contaminated, but it also seeped into his system slowly.

dan, on the other hand, is a Fantastic example here for many reasons. danny's core broke. just like with the ghost catcher, dan was split into human and ghost, and killed his human side. dan is left with an under-developed, half-destroyed ghost core, with a broken obsession and overrun with human emotions that most ghost cores are not supposed to handle. and then he, for a lack of a better term, consumes vlad's ghost core. he overshadows him, takes over his ectoplasm, his ghost form, his powers. there's nothing of vlad's conscious there, though, not anymore. all that is left is his strengths, abilities, and obsessions. danny's core absorbs and molds itself into something that also includes vlad's powerset, so still whatever danny's core is + vlad's fire core. now, what exactly is danny's core, then?

part 3a: danny's personality

danny is a curious boy. he struggles expressing his emotions - either acting rashly in a cold, unsympathetic anger, or expressing himself with dry humor and shoving it all down. he's kind, he cares to protect others. he's chill. he's fun. he's goofy. he's quick to action even without thinking. of all the main assumed types of possible ghost cores, an ice core is the most alike with who daniel fenton is. though, it's not the ice of a bitter cold, it's one of sparkle and relaxation and relief. but we know danny, he's a lot more than just ice. and the fact that his ice powers just showed up out of nowhere in season 3 of all things would discard a lot of the different layers of his personality. his ghost side primarily leans towards a protection obsession, mainly with the basic green ectoplasm-related powers most low-level ghosts have. and as much as we love a space core au (those are some of my fave fics teehee) it doesn't encompass all of his powers and can be too restrictive to just his obsession. i'm not "disqualifying" either of these AUs though. hear me out.

part 3b: danny's powerset

this is where things get interesting. danny has been dead for, at maximum, three years. and he's, objectively, one of the strongest ghosts out there. vlad has been training his abilities for 20 years and danny still manages to beat him (though it is hard, especially at first). but look at the kinds of ghosts he learns to defeat! look how fast he has grown! sure, that's just protagonist plot armor, but danny's powerset is the longest list in the entire show. look it up. and it's not just because he's a halfa, no, there is a pattern here, especially later in the show as his powers develop.

"danny has an electric core" it makes sense based on his death and powersets. but when did he first show this ability? immediately after meeting technus, and seeing him possess his computer. so danny learned to do that.

(Ps: at this point in the rant I had to fight a giant mosquito. I did not win.)

"danny has an ice core" okay? So like, he meets and befriends a bunch of yetis with ice powers and then coincidentally immediately starts developing his ice core? no, I don't think so. We saw danny train with frosty. We saw him learn and grow etc etc. his core only started shifting to ice when he went to the far frozen.

we have danny's ghost sense, which only danielle seems to share with him, which I shall attribute to his ecto-signature. Yes its due to his core, but ellie has a different type of core, so it's not inherent to it, but to something about danny's ectoplasm itself.

we see how quick his powers develop - oddly enough, his duplication in specific, though it's the power he struggles with the most - when he gets to see vlad more often. It's almost like, oh, when he finds out it's even a possibility for a halfa to do it, he learns to do it. They come at different levels of difficulty, but it's there. He can do it.

do you think amorpho can cast ice powers? fo you think ember can overshadow others, or that skulker can duplicate? do you think ellie or vlad can cast ice or create fireballs or possess videogames, all in one go, back to back? probably not. so many powers are specific to certain ghosts. even to halfas. danny, though? he has it all. he learned it all. more importantly, he has the potential of learning it all.

how about possessing people's dreams? astral projection? he just went ahead and did that when Nocturn was around. weird coincidence huh.

And how could I forget danny, for some unknown unexplained reason, having an extra full ghost form?? This is technically game-only, but danny's second ghost form is basically identical in appearance and function as shadow ghosts, like johnny 13's shadow and spectra's true form... hm..

what about vortex? spirit that controls the weather. shifts the air. and then danny beats his ass, gets his ass beat, gets blasted, and then just.. just learns?? to control the weather?? For a bit?? never did that before. almost like his powerset shifted into vortex's core type for a bit, huh. Huh. This is the first an only case of danny explicitly absorbing another ghost's powers instead of just learning them (or, in dan's case, absorbing another ghost in their entirety).

(And oddly enough we do see danny use this power again later in one of the old nick printer comics - though he does make it snow which could just be an ice power thing. But still, once again, the little guy just Starts Doing Shit he is NOT Supposed To Know How to do. My point stands.)

and my favorite: the Ghostly Wail. he learned that from HIMSELF. dan spent months, years training to learn that shit on his own because he knew nobody else, no other ghost, that exhibited the sort of destructive power he wished he could do. but the same DAY that danny lays his eyes on dan and sees him use the wail, he just fucking does it. yes it's hard and exhausting. but just because someone else did it first, he very very quickly learned to do it too.

if he had a specific core type, the same way other ghosts have, or even a bland basic one, he would Not be able to do even a fraction of the things he learned to do. like, he'd be physically incapable of doing them. throughout the show whenever danny sees or is around a ghost with a different core type of a different ability unique to them, he's already (or at least is capable of) learning that same ability. yhat's actually an insane skill that people rarely talk about!! Makes him capable of so much!!

what could explain this, though?

part 4: danny's death

womp womp and here we sour the mood. Iisten, when vlad died, he got blasted with a malfunctioning portal that would cause a rip in reality and open a door to an infinite realm in between the universe and all of its alternative dimensions. made vlad super strong, and that was a Broken unsuccessful machine.

Danny died INSIDE a functioning one. he was electrocuted to death. he burned. he felt the chill of the metal around him. so much, all at once. but the thing is - that's kind of the point. when danny died, a rip in reality tore into him, through him.

when a person dies, they have a higher chance of coming back supernatural when and where the veil is thinner. the more emotional drive (usually pain), the more ectoplasm you're exposed to, the stronger you become - and if you come back as a ghost, that often defines how strong your core develops.

What happens, then, when you die in an actual portal wormhole that leads directly to an entire plane of existence that is primarily fueled and literally made of ectoplasm? a realm that, i might add, houses so many different aspects of the natural and supernatural, so many doors - and, oh, every single type of ectoplasm that has ever and will ever exist? What happens when all of reality is concentrated into one singular point as it tears open, oh, you know, through your body? inside your chest?

I'm not saying danny is overpowered. I mean, he is, or at least has potential to be. but he'sjust a little guy, a teenager who doesn't know what he's doing. He's still flawed and has wayy too many weak points.

But that doesnt change the fact that his core is the craziest damn merger of types of ectoplasm to ever exist.

part 5: crystals

why do i call it crystal core, you ask?

for starters, I don't mean crystals like rose quartz or jades or stuff like that. I mean, sorta, but not really

I still think danny aligns more closely to something chilley, both in personality and in powerset - like the ice that forms around comets floating in space. His human side is a lot more icy (see: one of fun dannys official names is "chill" danny) but for ghosts? he's, as infuriating as it is to everyone involved, a bridge.

In our upper atmosphere a mixture of pressure and temperature can form these ice crystals in the air. They're not huge or noticeable, but when the light hits them, they create beautiful refractions of light.

And based on his powerset, thats what i think happens to danny. he filters out ectoplasm around him, molds it into what he can use, learns from it. he filters it and refracts it into his own abilities. since his core's formation involved countless different types of ecto, he has the potential of using any of them without damage or impediment.

his core is a crystal prism.

so if u wanna say he has a space core, ice core, electric core, go nuts. because he does. his powers leaning towards one direction is very possible and very interesting to explore, but there's also an open door to different variations and overlaps in his abilities. he is potential energy, and he just has to learn how to transform it into what he needs.

((And hey, for fans of ghost king au, this core idea is Very fun to play with. makes him fated to rule and/or destroy the realms a lot more interesting, considering he's basically an ecto-filter of everything. the SOLAD ("spirit of life and death") AU is a whoooooooole other can of worms about the origins of the universe and the first ever halfa and the different hierarchies of conceptual manifestations. but that's a ramble for another evening))

thanks for coming to my tedtalk, it's not everything about the idea but i think it's most of it. i really gotta go to sleepie now. and hey, if any of yall want to use this for fics/art/headcanons, pls @ me I'd love to see it ^^

[nanaminokanojo]

Annoying

CHARACTERS: Kuroo Tetsurou X You | Kozume Kenma, Yaku Morisuke (mentioned)

CHAPTER COUNT: 1/1

WORD COUNT: 3,900

GENRE: enemies to lovers | university au | fluff?

CONTENT WARNING: profanity | strong/suggestive language | mentions of violent behavior (slight) and toxic home life

SPOILERS: n/a

collection masterlist

You pushed your tongue against your cheek. That's it. That's the last straw. A bitter grin etched itself across your lips as you stood up, averting your eyes from a certain insufferable raven head who was sitting across you. He was sporting that devil-may-care smirk as he watched your expressions morph from seeming disquietude to anger. He wasn't counting on the latter as was evident in the way his disposition suddenly dropped to alarm when you crushed the beer can you were holding with your hand and slammed it on the table.

He was especially annoying. That wasn't exactly right. Actually, he isn’t. If you were honest, it was just his usual chaff. He had been doing it for more than half your lives. Being cousins with Kenma was peaceful save for the fact that you shared a common friend group, and of course, the package came with one Kuroo Tetsurou – his best friend – who was hell-bent on making your life miserable by relentlessly plucking on your every last nerve. You tolerated his existence from the moment you knew of it because you loved Kenma to bits and you were glad someone relatively sane and has a sense of accountability was looking after him, but that came with consequences.

He seemed to get off of annoying the hell out of you, and it never changed now that you were both in university. You didn't think it would change anytime soon, and you didn't really bother to understand why he does it in the first place. He put in the effort, too, leveling his wisecracking to yours as if he actually thinks of them and rehearses them so he can execute them perfectly, timing and all, just to get a rise out of you.

From middle school to high school, your breakfast consisted of granola bars you eat on your way to school and him making a gag out of everything you did. You didn't walk with him to school anymore, but since he still belonged to your clique and you both went to the same university, there wasn't really any palpable change. He’s still the pain in the ass you came to know save for the seemingly sexually charged quips he seemed to have taken a liking to. He thinks he’s funny so you let him be.

It's a shame since you actually found him physically attractive with his slightly tanned skin and impressive physique. Damn those thighs and arms and whatever you see peeking through the wide holes of his tank tops or when he would stretch like a magnificent feline and his shirt would ride up. Great iliac crest? Check! He is one handsome guy and you found his unruly hair quite cute. He smirks all the time, but you've seen how tooth-rottingly sweet his rare smiles were.

It wasn’t just that. He’s generally a good person. Annoying, yes, but he was kind in his own right. He could be caring and thoughtful, too, and he is really responsible for most guys his age. And did you have to talk about how sexy his brain is on top of being physically so? He’s so smart, you can admit to that without a fight because he just is. So yes, you like him enough not to strangle him because it would be a waste of a perfectly great brain. And he was nice to look at. Well, until he opens his trap anyway.

You'd usually just shoot Kuroo down, returning the favor with equal fervor, but that day was different. It wasn't as if your fuse was short. You actually dealt with him quite well, either just laughing at what he says or posing barb in accordance to what you saw fit. But you didn't think you could deal with his shit at the moment. Your nerves were frayed after a spat you had with your parents at home after they found out that you weren't doing so well in one of your major subjects. That's double whammy since you were already upset enough even without them pointing out what a disappointment you were.

And he just had to take a jab at that, too. Yes, he knows where to hit where it hurts the most be that intentional or not. You’ve only seen him do it to someone else before, which you thought was funny, but it wasn’t the case when you were the receiving end.

“Kuroo Tetsurou, you’re a fucking asshole,” you hissed, the words coming out so visceral that your friends looked at you, stunned speechless. Everyone at a one-meter radius who heard you say it pretty much looked at you. Everyone knew of your seeming rivalry, but it never came to the point when you would actually cuss at each other or get violent in any manner, but you did those two things in one go.

“I –” Kuroo was just as stupefied at your rather threatening reaction, opening his mouth as if to say something, but nothing came out.

"Y/N…" Kenma was too surprised at your atypical behavior to say anything else so he held your hand, trying to placate you, but you demanded to be released with just your gaze and he did just that. He knew better than to hinder you when you were in such a mood. You heard him say something else along with your other friends calling you, but you walked away, weaving through the crowd of party-goers without a backward glance.

You found refuge in one of the upstairs rooms, sitting on the floor and leaning against the bed, chastising yourself for letting Kuroo get to you so early in the night when you should have been getting wasted, even dead drunk to temporarily forget your parents' words to you. It was one fucking subject and their reaction to your supposedly bad grade was too much.

However, your reprieve was short-lived when you realized just whose room you were in, the familiar smell of the bed covers you were leaning on registering in your head like a bolt of lightning. He was the one throwing the party after all, and you forgot that you were in his house to begin with.

Just then, the door suddenly opened to admit the owner of the room, his tall frame briefly silhouetted by the hallway lights before he shut the door behind him. No doubt the rest of your friends told him to go after you. And as he did, your frustration just overwhelmed you and tears started to fall.

Kuroo sank on the wall opposite the bed, sitting there in silence for a moment, the sounds around you only punctuated by the beat of the bass making the floor beneath you vibrate. Then he broke it by saying, "Did I do this to you?"

You paused from your quiet sobs, hands clenching into fists. Standing up, you motioned to walk away. You wanted to be alone, not talk to him. He wasn't the cause for your current mood per se, but he just had to push your buttons all the time. Hence, you wanted to be petty by letting him soak in not knowing. There's nothing he hated more than that, and you will give him a dose of his own medicine.

However, before you could pass him, he grabbed you by the wrist. It wasn't intentional, judging by the way his amber eyes widened when you suddenly stumbled, your weight causing his back to slam against the wall when you landed on his lap.

"Ow!"

He hasn't even recovered from the impact of your body against him when he half-smiled, half-winced, obviously about to say something which would exasperate you again. However, before he could utter anything, you started hitting him on the chest and shoulder with your first, your hits in sync with the rhythm of your words which you let out through clenched teeth and between heavy breaths.

"You really have to ask?!" you derided, your tears drying up as your emotions regarding your parents seemed to ebb away momentarily. "You've been doing this to me ever since we met. Why do you do that, huh? What did I ever do to you?"

“Y/N, I was just ki –”

“Kidding, right?”

Hit.

"Ouch!"

Hit.

"Serves you right!"

You raised a hand, about to swing at him, but he held your hand away. "Stop –” You hit him anyway with your other hand. “Y/N, that hurts!"

"You deserve it for always pissing me off!" You pushed him down on the floor and straddled him, heaving as you looked at his face in the semi-darkness, but it appeared as if you weren't even seeing him there but something else equally upsetting if not more.

Kuroo looked at you with concern and he knew that instant that you were just projecting. He couldn't have gone overboard with his provocations of you, could he? It took a lot to move you, even more to rouse your rage. Something else was wrong.

You continued to just smack him with your delicate hands, your momentum slowing down and he expected you to cry even more when you gripped him on the right shoulder, your fist lightly pounding on his chest. He just let you.

The idea of you crying was just ludicrous to him since you never showed any other emotion to him other than your usually happy disposition, your annoyance when he is around and your fluent sarcasm when you felt like being harsh. But he has never seen your tears, not even when he accidentally pushed you into a ditch and sprained your ankle as a result years ago.

A pang of fear and uncertainty surged through his chest when you suddenly just flopped down on him as if he was a mattress, your fingers fisting over his shirt. And then, like a dam, your tears started flowing out freely. The sight was painful to him. He might have thought in advance that you were gonna do just that but it didn’t make it any less distressing to see you in such a state.

"Y/N…baby, what's wrong?"

"I…” You paused at the pet name, but you ignored it. “Just let me do this," you told him in muffled tones, making a Kleenex out of his black shirt. "You owe me this much."

"Okay." His voice rumbled in his hard chest, and he adjusted your position on him, later soothing your back with one hand while he used the other to support his head. He stayed quiet, wincing once in a while when you would suddenly take deeper breaths in an attempt to calm down only to fail.

He couldn't believe the circumstances. He never anticipated that you would suddenly be open with your emotions in front of him. The two of you hadn't been the closest in your lot, and you almost always argued whenever you were in the same breathing space. He wished it wasn’t the case because he actually treasured you, not just as his best friend’s cousin, but more than that. But just that he couldn’t tell you properly, thus his knack for resorting to annoying you – anything to get your attention and keep it on him. And yet there you two were with no quantifiable distance between you, your warmth taking over his whole being as you continued to sob and he, in his way, comforted you.

You lay on top of him for what seemed like half an hour with Kuroo making sure you didn't fall off, until you raised your head which was seemingly pounding in sync with his heartbeat, the weight of your lower body pressing down on him when you did so. You were still sniffling, face puffy and flushed as you looked at him, surprised that he just did the same without saying a thing.

"You can laugh now," you mumbled quietly, feeling awkward all of a sudden, but he didn't do that and just continued to leisurely run his fingers lightly on the small of your back.

His brows scrunched up together. "Why would I do that, hmm?"

"Cause you're an ass?"

He scoffed, his chest jerking upwards at the action. "What do you take me for? There's obviously something serious bothering you, and you think I'll laugh at you?"

You frowned placing your head sideways against him, listening to the quick and heavy thudding of his heart. "That's what you do."

"Alright…"

To your surprise, he suddenly flipped the two of you over so you were underneath his body. Kuroo did so very swiftly that you couldn't even let out a yelp, thinking he was throwing you off him. He could easily do that considering what a hulking human being he is compared to you, but he was gentle in his actions, even cushioning your head with one of his hands.

Hovering over you, he stared directly in your eyes and you couldn't help but mimic his actions. You froze, staying as still as you could, swallowing hard when he leaned even closer, supporting his weight with his elbow just beside your head.

"How blind are you?" he asked softly, mostly saying it to himself than you.

You blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Or better yet, how unfeeling are you?"

Your face crumpled up into a scowl at his words. You just had a crying jag in front of him and he’s accusing you of being, of all thing, unfeeling. "What are you talking about?"

He sighed as if in long suffering, and flipping tables on you, he buried his face on the crook of your neck. "You're so annoying."

"Now I'm the annoying one?" You chuckled without humor. "Get off me, rooster head."

He clucked his tongue. "No. I let you do this earlier. It's your turn to let me."

"You're annoying."

Kuroo shifted his head slightly to the side so he was facing you. "Am I?"

You let your head loll to look at him. "You're asking?"

“I’m being a gentleman here trying to make you feel better even if you ruined my shirt and made a living mattress out of me, and I’m annoying?”

“You always are, idiot. You just have to breathe to annoy me.”

The two of you just looked at each other, his face breaking into a small smile, his eyes drooping down slightly as he regarded you. And for some odd reason, all you could think about was lifting your hand to trace the planes and slopes of his face. You did just that, your fingers running over his nose then the side of his face, lingering longer over his sharp jawline before they made their way to his chin, your thumb brushing over his lower lip.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked, voice hoarse and quiet as he wrapped his fingers around your wrist.

You looked away, withdrawing your hand as you stared up at the ceiling. "You're okay, I guess."

“Okay as in…?”

“Your face,” you grunted, clearly exasperated.

"Is that an insult? 'Okay'? Really, Y/N?" He snorted. "And here I was thinking you're really pretty up close. No…beautiful."

You finally cracked a smile, about to laugh when you felt his fingers latch onto your chin, and the next thing you knew, his lips were on yours. His touch was tentative, merely pressing his mouth against yours, his restraint evident in the way his veins popped in his jugular. While you were surprised, you couldn't brush the thought that it felt natural doing that with him as if you were meant to do just that.

He pulled away ever so slightly, his eyes opening a crack to watch your reaction. You immediately missed the contact, and in just a fraction of a second you were wrapping your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. You felt him smile as he kissed you with more fervor this time while you returned the gesture in kind.

Kuroo rose a bit without cutting the kiss, slotting himself between your legs and lifting you off of the floor and onto the bed where he laid your body whilst his hands dug into your hair, his tongue licking between your lips to seek entrance which you granted. He sought yours, the hot muscle mingling with yours and tasting you, making you moan, your breath snagging in your chest when you felt his hand feeling down your side, lightly squeezing just above your hip bone, his thumb brushing right under the waistband of your black sweatpants.

“What are we doing?” you asked when you managed to think enough to stop him, eyes closed as he smiled, looking drunk as he leaned his forehead against yours.

He kissed the tip of your nose then landed a swift one against your lips as his golden eyes opened to look at you. “I waited for this for too long.” He melded your mouths together again, deeper than his lithe kisses this time but just as brief, coming and going several times, driving you crazy.

“What do you mean?”

He laughed helplessly. “Why do I annoy you all the time – you asked me this earlier. Isn’t it obvious? We never really started off on the right foot, and before I knew it, I was grating through your nerves, and it just remained that way for god knows how long.”

“Oh.” Your brows furrowed in silent consideration of what he was saying, letting your brain mince through every word, then out of the blue, you remembered Kenma’s words to you before, particularly about the reason why Kuroo kept on being such a juvenile dipshit when he deals with you.

“He likes you,” your cousin said to you, something you shot down with scathing laughter that made him roll his eyes at you before returning to whatever he was doing. “Just saying.”

And your question then remained and tumbled out of your lips before you could help it. “Then why the hell do you keep on teasing me? It doesn’t make sense.”

Kuroo flashed you a pained look, thinking you still didn’t get it. “It’s the only way I know you would notice me cause otherwise, would you even look at me twice?”

"Uh…yes? You always tell me I stare too long at you or you ask me if I like what I see. And all this time, you think I wouldn't look at you twice?" You laughed heartily at him, causing him to pout. You rose slightly to reach his lips, pecking him. "Don't be upset now. It is funny, admit it."

Kuroo rolled on his back beside you before sitting up to remove his shoes. "That was stupid, huh?"

"I guess. So, you…uh…you like me? Is that what you're saying?" You smirked at his back.

"Don't get cocky on me now." He clucked his tongue, making a face at you over his shoulder as he removed your shoes as well. He then climbed over you, kissing you on the forehead before lying down properly on one side of the bed, patting the space beside him. "Come here."

You did as you were told, mulling things over as you plopped on the spot next to Kuroo, appreciating the smell of his pillows. "I mean, if you were crushing on me, why didn't you just show me." You glanced at him, feeling your cheeks burn when he draped an arm over your waist, fingering the hem of your shirt. He, too, was deep in thought.

"I tried…"

Your nose wrinkled. "Like how?"

"Remember when you wore those white pants and got your period for the first time?"

You glared at him. "Motherfucker, don't remind me." Of all the things to say, he had to bring up that unfortunate event.

"Hey now! I ran home to get you new pants and pads, in case you forgot!"

"Yeah, and teased me relentlessly about it after," you retorted.

Kuroo poked your cheek, baring his pearly whites in annoyance. "You didn't even say thanks and instead threatened me if I as much as breathed a word of it to anyone."

"I did not!"

"Did to."

You smacked him on the arm.

"Ow?" He shrugged. "I always bought you cheesecake in senior year."

That took you aback. "That was you?"

"As stingy as Yaku is, you think he'll buy you cheesecake every day?"

"Well, I just assumed…" You softened at that. "Makes sense. Thanks?"

He rolled his eyes then. "I told your parents I would watch over you when we go out just so they would allow you."

"Oh yeah, they like you as absurd as that is."

"Y/N!"

"Kidding…"

"And I might have punched the guy who tried to kiss you at that party freshmen year." He feigned hurt.

You shrugged. "Why didn't you tell me? You just had to be a pain, huh?"

"I didn't know how to, okay? And after everything, you still think I'm – how did you put it? – a 'fucking asshole'. Geez."

At that, you avoided his gaze and baited your breath. "Look, I didn't know. It's just not a good day and you just had to put the cherry on top of everything."

"I was kidding. I didn't mean to make you upset. What was bothering you anyway?"

"Same old crap at home." You sighed, eyes on your fidgeting hands and staying there for quite a few minutes before you looked at Kuroo. "I'm sorry I lashed out like that… and in front of the others, too."

Kuroo snickered, pinching your cheeks as he rolled on top of you. "Kiss me and I'll forget about it."

"How about you ask me out first?"

His eyes lit up with hope. "Are you gonna say yes?"

You scoffed. "You have to know for sure if I will say yes first? And if it's otherwise, we'll just go back to pissing each other off?"

He started kicking his legs out in frustration. "Y/N, sweetheart, that's not what I meant," he protested. "Will you go out with me?"

You distanced yourself as much as you can manage in your position, thinking of teasing the hell out of him. "I know you don't have a single romantic bone in your body, but I expected better. Hmm."

"Do you want me to get down on one knee?"

"Now you're just going overboard."

"I would if that's what you want." He eyed you in earnest, his unspoken emotions conveying themselves through his eyes. He looked at you with such tender affection you haven't seen in him that you found yourself melting when he said, "I really, really want you for myself, Y/N. You don't know what you do to me."

You flashed a brilliant smile but you couldn't help but pull his leg more. "I guess I have tiny bit of a crush on you, too."

But instead of being annoyed, he beamed at you. "I guess I can work on that for the time being." He brushed away some stray locks of hair from your face, your ears heating up when he lightly touched your cheek. "I'll make you fall for me deeper than just that minuscule crush."

You reached up to cup his cheek, smiling to yourself. "You can start now."

Kuroo didn't have to be told twice, and in the next second, he had your lips locked with his in a silent promise that he would do just as he said.

Somehow, when he moved his mouth against yours, he seemed less of the annoying being you knew him to be. And perhaps you liked him more than just "a tiny bit of a crush" that way.

-end-

Like I said, I'm hooked on enemies to lovers. Sue me.

Thank you so much for reading. Likes, comments and reblogs are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed it.

© ORIGINAL WORK BY nanaminokanojo. CHARACTERS ARE INSPIRED BY FURUDATE HARUICHI’S “HAIKYUU!”. [20220626]

PHOTO/IMAGE/GIF/FANART CREDITS TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNERS

[apocalypticgargoyle]

𝙎𝙐𝘾𝙆 & 𝘽𝙇𝙊𝙒 ☆ 𝙨𝙖𝙥𝙣𝙖𝙥 𝙨𝙢𝙪𝙩

∘ request: 

goddamn your writing is so good 🥵 any chance you’d be able to write something with sapnap where you’re both at a party and know each other through friends but not well and you’re both a bit tipsy and he just can’t control himself and drags you into a bathroom? kinda fluffy where there’s lots of kissing but also desperate and accidentally rough (because the idea of someone wanting me so much that they lose control is a major thing of mine)

∘ pairing: sapnap x fm!reader

∘ warnings: nsfw (18+),  party scene, drinking, crude language

∘ links: ao3

∘ word count: ~2000

a/n: Thank you so much for the request! I literally have the exact same thing so i think we’re soulmates or something. I hope you enjoy!

For the duration of the day, you’d been waiting for this moment. Your hair tangling amongst itself as you danced to the music with a group of your friends was almost a baptism for you. No longer were you restricted into your business casual attire and socially acceptable behavior. Now you were free to forget your name and responsibilities as mashups of different genres of heavily bass boosted music pulsed in your ears.

The large house was swelling with people, melding together as if their lives depended on the superficial human connection the beat could bring them. Many of them you recognized from some of your lectures; it had been a day where your classmates had planned a party for someone’s birthday. You hated to admit it, but you didn’t know or care whose party it was, you were just happy to have an excuse not to study.

You’d already lost one of your rings and your clothes were sticking to your body from the layer of sweat glistening against your skin, but you wouldn’t trade it for anything. As cliché as it sounded, going to random college parties had equated to your own kind of religion. These senseless addresses were homes to a different kind of worship, but one you had quickly become devoted to. The smell of another girl’s perfume rubbing off on you and the nameless identity of the boy that offered you hard liquor were your new sacraments.

As the song died out, beginning a new string of beats to thunder around the room, you found yourself out of breath. You gestured to your friends that you were refilling your drink, but really you were in search of air that was a bit fresher. You wove through the heavy crowd, ending up in the kitchen and beelining for the fridge. There was a small group of boys standing around the keg, one of them filling his cup as they discussed something a few of them were getting heated about.

You tucked a cold water bottle against your side and grabbed a clean solo cup. As you got closer, you would hear what they were talking about. “I don’t know how you don’t remember that. It was like a big thing a few years ago?” One of them grumbled as his eyes narrowed at the liquid streaming into his cup.

“Sorry, Nick. I forgot they were selling kids on eBay. I honestly don’t see-” They continued on into overlapping ramblings that you couldn’t help but laugh at. One of them, that had been referred to as Nick, looked almost too familiar to you. Yet as you stood there, you couldn’t remember even if your life depended on it.

Nick’s eyes drifted to you as if just realizing you were standing there. “Sorry, do you refill?” He asked, mustering a somewhat shy smile. You snapped out of your train of thought, handing your cup to him.

“I didn’t mean to seem like a creepy, sorry,” you stated, sending him an awkward laugh. His lips parted in a smile. His dark hair was slightly ruffled, probably just from the weather earlier in the day. You weren’t sure if it was your slight buzz or the close proximity, but God, he looked good to you.

“No, I was hogging. It was my bad,” he answered. You brushed your hair off of your warm forehead and he looked up at you from what he was doing, his eyebrows furrowing slightly. “I think I know you from somewhere,” he mumbled before something clicked behind his eyes as he handed you your cup back. “Oh, you’re Clay’s friend, right? I’m his roommate, Nick.” At his words, your brain clouded with embarrassment as memories of him finally fled your brain.

You smirked slightly. “Oh! Yeah, sorry I didn’t recognize you. You look…” You paused for a second. Where were you going with this statement? Hotter? “Grown-up,” you wheezed, making him chuckle again. “- I mean, since freshman year English, I guess.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek, attempting not to grin wider. “Yeah, you look… grown-up too,” he offered, sending you a slight smirk. “It’s weird how close you and Dream are and I never see you around anymore,” he continued.

You chuckled a bit, wetting your lips. “Yeah, I told Clay I had a crush on you and he kicked me out,” you joshed, making him laugh. For as quiet as you remembered him being, you were shocked he was engaging with you in the way he was. Maybe it was just the atmosphere and the alcohol that had him loosened up. Whatever it was, you found yourself partnering with him in beer pong and spending most of the night at each other's side.

You sat closely to him on a couch in one of the several living rooms, your heads set close together as you listened to what he was saying over the music. “Hey, you too found each other,” a deep voice bounded, making you jump slightly, almost spilling your drink on Nick. Clay plopped down on the other side of you, wrapping his arm around the back of your section of couch to tug on Nick’s ear.

“Why didn’t you tell me Nick was a stud now?” you joked, slightly cringing about how bold you sounded. Nick chuckled at your words, swatting Clay’s hand away from him and taking another sip from his cup.

Clay setted further into the spot beside you. “You guys wanna play ‘suck and blow’?” He stated, more to the group of people around you guys. You furrowed your brows at him, almost wanting to roll your eyes at Clay’s blatant mission to set you and Nick up together. But who were you to avoid his attempts.

The card was passed successfully around the group, until it got to Clay, whose breath you could practically feel on the other side of the thick paper. You turned to give it to Nick but dropped it at the last second, making his lips press against yours. It was almost like he was expecting it because he was utterly calm at your action, nearing leaning in on his own accord. There were cat-calling noises made from the group as the kiss ended briefly. “Ope, looks like you guys are gonna have to leave the circle,” Clay stated with an almost sing-song tone in his voice. You were thankful that you had turned towards Clay enough that Nick couldn’t see your jokingly scornful look.

“Well, that’s just too bad. We were so good at this,” Nick chided as the two of you stood to leave. You ruffled Clay’s hair as the two of you left, following Nick into another room. “Would you want to… go somewhere quiet?” Nick asked, his eyes flashing to yours. Your eyebrow perked in his direction before you wordlessly slipped your hand into his.

You found yourself in the bathroom, Nick's hands settling on your hips as he pressed his lips against yours. You let out a sharp moan as he ground his hips against yours, yearning for more friction. Your fingers dug into his hair as his tongue slipped into your mouth, hungry for your taste. His breath was like a drug for you as he groaned into your mouth, moving against you.

His lips left your mouth but only to caress your jaw before settling against your neck, sucking on the skin with a slight sting. You tilted your head back, giving him more access to you before wrapping a leg around him, begging him to go further with you. He chuckled at your neediness, his warm breath fanning over your neck. He tugged the strap of your dress down your arm, pressing his lips against the newly exposed skin, grinding against you. The taste of cheap beer passed between the two of you.

One of his hands slipped beneath your dress to squeeze your ass, pulling you tighter against his jeans, encouraging you to ride his thigh. "I want you," he moaned unevenly in your ear, sending heat straight to your core. You wanted him to completely ruin you, to show you what was hiding beneath the surface of his reserved nice guy barrier.

You answered his words by attending to his zipper, slipping your hands into his jeans and stroking him against his boxers. A moan broke through his teeth, his lips crashing against yours as you egged him on. His erection grew stronger with each of your movements. You could tell he was becoming desperate to ravage you with each of his restrained breaths.

Your teeth dug into his bottom lip, your fingers pushing his pants to the ground as he pressed himself against you. He pushed your underwear aside, answering your silent pleas. Pressing his lips against your neck again, he drove himself into you, earning a blissed out moan from you. A breath of pleasure and relief escaped his chest at the feeling of you instantly tightening around him.

He thrusted into you, as if testing the waters as you moaned his name against his skin. One of your arms tightened around his shoulder as he held you in place, setting his pace. The mix of alcohol and pleasure you were feeling with each snap of his hips was sending your head reeling. He pushed his tongue into your mouth, fingers digging into your skin. You moaned against his lips, sending him to speed up his movements. A sense of roughness came out in him as he pounded into you harder, and you were eating it up. You fingers dug into his hair, pulling tightly to earn a groan from him.

Your hands slipped beneath his shirt, raking against his back, urging him to use you like a flashlight. "Fuck, you feel so good," he groaned, voice husky with some type of forced restraint as if he wouldn't let it come out evenly. You tightened around him, moving in what little space he'd given you to grind against him.

With that, he began to thrust into you harder, as if he was finally giving into whatever he was attempting to hold back. His teeth dug into your shoulder with each pulsing movement, driving himself deeper into you. Ungodly moans left your lips, only confirming his actions as he hungrily chased his high, dragging you with him.

His paces became less rhythmic and more sloppy as he gripped onto you, your fingers digging into his skin as you felt your orgasm was just within reach. You tightened your leg around him, your head swimming as he began to hit your sweet spot repeatedly. With a nearly choked out moan of his name, your body flushed with relief, your climax ripping through you. Nick succumbed to his own as if he'd been waiting for you, the two of you leaning against each other for support as you rode out your highs.

After you caught your breath, you reapplied a layer of lipstick, eyeing Nick through the reflection of the mirror as he stood behind you, straightened his clothes. "Let's not tell Clay about this, purely because he'll make it weird," you stated, turning and evening out his hoodie strings.

He chuckled slightly. "Oh, I agree completely. Don't tell Clay." His sly smirk nearly drew you in as you pressed your lips against his again, a promise that you'd definitely be seeing each other again.

[vickyvicarious]

I was thinking about the whole "how do people not know that Eliot Spencer worked with Damien Moreau" thing again today, and... I think that actually, it makes perfect sense that they don't.

It all comes down to the type of person Damien Moreau is, and the type of organization he runs.

(under a cut for length. the very last paragraph has mild Redemption spoilers but nowhere else does.)

Think about it. What do we know about Moreau?

He runs a very tight ship. He has very clear procedures in place to leave no evidence or witnesses behind. He is always the one in control and it's an absolute dictatorship where he is always the most important person in the room. Everyone else is either an asset or a liability; they are literally defined by how they relate to Moreau.

If you are an enemy of Moreau and he sends people to kill you, those people aren't getting individual backstories. It doesn't matter who they are, all that matters is that they work for Moreau. They are representatives of him and you know they will do whatever he says. There's no individual appeal to be made here. As far as you're concerned you're dealing with Moreau.

Letting Eliot Spencer's name spread around isn't actually that helpful to Moreau, because it diverts the attention from him. Even in the sense of "holy shit, he's got the Eliot Spencer obeying his every order" it still diverts attention. It's impressive yeah, but it's not a unified front. He wants it to be a homogenous mass where anyone or anything could turn against you. If you displease Moreau, you don't know who is coming after you, but you know someone is, and you know you can't get away.

And all that is assuming you know Moreau's name in the first place. He's so particular about his layers of privacy and deniability. He is so careful who he works with. He deals with only the more important people, but he does that himself. So either you don't know who Moreau is at all, or you know he's the only one from his organization who really matters.

(Also, think about Eliot leaving. If he's widely known, this is a clue to other people that Eliot Spencer working on his own means something has changed. Moreau let someone go? Is there a weakness to exploit there? People would wonder. However, if he's not widely known there is no danger as long as Eliot doesn't reveal his past relationship with Moreau. It makes complete sense with his "I never told anyone about you" line, because people wouldn't know unless Eliot told them. It would have to be a deliberate act of betrayal, versus him staying quiet and respecting Moreau's generosity in letting him leave by keeping that unusual behavior a secret.)

I'm not saying there's no one who recognizes Eliot. But his name is not really widely known the way we see in canon. At best he might be known as the one guy who hunts down the hardest prey, the reason you really can never get away. But there's also evidence to be had that Eliot served a role like Chapman (I mean, he's basically labelled Eliot's replacement). Chapman doesn't seem to be someone the rest of the team knew. He's not identified as a threat or a possible in or anything; the only person they ever talk about is Moreau himself, and maybe a few major subordinates of his who run entire sub-organizations. Chapman, from the outside, is just yet another killer working for Moreau, alongside a whole bunch of others.

Now. Internally, it's a different matter.

Inside the organization, there are obviously grudges. There's a clear hierarchy and Eliot's name very clearly holds weight. I think this fits perfectly with how tight a ship Moreau runs and how careful he is about who he works with. From the outside, all people see is Moreau and his vast army or whatever, but on the inside there are absolutely rising stars, commanders, people who are closer to Moreau and thus more respected, etc.

Chapman seems to serve as a combo of commander to all the rest of the goons, Moreau's personal head of security/assassination, but also someone who still goes and gets his hands dirty for the important jobs. He spends a good bit of time around Moreau, but to an outsider who sees him standing there during a meeting he's just another suit who could kill them. Security. Internally, he's clearly someone who fought his way up to this position; probably wanted it for a long time but couldn't get it because that was Eliot's spot.

Inside the organization, Eliot Spencer's name is an Moreau-access pass, even years after he's successfully left. Highest clearance, he's a big deal. They don't know his face but they all know his name. I think this fits perfectly with the kind of pitting people against one another games Moreau plays. There are intense rivalries and those who get close to the boss are respected and feared. There's the 'Moreau's dog' angle absolutely there, but it's just kept to an internal level. It's much more useful for keeping other subordinates in line to know that Eliot Spencer will come after you if you displease Moreau, because by virtue of working for him the usual approach of a vast invisible army already wouldn't work. They know who works for Moreau, it's not going to be a surprise. It's much better for them to have a living boogeyman, someone they all know is much better than they are, to fear.

And again, in the higher levels, other people like Chapman get to focus all their irritation on Eliot rather than on Moreau himself. He's trusted more, he gets all the best jobs, I could do it if he weren't in the way... Moreau's like an abusive parent pitting his children against one another so they can't see their real enemy is the father. He probably encouraged a certain amount of infighting, and doled out his favor juuuust enough to everyone to keep them wanting his approval enough to work together, even as they hated one another. In that sense, even letting Eliot leave unmolested is a bonus for Moreau; all the people left behind can still see him as this unattainable goal of being close to Moreau, this gold standard of someone trusted enough to get unusual leeway. And look at what he did, he threw that trust away and now Moreau doesn't trust us as much anymore - the blame still gets thrown on Eliot even after he's gone.

.

So really, I think Eliot Spencer is known in the criminal world first and foremost as a retrieval specialist. He made his name after leaving Moreau.

He was well known in certain circles before then, of course, but those were generally military or spies. Government. They still did awful stuff but it was on the legal side of things, or at least supposed to be. The vast majority of criminals aren't going to know individual soldiers by name no matter how good they are, unless they hold a more public authority/rank.

And when he was with Moreau, he was just another faceless thug. More deadly than the rest, sure, but they were all still deadly enough to get the job done, so if you're dead either way the word about this one guy isn't gonna spread. Internally, his notoriety was tremendous, but Moreau would not want that to get out, so it wouldn't.

Eliot Spencer first starts to become really famous as a lone wolf retrieval expert. He is known by that, first and foremost. Maybe everyone knows basic facts, like that he was in the military or he worked as an assassin before moving into retrieval, but no real details. Certain groups know him as a highly-trained soldier (but if they can still get him to work for them on occasion, as we know they do, publicizing how large of a role he held/holds there is a link they don't want. plausible deniability is key) or as Moreau's dog (but advertising that outside the closest circles of the organization is actively discouraged) but the word doesn't really spread about those.

Then Eliot is linked to Leverage. And maybe after they take Moreau down and his empire collapses, more rumors spread that he used to work for Moreau, he turned against him and actually took him down. And when Eliot finally cuts ties with the military and no longer accepts odd jobs from them, maybe it's a little easier for those rumors to spread too, although I imagine they still wouldn't want details getting out so it'd be less likely.

.

By the time we get to Redemption, Eliot's reputation is almost entirely linked to his work with Leverage. Once he reaches this level of fame, then of course more people are going to dig into his background before this. But at this point he's become much more of a ghost; you can't find information on him anywhere online, but he regularly shows up and is a threat to a lot of people especially in security. It makes sense that they pay more attention to him now. There's no one in the government trying to protect him enough to keep him operational anymore, since he doesn't work with them, so all levels of law enforcement can freely go after him. He's not just doing jobs for whoever hires him, he's going off on his own and attacking criminals left and right, so the underworld is less likely to ignore him. And he specifically is an ongoing threat/embarrassment to a lot of security teams, so the business/security world wants to know him too. RIZ knows that given the kind of people they protect, there's a good chance this monster is gonna show up and kick their ass, so they make it a point to try and know who he is.

[mcmansionhell]

Underground, Part 1

[Author’s Note: A year ago, when waiting for the DC Metro, I came up with an idea for a short story involving two realtors and the infamous Las Vegas Underground House, typed up an outline, and shoved it away in my documents where it sat neglected until this month. The house recently resurfaced on Twitter, and combined with almost a year of quarantine, the story quickly materialized. Though I rarely write fiction, I decided I’d give it a shot as a kind of novelty McMansion Hell post. I’ve peppered the story with photos from the house to break up the walls of text. Hopefully you find it entertaining. I look forward to returning next month with the second installment of this as well as our regularly scheduled McMansion content. Happy New Year!

Warning: there’s lots of swearing in this.]

Underground

Back in 1997, Mathieu Rino, the son of two Finnish mechanical engineers who may or may not have worked intimately with the US State Department, changed his name to Jay Renault in order to sell more houses. It worked wonders.

He gets out of the car, shuts the door harder than he should. Renault wrinkles his nose. It’s a miserable Las Vegas afternoon - a sizzling, dry heat pools in ripples above the asphalt. The desert is a place that is full of interesting and diverse forms of life, but Jay’s the kind of American who sees it all as empty square-footage. He frowns at the dirt dusting up his alligator-skin loafers but then remembers that every lot, after all, has potential. Renault wipes the sweat from his leathery face, slicks back his stringy blond hair and adjusts the aviators on the bridge of his nose. The Breitling diving watch crowding his wrist looks especially big in the afternoon glare. He glances at it.

“Shit,” he says. The door on the other side of the car closes, as though in response.��

If Jay Renault is the consummate rich, out-of-touch Gen-Xer trying to sell houses to other rich, out-of-touch Gen-Xers, then Robert Little is his millennial counterpart. Both are very good at their jobs. Robert adjusts his tie in the reflection of the Porsche window, purses his lips. He’s Vegas-showman attractive, with dark hair, a decent tan, and a too-bright smile - the kind of attractive that ruins marriages but makes for an excellent divorcee. Mildly sleazy.

“Help me with these platters, will you?” Renault gestures, popping the trunk. Robert does not want to sweat too much before an open house, but he obliges anyway. They’re both wearing suits. The heat is unbearable. A spread of charcuterie in one hand, Jay double-checks his pockets for the house keys, presses the button that locks his car. 

Both men sigh, and their eyes slowly trail up to the little stucco house sitting smack dab in the center of an enormous lot, a sea of gravel punctuated by a few sickly palms. The house has the distinct appearance of being made of cardboard, ticky-tacky, a show prop. Burnt orange awnings don its narrow windows, which somehow makes it look even more fake. 

“Here we go again,” Jay mutters, fishing the keys out of his pocket. He jiggles them until the splintered plywood door opens with a croak, revealing a dark and drab interior – dusty, even though the cleaners were here yesterday. Robert kicks the door shut with his foot behind him.

 “Christ,” he swears, eyes trailing over the terrible ecru sponge paint adorning the walls. “This shit is so bleak.”

The surface-level house is mostly empty. There’s nothing for them to see or attend to there, and so the men step through a narrow hallway at the end of which is an elevator. They could take the stairs, but don’t want to risk it with the platters. After all, they were quite expensive. Renault elbows the button and the doors part. 

“Let’s just get this over with,” he says as they step inside. The fluorescent lights above them buzz something awful. A cheery metal sign welcomes them to “Tex’s Hideaway.” Beneath it is an eldritch image of a cave, foreboding. Robert’s stomach’s in knots. Ever since the company assigned him to this property, he’s been terrified of it. He tells himself that the house is, in fact, creepy, that it is completely normal for him to be ill at ease. The elevator’s ding is harsh and mechanical. They step out. Jay flips a switch and the basement is flooded with eerie light. 

It’s famous, this house - The Las Vegas Underground House. The two realtors refer to it simply as “the bunker.” Built by an eccentric millionaire at the height of Cold War hysteria, it’s six-thousand square feet of paranoid, aspirational fantasy. The first thing anyone notices is the carpet – too-green, meant to resemble grass, sprawling out lawn-like, bookmarked by fake trees, each a front for a steel beam. Nothing can grow here. It imitates life, unable to sustain it. The leaves of the ficuses seem particularly plastic.

Bistro sets scatter the ‘yard’ (if one can call it that), and there’s plenty of outdoor activities – a parquet dance floor complete with pole and disco ball, a putt putt course, an outdoor grill made to look like it’s nestled in a rock, but in reality better resembles a baked potato. The pool and hot tub, both sculpted in concrete and fiberglass mimicking a natural rock formation, are less Playboy grotto and more Fred Flintstone. It’s a very seventies idea of fun.

Then, of course, there’s the house. That fucking house. 

A house built underground in 1978 was always meant to be a mansard – the mansard roof was a historical inevitability. The only other option was International Style modernism, but the millionaire and his wife were red-blooded anti-Communists. Hence, the mansard. Robert thinks the house looks like a fast-food restaurant. Jay thinks it looks like a lawn and tennis club he once attended as a child where he took badminton lessons from a swarthy Czech man named Jan. It’s drab and squat, made more open by big floor-to-ceiling windows nestled under fresh-looking cedar shingles. There’s no weather down here to shrivel them up.

“Shall we?” Jay drawls. The two make their way into the kitchen and set the platters down on the white tile countertop. Robert leans up against the island, careful of the oversized hood looming over the electric stovetop. He eyes the white cabinets, accented with Barbie pink trim. The matching linoleum floor squeaks under his Italian loafers. 

“I don’t understand why we bother doing this,” Robert complains. “Nobody’s seriously going to buy this shit, and the company’s out a hundred bucks for party platters.”

“It’s the same every time,” Renault agrees. “The only people who show up are Instagram kids and the crazies - you know, the same kind of freaks who’d pay money to see Chernobyl.” 

“Dark tourism, they call it.”

Jay checks his watch again. Being in here makes him nervous.

“Still an hour until open house,” he mutters. “I wish we could get drunk.”

Robert exhales deeply. He also wishes he could get drunk, but still, a job’s a job.

“I guess we should check to see if everything’s good to go.”

The men head into the living room. The beamed, slanted ceiling gives it a mid-century vibe, but the staging muddles the aura. Jay remembers making the call to the staging company. “Give us your spares,” he told them, “Whatever it is you’re not gonna miss. Nobody’ll ever buy this house anyway.” 

The result is eclectic – a mix of office furniture, neo-Tuscan McMansion garb, and stuffy waiting-room lamps, all scattered atop popcorn-butter shag carpeting. Hideous, Robert thinks. Then there’s the ‘entertaining’ room, which is a particular pain in the ass to them, because the carpet was so disgusting, they had to replace it with that fake wood floor just to be able to stand being in there for more than five minutes. There’s a heady stone fireplace on one wall, the kind they don’t make anymore, a hearth. Next to it, equally hedonistic, a full bar. Through some doors, a red-painted room with a pool table and paintings of girls in fedoras on the wall. It’s all so cheap, really. Jay pulls out a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket along with a pen. He ticks some boxes and moves on.

The dining room’s the worst to Robert. Somehow the ugly floral pattern on the curtains stretches up in bloomer-like into a frilly cornice, carried through to the wallpaper and the ceiling, inescapable, suffocating. It smells like mothballs and old fabric. The whole house smells like that. 

The master bedroom’s the most normal – if anything in this house could be called normal. Mismatched art and staging furniture crowd blank walls. When someone comes into a house, Jay told Robert all those years ago, they should be able to picture themselves living in it. That’s the goal of staging. 

There’s two more bedrooms. The men go through them quickly. The first isn’t so bad – claustrophobic, but acceptable – but the saccharine pink tuille wallpaper of the second gives Renault a sympathetic toothache. The pair return to the kitchen to wait.

Both men are itching to check their phones, but there’s no point – there’s no signal in here, none whatsoever. Renault, cynical to the core, thinks about marketing the house to the anti-5G people. It’s unsettlingly quiet. The two men have no choice but to entertain themselves the old-fashioned way, through small talk.

“It’s really fucked up, when you think about it,” Renault muses.

“What is?”

“The house, Bob.”

Robert hates being called Bob. He’s told Jay that hundreds of times, and yet…

“Yeah,” Robert mutters, annoyed.

“No, really. Like, imagine. You’re rich, you founded a major multinational company marketing hairbrushes to stay-at-home moms, and what do you decide to do with your money? Move to Vegas and build a fucking bunker. Like, imagine thinking the end of the world is just around the corner, forcing your poor wife to live there for ten, fifteen years, and then dying, a paranoid old man.” Renault finds the whole thing rather poetic. 

“The Russkies really got to poor ol’ Henderson, didn’t they?” Robert snickers.

“The wife’s more tragic if you ask me,” Renault drawls. “The second that batshit old coot died, she called a guy to build a front house on top of this one, since she already owned the lot. Poor woman probably hadn’t seen sunlight in God knows how long.”

“Surely they had to get groceries.”

Jay frowns. Robert has no sense of drama, he thinks. Bad trait for a realtor.

“Still,” he murmurs. “It’s sad.”

“I would have gotten a divorce, if I were her,” the younger man says, as though it were obvious. It’s Jay’s turn to laugh.

“I’ve had three of those, and trust me, it’s not as easy as you think.”

“You’re seeing some new girl now, aren’t you?” Robert doesn’t really care, he just knows Jay likes to talk about himself, and talking fills the time.  

“Yeah. Casino girl. Twenty-six.”

“And how old are you again?”

“None of your business.”

“Did you see the renderings I emailed to you?” Robert asks briskly, not wanting to discuss Jay’s sex life any further.

“What renderings?”

“Of this house, what it could look like.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Jay has not seen the renderings.

“If it were rezoned,” Robert continues, feeling very smart, “It could be a tourist attraction - put a nice visitor’s center on the lot, make it sleek and modern. Sell trinkets. It’s a nice parcel, close to the Strip - some clever investor could make it into a Museum of Ice Cream-type thing, you know?”

“Museum of Ice Cream?”

“In New York. It’s, not, like, educational or anything. Really, it’s just a bunch of colorful rooms where kids come to take pictures of themselves.”

“Instagram,” Jay mutters. “You know, I just sold a penthouse the other week to an Instagram influencer. Takes pictures of herself on the beach to sell face cream or some shit. Eight-point-two million dollars.”

“Jesus,” Robert whistles. “Fat commission.”

“You’re telling me. My oldest daughter turns sixteen this year. She’s getting a Mazda for Christmas.”

“You ever see that show, My Super Sweet Sixteen? On MTV? Where rich kids got, like, rappers to perform at their birthday parties? Every time at the end, some guy would pull up in, like, an Escalade with a big pink bow on it and all the kids would scream.”

“Sounds stupid,” Jay says.

“It was stupid.”

It’s Robert’s turn to check his watch, a dainty gold Rolex.

“Fuck, still thirty minutes.”

“Time really does stand still in here, doesn’t it?” Jay remarks.

“We should have left the office a little later,” Robert complains. “The charcuterie is going to get –“

A deafening sound roars through the house and a violent, explosive tremor throws both men on the ground, shakes the walls and everything between them. The power’s out for a few seconds before there’s a flicker, and light fills the room again. Two backup generators, reads Jay’s description in the listing - an appeal to the prepper demographic, which trends higher in income than non-preppers. For a moment, the only things either are conscious of are the harsh flourescent lighting and the ringing in their ears. Time slows, everything seems muted and too bright. Robert rubs the side of his face, pulls back his hand and sees blood.

“Christ,” he chokes out. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Jay breathes, looking at his hands, trying to determine if he’s got a concussion. The results are inconclusive – everything’s slow and fuzzy, but after a moment, he thinks it might just be shock.

“It sounded like a fucking 747 just nosedived on top of us.” 

“Yeah, Jesus.” Jay’s still staring at his fingers in a daze. “You okay?”

“I think so,” Robert grumbles. Jay gives him a cursory examination.

“Nothing that needs stitches,” he reports bluntly. Robert’s relieved. His face sells a lot of houses to a lot of lonely women and a few lonely men. There’s a muffled whine, which the two men soon recognize as a throng of sirens. Both of them try to calm the panic rising in their chests, to no avail.

“Whatever the fuck happened,” Jay says, trying to make light of the situation, “At least we’re in here. The bunker.”

Fear forms in the whites of Robert’s eyes.

“What if we’re stuck in here,” he whispers, afraid to speak such a thing into the world. The fear spreads to his companion.

“Try the elevator,” Jay urges, and Robert gets up, wobbles a little as his head sorts itself out, and leaves. A moment later, Jay hears him swear a blue streak, and from the kitchen window, sees him standing before the closed metal doors, staring at his feet. His pulse racing, Renault jogs out to see for himself.

“It’s dead,” Robert murmurs. 

“Whatever happened,” Jay says cautiously, rubbing the back of his still-sore neck, “It must have been pretty bad. Like, I don’t think we should go up yet. Besides, surely the office knows we’re still down here.”

“Right, right,” the younger man breathes, trying to reassure himself.

“Let’s just wait it out. I’m sure everything’s fine.” The way Jay says it does not make Robert feel any better. 

“Okay,” the younger man grumbles. “I’m getting a fucking drink, though.”

“Yeah, Jesus. That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.” Renault shoves his hands in his suit pocket to keep them from trembling.  

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