#to grant . every other person in his life didn't have the choice to care about him

[justablah56]

thought about Marco and Grant again . help .

[poppy-metal]

sighhhhhh <3 patrick being you and tashi’s very willing and eager sperm donor. tashi gives him free reign, for the most part, to do whatever he wants, as long as he spills every drop of cum deep into your cunt where it belongs. and she’s not just going to leave you alone— she’s going to take care of her girl, fuck his cum back inside of you whenever it starts dripping out. it gives patrick time to get hard again before he pumps you full of his cum. tashi makes him keep going and going until he’s shooting blanks.

and really, what are the odds it takes that first time? she tells patrick to keep his phone nearby when you’re ovulating again, would probably even add it to a fucking google calendar. she tracks your fertile days, calls patrick to ‘come over and do his fucking job.’ he’s happy to help out, just being a good friend <3

stop because she's so professional about it - almost clinical. once it's decided she's tracking your periods, she already tracked them before - just to know when you'd need certain provisions. - but she's tracking when you're ovulating - has a calendar for it and everything with the date circled in red marker. the day where you'll be most fertile.

something about it shames and turns you on in the same breath - the brazen display of something so lewd in such a mundane fashion. when tashi's friend is over- and she sees the date circled she of course asks what it means and while your face flames furiously your wife just calmly sips her coffee. "we're trying for a baby."

and of course, of course her friend thinks it means a clinical insemination - tashi doesn't bother to correct her and you're glad, you think you'd die if she explained that no, they were doing a more hands on approach - per your want. its not that you'd asked to get knocked up, but tashi had such a way about her, a way of knowing you - it wasn't hard to figure out you didn't just want to carry a baby, you wanted to experience the act of lovemaking itself - babymaking - such a sweet traditional girl, you were. tashi didn't fault you for it. and you got whatever you wanted, if it was in her power to grant it to you.

you just hadn't expected - patrick. you trusted her - you loved her - but patrick was - he was so - intense. you had to admit he scared you a little, though you did you best to be outwardly polite to him, as one of tashi's closest friends. but tashi reassured you he was the best choice. he wouldn't want to be overly involved in the babies life like art would, who was the other option. he wouldn't fight them for custody or change his mind or anything like that.

and, tashi had added with a smirk, she thought he'd be more your type. you were attracted to tashi for her dominance and strong fiery personality after all. her and patrick shared that - in and out of the bedroom. she knew you'd have a good time. because it was important you have a good time on top of getting pregnant.

well, that was that.

except it wasn't just that. except it was alot more than that. because you came home one day and there patrick was - on your couch - the nice plush one - his legs spread - arms behind him on either side of the couch - the complete picture of male lackadaisical confidence. right at home.

tashi was on a chair across from him, and when she saw you she pointed to the empty spot next to patrick - though there wasn't alot of space.

"stop manspreading and move your ass." she told him when you approached hesitantly. patrick allowed his legs to close a little, making room for you, but he didn't take his arms from the back of the couch. and he looked at you as if to say 'well?' when you just stared at him.

"sit." tashi said and you sat.

immediately the warmth emanating from patrick washed over you. how did he run so hot? he was like a goddamn werewolf. you were hyperaware of his arm just behind you. knew that if you leaned back just a little your head would brush his forearm. you sat stiffly. hands in your lap.

"whats this about.....?" you asked tashi. the date wasn't until two weeks. you hadn't expected to see patrick until then. you wondered if he knew already, or if tashi was planning on telling him now, with you here.

you felt more than heard patrick shift next to you. his knees knocked against yours. he was wearing jeans - and you were in a dreas - the fabric was rough as it tapped your bare skin.

"i think you know." he sounded amused.

so he knew then.

"dont tease her." tashi said. she had a notebook open on her lap, loose papers already in it. she was holding a pen that she uncapped. "we spoke about it a few days ago over brunch. but this -" and she pointed at you with the pen. "- is why we're having this conversation now." she waved the pen between you and patrick.

you drew your knee back from patricks. swallowed.

"a- and the conversation is?"

patrick leaned forward, elbows on his knees. he was so tall and big he invaded your line of sight - "you want my dick inside you and you can't even look at me, doll."

the crude statement made heat shoot through your body. your lips parted and you just kinda blinked at him in shock. your palms started to sweat and at the work dick your cunt throbbed once, unbidden.

"that part." tashi confirmed.

"but i -" you started. "um. i didn't think - i mean. its just. its just to get me pregnant.... "

tashi hummed. "yes. but I don't think you're taking into account its not just about that." she wrote something down in her notebook. the sound of pen on paper was deliberate and sharp. "your pleasure, for one, is paramount. dont look at me like that - you're getting fucked, baby. you're going to enjoy it."

you realized she was making a list. she turned it around to face you and patrick after she finished with it.

"i figure we should talk about what each of us wants from the experience - kinks and stuff. we already know eachothers, but she doesn't know yours patrick - not that what you want matters - but he should know what you like."

your lips press together. she pushes the paper too you.

you feel tunnels vision - dragging the paper into your lap and hovering the pen over the page but unable to write anything down. you feel their eyes on you and feel dissected. you chew your bottom lip. tap the pen to the paper. dont write.

patrick leans back again - this time his arm settles right behind you on the couch cushion, brushing against your lower back.

tashi says your name. firmly.

you look at her a little helplessly, a fawn, "you know what I like - cant you tell him?"

"no."

you're startled to hear it come from patrick. you glance back at him, and he's looking at you like hes got you under a microscope. the shirt hes wearing hugs his chest a little too well. you can see the definition of his chest through it. you drag your gaze to his face, and he rubs at his jaw.

his other hand, you feel the tips of his fingers graze your waist. you squeeze your thighs together and his lips quirk, like hes figuring you out in little morsels and what hes finding he's liking.

"i need to hear it from you."

tashi rolls her eyes.

"he's right you know." she agrees with him anyway, deapite apparently finding his peacocking annoying. "this is for you. for us - but the burden is on your body - im gonna need you to be a big girl about this. I'm taking this seriously - are you?"

"of course!" you say, despondent.

she raises an eyebrow. "are you?"

you sit up straighter. shove your embarrassment down and make sure she can see the conviction in your eyes when you say, "i want a baby. i wanna have a baby with you tashi."

you stare at eachother. her brown eyes search your face, and she's so beautiful. the most beautiful woman you've ever known and you want to have her babies and be her housewife and raise your children and make her proud and -

"thats good." she nods. seems pleased. "now tell him that."

the thing is - this is most definitely mostly for patricks own ego. he'd been hard the moment tashi propositioned him, if he was honest. had spent the past few nights fucking his dick raw to the thought of it. you'd always been like a deer around him. freezing and frolicking away whenever he was around. tashi said it was because he stunk, probably, but patrick had a different theory.

still, he's treading water here. he doesn't know you that well, and your tashi's girl. she'd rip his fucking balls from his body if he made you uncomfortable, he knew. but patrick was pretty good at sussing out when women wanted to fuck him.

he knew you wanted him.

didn't make him want to take it easy on you.

"look at me." he takes a risk, commanding it without looking at tashi, but it pays off when your eyes swing to his like they were pulled there. fuck, if you aren't cute. patricks dick twitches. "tell me what you want from me."

you stare at him. run your hands up and down your dress, flattening it and he glances down at your thighs - has a thought about how they'd look spread around him, pressed up against your stomach - you try to look away again and he pinches your hip with the fingers that'd been lightly skating back and forth over your waist.

"come on." he coaxes you, and he lowers his tone. "look at me and tell me you want me to fuck you on my cock and give you a baby."

"i - i want.'" you look at tashi but patrick doesn't take his eyes off you. he knows tashi wont step in. fucking sadist. her pussy is probably sopping wet at watching him needle you, watching you squirm. she'll be a gushing mess when he makes you cry on his dick and call him daddy - "i want you to.... give me a baby."

fuck.

you say it so softly he thinks about making you say it again, just to be mean. "yeah?" he lets a grin split his face, yeah he's got you pinned. knows exactly the kind of girl you are. "want me to be gentle about it -" he doubts it but hes teasing you here. he already knows how he'll fuck you. decided it the moment you sat on the very edge of the couch - all polite and demure. "- or do you want me to lay you down and make you take the load that's gonna get you pregnant. make your wife watch me get you addicted to cock -"

"i already know that." tashi cuts in. "please - you think I'm not fucking her already with a dick bigger than yours?"

patrick looks at her now - glares. "no balls, though."

tashi trails her eyes down his body - deliberately resting them on his crotch where he's practically bursting through his jeans. he wants to reach down and squeeze himself, relieve some of the throbbing.

"well - that is what you're for, yes."

"and you're not bigger than me."

a perfectly raised eyebrow. "i guess we'll see."

you're still stuck on what patrick said before. about holding you down and making you take it. your clit has a heartbeat and you feel sticky between your legs.

"im gonna - i need to do something really quick -" you stand abruptly - interrupting their banter. you just need to get off. right now.

it doesn't even matter that they both obviously know what you're rushing off to do - that patricks laugh follows you all the way to the bathroom. you need to rub one out now. need something inside you - now -

you dont bother with the lock - just lean against the sink and yank up your dress around your waist with one hand and shove the other into your panties - feeling through the slick mess pooling there, through the folds of your pussy which you part to sink a finger inside yourself - you moan. rock down on it, think helplessly of patrick over you, pushing your legs apart and forcing his cock in - that big body pounding and pounding and pounding so deeply - god - balls slapping wetly against your asshole - full of the cum hes gonna pump so deep inside you - into your fucking womb - you'll just have to take it - you'll just have to -

the bathroom door open and you're half delirious you think you're hallucinating when its patrick. he shoulders his way in - doesn't bother closing the door behind him and you're so close to coming your fingers dont stop moving from their place in your drenched cunt - and you open your mouth to tell him to leave or to scream or to just moan as you cum - but he's moving in before you have a chance to do any of that, yanking you around with a hand on your hip and bending you over the sink -

you twitch in shock and your brain is so fucking frazzled you dont think to do anything about the situation other than moan and clench around your fingers as you cum - your eyes rolling back - you catch the briefest glance of tashi leaning against the doorframe - safe, you aren't being bad, thank god - before patrick is yanking your soiled fingers from your still coming cunt and replaces them with his own-

"oh god - '" you wail at the same time patrick grunts. "fuck - she's tight -"

you're already rolling into another orgasm. thighs shaking as patrick crowds behind you - leans over your body until his chest is at your back. fucks his sloppy fingers so deep inside you his wrist hits your clit - grinds his palm there -

"you have such a hot little body." patrick groans in your ear, hot and low and fuck - "can't wait to stretch it out -" you can feel him hard and fucking big, pressing into your ass. that wont fit - jesus - that will destroy you - ah - you're coming again - or you didn't stop coming, you're shaking and you feel tashi's hand in your hair, yanking your head up so you can see how wrecked you are in the mirror - a fucked out whore - debauched -

"i cant - " you gasp, standing on your tip toes like you mean to squirm away from the feeling but hands - tashi's hands patricks hands, yank you back into place and patricks grinding the heel of his palm into your fat sore clit and you feel tears leak from your eyes.

"you gotta take it, baby." patrick presses a sweet kiss to the side of your head - in contrast to the way hes absolutely pummeling your cunt with his fingers - wet and gushy and making a fucking mess - "how're you gonna take this fat fucking dick if you're already choking my fingers -"

"i will -" you sob. "I'll take it - i promise - hhh -"

"is that a promise?" he asks. pinches your clit. doesn't let you finish coming.

"y-yesss."

"gonna hold you to it."

your eyes roll back when he makes you cum again. you dont know how you'll survive coming on his cock.

[thisgirlnamedblusy]

hi blusy!! i have a G!P donna request to make...

following the canon events of resident evil village, ethan winters went to the beneviento estate to search for his daughter rose and comes across reader, donna's maid who is appointed to take care of the young winters for the the time being. donna, for some reason (i dunno what, you can fill this one kwnsisjsj) wasn't in the manor that time and so ethan didn't experience the hallucinations like he did in the game. ethan, relieved that he can finally get back his daughter, tries to talk the reader into handing her over. (just to be clear, rose is not in the jar like in the game. rose is actually still intact, like her actual baby body is there and reader is taking care of her) reader refused to do so but ethan insists. without any choice left, reader tries to run away from him, which enraged ethan. he chased reader around the manor, easily overpowering her since reader is not experienced in combat / donna felt like there was no need since she's just the maid.

(she's not actually just a maid because she's intimate with donna and they did have sex before... but donna is stubborn and won't confront her own feelings up to this point.)

when donna finally got home, she found reader cowering on one corner, covered in blood (not her blood but ethan's because she tries to fight him off) while ethan was on the verge of stabbing her to death with scissors.

so uhh.... i think you know what will happen next to ethan (hint: not so good) donna ignored his corpse and went straight to taking care of reader. reader assures her that she's fine and that the blood is not hers so donna calms down for a bit.

and thennnn yeah, smut time!!! :D

donna, terrified and pissed at the thought of almost losing reader to winters, calmed herself down by touching reader for a while. just touching, you know, the silly hands around the waist thing and whatever. but realizing that ethan touched reader way too much than she liked, even to the point of ruining reader's dress that she made herself, donna was pissed once more... and possessive. (wink wink)

Yesss!!! I hope it wasn't too dark... Thank you for request!!! I hope you like it and sorry about the language mistakes!!!! :)))))

Her hidden heart

Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Fem, Maid! Reader

Warnings: G!P Donna, smut at the end, Minors DNI, dark themes, dark Donna, mental health issues, possessiveness, Donna being Donna, fluff, seriously, this is dark...

Word count: 8,543

Summary: She doesn't talk about her feelings, she will never do it...

N/A: Sorry about the language mistakes!!! Requests are open!!! I'm waiting yours!!! I love you all!!! :))

To say that you, or any maid in the village, were born to serve would be a lie.

The Black Gods ordered your life as they saw fit, often without taking into account stupid dreams or ambitions. You could have complained, protested, but you didn't. Being a maid wasn’t in your plans, but, you had no other plans.

You were a young girl. At 21 years old, nature gave you gifts that were apparently useless and that you found difficult to recognize: beauty, sweetness, kindness, goodness... all of those were characteristics that were possible separately, but never together in a single person.

You weren’t special, but you were strange.

None of your friends felt good about having to leave their home to work in the castle. You, however, accepted your fate in an optimistic way, without protest. After all, you weren’t leaving the village. You weren’t abandoning your family.

You would do it because you accepted your destiny; you accepted that the Black Gods granted you those skills, that beauty solely to serve.

What you didn’t expect was that you wouldn’t live surrounded by girls your age, dealing every day with Lady Dimitrescu and her eccentric whims. It took you a long time to get used to the idea of ​​being her maid, but the plans didn’t go as you wanted.

The castle wouldn’t become your home, but a place of passage for your next destiny, one that you didn’t believe possible. You wouldn’t serve the oldest Lord, but the youngest.

You could not reject that proposition, because it was what the Gods had in store for you.

Your destination was the forest, it was that dark mansion guarded by a waterfall, it was the house of the most mysterious Lord, of the doll maker, Donna Beneviento.

The lady in black received you in silence, without saying a word, assuming that you already knew what you would have to do. In part you did know, and you let yourself be carried away by the inertia of what would be your profession, obeying in silence.

Every day, every night was the same in that place. Nothing changed, perhaps the shrill voice of the doll Angie had new words for you, but that figure in mourning continued walking like a ghost at your side, as if you didn’t even exist.

Comfort wasn’t exactly the word you had in mind when defining your stay at the estate, but discomfort wasn’t either. The days, the weeks passed quickly, like a blink, revealing only a glimpse of that black shadow.

Sometimes you wondered what would have happened if everything had remained the same, if nothing had changed; a heavy and annoying thought that you tried to push out of your head.

You barely knew the lady, no one was lucky enough to do so. You had heard horrible things, rumors, exaggerated descriptions, but none of that was comparable to seeing that black veil dance when she passed by you.

Donna was a taciturn, discreet woman, who refused to acknowledge that you were there even if she had asked for it. Luckily, your thoughts about an eternal routine were completely wrong.

Your elegant “my lady” was, with the first words you heard from the lady, transformed into a simple “Donna.” It could be an insignificant change.

Hearing that hoarse voice for the first time could have been a mistake, a small detail or a thank you gift for your work, but nothing of the sort. That melodic whisper was only the spark that lit a long fuse of events.

First her voice, then her face.

She didn't take off her veil in front of you. She didn't show you her beauty as an act of friendship or trust, no. Donna simply got up that morning and didn't bother to cover herself. She would never do that again.

Her words were more eager to come out of her lips and her single eye scrutinized your reaction to an act that seemed casual and natural. It wasn't.

Showing her face wasn't a reward for your work, but rather a test, the last one the lady needed in order, according to Angie, not to get rid of your annoying presence. Of course you only flattered her beauty despite her distrust of your words.

Yes, she was beautiful, terribly beautiful. That deformity on her face was only part of a capricious gift from the Black Gods, the price to pay for eternal life and the protection of Mother Miranda. At least that's how she saw it.

They were cold, trivial conversations, but more frequent. Talking to the lady allowed you to get to know her better, learn her tastes, some of her concerns. Maybe showing up before you was a test, but you were sure that talking to you, even with that cold tone, was not.

For a young and deluded girl like you, it wasn’t difficult to start feeling something for Donna. Her rare smile, the sparkle in her eye, her hair as black as night, her thin and apparently soft hands…

She was a strange woman. Her mind was damaged, loneliness danced around her like a sinister shadow, but you were always good at dancing to the tune of that melody of laments and tragedies.

As time went by, that beautiful smile was much more frequent, the cold conversations didn’t heat up, but they didn’t stop either. A relationship of trust wasn’t enough for those moments alone in which words sometimes flowed, and other times you just looked at each other in silence.

First her voice, then her face, her body.

If you had to give a reason for that afternoon in the workshop, you couldn't do it. Without warning, without being aware of the strange gleam in her eye, the words turned into kisses. They weren't sweet, they weren't tender; they were wild, desperate. You fulfilled one of your wishes, yes, you kissed the woman you had loved for more than a year.

It wasn't the beginning of something, it wasn't the beginning of a romantic relationship, it was a wish half fulfilled. Those deep, anxious kisses weren't covered in love, they weren't accompanied by confessions, only by gasps, only by eagerness to take you.

You realized that it wasn't just her face that was the victim of the Gods' games, that this gift from Mother Miranda brought with it a change in her body that could very well seem like a mockery to poor, lonely Donna.

You didn't care what the lady's last secret was, the cruel game that gave her body an unexpected and isolated change. You were a maid and you wanted to do it, you wanted to let yourself go, let her take you roughly at the table, take your innocence and finally claim you as hers.

Not a whisper, not a declaration, none of that accompanied Donna's carnal desires. She simply took what she wanted, what was hers, when she wanted, how she wanted.

Any maid would have accepted her fate, put her body at her mistress's disposal without thinking, without asking for explanations, without asking or wondering. Not you.

You weren’t capable of considering yourself an object, a toy, a doll that Donna played with whenever she wanted. You had a hard time seeing it that way. You knew it wasn't that way.

Her kisses were sometimes hurried, other times they were slow and careful. The silence was only overshadowed by her moans, by yours, but not by words, at least, not always by words. Not wanting to accept your destiny as a sexual doll for the lady, you began to analyze those encounters, the coldness that seemed to fade from her voice.

You were madly in love with Donna, but that didn't mean she felt the same, although, refusing to believe it, you began to look for signs that proved you were wrong.

You found much more than you expected. Her caresses were infrequent, but warm, curious. Outside of passion it wasn’t common for her to kiss you, but it wasn’t something that never happened.

The most beautiful smile in the world, hers, began to appear at very specific moments, in those moments when Donna thought you weren't looking at her.

Like a child's game, she had fun loving you secretly, you were convinced of it. You wanted to hear it with her words, you wanted her to tell you everything you knew she felt, but you were never able to do it.

Donna kept her feelings behind a hard door of cold steel; she refused to share them with you.

 The coldness became a silent shield for the voices of her heart, although it was clumsy, it had cracks. It was as if she didn’t want to let herself be carried away by what she felt, as if loving you was a mistake or a danger.

Her defenses faltered from time to time, giving you kisses, glances, whispers, but soon they returned, soon the huge door that guarded her heart would close again and her face would become stoic, expressionless.

Without fear of losing, of making mistakes, living for more than a year like that, letting her take you, enjoying her body while she did it with yours, thinking, or rather, making you believe that it was her right for being your lady, your mind set a new goal.

You would only have to be patient, study the steel door well, those feelings the lady showed without wanting to, and, with a little luck, be able to find the key, use it, and throw it far away so that it couldn’t be closed again.

“Ouch!” you screamed that morning, that morning when everything became strange.

You were cleaning, as always, standing on a stool to be able to remove the decades of dust from a shelf. Due to clumsiness or lack of care, you tripped, falling to the floor abruptly.

“(Y/N),” the lady in black said, running to your body, with an expression of concern that made you sketch a smile. “Oddio... are you okay?” she asked, crouching down beside you, helping you sit up.

“Yeah… it was a stupid fall,” you said in a sweet voice, the only voice you could have with her. “Thanks, Donna.”

The lady nodded slowly, checking that you hadn't been hurt, with a look of concern that delighted your mind, with a softness and warmth in her gestures that revealed her feelings were exposed. Her eye locked with yours for a moment, her face relaxed, but soon after she frowned again, turning away and clearing her throat.

“Um... be more careful, will you?” Donna said with contempt, not helping you up. “A crippled maid is of no use to me.”

“I'm sorry,” you said with flushed cheeks, smiling at the clumsiness with which she closed her mouth, with which she tried to pretend that, to her, you were just that, a maid. “I'll be more careful next time.”

“Fine,” she whispered, crossing her arms and looking away. “I have to go to an important meeting today, (Y/N). I hope to have the house clean by the time I get back… um, I mean, if you can…”

“Of course, Donna, don't worry,” you said with a smile, with that radiant smile you were blessed with and that caused some nervousness in your mistress.

Nodding briefly, the lady and her doll left the mansion without saying goodbye, looking at you shortly before closing the door, looking at you through the veil that hid her beauty, but also those expressions she was ashamed of.

What you didn't imagine was what would happen later, when the lady and doll returned.

“Gods, what is that?” you asked when the lady came back, with Angie not being her only company.

Donna frowned, looking at what she was carrying in her arms, approaching without saying a single word and handing it to you.

In your arms you had a baby, a baby of no more than a year old who looked at you with curiosity. You knew that anything could happen at meetings, but you didn't expect that.

“Don't you see, you silly maid?” Angie said, walking towards you. “It's a baby.”

“Um, I know it's a baby,” you said nervously, holding the girl in your arms and looking at the lady, who coldly, as always, took off her veil without paying attention. “But… But…”

“Her name is Rose,” Angie said, pointing at the girl who was writhing in your arms.

You were nervous and confused, and with good reason.

“Rose?” you asked, looking for Donna with your eyes.

The doll maker sighed, resting her hands on a table, as if she were thinking about her answer. A million possible explanations began to pass through your mind, each one more terrible than the last.

“Donna…”  you whispered, approaching her slowly. “Who is this child? Is she your daughter?” you asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

She turned around, shaking her head, with a nervous, cold expression.

“No,” she answered with an annoyed whisper. “She's not mine.”

“Oh, okay,” you said, biting your lip as the baby squirmed in your arms. “Who is she? Why do you bring her with you?”

“You're nosy, huh?” Angie hissed, as the lady, absentmindedly, poured herself a glass of wine.

She seemed nervous, much more nervous than usual.

You could see the trembling of her hands, her lost gaze. Even, if you concentrated hard enough, you were sure you could hear the thoughts roaring in her mind.

“I'm not nosy, I just don't understand who this baby is and why it's here,” you said looking at the doll while Donna dropped into a chair, with a hand on her forehead. “Donna, what's going on?”

She drank and then looked at you with disinterest, indicating with your gaze for you to come closer. You did it unsurely, calming the imminent crying of the baby.

“Mother Miranda believes that this child is the key to the resurrection of her daughter,” the brunette explained while you sat next to her. “Preparing the ritual takes time and she couldn't take care of her.”

“Gods…” you sighed, cradling the baby. “Who are the parents? Are they from the village?”

“No,” she answered, looking away with a tired gesture. “Don't… ask so many things, ho mal di testa.”

“I'm sorry,” you apologized, looking closely at the girl who moved in your arms. “This is so strange… Don’t you know who her parents are?”

“Didn’t you hear me? Shut up, stop asking stupid questions, (Y/N),” Donna protested, pouring herself another drink and sighing, closing her eye to relax. “You don’t want to know.”

Deep down you knew what that meant. That girl wasn’t from the village and her parents, of course, weren’t either.

Living with Donna had given you certain knowledge about the priestess, about her tireless search, about the methods she would be capable of using to get what she wanted.

“This is going too far… Kidnapping a child…” you murmured, cradling the baby, deducing for yourself where the little girl came from. “Poor parents… it’s unfair.”

Donna looked at you with a sad look, nodding as she played with her glass.

“Yes, it is,” she said in a low voice, emptying the wine into her throat and shaking her head. “I know what you're thinking and no, it's not my fault.”

“I didn't say it was,” you said, leaning towards the lady, who seemed terribly nervous and repentant.

In the village they could say that her heart was evil, that she had a black soul, but you, over time, discovered that it wasn't like that. Donna wasn’t that way by nature, the tragedies of her family, the loneliness... All of that turned her into a puppet in the hands of Miranda.

Knowing that the kidnapping of a little girl was something that visibly bothered her relieved your heart, made you feel less guilty for loving her.

“In fact, it's your fault” she said, with a more common tone, pointing at you with her finger.

“Mine?” you asked surprised, arching your eyebrows.

Donna nodded, crossing her arms.

“It seems that your skills as a maid have spread throughout the village and Miranda thought to leave the care of Rose to you appropriate . According to her, she is much better off with you than in the castle.”

“Oh, I don't know how to take that,” you said with a fake smile, comforting the little girl's moans. “Shh, don't cry...”

“Angie, bring the bag,” the lady ordered, to which the doll, who was comically watching the baby, agreed grumbling and bringing a small backpack from the entrance. “Everything is here, I trust you know how to take care of her.”

“Yes, of course, before coming here I used to take care of my nephew and...” you said nodding and accepting the task without asking any more absurd questions. “Um, I think we need to change her,” you said with a grimace of disgust. “Are there diapers in there?”

“I don't know, check it yourself,” Donna said with the same unpleasant face, getting up from the chair with a tired sigh, with a pained expression and a hand on her forehead. “I'm going to the workshop. “

“Oh, okay,” you said, disappointed at not being able to keep up even one more stupid word with her. “Do you need something?”

“No, lasciami estare.”

That day she didn't seem to be in a good mood, and you knew it was best to leave her alone.

 Donna would have to wait. You had something more important to take care of at that moment. Carefully you cleaned little Rose, in silence, thinking who the unfortunate parents were, why Miranda, protector of the village, would do something like that to an innocent family.

Questions in that place were dangerous and besides, Donna trusted you

“That's it... now little Rose is clean... you like being, don't you?” you said talking to the baby with Angie, without knowing anything about the brunette.

“Gross,” the doll protested as you got rid of the trash and the little girl writhed playfully on a table. “How long is she going to be shitting herself?”

“Angie, it’s a baby,” you said, frowning and picking up the little girl, cradling her in your arms. “We all have been.”

“No, not me, silly,” the puppet said, sitting next to you on the couch. “I’m a more evolved specimen than that poop machine.”

You laughed, shaking your head and watching the hallway, not sure you wanted Donna to come back, not when the thin line of her sanity was so weak in the face of madness.

“Rose, mm? Rose or Rosemary?” you asked the baby, who was playing with your necklace, the necklace Donna gave you some time ago.

According to her, it was a mark, a proof that you were hers. The fact that the gold chain mysteriously coincided with your birthday was, according to your mistress, a stupid coincidence.

“You should read her a bedtime story,” the puppet suggested, making you frown in amusement.

“Wow, Angie, that’s a good idea,” you said, surprised, while Angie and you watched the little girl, who seemed restless. “Find me a story, will you? Oh, and… there isn’t a crib in the house, is there? She can’t sleep anywhere.”

“Yes, yes, there is one in the basement, come, come silly,” Angie said, getting off the couch and leading you.

With the little girl asleep, the day ended.

That day was definitely not the best for Donna. Many times, almost every night, she would take you in silence, falling asleep beside you in the bedroom, not asking you to leave. It could be because loving you was an exhausting task, but once again, Donna didn't know how to hide her true intentions.

Under the sheets, with your bodies naked and exhausted, she pretended to sleep, pretended that her arms around you were a product of the inertia of sleep and not a desperate gesture to maintain contact with you.

You knew when she was sleeping, when she was awake. Those arms, those soft caresses in your hair while she watched you, believing that you were sleeping didn't mean anything of what she wanted you to see, but quite the opposite.

You never dared to play with her, to make her see that her attempts to be stubborn and insensitive stopped working a long time ago. You didn't dare, the fear of discovering that perhaps her sick mind made her behave like that, that she really didn't feel anything for you was the worst of your fears, although you were completely convinced that it wasn't like that.

 That night there were no hugs, no cuddling under the sheets.

You enjoyed those caresses, those kisses that meant nothing, that sometimes didn’t lead to passion, to her eagerness to take you. She closed the bedroom door, thus indicating to you that she didn’t want your company.

It was the first night you slept alone in a long time, but the circumstances were delicate, little Rose had been too abrupt and unexpected a change, which surely unbalanced the lady's sanity, you didn't know to what extent.

“Oh, what is this? A cow... what does a cow do, little Rose?” you said, playing with the girl the next day, while Donna was having breakfast.

She didn't even look at you or talk to you, that day, that morning, she went back in time, pretending you didn't exist.

The girl hit the old book you were holding with her hand, a children's book full of pleasant drawings. You didn't know what that poor baby had been through, but, above all, you didn't want the shadows of the village to haunt her, not before... Miranda took her away.

Rose laughed, innocent, unaware of the uncertain fate that awaited her. Donna looked at you out of the corner of her eye, smiling, pretending that you couldn't see her, even though you did and your face, subtly, smiled back at her.

“Oh, you want some of (Y/N)'s delicious mashed apples, right?” you said, closing the book. “Angie, can you help me?”

“Aye,” the doll said, fulfilling your request without any protest.

The doll was unpredictable, sometimes she was a devil from hell, and other times she was as cute as a teddy bear. It seemed that little Rose's presence didn't bother her at all, quite the opposite of her owner, who seemed even more absent.

When the girl finished eating, you made a great effort to try to get her to sleep, but you were distracted by the lady, who approached slowly, sitting on the armchair in front of you, watching in silence.

You looked at her tenderly and she did so coldly, but also with a spark of curiosity.

“She's an adorable girl,” you commented after a few minutes of tense silence. “She's very good.”

“Mm,” Donna murmured, disinterested, looking away.

“Do you want to hold her?” you offered, bringing the girl a little closer.

The brunette moved her arms exaggeratedly, shaking her head with a grimace of disgust.

“No, take her away from me,” she said with a childish hiss.

“Mm, Donna is so mean, huh? She doesn't want to play with little Rose,” you said amused, watching the girl smile at your comical voice. “Well, never mind, you should sleep now.”

“You're good at it,” she commented with a relaxed gesture, tilting her head to watch you cradle the baby.

“Yes, I already told you that I used to take care of my nephew,” you said, looking at her briefly, with that sweet smile that didn't usually leave your face. “Babies aren't a problem for me.”

“Mm,” she murmured again, looking away.

Seeing Rose's face, how sweet and tender she was, you began to fantasize, to imagine scenarios that were previously unthinkable, to imagine a future with Donna, a real one, one in which you weren’t her maid, in which the whispers of love lasted all day, in which those words, those three words that you so longed to hear, ran through your ears.

You were so engrossed in the baby, so hopelessly in love with Donna, that you stopped having control of your thoughts, and also of your words.

“You know what? I've been thinking,” you murmured, cradling the girl, letting yourself be carried away by your emotions. “I wouldn't mind having one of these.”

“Mm? Di che cosa stai parlando?” the lady asked, blinking and frowning.

“Well, I'm talking about this, about a baby,” you sighed, playing with the girl to distract her with your hand. “Can you imagine? A baby, our baby…”

“What?” Donna asked in an unpleasant tone, shaking her head. “You can't be serious.”

“Why not? I've been here with you for over a year, and… well, I always wanted to start a family and…” you stammered, regretting having let your feelings speak for themselves.

“Are you crazy? Don't talk nonsense, (Y/N),” she said, sighing in disbelief.

“Nonsense?” you asked, in a sad tone. “Wanting to have a child with you is nonsense? You and me…”

“You and me, what? Huh? You and me what!? The woman asked in a cold, nervous tone, fixing her bright eye on yours, increasing the volume of her voice.

“Shh, don't talk that loud,” you said, calming Rose's nervousness, and your own. “Donna, stop pretending that I'm just a maid to you, I know that's not the case.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, with a mocking smile. “You know… what? Stop making things up, (Y/N). You are my maid, that's all.”

“That's not true,” you said, with an involuntary hiss. “You know that's not true.”

“You're stupid, (Y/N),” Donna growled, getting up abruptly from the chair. “I'm going to make one thing clear to you, stupid maid. You are mine, you serve me. If I want to fuck you, I do it, if I want to ignore you, I do it. You are here to serve me, to meet my needs, nothing else, do you understand?”

“Why are you so stubborn?” you asked, raising your tone as well. “Look at yourself. You can't even believe your own words and… don't say those things in front of the girl, Donna.”

“You dare to give me orders?” he asked, approaching in a threatening manner. “Stop dreaming about babies and stupid ideas about our relationship. There is no such relationship, do you hear me? I don't love you... you are my doll, my toy, nothing else.”

“You can say whatever you want. I know it's not true,” you said, looking down, with a serious expression, not feeling the slightest pain for her words, you knew they weren't true. “Deny it to yourself the times you want, Donna.”

“I think you've gotten too close to me, stupid...” the lady hissed, looking down, staring her anger into your eyes. “Have a child with you? Don't be an idiot, I would never have a baby with a stupid maid like you,” she growled madly, with her hands shaking, losing control little by little.

“You're shaking, Donna, and do you know why? Because you're lying, because those insults hurt you much more than they do to me, because you would do anything before admitting your feelings,” you said defiantly, trying to keep the girl calm.

“I should never have hired you,” she whispered dangerously.

You, who were determined to face her hard wall, kept your composure, a defiant face, equal to her false madness, her false claims.

“That's the only thing you've sincerely said,” you murmured. “You know why? Because it hurts you, it hurts you that a stupid maid like me has stolen your heart; it hurts you to recognize that behind that powerful and feared Lord there is a soul wanting to be loved.”

“Shut up,” Donna hissed, breathing with more difficulty. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” she yelled furiously, kicking the floor angrily, causing little Rose to start crying. “Ugh, make her shut up! Shut that stupid brat up!”

“Stop yelling, you're scaring her,” you said nervously, trying to calm the baby, who was crying inconsolably.

“Vaffanculo,” the lady said, turning abruptly and cowardly fleeing the scene.

The tears couldn’t help but run down your cheeks as you calmed Rose's crying. It wasn’t the first time you insinuated something like that, that you wanted to make her understand that what she believed didn’t matter, that there was something between you, something intense, something strong. Donna was too stubborn and you were too in love.

Of course, she had never been so abrupt with you. Maybe she was telling the truth, and you were nothing to her.

“She's a very stubborn woman,” you said to yourself. “Why is it so hard for her to admit what she feels? Gods...”

A little while later, when Rose managed to calm down, the lady returned with a different look, one that wasn't directed at you.

Donna, without saying a word, dropped down next to you on the couch, looking at the baby, who was struggling to fall asleep. You, feigning annoyance, moved your body away from hers a little, pretending that those words didn't hurt you, that you were strong.

“May I?” she asked after a few tense minutes, extending her hands towards the baby.

You glanced at her out of the corner of your eye, nodding, unable to suppress a smile.

“Be careful with her head... that's it...” you said in a sweet voice, handing the baby to the lady, who took it unsurely, following the guide you made with your hands in hers. “That's it…”

The brunette looked at the girl and then at you, cradling the baby slowly, with a close, but at the same time very far from reality look.

“Say hello, Rose, hello…” you said with a loving voice, calming the girl's nervousness due to those unknown arms. “It's Donna, honey, say hello, Donna…”

The lady sketched a smile, and then sighed very deeply.

“I'm sorry, (Y/N),” she whispered with a bit of pride. “I'm sorry for speaking to you that way.”

You looked at her, nodding to accept her apology.

“I have nothing to forgive you for, I know you didn't mean it,” you said with a tender voice, enjoying the view you had of Donna with the baby.

“No, of course I didn’t,” she murmured with a shy stammer. “You're not stupid.”

“Sometimes I think I am,” you sighed, helping Donna keep Rose in a comfortable position. “You know how I feel about you. You know I love you, right?”

Donna looked away with a strange, bewildered expression.

“I just don't understand you, Donna,” you said again, shaking your head. “You think I don't notice what you do. You think I don't know that you caress me when I sleep, that you whisper in my ear, that you smile at me when you think I'm not looking… I'm afraid you're not that good at hiding what you feel.”

“I don't…” she said, regretting talking and controlling her breathing. “It's not that easy, (Y/N).”

“Of course it is,” you said with a hopeful smile, reaching out your hand to guide her face, her gaze, to yours. “Donna, just tell me, say what you feel. Tell me I'm not a toy for you, tell me because otherwise... I'll end up going crazy.”

The lady lowered her eye, pressing her lips together, letting a tear roll down her cheek, starting to sob.

“You are not a toy,” she said with a broken voice. “You, you are…”

“Yes, come on, tell me, my love,” you insisted, seeing, for the first time, her defenses falter. “Your gaze says it, but your words remain silent, why, Donna?”

“Don’t you understand? You don’t know what it’s like for someone like you to tell me those things, to look at me that way. You don’t understand that it’s hard for me to accept that someone loves me just the way I am… I want to believe you, but, but I can’t… they, they don’t let me, they say that you will leave and…” she said nervously, blinking uncontrollably, being immediately comforted by your caresses.

Slowly, you approached her lips, placing a different kiss on them, one that she didn’t ask for, one that came from the depths of your heart. She sobbed, but her lips kissed yours too, slowly, without saying anything, but saying everything at the same time.

“Shh, Donna… my Donna…” you whispered in a tender voice, with your hand running over her cheek, wiping away her tears, touching her scar.

“Don't do that,” she interrupted, shaking her head, embarrassed.

“I like everything about you, Donna, everything,” you said in a tender voice, looking into her eyes, at her sad and weak expression.

Maybe, finally, you could get that confession you so longed to hear from her lips.

“If it's true that you don't love me, look me in the eyes and tell me, I promise to accept it, I promise not to abandon you if you do, I will always be faithful to you, my love, no matter what you feel.”

“I can't do that,” the brunette murmured, shaking her head.

“Why?” you insisted.

“Because I'd be lying,” she finally said, handing Rose back to you, breathing nervously at that veiled confession. “(Y/N), I…”

A horrible noise, the intrusive ringing of the phone interrupted the most anticipated moment of your life. Her gaze lowered repentant, and her eye begged for your silent forgiveness.

“Go,” you said with an understanding smile, putting Rose in her little crib. “I've been waiting for this conversation for a long time. I can wait a little longer.”

Donna nodded, kissing the back of your hand quickly, like a different gesture, one that said she wouldn't change her mind soon, as it always used to happen when she was close to admitting her feelings.

“Pronto,” she said, picking up the phone, looking at you out of the corner of her eye with a sad smile that you returned.

“Cosa?” Donna asked scared, changing her expression radically. “Dead Lycans? ... Where? Cazzo… yes, Mother Miranda, yes, the girl is with us, (Y/N) is… yes, right now, Mother Miranda,” she said nervously, calling your attention and hanging up abruptly, running towards you.

“What's wrong?” you asked nervous by her erratic behavior. “Donna.”

“I have to go. Something happened…” she said without giving more explanations, searching for her veil. “(Y/N), listen to me… I don't think anything will happen, but… promise me that you will protect Rose, that you won't leave her… do you promise? Per favore! Tell me you understand!” she squealed nervously at your lack of response.

“Y-Yes, of course, Donna, no one will touch the girl, but what's wrong? You're scaring me,” you said nervously, getting up from the couch.

“You, just… wait for me, okay? I'll be back in a moment, come on Angie,” Donna said, gesturing to her doll, the silent witness of that conversation, making her jump comically into her arms.

“Donna, what…”you said, answered by a loud slam of the door.

You were nervous and scared. You didn't know what was happening, why Donna ran out like that. Not knowing anything was always your biggest anxiety, in any aspect. Walking around the house, you looked at the girl, who was lying asleep.

You would just have to wait, or so you repeated to yourself. The minutes passed and everything seemed as usual, until a loud knock, coming from the entrance, scared you, making you run there.

On the floor, surely because of the knock he gave to the doors, was an unknown man, dressed in clothes that weren’t typical of the village. Of course, you backed away scared as he stood up, looking at you curiously.

“Hey, no, no, easy,” he said, extending his empty hands as a symbol of peace. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” you asked, backing away slowly, totally distrustful.

“H-Hey, I'm coming in peace… Let me explain,” he insisted, chasing you into the living room.

“I-I don't know what you want, I'm just a maid,” you said in your defense, terribly scared and looking around for something to defend yourself with.

“A maid? Oh, yes… you seem like a pretty normal girl, you're not one of them,” he said, with a nervous and relieved smile. “I'm looking for…” As he spoke, his gaze shifted to the crib. “Rose!”

The man ran towards the baby, towards the poor creature that you had to protect at all costs.

“What are you doing?” you asked nervously as he bent down to pick her up. “That baby isn't yours.”

“Of course it's mine, I'm her father,” he said with a pleasant smile, relieved to be reunited with his daughter. “Thank goodness you're here, Rose... come, we'll get out of here, together,” he said, extending his hand towards you, making you step back and shake your head.

“No, you can't take her, Donna told me to protect her,” you hissed, studying the situation.

You understood his joy, his desire to get out of there, but you simply couldn't allow it, you couldn't fail Donna, your Donna.

“Donna? One of those monsters? Listen, I’ll call people who could blow this place into a thousand pieces, you wouldn't have to worry about those monsters anymore, we can get out of here, the three of us,” the man said, speaking slowly so as not to scare you.

“No,” you said horrified quickly approaching the crib and grabbing the little girl. “You won’t take Rose!” you screamed, running away from him.

“Wait! Hey!” he shouted, chasing you through the mansion. “Come back here! She's my daughter!”

You didn't listen to him, you ran through the house while that enraged man chased you. Cornered, with the little girl in your arms, you knew you couldn't run away forever, you would have to face him sooner or later.

Hiding behind a door, you grabbed a vase from a table, letting the little girl's crying draw his attention, making him come closer. When he did, you didn't think much about it, you slammed the object into his head, breaking it into a thousand pieces, making him bleed.

“Damn it! Give me back my little girl!” the man screamed, blinded by the blow, bleeding from the head and stretching out his hand to try to catch you.

You could run away, but you couldn't escape. Naturally, that man was beyond your physical capabilities; you were the best of maids, but the worst of fighters. After a frantic chase, the man grabbed some scissors that were on a table, threatening you with them.

“Give Rose to me, come on, or…” he hissed, cornering you while you held Rose tightly against your chest.

He struggled with you, causing your clothes to be stained with his blood. You weren't strong, but you didn't let him take the baby from you, making him lose his mind completely, causing you to fall to the floor, with no way out.

The man breathed for a moment, raising the scissors in the air, surely ready to stab you with them, even at the risk of hurting Rose. You couldn't blame him, he was desperate.

Just when you thought it was your end, when you could feel those scissors digging into your flesh, the girl's father stepped back, dropping the scissors and covering his head with his hands.

Through the front door, the lady in black appeared, covered in her veil, reaching out to him, exerting her influence on his mind.

“Donna!” you cried out, sobbing as you saw your savior tormenting the man, bringing him to his knees.

Behind her was a dark figure, Mother Miranda, who, ignoring the man approached you, retrieving the baby.

“(Y/N), right?” the witch murmured with a sinister smile. “Good job.”

You nodded trembling as the priestess enveloped herself in a black cloud and Donna, agitated, crouched next to you.

“(Y/N), amore mio, are you okay?” she asked, cupping your face in her hands, nervously looking at every part of your body. “You're bleeding... where has he hurt you? Gods, (Y/N)…”

“I-I'm not hurt,” you murmured, letting her look at you. “The blood is not mine.”

“Meno male…” the brunette sighed, resting her forehead against yours. “(Y/N)…”

You glanced at the witch, who had completely changed her appearance, causing the tormented man to notice that new young woman.

“Mia?” he asked, dazed. “What are you doing here?”

“Calm down, Ethan, it's all over now… let's go home,” Miranda whispered in that new form, glancing at you from the corner of her eye. “A pity, I had high hopes for little Rose, but I'm afraid she'll have to go back to her pathetic family.”

Laughing sinisterly, accompanied by the zombified Ethan, the woman left leaving you alone.

There was a moment of silence in which the two of you looked at each other nervously.

“I-I thought I had lost you,” Donna whispered, taking off her veil and shaking her head while pushing your hair out of your face with both hands. “That he had hurt you.”

“I-I'm fine,” you said with your nerves still uncontrolled. “I only hit the floor, but, but I protected Rose, like you asked me to.”

“(Y/N), you are the only thing that matters,” Donna said, with a brusque tone, still covering your face with her hands. “You are… The only thing I have.”

“Calm down… I'm fine, you saved me,” you said with a slightly fake smile. “Shh… everything is fine, I'm not hurt…”

“I can't stand seeing you like this…” Donna hissed, shaking her head, her expression darkening. “Come.”

You took her hand as you walked down to her bedroom, where, without wasting any more time, she took off your ruined dress, cleaning your skin without saying anything, in complete silence.

Her hands were shaking and her eye was blinking nervously, on the verge of a breakdown.

“Sono una stupida,” she growled, panting nervously as she looked after you. “Sono una stupida!”

“Donna,” you said, moving away, a bit scared. “Calm down, my love.”

“No, I'm not calm, I can't be calm,” she said nervously, throwing away the towel she was cleaning you with and holding her hair. “You could have died!”

“I haven't, darling, I'm fine,” you said nervously, with a sad voice, sweet as always.

“No, no, no, no, no, you're not fine… nothing is fine!” she shrieked furiously, kicking the floor. “If you had died, I would…! I can't stand it. I can't stand you leaving me without knowing…! Not knowing that you… are the love of my life.”

“What did you say?” you asked, surprised by that whispered revelation, by that confession you didn’t expect in those circumstances.

“I’m tired of pretending!” the lady shrieked, kneeling in front of you, holding your hands too tightly. “(Y/N), listen to me, I’m completely in love with you, I’ve been since I met you and I’ve never told you because… I’m an idiot!”

“Shh, I know,” you said in a reassuring tone, hissing in pain from her grip.

“No, you don’t know… all this time I’ve been… running away from my feelings because I didn’t… I didn’t think I deserved you, I didn’t know that you… that I… I don’t deserve to love and I… they…” Donna said, stuttering, closing her eye to fight her madness, to be able to speak more clearly.

“I thought you would leave me, that you would never… (Y/N), I beg you to forgive me, but I was scared, scared because I never felt love for anyone, I was afraid of everything, I was afraid of getting my hopes up, of you breaking my heart…”

“Donna, I love you,” you said, fighting against her grip so you could hug her.

“I, I-I love you, (Y/N), I don't want you to be my maid ever again; I want you to be my wife. I want you to be mine only if you want it… I want to have children with you. I want you to be always by my side and…”

Seeing that she wasn’t able to control herself, you chose to silence her with your lips, to taste her salty tears in a tender, deep, revealing kiss, one that said much more than any words; that expressed the joy of your heart at having finally found the key to hers.

“That's a lot of propositions,” you said in a relaxed, amused tone, slowly detaching yourself from her lips. “But I have the same answer for all of them…”

“Quale?” she asked, with an almost childish, expectant look.

“Yes, yes, Donna,” you answered, melting into her lips again while she cried, this time from joy.

“(Y/N),” she said, moving your hair away as she always did, with a sincere smile.  “Will you marry me? I-I don't have a ring but…”

“Donna…” you said, rolling your eyes. “Of course I will.”

The doll maker hugged you very tightly, burying her head in you chest, crying desperately, regretful for her attitude, happy for having been able to open her feelings. Her mind must have been a complete mess at that moment.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she repeated, soaking your skin with her tears. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”

“Shhh,” you whispered, caressing her head, hissing in pain as her nails accidentally scratched your naked back. “Donna, my love… that's it, relax, okay? Everything is fine, my love, everything…”

She nodded effusively, touching your body, your waist, enjoying your skin with a smile she always wanted to have on her face, but that slowly faded.

“What is this?” Donna asked confused, pointing at some marks on your arm, the marks of some fingers. “Did I do it to you?”

“No, I think that man grabbed me and…” you explained, letting the lady go over the rest of your body in a different way, studying it.

“H-He grabbed you… he grabbed you…” she murmured shaking her head, moving away a little and getting up, looking away at your ruined dress. “Gods… il tuo vestito…”

“It's okay, Donna, it's okay,” you said, getting up as well and placing a hand on her shoulder. “It can be cleaned.”

“No,” the lady said, frowning and turning around abruptly. “I made that dress for you! It was a gift for you!”

“Shhh, I know…” you said, rubbing her arms, afraid that she would lose her mind again. “It doesn't matter, Donna, you can make me another one.”

“That man has… he has defiled you,” she murmured, looking at you sadly as she ran her hands down your body. “He has touched you, he has… marked you…” she said nervously, running a hand through the man's grip. “He has touched what is mine… nobody touches what is mine!”

“He won't do it ever again… I'm only yours, Donna,” you said confused, letting the brunette do something strange, touch your body slowly with her hands, with a concentrated look.

“You are mine, my girl…” she whispered, looking briefly into your eyes. “Everything, your skin… your waist… your face… he had no right…” she said, running her hand over each place she mentioned. “He had no right to do it… I-I need… to take him… away from you…”

“Donna…” you sighed, letting yourself be dragged by her hands on your waist, by her wild kisses that began to devour your lips mercilessly. “Honey…”

“Shh, calm down, tesoro… I won't let anyone else touch you ever again,” she whispered in your ear, kissing you fiercely, grabbing your body, scratching it almost desperately, playing with the edges of your underwear. “I need you, (Y/N).”

“Take what you need, my love,” you said with a purr, letting the garment slide down your legs, knowing that taking you, claiming you, would serve to calm the lady down, to make her fears disappear and, well, you were always willing to do it, always.

She nodded, kissing you again, knocking you down on the bed among nervous gasps, playing with her own clothes, whispering to you, adoring you in a different way, a desperate and passionate way.

“I love you,” Donna whispered, caressing your cheek as your hips swayed while her erection pressed against your entrance, wet from ecstasy, from revelations, from confessions… “I don't want to fuck you, I want to make love, to make you mine…”

You laughed amused, catching her lips in another wet kiss, pulling her body as her shaft entered slowly, but abruptly, stretching your walls, making your body welcome the one who was now your beloved, your wife, your Donna.

“Hey, slow down, darling, you're big,” you said, moaning from the shock, earning a shy smile, a brief moment of pause, of intimate enjoyment, of glances that were very, very far from madness.

“I'm sorry, I just need to…” she said, apologizing for the anxious movements of her hips, for her hands separating your legs, squeezing your skin, melting it in her fingers.

“To make me yours, I know,” you whispered, suppressing a moan, devouring her lips while her thrusts intensified, making the bed creak, protesting due to your lust.

The words no longer came out, only hurried moans did. Your hands didn’t know where to rest, they ran over her clothed body, her legs, squeezing them as close as possible, as deep inside you as possible.

Her movements were fast and uncontrolled, her kisses were wild, her erection slid along your wet walls quickly and decisively while your whole body trembled with pleasure.

“I love you… I love you…” the lady repeated, controlling her own moans. “I don't want to say anything else, every day, every hour…”

Her soft words contrasted with the anxiety of her movements, with the desperation of claiming once again what was hers, what was always hers and always would be.

Your aching body endured the pleasure as best it could, your legs wrapped around her waist, begging her not to pull away, to keep taking you like she did, like she always did, like she had never done before.

That dirty, improvised, wet act didn't take long to reach its end, for your body to surrender to the pleasure, to tense up, to release itself with a loud squeal, with your nails clinging to her flesh.

Donna, accelerated, nervous and unable to control her thrusts, also released herself inside you, leaving her mark on your walls, moistening your insides with her warm seed, with a muffled moan.

“(Y/N),” she said, taking a breath, not wanting to abandon you, playing with your face exhausted by pleasure, pointing your eyes at hers. “You were never just my maid.”

You smiled, kissing her with one last breath, your body demanding a break, the wetness of lust running down your legs.

It had been a strange way to force the lady in black to confess her feelings, but she did it, she finally did it. You would finally have the life with her that you dreamed of. You would be her wife, her lover, the love of her life.

First her voice, then her face, her body and finally, you got her heart.

[sophisticatedaiphos]

✧ Weekly TWST Reblog Replies! - #1 ✧

idk if i'll make this a consistent thing, mainly because i'm inconsistent- but I do like replying to other people's opinions on my posts, so yeah! expect these every week for the most part, unless there's no reblogs..

credits : @cafekitsune for the dividers

reply to @usurper-of-heavens - No, you're absolutely not underestimating them. I wholly believe that that the characters in-game mischaracterize Kalim just as much as the fandom does. I will argue that for the characters, it's actually reasonable, since not all of them know him all that well. Even so, the fact that a ton of them don't think about what it means to be an heir to a throne, minus the pampering and luxurious life, is kinda crazy to me..

I'm more so disappointed that the princes don't recognize this, and although Malleus was probably fine his whole life, why does Leona not acknowledge this idea? If I had to guess, it's mainly because some of Leona's trauma stems from his being born second and being outcast from the throne. Maybe seeing Kalim so oblivious and happy makes him forget the idea that Kalim could also go through anything similar to the rejection he faced during childhood.

reply to @magimerlyn - This is a wonderful statement that I totally agree with, Kalim is mindful enough to continue working with Jamil even after discovering Jamil's feelings about him, opting to try and become less dependent on him while not throwing him to the side, considering that he has the power to get rid of Jamil. Yes, some of his emotional stability relies on Jamil being around, but that's exactly why he's trying to grow more as a person, and be more mindful of the choices he makes involving Jamil. Chances are, Jamil wouldn't magically outgrow his habits of taking care of Kalim even if Kalim did immediately grant his freedom and close off their relationship. Either way, Kalim would probably be granted some reprieve from his grievances if someone as helpful and dedicated as Jamil came along that he could trust trust. Now whether this would affect Kalim and Jamil's relationship?.. we'll leave that to the fanfic writers..

reply to @flying-mochis - Yeah, Kalim has several moments where he openly shows his innovation in attempts to develop more personally by not relying on Jamil all the time. Book 5 - Chapter 10 is a great example of Jamil's development, because he's willing to continue aiding Kalim despite probably being able to prove himself as better than him. Of course, this is partially because of his ruined reputation, but you can't deny that he isn't being super spiteful despite the fact that his plan to overthrow Kalim didn't work.

reply to @tinisprout - Exactly, like my poor boy!!! We'll listen!! 😭😭😭 In reality, I don't think Kalim would ever willingly vent if it wasn't in private like that moment, because of his fear of ruining his reputation as the happy go-lucky housewarden who's always oblivious and naive yet kind. It's a standard he needs to uphold, and maybe Kalim is afraid of getting help from others because he might be a burden to them, in the same way he limited Jamil from ever showing his full potential. This is more of a theory, but still.. Our sweet boy doesn't deserve this.. 😭😭

reply to @twsted-canvas - Yeah, I can't blame you... Twst's put 0 development into Grim's character in regards to caring for others, which is so lame- Give us student Grim who secretly cares for his first year friends and Yuu, but denies it!! In all aspects, if he didn't have a bad personality, he would be a very cute lil kitty. (still don't forgive you for changing the topic while kalim was venting you asshat)

[fandomfaeofveryfewf4cks]

Spoilers for Our Flag Means Death finale.

I just needed to talk things through as a crew.

So, I already posted something about how I felt about Izzy's death immediately after watching the finale. Now that I've given myself more time to mull it over though, I'm not quite as satisfied with the ending as I thought. But I think I know why I'm not exactly angry about it either.

I think I just see it as an open ending for next season? Like, I can see how Izzy's death brings parts of the story around full circle. (Mainly in Ed growing out of being Blackbeard who wasn't really Blackbeard without Izzy Hands.) However, after thinking about it some and reading some other people's thoughts about it, it doesn't really work for bringing Izzy's story around full circle, does it? No, really, does it? I'm still not entirely sure.

On the one hand, I've seen people talk about how Izzy represents piracy and piracy is coming to an end, so it makes sense for him to die with piracy. With his talk with Ricky about how they may die, but they'll live on in other ways, it makes sense.

On another hand, I also see people talking about the fact that Izzy survived a suicide attempt (potentially for the reason of protecting the crew) only to end the season saying he wants to die...

This choice just makes me a bit queasy because it invalidates some of the hope I've had building up with every episode I watched, especially in season 2, where Izzy goes through the bulk of what I feel is (at least mostly) such an amazing character arc.

On a third hand, I saw someone saying that Izzy should captain the Revenge while Stede and Ed go off to run their inn. I had thought this was going to happen too until I started seeing the foreshadowing for Izzy's death and started doubting that theory.

Part of the reason this makes so much sense is because, firstly, Izzy runs the ship already. Plus, he's changed his priorities to be about the crew.

Remember in season 1 episode 9, when the crew is planning to mutiny against Izzy and are trying to decide who should be captain next. And Oluwande says,

"It's gotta be someone we can all trust. Someone who's got the whole crew in mind. Not just themselves."

Izzy didn't make a good captain in that episode because he still didn't trust them, they didn't trust him, and he was doing everything for himself.

In season 2, none of that is true anymore.

The crew DOES trust him. He DOES think about the crew first and foremost. And, we even get to see him learn to trust the crew as well. Learn that they see him as not just a part of the crew they have to deal with like in most of season 1, but a crucial part of the crew and a person they all care about.

In short, it really would have made so much sense to make him Captain.

"Okay, but why do you think his death is an open ending? Death is typically a decidedly very closed off ending."

Ah, I see the point I keep losing is back.

How many times has someone been "dead" only to come back later. How many times has IZZY "died" to come back later. Granted, Izzy going through this multiple times is part of what foreshadows the idea that he's going to not come back this time, so it's possibly just false hope to think he'll come back (assuming we get a third season).

But think about it. Izzy has died. Stede gave up his pirating dream, which seems how likely to stick? And Ed thinks he's going to be able to work a customer service job? And both Stede and Ed think they'll be good at running a business they don't know jackshit about? Ed has proved to be lousy at working a "simple" life. Ed's subconscious said so. Pop-pop said so. Even Jackie sees this as a "wish I was a regular dude phase." Also, Stede has proved that he can be a decent pirate. Zheng said so. Spanish Jackie said so. The entire Republic of Pirates said so. The Pirate Queen said so.

I guess I just have a hard time believing the creators of ofmd couldn't bring Izzy back somehow and turn out a new plot for another season if they wanted to.

At the end of season one, Ed and Stede resign themselves to a future that is not ideal for them and Lucius "dies."

At the end of season 2, Ed and Stede decide to try for a future that is arguably also not ideal for them (it's just less angsty than season 1) and Izzy "dies."

I dunno. I guess what I'm saying is, it makes enough sense for an ending, but not this story's ending. And this show actually managed to make me feel things in my mucky rustbucket of a heart and gave me hope like not many things do. I'm just not ready to give up on it yet.

. . . . .

Maybe they didn't want to make Izzy captain because then if/when Stede and/or Ed come back wanting to be Captain, they'd have to decide how to make that work? But that wouldn't be too hard to figure out, right? I mean, they already decided a ship can have two captains. Why not 3?

Here's some of those posts I was talking about:

[jarlsthegreat]

I Don't Care for Xavier Thorpe

I put off watching the Wednesday show for a while, long enough that I had already had the entire thing spoiled for me when I actually sat down to watch it. This isn't an uncommon occurrence for me, I watch content knowing what is going to happen all the time and it never dampens my enjoyment of the thing. However, I feel that in this instance that I may have come to hate Xavier so much as a character because I went in knowing he wasn't the Hyde.

Watching through the season it struck me that unlike other characters like Tyler, Bianca or Miss Thornhill, knowing how Xavier ended the series kind of left me with nothing to enjoy about him. All of those other characters can still be enjoyed as characters on rewatch of the show, but Xavier is kind of empty. We don't really know much about him in episode 6 that we didn't know in episode 1. The only things of note that I can think of are his prophetic dreams, his strained relationship with his father and his history with Tyler. But, all of these things that we learn are so surface level, his dreams are on the same level as his power to bring his drawings to life since it doesn't really feed into anything else about his character, we only have a few offhand comments about his father and we don't even get to hear him explain what happened with Tyler, it's just vaguely exposited by Wednesday later with no emotion or detail. It just seems like every chance they had to make me latch onto Xavier as a character was cut off at the knees. And with the way he acted throughout the season he really needed a moment like the one with Bianca and her mother or her reaching out to Lucas. If Xavier had a scene where he got to fully express the hurt his father caused him or if he actually got to tell the story of being attacked on Outreach Day onscreen, I wouldn't be writing this post.

Moving on, the way Xavier acted throughout this season just rubbed me the wrong way. I can enjoy mean characters, I can enjoy fantastically evil characters, I can enjoy tragic characters that make all the wrong choices, but I cannot STAND characters that I am supposed to view as morally upstanding being mundanely horrible and never being challenged on it. 

Xavier has a few good scenes throughout the season, namely his introduction scene when he's talking to Wednesday, him explaining physic powers and the scene where he attempts to help Wednesday in the fight against Crackstone episode 8 (despite him failing horribly). But the majority of the rest of his scenes just make me angry. It started out in episode 1 when he came up to Wednesday during the carnival. During this scene he makes it clear that he knows Wednesday wants him to leave but he doesn't. 

The times when Xavier warned Wednesday to stay away from Tyler before he revealed his history with him annoyed me personally because I have been in his situation, and I just couldn't stop thinking "Just tell her" Every time he just repeats that Tyler's trouble without elaborating. If you know someone is trouble and you have already told the person to stay away from them, you have to either accept that it's their life or tell them the reason why. Granted, Xavier does eventually give Wednesday an actual reason to stay away from Tyler, but it doesn't make the previous scenes of him being unjustifiably pissy at Wednesday any less aggravating.

His treatment of Bianca is a whole other can of worms, the fact that he previously berated her for using her powers to manipulate him before having the audacity to ask her to make him forget Wednesday. He has to know on some level how Bianca feels about her siren song so these two actions are just so insensitive towards her. And Bianca is a character that I actually like a lot so this knocks a ton of points off of Xavier in my book.

Then there's the scene where Xavier tells Wednesday that he has believed her from the beginning. This scene has already been picked apart, so I'll be brief. It is so obviously gaslighting that I legitimately thought "this line feels like it should be coming from Tyler as a manipulation tactic when Wednesday wises up to him" like I could actually see Tyler using that exact line on Wednesday when she had him tied up. Moving on.

The final scene that makes me hate this man so much is the scene where Wednesday visits him in prison. I've seen people calling this a great scene because Xavier finally calls Wednesday out on her selfishness. I wish I could see the scene that way, but the fact that Xavier seems more concerned that Wednesday kissed another guy than the fact that there is currently an active serial killer on the loose just angered me to no end. I know this character is a teenager and he is supposed to be immature, but there is a fine line and there is such a profound level of childishness and selfishness in the fact that Xavier does not give even a passing thought that he is actively endangering everyone in his school and the town because of his own bruised ego. And it is never called out, just like all of his other questionable actions. If he even tried to give Wednesday any help in this scene, been the bigger man in any way, or had to apologize for his behavior in a later scene, I possibly could have put aside his previous actions, but after that I don't know if I could ever like this character.

I don't think anyone is a bad person for liking Xavier, I'm sure a lot of you could write an essay just like this one on why you love his character, he just isn't for me. I like Tyler and he isn't for some people. Just act respectful towards fans that disagree with you. They're just opinions on characters at the end of the day.

TLDR: Xavier acts very selfishly throughout this season and the show acts like he has nothing to atone for and he isn't developed much as a character so I cannot latch onto any aspect of him.

[meatriarch]

RAPHAEL "DANNY" ALEJO-OSORIO.

raphael - freshly twenty - three years old at the time during the search across austin & newt for his long-time best friend, maria flores - has had his fair share of a turbulent upbringing and social life.

his parents - marcos & salome - were never a married couple. due to her refusal of his several proposals and having raphael out of wedlock, their relationship and raphael's early years were spent observing a wildfire of hate claimed to be "love".

( young raphael had sworn to himself if that is what "love" was supposed to look like, then he never wanted to feel it. )

he witnessed the countless arguments, furniture getting smashed and thrown and knocked over across their home, his father towering over his mother, screaming into her face. of his mother hissing back to lower his voice, that raphael is in the room - which only prompted glare in the childs' direction before his mother was dragged off into another room, where voices and crashing turned muffled to raphael's ears.

by the time raphael turned seven, his mother decided to leave. to return back to her family in colombia - partly why she had never accepted his fathers' proposals, he would later learn. she wanted marcos to meet her family first, and he refused every time, claiming he didn't need to until they were married; until she was trapped with him.

she packed little and left, after spending a weekend with him. doting on him, taking him wherever he wanted to go. turning away at times, to hide the fact that she was crying.

a goodbye - not a see you later. for he has not seen her in person since.

( she had believed he would fare better in the states than back home, and she only had enough money to ensure her own return. she wanted to take him - she just hoped he would live better here. )

raphael didnt hear from her for a number of years ( found out his father hid the letters' she would send; it was fuel he tried to poison him against her with, to claim she abandoned him, forgot about him, didn't care ). but when he had finally discovered the box in his fathers' closet one day, and the stack of pre-opened and read envelopes, raphael to a point forgave his mother for her choice.

he also learned, through chicken-scratch and undecipherable drawings, that he has a little half-sister - carina.

he has yet to meet her in person, still. but, they send letters from time to time ( there's alot to catch up on, alot to learn, alot to digest. )

THE WRONG CROWD.

he was involved in a bad kind of friendgroup in his early to mid teens; most being the sons and daughters of his fathers' friends and co-workers - not the greatest bunch themselves.

the group were asshats, to place it plainly - getting into fights, randomly targeting people to harass and attack. breaking into homes, stealing and selling property and valuables stolen from the owners. even stealing some cars here and there.

the only consistently good friend he had was maria, when they had met between the time his mother and her father left, respectively. and he learned this fact the hard way.

maria, in spite of her own home life being rocky at the time, was always there to grant him a space of peace, a place at a dining room table that he didn't need to be tense over if it would be shoved out of the way for his father to go after him.

she was the only avenue where he felt like he could relax and just be himself - the only person at the time he was comfortable with crying in front of ( he had it quite literally punched and kicked into him that men don't cry - if he cries, his father vowed to give him something to actually cry over. )

but when one of his 'friends' little break-in plan went to the fuckin' shithole - they broke into a sheriff's fucking house, the motherfucker didn't do his research - and raphael was held at gunpoint while the others tried to scatter. leaving him there, alone, to be arrested that night.

the others' were eventually caught, even in spite of raphael keeping quiet on who he had been with. he ended up in juvie regardless, for several months.

lesson learned on who he should place loyalty - when not a damned one of them bothered to go see him.

no one except maria, and her mother and sister.

raphael was embarrassed for her, having to walk into that damn building - to have self and bags searched and contents dumped and ripped apart. every single visit ( because she insisted on it, on coming by after school, spending her allotted visitors' time with him. )

she did so without complaint. without negative word, without annoyance at being humiliated time and time again, by officers' who'd let her into the visitors area. he kept telling her she didn't need to. and she kept repeating that she wanted to, and didn't want him to be alone in there.

and its still a mystery to him, how he ever deserved to have someone like her as a friend.

and sometime later, after he had gotten out of juvie, after listening to maria pour her heart out over him - pleaded with him to think of himself and what he wanted for his life, if the people he was around where doing him any good. to please be careful, to not get himself into trouble like he had, where he easily could have been shot and killed - did he finally cut them all off, started to focus on his studies, started to focus on himself - on her and her friendship.

( she showed herself countless times to always be in his corner - and he fuckin' needed to prove that he deserved a place in hers for it. )

it was her study sessions, her gentle encouragement, everything that brought him to the point of graduating - barely, but he made it. and he credits her for being at his side, getting his shit together.

ALTERATIONS TO THE TIMELINE.

as my general canon across this blog is set that maria & gaines are not a couple or, depending on au / route, recently broken up if anything, i'm going to disregard anything on that front for the start of the search. on this blog however, i do want to note that i mess around with the timeline of maria going missing thru to when basement brawl happens! rather than the week of march 20th being the last anyones heard of her, maria left a few days before spring break of 1973. spending time with the friends prior, and with lee for his birthday as she'd be missing it on the 15th, maria left for her trip on wednesday, march seventh in the afternoon in 1973.

the seventh thru to friday the ninth, she spent bouncing around all over central texas, driving to specific areas to find her flowers. particularly, she wanted to find sunflowers yes, but wanted to find marigolds to snap photos of and send back home to lee for his birthday. depending on au but for nosy specifically, she meets johnny that friday night at a bar and they spent the remainder of the weekend meeting up before he takes her to the sawyer property and takes her captive ( shine / sunlight / wilted / coldcase / etc all have different ways that her & johnny meet - nosy however follows a little closer to gun-canon! )

the university's spring breaks typically land around the 10th - 18th, give or take. and so, by the end of that week, the only person ( in terms of nosy au ) who has heard from maria since her last letters went out on saturday the 10th, was lee. the start of the week back to classes, maria never showed. and no one heard anything until ana got in touch with them all, to let them know her car had been found - abandoned, and she was no where to be found. and so, the search began.

( and lasts until sometime between the start to middle of april. )

THE SEARCH FOR MARIA.

raphael, at the time it was discovered that maria was missing, was down along the coast of texas for his trade school - underwater / hyperbaric welding. he received the frantic call from ana, begging to know if he'd heard from maria - a complete mess from through the phone. when he managed to get her calmed enough to understand what she was trying to ask, say, raphael started to throw his things into a duffle. recanted the other friends' numbers and where their dorm houses to ensure she had them written down, and told her to immediately get in touch with them all and find out if they knew anything. and when they hung up, raphael was in his truck and on the road back up to austin.

there was no hesitation on his part. no doubts, no waiting around. if he got all the way there and it was revealed she was fine? so be it.

by the time he arrived in austin, the search was officially started and the friends all aware of her vanishing into thin air. and whether they all tried to cross-check each other to ensure none of them had seen or heard from her at all, try to get down where she last was, where she might have gone, etc., raphael got right back in his truck and started to scour around for her.

hours turned to days. and the days creeped on into a week, and then another, and then another. frustration, hope, was hanging in the air - fragile as a spiders' thread. no matter who they went up to, who they showed her photo to, it was all the fuckin' same.

another dead end. another shake of the head. another shrug of shoulders. and raphael knew every fuckin' one of them was full of shit.

his irritability only grew as time passed. his words clipped no matter who he spoke to. his patience running dry and thin. took alot from julie or sonny or lee to take the edge off of him, calm him down. the worst of it was with ana - the both of them constantly butting heads, snapping at one another. the friends knew to try and keep them as separated as possible, after a while.

drove him crazy, when they'd have to stop, take a break under the sweltering sun overhead. when they'd have to camp out for the night. he'd stay in his truck, or lie down in the bed of it. stare up at the stars, the dark above them all. knew with that sinking feeling in his gut that something fuckin' bad had happened to her. and wherever she was? she was in danger. and it made him sick to think they were, otherwise, peacefully oblivious to whatever she was going through, sitting out here under the night sky - having each other, while she was alone out there. knew she had to be scared. didn't want to think that she may possibly be dead this entire time.

as march moved into april, raphael started to break off from the others less. but temper grew hot. and he'd find himself leaving to search for hours before finding them again, continuing with them.

and it was yet another argument between him and ana, most likely, that raphael took off once again on his own, before the others ran into the old man at the gas station, before they were suggested a place to camp. before they came across the man with the jackal grin. before the ambush happened.

raphael found himself on the far outskirts of what they all would discover to be the vast properties belonging to the sawyer-hewitt family. truck left hidden down the road, obscured by trees and tall, thick bushes. walked along the road, to one of the only homesteads he'd seen for what felt like ages. the only one, as the sky overhead started to darken with cloud cover, with the porch light on - with some sort of sign of life tucked away inside.

knew it was a gamble. but at that point, what the fuck else did he have to lose?

raphael walked up to the homestead - owned by the hewitts, extended from the sawyer family - and knocked on the front door. where he was greeted by our mom luda, who stared at him through the screen door, past spectacles along the bridge of her nose.

raphael would ask her about maria then, if she could look at the photo of her and let him know if she or anyone else in her family may have seen or heard anything about her whereabouts . . .

the name stuck out to her. of course it did. she knew maria quite well, by that point ( of her trailing into their home behind johnny, timid, like a little mouse. kind girl. sweet, quiet. scared. )

but a shake of the older womans' head brought a heavy disappointment in his chest. knew it was all for nothing. not with these people all the way out here in fuck-all-nowhere. luda, however, spoke up again. offered him to come in and sit a moment. her older boys' a sheriff. maybe he's heard or seen anything? he'd be home within the hour. you could rest a moment, eat somethin'. raphael paused and mulled it over. really didn't wanna deal with another prick of a cop, not with the rest of them being as useless as they've been. but. what did he have to lose, really? and so, though he felt alarm bells ringing like crazy in his head, raphael accepted the offer - under the assumption that if anything? he'd ask this son of hers and then leave right after.

( people say to always trust your gut . . . raphael was always a believer in that mantra. and yet, turned his back to it at the worst time. )

raphael made small talk with luda for a time. she kept him pre-occupied, with the promise of something simple to eat, a glass of water. before she'd excused herself a moment, told him to take it easy and wait at the kitchen table for her.

and its then that raphael caught onto a smell, lingering in the air. something foul. something rotten. heavy and pungent. caught onto the sound of the older womans' voice, speaking to someone over the phone. heard, faintly, the woman mention someone looking for the girl . . .

and time froze then. gut feeling vindicated. seething blistering in his chest. the woman knew something. she was warning someone. someone who knew where maria was.

had her, still, even. or worse.

he was out of the chair and down the hallway - past the tall, metal doors behind the staircase, to the back room to where luda stood by sidetable with phone to her ear, grabbed the phone from her and brought it to his own, ignoring her startled cry, ignoring her shouts for thomas, as he demanded through the receiver, to whoever the fuckin' bastard on the other end of the line was, where the fuck is maria? and he was met with silence. for a moment. in spite of the commotion breaking out behind him, of metal slamming open across the floor, of heavy footfalls storming into the room, up behind him.

his mind was racing and all raphael could hear properly was his heartbeat thumping in his ears, of the static of the phone through the other end, of the person on the other end of the call breathing, calmly, before a noise makes it through - something of amusement, something of a laugh - taunting. voice picking up after, warning that he should pay attention to what's behind him, instead. as footfalls finally reach his ears, and whipping around, raphael finds himself face to face with a man towering just above himself, eyes wild and enraged from over leathered mask covering the bottom half of face . . .

[onlyonewoman]

One good thing about getting older and having grown up partly without the Internet - and certainly without the extent of social media we have now - is that you could watch and read stuff with flawed characters without immediately jumping to the conclusion that:

The creators thought the bad traits of a character were morally good.

You should equate shitty behavior from a fictional character with a prompt to act like that yourself or excuse that shitty behavior in others in real life.

You should police and shame other people's personal preferences in media consumption publically, like a fucking HSA during the satanic panic, only ramped up like a squirrel on speed.

I have no problem with content that is clear about consent and who's good or bad, sometimes that take fits the story and characters well. A clear "this good, that bad" story is like comfort food or following a nice evening routine.

It serves our need to stay grounded and relax, which is very important, especially in a world where we're exposed to more daily impressions and personal choices than ever before in history.

I wish more young people kept in mind that ONE of the reasons why we're stressed, distracted and easily feel alone and/or watched, is that the consumation of literture, movies, tv shows, music etc. now almost never is a solo experience, which in turn robs us of some of the joy.

What I'm trying to say is that while it's good to reckognize shitty behavior in fictional characters - kudos to you youngsters who discover it earlier than we did - it doesn't make the one reading/watching/listening to a promoter of sexual assault, murder, gas lighting, bad sterotypes, shitty friends, non-existing communication etc.

Like, the worst "crime" I've committed is getting absurdly high library fines due to forgetting to return books in time. My worst behavior includes yelling in complete frustration and possibly tossing my own possessions around - which happens like once every five years. (Thanks emotion regulating meds!)

I'm a trusted animal caretaker and sometimes supervisor for minors. I'm on the organ donor list, I do volontary work, loves Studio Ghibli movies and if I see a cat, I stop dead in my tracks, hoping it will grant me the honor of petting it.

I also write hardcore porn sometimes.

One of my favourite movie characters of all time, is the killer Bill in Kill Bill and the fact that David Carradine died from erotic asphyxiation only makes him hotter.

I loved Marilyn Manson as Ron Tully in Sons Of Anarchy, because the role was just small enough to leave all the room for excellent prison fanfics - and I will go to my fucking grave claiming that Jax Teller was a way worse person than Ron Tully, without claiming that Tully was in any way a good person.

I can't watch the scenes in either Casino or Goodfellas, when Joe Pesci's characters die, because while his absolutely horrendous characters definitely deserve to die, the way it happens in both cases, plays with my own fear of betrayal.

I fear that plenty of younger people have been robbed of the wonderful experience of realizing they can't despise a bad character with the same ease they could as kids.

Yes, some films, movies, books etc. are like comfort food: no resistance, no surprices, less thinking and more feeling. And we need them!

We also need the type of media that shows grim reality with an easily defined enemy, like the nazis in Schindler's List, where there's no way we can identify with the nazis, but still have to balance on the edge with Schindler, who didn't care about the Jews at first, only his business.

We need characters like the despicable yet somehow also caring Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale, who in her own twisted way cares about the women she's set to control and keep in line. I myself find it impossible to wish her dead, not because she deserves a second chance, but because her lack of cruelty just for the sake of it, has shone through enough times to reveal she might be a vital key for the good in the end.

By being exposed to morally grey characters, we learn about ourselves and what we, as human beings, are capable of in extreme circumstances, whether it's good or bad.

I believe that with the literal fear of coming across as "toxic" or a promoter of shitty behavior by loving characters with awful behavior, makes people less interested in challenging media and thus, not building up an inner understanding for and capacity to deal with bad things and shitty people in real life.

And if you find yourself in a position where you feel like you can't handle characters who can be both monsters and human beings, it's no longer a content problem, it's a YOU problem.

Maybe you're not old enough to connect with certain characters or stories. Maybe you're not in the right mindset to watch/read it right now. Maybe it's simply not something you find enjoyable at all.

All three are valid reasons to stay away from this kind of content.

What it isn't, is a reason to try and shame other people for taking a liking to it. Don't spend your 20's playing moral police online, pretending to be judge, jury and executioner for some stranger enjoying fictional criminals consentually fucking their rival criminal in chains in the basement.

We already know it's fiction, know perfectly well it's not an advertisement for healthy relationships and if YOU didn't understand that, you're simply not old and/or experienced enough to partake in that sort of content.

And if you ought to be old and mature enough to understand this, yet still get your panties in a twist when you come across, lets say, the vegaspete tag: just remember that had Scorsese wrote Kinnporsche, most of the characters aside from Porsche, would've ended up:

buried alive

shot in the neck

blown up

mutilated or, at best:

living under secret identity for the rest of their lives, on the top of the Bangkok mobster death list

Goodfellas is still one of the best movies ever made and if the young people in the 90's could go and watch it without leaving the theatre thinking "yeah, lets start money laundring, doing blow and shooting friends in the head", I'm pretty damn sure today's youth can do the same.

[judeschoices]

In This Moment

It's been a struggle to write anything Choices-related. Quite honestly, I don't have many books I like. The Deadliest Game though... me likey. Sue me.

I claimed Jun Seong as my husband, waiting every Friday to see this man's face. So I tried to write something about him.

Book: The Deadliest Game

Pairing: Jude Thorn x Jun Seong (Black M!MC)

Rating: Mature

Tag(s): Budding Romance, Mentioned Main Character Death, Suggestive Themes

Summary: Jun was the type of person whose mind is always working. As a bodyguard, he had to be on guard. He had to be vigilant. He knows that all it takes is one second and everything can change. There was no real space in his life to relax and well... have a much of a normal life. At first, he didn't mind. He knew what he was signing up for when he became a bodyguard. And it wasn't like he had his eye on anyone special... until he met his boss's childhood best friend, Jude Thorn.

Jun wasn't the type of man known to relax. Ever since he was a young boy, he always kept busy. From his studies to helping his parents take care of his little sisters, Jun was always doing something that meant productivity. In a way, it meant he stuck to himself most of the time. Not really one for parties or popular social events, Jun found the company of "me, myself, and I" to be enough for him.

He was mainly known as stoic. Kind, polite, but in many ways, a little difficult to read.

It's rare to see the man caught off guard or flustered... something that seemed to happen with increasing frequency ever since meeting Nick's childhood best friend, Jude Thorn. The murder mystery author Nick always fondly spoke of. Nick had a collection of his books in his house, even reading his latest release at least four times before he died. 

Their first meeting was orchestrated by one idiot tech bro and Jun's former employer, Steve Bashir. After catching and bringing the young man into the circle of his arms to prevent him from taking an impromptu dip in Nick's pool, Jun was secretly taken by surprise when those deep brown eyes met his. Nick had last seen his best friend two years prior, right before he hired Jun as his bodyguard. So Jun never met Nick's childhood friend in person before and their monthly Zoom calls were usually done when Jun wasn't around. 

Granted, Jun could've utilized the internet to see what the mystery author looked like... but if Jun was honest, he doesn't think that any online photos would do Jude justice.

Jude was a few inches shorter than Jun's 6'2 height, probably 5'9 to 5'10 if he had to guess. The young man had flawless dark skin, dark low buzzed cut hair, gently chiseled facial features, thick softly arched brows, long dark lashes that framed his deep brown eyes, a straight flat nose, and full soft lips. The author had a build that Jun would've expected from someone who sits at a desk and writes for a living, a bit on the thin side but he still felt the lean muscles through the man's suit.

To make a long assessment of the mysterious writer short... Jun had eyes, and he could clearly see that Jude was a very handsome man. Jun, who was normally attracted to women, found the feeling odd but... not unwelcoming.

And that feeling only grew as he slowly discovered that Jude was more than a pretty face. Jun spent a lot of time around self-entitled, selfish, and mean-spirited millionaires and billionaires. Save a few people, like his boss and his friends (well... some of them). But Jude was a breath of fresh air in the million-dollar mansion. 

Jude grew up with Nick. While his best friend grew up to be a self-made man with wealth that could easily support his great-great-great grandchildren, Jude was still considered "midlist" at best, according to him at least. But that was the thing. 

Jude was humble, he kept Nick humble. 

Whether he knew it or not, Nick was always deeply influenced by the other. He helped Nick remain one of the purer individuals of the upper crest. While Jun preferred to keep things strictly professional, he could admit that he saw Nick as a friend. A friend who cared about him and his well-being, no matter how often he insisted that he was fine. 

He could see that in Jude as well...

After finding Nick's body and finalizing that his death wasn't a suicide but a murder, Jude was the one trying to gain justice for his best friend. While doing his best to catch the killer before they took the lives of the ones Nick cared about (Jun still scratches his head over how he and Steve even became friends quite honestly...), even when they aren't too fond of him or his efforts. 

It's that big heart that Jun admired the most about the mystery author, amongst other things. His cheekiness, patience, witty sarcasm, intellect... 

Jun could feel himself falling for him a little by little. With each private moment with each other, Jun never felt concerned with what was next time or reflecting on the past choices that led them to a certain in their investigation... all he could focus on was Jude.

Even when he, Farah, and Dante stumbled upon Jude standing over Medhani's body, his feelings didn't change. Even when they soon discovered that Nick's time of death was earlier than they originally believed and that Jude himself didn't have an alibi, his feelings didn't change. As Jun sat next to the bone-weary man, he knew that in his gut, in his heart, that Jude wasn't the one behind the murders.

He trusted Jude... and Jude trusted him. He could see it in those dark depths... as well as his quiet desire for him. 

Not Dante.

Not Farah.

Him. 

Jun Seong, the hardass bodyguard who has walls that could rival the Great Wall of China. Jun Seong... who was still a man at the end of the day. A man suddenly weakened by desire at the sight of the author in a tight black tank top and dark red track shorts, which was the author's sleep attire. Jun felt possessed by the simple need to know... 

Just what pleasures, both simple and erotic, could he discover from the man sitting just mere inches away from him? Judging by the look in Jude's eyes, Jun could have it all if he just said the word.

"Jun..." The bodyguard couldn't resist the shiver that made its way down his spine. He secretly loved hearing the author speak. He had a low voice, a sweet smooth timbre that rang pleasantly in his eardrums. He loved how his name sounded from those plush-looking lips.

"Jude...I..." Jun couldn't resist anymore. Not here, where it's just him and Jude in the private, quiet space of his room. Jun leaned in, moving slowly to give the mystery author enough time to pull away. Much to his silent delight, Jude tilted his head to sweetly accept his kiss.

Jun has privately daydreamed about this moment, but reality proved to be so much sweeter. Jude's lips were soft and submissive, accepting everything Jun had to offer and more. He gently took ahold of the smaller man's head, tilting up to deepen the kiss. Those long slender fingers ghosted over his shoulders, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. Jun gently bit Jude's bottom lip before pulling away a bit. Jun couldn't help but savor the flushed look on the dark-skinned man's face with greedy eyes.

"I've been wanting to do that for a while now..." Jude slowly blinked as if he was coming back to himself. The author let out a soft chuckle, warming Jun up from the inside out.

"How long," Jude quietly asked. Jun allowed himself to lightly run a finger along Jude's jawline, watching with darkened eyes as those soft lips parted. When he spoke next, his voice came out an octave longer, skirting just on the edge of a growl.

"I think I knew I was hoping for it the night Dante threw that party. But thinking back... since the moment I met you..." Jude's eyes widened in brief surprise before lowering, a coy smile tugging on his mouth.

"Then I think you should kiss me again," he whispered, leaning in again. He gasped when Jun leaned in, gently guiding him on his back as the bodyguard hovered above him. Jun wrapped a muscular arm around his slim waist, pressing him against his naked chest. Jun brushed a faint kiss to his lips, whispering,

"Like this?" Jude bit his lip, his arms finding a comfortable perch around Jun's broad shoulders as his legs parted for Jun to lay on him more comfortably. 

"Yes..." Jun didn't need any more prompting, returning to those soft lips with a quiet sigh. The author relaxed in his arms, accepting his kiss with a soft moan. Jude tightened his hold on Jun's hips with his thighs, silently demanding that Jun come closer. A low groan escaped him, his large hands finding smooth dark thighs, squeezing and caressing them in reverence. He was a fool for thinking he could keep away from such a man. He was a fool for waiting this long to experience this level of intimacy with him. Jude was just so perfect.

Jude playfully nipped Jun's lip, bringing him from his thoughts.

"Jude..." The writer silenced him with another kiss, one of his hands finding their way into his hair while its twin made its way down to his chest to rest over his heart. 

"Just be with me in this moment, Jun," Jude whispered. His lips found the rough stubble of Jun's growing bread of his jaw before teasing a line of teasing kisses along the strong cords of the bodyguard's neck. The shudder that ripped through the muscular body on top of him made the writer grin. A needy groan escaped Jun when he felt those full lips softly suck on his neck. The slow attention was causing blood to rush in between his legs, his slowly awakening arousal twitching against Jude's inner thigh through the soft material of his pajama pants. It was taking everything in his control not to roll his hips against the heat of the warmth of those soft thighs. 

"Good God, Jude," Jun moaned when he felt Jude's teeth leave a teasing bite on the same spot. Jude chuckled, returning to Jun's moaning mouth for another kiss. The kiss immediately turned heated and full lips parted, allowing their tongues to twist and dance between the gap. Jun allowed himself to grow a bit bold, reaching behind the writer to squeeze his ass. Jude let out a moan, arching back into the bodyguard's touch.

"I love seeing you like this," he whispered almost drunkenly against Jun's lips. Jun could only imagine how he looked to the other man. Tousled hair, darkened eyes, kiss-swollen lips, and a flushed complexion. Jun let out a husky chuckle, pecking the other man's lips, lingering for a few moments before slowly pulling away.

"I'm sure. But it's been a long day and tomorrow is gonna be an even longer day. It's best we get some shut-eye." Jude bit his lip, giving a slow nod.

"You're right. I... I could spend the night here if you'd like," Jude offered. Jun raised a brow at the suddenly shy author, before standing over him.

"Jun- whoa!" Jude's question died on his lips when he lifted up by his thighs, his legs coming around Jun's waist. The mystery writer laughed, wrapping his arms around the former Green Beret's neck.

"God, you make that look so easy. And hot," Jude purred, kissing Jun's cheek. The other man chuckled.

"What's the point of being a bodyguard if you can't sweep someone off their feet every once a while," he teased, walking to his pristine made bed. Jude gave a playful grin.

"Fair point... just don't drop me." Jun leaned in, his lips brushing against Jude's ear.

"Wouldn't dream of it." His voice came out a hint of a husky growl, causing the body in his arms to shudder pleasantly. Jun couldn't help but chuckle, setting the smaller man down when they reached his bed. The pair silently slipped under the sheets, Jude leaning into Jun's embrace.

"Are you okay," Jun quietly asked. Jude gave a small shrug, leaning against Jun's naked chest.

"No. But I'm alive," Jude whispered. The arms around him tightened.

"I'll do everything in my power to keep it that way. Get some sleep, Jude. I'm here." The writer let out a content sigh. 

"Thank you, Jun... sweet dreams..." A soft kiss was placed on Jude's neck before Jun felt sleep creep up on him.

'Trust me, I don't think my dreams can top this night, Jude.'

[waffletheorist]

So, I wrote a sort of prequel/backstory thing for Hero of Simulation, just adding to his character, how he came to be the way he is, different stages of his life and some description. Might rewrite first meeting later as well because I just got so many more ideas for him that I want to add, and because I'm on the creative high right now, so I may as well write as much as possible and improve it.

TW, implied suicide.

Content below the cut.

"The Hero? He's barely a month old!" The woman cried.

"I know it might come as a shock, but that is his destiny. That mark right there on his left hand proves it." The old man replied calmly.

"I don't care what some goddess-forsaken triangle birthmark says, I will not be sending my infant son out on a quest!" The heartbroken mother screamed, cradling her son, who had not made even the slightest sound during this whole ordeal.

"I apologise, but we have no choice in the matter. It is what he was born to do." The wizened sage said gently, not seeming sorry at all.

"No. I refuse to accept this. You sages can go find a new hero. I refuse to let you turn this innocent boy into a weapon for the world. Get a capable adult, not my child."

"But miss-"

"No. I will not accept any argument on this. My son will live his life, far away from all this hero business, you hear me?"

"But only he can-"

"No."

The women stormed out of the castle, infant son in her arms, the mark of the Triforce glowing weakly on his hand.

Days passed, and all the soldiers and knights of the kingdom were sent out to find the fleeing family. There were posters in every town, and the two had a bounty on their heads. There was no place for the desperate duo to hide, even short rests at inns were risky when anyone could be looking to collect their bounty. But they always persisted on their path, the woman determined to keep her child from harm. The mother told the young boy stories every night, of how the Triforce could grant any wish. He had always loved his stories, the same as her.

"Maybe that could keep you safe. That accursed triangle on your hand that binds you to your fate, saving you from it. A bit poetic, don't you think?"

The child just stared, the woman letting out a tinkling laugh.

But, the women had an idea now, and she wasn't going to give up on it. While the Triforce of Courage rested in her son, the other two pieces remained in the Sacred Realm, the door to which was in the Temple of Time. But no regular person could open the Sacred Realm, as only the one who the Master Sword deemed worthy would be able to raise it and open the gate. While the woman herself wasn't worthy, perhaps her son would be, despite his age and size. That was what those insane sages said, wasn't it?

So, the mother picked up her child, a look of guilt, grief and sadness briefly crossing her face for what she was planning to do. She donned the armour she had stolen off of the poor Hyrulean soldier who had been guarding the path to Death Mountain in order to disguise herself, and carefully placed her baby into her bag. She didn't have to worry about him crying, he had not made even a sound since the moment of his birth. Her small campsite in the Kakariko Village Well was no place to raise a child, and she knew that. So, when the sunlight finally stopped reflecting off the water, she climbed out into the night. It was a long walk to Castle Town across Hyrule Field, especially when you add factors such as her heavy armour, needing to check on her son, and her decreased physical ability due to the sleepless nights spent watching over the entrance to the well, making sure nobody would discover them. The gate to the town was closed at night, but she knew that with all of these combined, it would take her until morning to arrive anyway. So, she walked, straining and struggling the whole way, until morning arrived and she was at the gates. She took a brief rest to catch her breath, she might be caught if people saw her struggling when she was meant to be disguised as a soldier. Helm concealing her face, she finally entered Castle Town.

"Ey, soldier! You're meant to be stationed outside Death Mountain! And what's in that bag of yours?"

The woman almost jumped out of her skin, her heart skipping a beat for a moment when she heard this. She thought she was going to be stopped. Deepening her voice as much as she could, which wasn't much due to naturally being high pitched, she replied.

"Just delivering a message, sir, I've got someone covering my shift until I return."

"Alright then. But I better not catch you slacking off, you understand?"

"Understood, sir."

The woman almost breathed a sigh of relief, but quickly stifled it so as not to seem suspicious. It was early in the morning, and not many people were up and about this time of day, which made things easier for her. She advanced towards the Temple of Time, not once letting herself break character, and finally went inside, arriving at the Master Sword pedestal. She gently removed her infant from her bag, and placed his hands on the Master Sword. They were small. Too small for this large duty imposed upon him. He could barely even wrap his hands around the hilt, let alone raise the sword and kill with it. But, the child's touch was enough, and the blade allowed them both to lift it together. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I knew there was something off about you. You're that woman the Royal Family is-"

The man was cut off, as the Sacred Realm opened, sending a beam of pure golden light upwards to tell the whole world. In front of them was an expanse of gold, bathed in the light of an eternal sunset. A beautiful realm. If this was the last thing she ever saw, she could die happily. She climbed the marble stairs in front of her, with her son, and almost as if he sensed what she was about to do, he cried for the first time, the Triforce glowing prominently on his small hand, begging to be reunited with its two other powerful and wise counterparts. Holding her son in one arm and the Master Sword in the other, she ascended to the top, and the Triforce was completed once again.

"Triforce, I wish upon you. Please, transport my son somewhere safe, far away from here, where he can grow up like a normal child. Please, let him live."

The Triforce glowed brightly, and the Sacred Realm changed around her as her son wailed and screamed. He was raised into the air, and in a flash of light, he disappeared, her wish granted. The woman was alone with the Master Sword and her thoughts. With one last laugh, she raised the sword high and pointed it towards herself, so that they would never be able to find out what she wished for.

Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, an infant was found abandoned in a field, seemingly having just appeared out of thin air. Nobody knew where he had come from, and he was eventually adopted by two expecting parents who didn't mind having another child with them.

Hylia was watching all of this from above, and she was not pleased with the woman's wish. It irritated her that she could not go against the will of the Triforce, even if it was for such a noble reason as needing the child back to save the Kingdom. However, the woman had only wished that he be allowed to grow up, he could still become the hero eventually if Hylia bent the rules, and she knew that. For now though, she couldn't touch him and would have to hide her time. But how to prepare him for his eventual duty when this world has not a monster to speak of, and the art of fighting is rarely taught? For three days and three nights, Hylia watched over this strange world with its advanced technology, until she discovered videogames. She was intrigued by these small virtual worlds, and saw their potential in teaching the hero. Nintendo games in particular caught her eye, they were the most popular in this world, and for good reason too. So, Hylia travelled back to the past of that world to bring the story of Hyrule to Nintendo. The people of this land used strange number codes to keep track of the date, and according to Hylia's knowledge, it was 1984. With her influence, the Legend of Zelda series began development, named after her mortal reincarnation.

Link was now twelve years old, and his younger brother was eleven. His brother hadn't cared much for the Legend of Zelda, but after being introduced to it by his father, Link had always felt a strange connection to the world of Hyrule, beyond just sharing a name with the protagonist. Today was another boring day of classes for him. His hands absentmindedly drifted to his ears. They had always felt... wrong, somehow. There was nothing abnormal about them though. Every time he checked, there was nothing strange about them. But, that feeling of wrongness never went away. Sometimes, when he looked in the mirror, they would seem pointed, out of the corner of his eye, even though he knew that was impossible, and it was far more likely that he just had a few screws loose.

"Link, answer the question."

The teacher said impatiently. He hadn't been paying attention again. He quickly looked at the girl beside him to see what question they were on.

"The answer is 17."

"Correct. But pay better attention next time. You're smart, but that doesn't mean you can get away with being lazy."

'Yes it does.' Link thought, but he held his tongue, as always. He was a well-behaved student to a bit of a worrying degree, his mother actually payed him to get in trouble, although it backfired on her when he demanded money for not doing his chores. He just nodded along like he was listening. "Smart.", the teacher had said. It annoyed him. Every Friday, a student was selected and every other student had to write one good thing about them for mental health or something. For him, it was always just "smart", "intelligent", "good at math", "good at spelling", with the occasional "nice", "kind" or "pretty" from the students that just wrote the same thing for everyone. He had liked it at first, but it was getting repetitive, and at this point, it felt like a bit of an insult. What about everything else? He didn't like being known for his smarts, he had other defining qualities he wished people would talk about. Is his academic skill all he has? Despite not being blood related, his brother was the same, as a result of his competitiveness driving him to try and beat Link, although it never worked.

The bell rang, and Link got out of his seat and packed his bags in a hurry so he could leave quickly. He was often made a target by some of the more annoying students, since he never fought back out of fear of getting in trouble for defending himself, and because his long hair, petite size and more reserved personality gave them lots to pick on. Luckily, he made it out in time, and walked home. His days continued on in a similar manner to this one for many years, with only a few notable events, such as starting horse-riding lessons and briefly trying out different martial arts.

When he finally turned eighteen, he decided to get a tattoo of the Triforce on his left hand. He had been planning to do this for quite a while, with the only thing stopping him being the law and the common sense required not to break it and end up getting an infection or a low quality tattoo. While his hair wasn't as long as it had been when he was twelve years old and refused to cut his hair, it was still reasonably long now, a little below shoulder length at the back. He spent even more time indoors than he did before, researching and working harder than ever, while still leaving enough time for videogames and writing by sacrificing sleep.

He was alright with the way he was living, but something still felt off. There was something he was supposed to be doing, he just couldn't figure out what. He got a part-time job, the feeling didn't go away, he studied harder, the feeling didn't go away, he applied for university, the feeling didn't go away. No matter what, there was always that nagging feeling in the back of his mind, like he was forgetting something important. It had always been present, but now it was worsening. Every time he looked at his left hand, at the tattoo of the Triforce, it felt like it was trying to remind him of some long forgotten duty. Days were lost trying to figure out what was wrong, and he decided to go back to playing the Legend of Zelda games, his childhood favourites, and somehow, they seemed to dull the pain and stress even when nothing else did. He collected all the Golden Skulltulas, fused hundreds of Kinstones, found every Korok, and then did it again in speedrun form. Sometimes, he wrote theories as well, or streamed himself playing the games. He had a small following, but it was steadily growing larger as he became more of a known name in the community. Sharing a name with Link helped with that as well, it made him stand out.

After a year of this life, balancing his part-time jobs with his social media and online career, along with school, he lost more and more sleep and started getting burnt-out from all this work. But, on one late rainy night that he finally found out what he was missing.

[humandisorderincarnatedean]

And even when he was going to sacrifice jack, it wasn't just for himself, it was supposed to be the only way to save the world which Chuck was very much planning to destroy!! But it was reframed to make Sam's argument make sense when it didn't. It was either destroy Chuck (and Amara) or let him destroy the world. There's no "save our friends" without saving the world first. Power sucker jack was a fluke and not a perceivable option at that point.

I appreciate this add-on to my rambling bunch of thoughts defending dean’s actions in later seasons. I wanna give it a longer response

when I said that 15x17 unity is the only episode in which I see dean acting entirely, 100% in his own self-interest, (meaning every other decision he makes and action he takes in the show, even if it's a selfish one, he's doing at least in part for someone else) i’m referring really only specifically to that last scene, where he’s racing to have jack sacrifice himself and has a gun trained on sam when he tries to stop him.

throughout the episode, leading up to this moment, dean’s motivations steadily get a more narrow focus. first he insists it’s a duty to the world. then later, in the car, he narrows it down to just him and sam, thanking jack for how what he is willing to do can give them a chance at a real life with real freedom. then in the scene in the bunker, he’s finally whittled it down to just himself: he doesn’t care about what happens to amara, to their friends, to jack, to sam even, almost pulling the trigger on him when he tries to stop dean. there’s one moment where he’s only thinking about himself, what he wants, what he needs. he wants to not be a puppet anymore, and if this is what he needs to do (hurt others, let others be hurt) then… well, it’s not what he wants, but so be it.

it’s all very un-dean-like behaviour. but there is one instance from his past that does resemble this situation very closely: dean saying ‘yes’ to alastair in hell and picking up the razor himself. that was a selfish act: it was choosing to hurt others to protect himself, but I don’t think it’s fair to see this as dean making a selfish decision here because he was not in a position to make real, autonomous decisions. when you’re driven to do something after years of unbearable torture, like dean was, that isn't actually a real autonomous decision that you're making and that culpability does not lie with you.

something similar is happening in 15x17: dean is driven, after literally more than a lifetime of trauma and hardship, to be willing to facilitate harm coming to someone else in order for him to be free; in other words to act in a manner so counter to his regular personality and moral compass that the audience watching can’t help but notice it. the differences here, of course, are that dean does have choices in this situation, he is not bound to the laws of hell, and that this time he is not alone, he has his family around him to give him other options he really didn't have access to on the rack.

all that aside, i’m saying I do think dean is ultimately coming at this problem from an emotional point of view, instead of a rational or moral one. and, we are to presume by the framing of the episode, that sam and castiel are acting from a rational or moral perspective. but, like you said, anon, it isn’t actually as clear cut as that.

sam and cas have, in the later seasons, pivoted almost entirely to the idea of ‘letting someone sacrifice themselves to save the world is not acceptable, there must be another way’ which is noble enough when you look at it on a surface-level. granted, they do crucially let go of this ideal in the season 11 finale when they let dean go to sacrifice himself, but I'd say that's the exception. in s10 and s14, for example, they're firmly against killing dean or locking him up or whatever to save the world from what damage he could inflict, and then in s15 of course they're not sold on the plan of letting jack sacrifice himself to put a stop to chuck's control of everything. they try to find a different plan first- and don't actually succeed, but sam does end up discovering yet another reason why he doesn't want jack to destroy chuck.

SAM: Jack, don't! CAS: Sam, why not? SAM: Because if Billie takes over, then everyone goes back to where they belong. That means everybody from apocalypse world, Bobby, Charlie, they get sent back to a place that doesn't exist anymore. And everyone we saved. Eileen, she... she just dies again. And that's just the beginning.

note cas asking sam "why" he shouldn't lead jack to chuck and amara to destroy them, as if he sees that as a perfectly reasonable choice of action now that they haven't found an alternative plan.

anyway, sam's statement here is... a bit selfish, isn't it? I mean, of course it would be sad to lose those people, but the only alternatives they know of right now would be that chuck either continues exacting his control over their world or destroys it, which would mean the death of everyone including the people sam names. but it's about sam's personal emotional investment, his feeling that the people he cares about should get to escape a bad fate no matter at what cost to others that could come.

there is over the seasons a subtle reoccurring theme of dean being more willing to sacrifice people he knows and cares about for strangers/the world at large (in meet the new boss, in brother's keeper, in moriah, in unity). even if he never goes through with it, he's willing to consider it as the morally right decision. in the same vein, he is often unwilling to sacrifice strangers for himself or for his loved ones (jus in bello, appointment in samarra, brother's keeper). sacrifice in season 8 is basically an exception to this, though I'd say those circumstances are different since sam is actively suicidal. anyway on the other side to this coin, sam (sometimes allied with cas) is consistently unwilling to sacrifice people they care about (again, brother's keeper, prophet and loss, unity) and is conversely often more okay with sacrificing strangers to save himself and/or his loved ones (there's like 3 examples of this in s10 only).

all this to say that supernatural is truly inconsistent on its standpoint regarding whether or not it is morally correct to sacrifice the one/the few, whether loved ones or strangers, to save the many. not that any of that technically even matters in the situation in 15x17, because it was canonically all a con mapped out by chuck to push on all their pressure points and get them where he wanted them. billie's hidden intentions, sam and cas' doubts, amara's feeling of betrayal, dean's blind desperation, sam's obstruction and their stand-off. billie's plan was never going to work, it was never going to happen, it wasn't supposed to!

unfortunately for him what else was never supposed to happen was dean being convinced by sam's words and remembering himself as a person who isn't capable of killing his brother or letting someone sacrifice themselves for him, who cares about finding a different way and who does make his own choices, uncocking and lowering his gun. foiling plans by going against what is expected of him is what dean does, after all.

[zeroducks-2]

That scene where Slade is about to beat Grant with his belt, in the night, in middle of some forest, nonchalantly smoking a cigarette was horrible and broke something in me tbh. It wasn't about 'discipline' more like Slade wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp because he was annoyed that Grant lives and exists in the first place. It ruined the whole 2016 run for me and also made other scenes completely invalid. Why did Slade wanted to avenge Grant later on? Why did he go back in time and hugged Grant like he's Slade's most precious person in the world??? Where. did. it. come. from???? There was this family photo of Slade with his sons, where Slade looks very pissed off that he has to even be there. And then I was thinking "okay, there has to be some sort of explanation. Surely there will be at least some hint why Slade has such negative emotions towards them. Maybe Addie did want children and Slade just,, went with it?? or something??" Nah. There was no explanation. Slade goes from despising his sons to absolutely loving them in a milisecond. There is no character arc. Just one big mess. In conclusion: fanfics>>>>>>>canon. fuck Priest 0/10

Again I think this problem stems from a lack of depth the character suffers from in Priest's run, because as you say, we see one thing and then a completely different one and they feel irreconcilable.

Now - and I don't want to make any moral judgement of Slade or his actions and I'm talking from a purely logical, narrative standpoint, just to be completely clear - I do think that if we had some sort of explanation (like why Slade has negative emotions towards his kids), and also if we could see how he went from point A (being wildly abusive, not giving a shit) to point B (grieving Grant, hugging him like that, clearly crying under the mask while calling him son as he's dead in his arms) we'd be able to contextualize Slade's actions.

I'll make you an example. Slade didn't want kids and neither did Adeline, they were born just because they didn't use precautions and it happened. Slade went from mildly annoyed when they were small to full on using them like recipients of his own issues, and therefore we get that scene in the forest.

Then the incident with Joseph happened, when he got his throat sliced because Slade called the bluff, and almost died. AT THAT POINT Slade understands that this kid is important to him - not just a nuisance, a fastidious presence in his life, but someone he truly cares about. And same goes for Grant, even if he's already ran away at this point.

Slade came from an abusive household, enrolled in the military where he learned to kill people and to employ physical violence, and he's only ever loved only two people (Billy and Addie) his whole life. The idea of having kids and LOVING them might have been simply unacceptable to him; it made him feel weak, reminded him of his own abusive father, made him feel trapped in a situation that he hated (that of The Good Husband™), which is why he turned so violent in the inability to deal with his own emotions. But then Joseph almost dies, and it's HIS FAULT, and he gets a cold shower and realizes that he does care but it's too late - Grant has already been brainwashed by HIVE and the next thing that happens is that he dies between Slade's arms, underlining just how much Slade failed and caused his own sons' death and muteness.

I came up with this from the very top of my head and might still be not enough, but I hope you get what I mean when I say that it's the lack of care these writers use when handling the characters that causes the major issues. I too don't buy Slade's genuine and human grief about Grant's death if the last thing I saw was that Slade was about to beat him to a bloody pulp, looking like it was an average Tuesday night.

We're just supposed to accept everything that happens and every choice the characters make, despite there's very little sense of continuity (or sense at all) to them, and that's very frustrating.

[meatriarchived]

danny is screaming so goddamn loud in my ear rn so uh have some brief bullet points at some of what's is just blaring in my mind.

( gentle cw for mentions a.buse & abandonment. )

danilo "danny" alejo-osório

danilo - god is my judge alejo - protector / defender osório - hunter of wolves

father: marcos ignacio alejo mother: salome osório half-sister: carina osório

UPBRINGING.

danny's parents - marcos & salome - were never a married couple. due to her refusal of his several proposals and having danny out of wedlock, their relationship and danny's early years were spent observing a wildfire of hate claimed to be "love".

( young danny had sworn to himself if that is what "love" was supposed to look like, then he never wanted to feel it. )

he witnessed the countless arguments, furniture getting smashed and thrown and knocked over across their home, his father towering over his mother, screaming into her face. of his mother hissing back to lower his voice, that danilo is in the room - which only prompted deadly glare in the childs' direction before his mother was dragged off into another room, where voices and crashing turned muffled to danny's ears.

by the time danny turned seven, his mother decided to leave. to return back to her family in colombia - partly why she had never accepted his fathers' proposals, he would later learn. she wanted marcos to meet her family first, and he refused every time, claiming he didn't need to until they were married; until she was trapped with him.

she packed little and left, after spending a weekend with him. doting on him, taking him wherever he wanted to go. turning away at times, to hide the fact that she was crying.

a goodbye - not a see you later. for he has not seen her in person since.

( she had believed he would fare better in the states than back home, and she only had enough money to ensure her own return. she wanted to take him - she just hoped he would live better here. )

danny didnt hear from her for a number of years ( found out his father hid the letters' she would send; it was fuel he tried to poison him against her with, to claim she abandoned him, forgot about him, didn't care ). but when he had finally discovered the box in his fathers' closet one day, and the stack of pre-opened and read envelopes, danny to a point forgave his mother for her choice.

he also learned, through chicken-scratch and undecipherable drawings, that he has a little half-sister - carina.

he has yet to meet her in person, still. but, they send letters from time to time. ( there's alot to catch up on, alot to learn, alot to digest. )

THE WRONG CROWD.

he was involved in a wrong crowd kind of friendgroup in his early to mid teens; most being the sons and daughters of his fathers' friends and co-workers - not the greatest bunch themselves.

the group were asshats, to place it plainly - getting into fights, randomly targeting people to harass and attack. breaking into homes, stealing and selling property and valuables stolen from the owners. even stealing some cars here and there.

the only consistently good friend he had was maria, when they had met between the time his mother and her father left, respectively. and he learned this fact the hard way.

maria, in spite of her own home life being rocky at the time, was always there to grant him a space of peace, a place at a dining room table that he didn't need to be tense over if it would be shoved out of the way for his father to go after him.

she was the only avenue where he felt like he could relax and just be himself - the only person at the time he was comfortable with crying in front of ( he had it quite literally lunched and kicked into him that men don't cry - if he cries, his father vowed to give him something to actually cry over. )

but when one of his 'friends' little break-in plan went to the fuckin' shithole - they broke into a sheriff's fucking house, the motherfucker didn't do his research - and danny was held at gunpoint while the others tried to scatter. leaving him there, alone, to be arrested that night.

the others' were eventually caught, even in spite of danny keeping quiet on who he had been with. he ended up in juvie regardless, for several months.

lesson learned on who he should place loyalty - when not a damned one of them bothered to go see him.

no one except maria, and her mother.

danny was embarrassed for her, having to walk into the building - to have self and bags searched and contents dumped and ripped apart. every single visit ( because she insisted on it, on coming by after school, spending her allotted visitors' time with him. )

she did so without complaint. without negative word, without annoyance at being humiliated time and time again, by officers' who'd let her into the visitors area. he kept telling her she didn't need to. and she kept repeating that she wanted to, and didn't want him to be alone in there.

and its still a mystery to him, how he ever deserved to have someone like her as a friend.

and sometime later, after he had gotten out of juvie, after listening to maria pour her heart out over him - pleaded with him to think of himself and what he wanted for his life, if the people he was around where doing him any good. to please be careful, to not get himself into trouble like he had, where he easily could have been shot and killed - did he finally cut them all off, started to focus on his studies, started to focus on himself - on her and her friendship.

( she showed herself countless times to always be in his corner - and he fuckin' needed to prove that he deserved a place in hers for it. )

if was her study sessions, her gentle encouragement, everything that brought him to the point of graduating - barely, but he made it. and he credits her for being at his side, getting his shit together.

and a last little sweet thing between them.

danny once told her, the august after she graduated ( he's less than two years older ), in his truck, driving out with her on a weekend trip for her birthday, that:

" y'know something? if you and i, we aren't married- i mean, if no one has realized how amazing their lives' would be to have you in it as their wife, by the time we're like. thirty-something or other? i'm going to find you the prettiest ring and propose to you. and i'm going to buy you a nice little house, somewhere where you can grow a garden. where you get to see and experience every season. and i'll bring you home the stray cats i find at work, and the stray dogs too. if anyone is fuckin' stupid enough to let you slide off their radars? you're stuck with me. hope you know that. "

and maria had blinked at him, and then her laughter filled the car, and she replied, beaming,

" i would say yes - in a heartbeat, danny. "

[dyandyan0]

two month and two week check-in? 11.12.2024

i can't believe the year is already coming to an end. i feel conflicted about how this year went, i think for the most part i have few regrets and still have a positive outlook for the future for myself. that isn't to say that i haven't had my moments. i do feel though, at this moment specifically, over something a bit stupid and predictable, that i have improved sosososososo much in terms of coping and acceptance than 2022. i am no longer crashing out over things that were pretty obvious from the start. i mean i still have feelings but i'm only human and so is everybody else.

no more being vague though, its been a week since the election. 12 years of trump in politics during my formative years has given me a very bleak perception of politics and the state of the world. i think a factor as to why i'm a bit more numb to other peoples actions lately is because i have been tending to compare my trivial problems to actual problems that people face in this country and the world. i know that probably isn't good from a therapists viewpoint, despite people going through harder times i shouldn't just ignore my own feelings, but in some ways i have to just see it as i gotta be grateful i live in a place where i don't feel like my rights are being super threatened (california for clarification). i was so overwhelmed post election on thursday i started to cry in my car. i fr shed liberal tears. i think it was totally valid though because here's a secret: a part of me is starting to really hate men. and not in a i've been burned by guys in relationships in the past way, because i'm a firm believer that girl's can just be just as bad when it comes to romance, but i was just feeling so sick with how the election turned out. i cried because i remembered myself in middle school, learning about abortion laws and practicing pro-choice debates to advocate for women's healthcare during a time where it didn't even seem like it was even really being threatened. i cried because i have so many friends and women that i have met that have personally shared stories to me of being sa'd and harassed. i cried because i have my own experiences. and now our president is a man who has openly said he would have relations with his own daughter, a man who comfortably said he could just grab women by the pussy, a man who has not one, not two, but 26 sa allegations against him? we're telling our daughters that all that doesn't matter, you can still become the president of the united states despite having that type of character. what does that tell our already red-pilled brain rotted sons? that we can look up to that kind of behavior? that they can get away with it?

i already cried over it, so i'm not going to again, i know that people out there are trying hard to have high hopes despite the outcome of the election. of course i don't think it's the end of the world. i'm just sad. i'm sad that we treat women so badly. i'm sad that we can't just go out alone without having to be hyper-aware of our surroundings. it's hard to feel empowered as a women when all men do is find ways to knock us down. FUUUCCK nick fuentes

i'm genuinely, in every way possible, so thankful for the friends i have made up to this point. i think i said it before here, but it's easy to take their care and concern for granted when you're caught up with life and other relationships. i hung out with motus, len, and andy on sunday night and while we kept clowning him for it, motus got shitfaced and kept repeating how much he 'needed this' and was happy he was being reunited with us. it was seriously the most fun i've had in awhile, and with people that i love dearly. those two literally were my ride or dies end of high school/ early college and quarantine, and i feel as though if i hadn't have had them during my lowest points then i really really don't know where i'd be. the three of us haven't gathered in years at this point because we've all been moving all over the place and getting caught up in work and school, but hanging out with them felt like i was in high school again (in a good way)

so to conclude, i think things will be alright for me, despite passing feelings that the world is falling apart around me.

last quick note, i really thought my attention span was cooked, but i spent all my free time reading this weekend. i finished whered you go bernadette (~350 pg), a book thats been sitting on my shelf for years, in one sitting. it was super fun to read, and i thought it was a sweet story. it was a lot more fun for me to read too because it's based in seattle and i understood a bunch of references regarding that. spoilers though, the only complaint i have about the book was the affair apart. because like why. i think ppl on reddit were also just like they could've voided that part and it still would've been just as good. i feel like the consensus with characters in media cheating is that the character feels irredeemable, which is true imo. i remember reading somewhere that both chandler from friends and jim from the office were supposed to have cheating storylines, but fought against them because they were like i don't think the audience is going to see them the same anymore. they were right for that

i also started tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. i got half way through and it's amazing so far. i'm just kind of scared cause everyone's saying how sad it is in the end. i'll probably talk about it when i finish it.

i don't know if i'll remember to update before the year ends, i leave for the philippines on dec 15 so we'll see!

[casspurrjoybell-33]

Unlikely Places - Chapter 10 - Part 1

*Warning - Adult Content*

Chapter: 10 - Tingly Feeling

It was Tuesday afternoon and I needed a break.

I had received an email for a new work assignment yesterday morning with a bunch of jumbled information attached.

Sorting out the mess had taken far longer than it should have.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that I had discovered why.

An intern had mistakenly included data from another project.

I had to syphon out all of the useless incorrect information before anything had begun to make any kind of sense.

It had taken me half of today to re-review and remove the skewed data.

The numbers in the margins were now finally starting to talk to me.

So here I was halfway through a second day only just getting started on the job I was supposed to have begun yesterday morning.

Talk about a waste of time.

Frustrated, tired and hungry I pushed away from my desk and headed into the kitchen.

Cicero trotted behind me.

I absently pet his head as I opened the fridge door.

I pulled out the pitcher of fresh citrus ginger tea and poured myself a glass.

I sighed as I sipped.

The unproductive day was bothering me.

Since meeting Pierce, seeing who he was and how he was,and even worse, his questioning my ability to do my job, I worried about my lack of progress on this project.

Granted it wasn't my fault but that didn't matter to me.

I pictured his disapproving cold face and his direct forceful gaze.

The familiar electrical sizzle swept up my spine at the mental images I conjured of him.

My reaction to him I had finally concluded, was one part fear, one part agitation and one-part unknown.

I still hadn't been able to put my finger on the other emotion I felt when he looked at me, I just knew it was unlike anything I had experienced before.

Whether it was good or bad was undetermined.

I stared out the kitchen window as I replayed the last few minutes, I was with him on Saturday night.

One moment he had been giving me a hard time about stuttering which had of course only made me stutter more and in the next... well the next that was where it had gotten a little weird.

That was where the unknown emotion filtered in and my uncertainty took over.

Pierce was a dynamic individual.

He was charismatic, bold, cocky, arrogant and a whole host of adjectives that I could use to describe an Alpha male.

He was similar to my friends but he seemed to be on a whole other playing level.

Every single one of those words when in reference to him, intimidated me.

I was the complete opposite of him in every way imaginable.

But despite that fear he also made me feel... tingly.

My cheeks burned as the word popped into my mind.

The tips of my ears felt hot.

It sounded... sexual.

As had been the dream I had had of him the night we met.

I rubbed my sweaty palms down the sides of my pants before opening the refrigerator back up and reaching in to pull out various ingredients to make myself a couple of sandwiches.

Along with the tingles, thoughts of Pierce brought with him jitters and butterflies and a jumbo-sized cup full of uncertainty.

So much uncertainty.

Like for starters, he was my boss.

He had full say over an important aspect of my life.

He could take away the job that I loved.

The way he treated me at times, I couldn't help but worry if it was something that he was already considering.

Then there was the fact that he had come to my home.

Come and not said why.

His ignoring of my repeated attempts to find out, bothered me.

On the one hand I knew I should only worry so much because despite the cold mocking person he had been, he had taken care of me but there was no denying some of his behaviors were questionable.

He was such a contradiction.

He was a frustratingly enigmatic man.

I liked simple and uncomplicated.

Pierce was anything but and that more than anything made me want to ignore him, as if I had a choice.

If Pierce wanted to see me, I wouldn't get much say in the matter.

His showing up on Saturday proved that.

Me being employed by him, was another undeniable factor that would put me in his path if he so chose.

It would help if I just knew why he had come.

Maybe then I wouldn't be in the state I was in now.

Then again, maybe not.

There was still the whole physical reaction thing to him that was messing with my head and my body.

The ringing of my cell-phone was welcome.

[montanababe7]

Unshakable: One Woman's Journey from Desperation to Wholeness in Jesus

Jessica's Autobiography:

My Story & Devotional

(She was conditioned to believe she was broken. For years, this woman had bought into the lie that her only value stemmed from other people's perceptions of her. She desperately wanted to believe that she could have a will of her own. Instead, every decision and choice she made while growing up was dictated by her birth mother).

I was depressed and suicidal for years.

Honestly, I didn't see any other way out. I just felt stuck. The best way I can describe this feeling was picturing a wind up doll with string. Someone else was controlling the movement of the doll. Picture Pinocchio and the evil puppet Meister. He didn't actually care about Pinocchio or any of the other puppets in his control, all he cared about was the profits he would gain from them and how they would make him look in town. Every accomplishment I ever made was for my mom's benefit, not mine. I wasn't even allowed to go into town without makeup on; because God forbid if one of her fellow work associates or potential business clients saw me with her and I ruined her business. At one point, she even told me that no man would ever love or even notice me if I wasn't wearing makeup or my hair was perfectly dolled up. The song: the real me by Natalie Grant mirrors the sad life I knew while growing up. She even mentioned that my eyes were mouse like without any makeup on and that the guy who said I was butt ugly without makeup make on, but gorgeous with it on had a point. My own mother said this about me. Her words crushed me. What mother would do this to her own child. My father was the opposite, he has always been so loving. He told me that I am a natural beauty and that makeup should only enhance it.

Another sad truth,

One year, the church we attended as a family, they were putting together a young adults group, I told my mom how excited I was to go and make great friends. She told me that I wasn't allowed to because God forbid I go and meet the wrong one.

So as you can see, it was one thing after the other. I felt like repunzel from tangled. I was wanted to live my own life, but I was her flower to use emotionally. Nevermind the fact that I was dead inside. Every chance I made to succeed in college, she put a stop to. Blackmails and ultimatums were her speciality. It didn't matter how much mascara I went through. I always ran out. I even gave her my end of the year tax return money out of guilt because of the passive aggression she used to imply I was a terrible daughter for not being grateful to live at the Minnesota home for free aside from endless housework. It broke my heart to see my other siblings flourishing and happy. They weren't on a tight leash. They were free. Not me. The only comfort I had was my friends over messenger. It felt like I was only a allowed a fake life when housework was perfect by her standards. She even dumped my ex boyfriend through a letter she wrote to him. I didn't even have a say in that either. So you see, nothing in that time in my life; I had a say in. Let's not forget, the pitiful lamb of the family garbage. She told me that it was my duty to be the lamb of the family. I was born to suffer and be sick for my family's sake. That God made weak so my siblings would. be strong. What she told me through those years, was that God would handpick one person from every family to pay the price. That God had called me as a watchman on the wall. One day in college, I told her that I was done being the lamb of the family and it wasn't my job to intercede for them. She told me that if they died and went to hell; then their blood would be on my hands. That woman was twisting God's word around for her own gain. Wow. So sad. Looking back, what a sad, pitiful woman who was bent on bringing to others for her own enjoyment. I was a victim to all of it and have been having ugly cry while writing this. I was so broken. It wasn't my choice. These were the sad circumstances of that time period.

Somehow, miraculously, I never went through with suicide. I kept believing that Jesus had a better plan for my life than my current circumstances had deemed to say for me. Instead, I chose to focus on caring about others and reminding them of their value in Christ. I asked God to give me His heart for people.

Those stagnant years of living at my parents house, thankfully didn't last forever.

In 2012, I met my future husband. Through months of dating, God worked in Michael to break down all my deep walls of pain. He began praying for me. As he spoke words of life and words of knowledge over me, I began to see myself how God viewed me. One night, depression and suicidal thoughts hit hard.

there was so much control and a man pleasing spirit in that house: I would see demons come through the walls in my old bedroom and my entire bedroom at night was blood red. The night I was gonna attempt suicide, the room was blood red. Both sides in the spiritual realm were fighting for my destiny😭. Jesus wanted me alive. The enemy wanted me dead.

The reason I was ready to end it all, was because-all I saw was a never-ending life of housework and my mother's control. I wasn't allowed to have friends, she wouldn't permit me to date, she acted like God. At that point, I couldn't see a way out except for death.

God pulled Michael into deep intercession mode for me. He began desperately praying for my life. He told me that God spoke to him, that my life was in imminent danger and he needed to pray immediately. I had planned on committing suicide. His intercession broke through the pain and I wanted to live. With a new lease on life, I began to think on what could be; instead of what couldn't. All at once I saw an opening I couldn't see before. Michael loved me unconditionally. His love for me was one without strings being attached. It was a love that was unfamiliar to me. He saw me. The real me. He saw my brokenness. The vulnerability and the rawness of a woman who been caged all her life. She was accustomed to a life of emotional chains. Don't go here and don't go there was her old normal. Her life had been completely shaped by a woman who had been bent on usurping her energy and joy. With just once glance from my birth mother I'd freeze. I would go completely numb. Michael rescued me from that emotional prison. I felt a burst of freedom at the thought of finally escaping. He prayed for me when I needed it most. I am forever grateful for all the love he has poured into my life. God knew Michael was everything and more than I could have ever prayed for. Even typing this and doing a mental log of yesteryear, I am looking on this with new eyes shocked at just the travesty of all the hardships I endured and how Jesus held me throughout it all.

A few months later in 2013, Michael and I, got married. I moved away from my childhood home in MN to MT. The impact of being away from the woman who birthed me has been monumental. I not only fully forgave her; but I have also found the freedom to independence. For nearly 16 years, I made every effort to obtain my driver's permit and ultimately drive away to freedom, but to no avail. (That was in MN). that season was full of brokenness, but there was also so much of God's beauty that had broken through. Even in the darkest seasons and moments, I learned how strong I really am.

In Montana, I had very little trouble attaining my driver's permit and driver's license. But, that's only the beginning of my well being's transformation. I have gained a confidence of loving who I am and being comfortable in my own skin. I have begun to discover who I really am. I am a loving wife to my wonderful husband, I have wonderful children, and I am so blessed with amazing friends that I consider family. Today, I see myself as a woman made strong by God's faithfulness. I am a woman who has been forged through the fire and pain. God has given me a compassion for those who have been made broken, because I know what it means to hit rock bottom and all you can do is to look up and cry out to God for help. I have prayed for friends throughout the night. God has moved mountains on our behalf time and time again. We have moved cross country twice. We have seen God do the impossible. I have cried till I felt there weren't any tears left. I remember days, when I didn't know how I would go on. The moments when money was tight; God provided. I have seen God come through for us time and time again. I have grown in my walk with God. I have prayed more and rejoiced more. There isn't anything our God can't do. I want to inspire others. Speaking into other people's lives. Pouring into them the truth of healing through Christ.

I feel like a bird freed from the cage I was in. Looking back, I know I wouldn't have survived any of those onslaughts without Jesus. If I were someone else reading my story, I wouldn't have a clue how Jessica had survived all that.

This journey of discovery, has shed years of pain and trauma. I'm on a mission to help others like myself become wholly free through Jesus. I want others to know the beauty of what it truly means to be free through Jesus. I want others to step forward into their best days for the rest of their life. The Presence of Jesus has come in like a flood. Washing away every ounce of heartache and pain. I have asked Jesus to have every access of my heart. Everything is forever laid bare before the Author of all Time. The King of all kings. And the Lord of all Lords. Everyday . Every moment of my entire life. My very existence is His. I'm no longer holding back in fear. I am confident today because of Jesus. He paid the price for me. He made a way for me; even when I was broken.He made a way.

When all hope felt gone; Jesus Christ of Nazareth was right there. He made a way for me. This wholeness in Jesus that I have found, it is my prayer that other people will find themselves breaking free from pain of their past too. The beauty of becoming whole in Jesus is so delicious and is overwhelmingly satisfying. He reaches deep down into your heart. Healing you. Changing you deeply from the inside out and you simply are never the same again.

My prayer everyday, is that I will be the mother that my spiritual children and natural children need me to be. Every day, I want to continually point them to Jesus. I want them to always see themselves through the loving eyes of their Heavenly Father. My prayer for them, is that they will always know what it means to be loved unconditionally by a God who will never stop pursuing them and Who is madly in love with them. Even when I grow old, I pray that my life will be seen as an example of a woman who once felt so low and then God raised her up.

To my readers,

it is my prayer for you; that everyday, that you will discover just how much Jesus loves you. Death is never the answer. It is never the easy way out. God has instilled within you all so much purpose value. You are a tremendous gift. God has forever planted so many beautifully intricate things within you. He wants you to find out who you really are. Your life is not a mistake. You are not a mistake. You are a masterpiece from the very Hand of God. God created you with so much destiny. Begin to ask Jesus to forever reveal your identity. Every person has been born with a calling and a destiny on their life. Wherever you are right now, God wants you to stop doubting your value. He has a good plan for your life. Jeremiah 29:11. You matter. Remember, your mistakes do not define you. Ask Jesus for forgiveness of all the wrongs you have ever made. Allow Jesus to wash them away by His Precious Blood. Ask Jesus to come into your heart and life. Pray with me right now,

Jesus,

I know that I am sinner in need of a Savior. Rescue me. Change me. Save me. Redeem me. Please come into my heart. Be my Savior. Be my Lord. I am yours forever Lord God! Thank you Jesus for saving me writing/recording my name down in the Lamb's Book of Life. From this day forward, I am a Christian. In Jesus Name I pray, Amen!

My dear friend,

If you just prayed that prayer, your name is forever written down in the Lamb's Book of Life! You will never be the same again! Welcome to the Family of God! God has a wonderful plan for your life. He sees you and He knows you. Wherever reading this book finds you:

Wherever it be- in a coffee shop, bookstore, shops, or in the comfort of your own home, etc,. I want you all to remember this one thing, You matter to God. You always have and you will always will. That's the beauty of the Heart of the Father; you will always matter.

Next,

The Holy Spirit is prompting me too speak on inner healing. You might have had bad things to you. Things that were out of your control. The enemy of your soul, wants you to allow hatred and unforgiveness to fester deep. No matter what happened, forgive. I cannot state that enough. Now, ask Jesus to begin to heal you. He wants every broken heart made whole. The Holy Spirit is ministering to you right now. Allow God to take you to the painful places, those places that brought pain. Ask Him to remove the sting of the trauma. He wants to bring healing. He wants your story to help someone else get free. But, you need to be healed first.

Friend, I want to pray for you.

Dear God,

Wherever my reader finds themselves right now, I ask You God to begin to pour Your light upon those painful places; and pull out the sting. Thank you for releasing Your healing balm of Gilead and love over them right now. I thank You Father God that they are forgiving each and every person who has ever hurt them. I thank You Father God that they are submitting every pain and every hurt to the foot of the Cross. They are leaving it there. Thank You Father God for restoring them right now, releasing Your Supernatural Oil of Healing refreshment and peace. I declare in the Matchless Name of Jesus that Your Love is flooding into all those places right now. Thank you Father God for restoring them. Do what only You can do. You are more than able Lord God to restore all. Thank You Father God, that they are inviting You to be on the journey of freedom in Jesus. In Your Precious Name Jesus, We do pray, Amen!

My Dear Friends,

I want you all to know that you truly are never alone. Jesus is the Friend that sticks closer than a brother. I am so excited for all of you to discover who you truly are in Jesus. You all have so much value and purpose. You matter. You have purpose. Remember this, that you and I, are far more than conquerors through Christ Jesus of Nazareth who loves us! You can all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens you! The fact that you are still here and you are reading this book right now, is not an accident. God set you up today. He led you to find this book. Why? Because Jesus loves you and I, everyday and He wants you to discover just how loved you are. You have a purpose. You have a destiny. I want you to shout out for joy; because all those years of heartache, trauma, and pain are all being melted away By Jesus Precious Blood. Can I hear an Amen! Declare out loud with me right now, that you are sound in mind and body. Declare, that God will finish what He has started. Declare, that He who has begun a good work in you; is faithful to complete it. God isn't finished with you yet! Begin to shout for Joy that Jesus has set you free! For remember, He Whom the Son has set free; is free indeed. You are not your father. You are not your mother. You are you. God already knows the path you will take. He knows where this is going. Nothing ever surprises Him. You are not too far gone for God to love you. You are enough. Say that right now with me:

I am enough through Christ. I matter. I am loved. I am accepted. I am accepted by the Beloved. That can be you today. You can be happy and confident through Jesus. You have nothing to lose! There's freedom in Christ.

Wherever you find yourself right now, remember this; you are never too far gone for God to love you. Right now, you can feel the Holy Spirit reaching out to you. He is drawing you closer to His side. Despite what anyone has ever told you. You are a leader. You stand out. You Shine. Let go of all of the negative words that have ever been spoken over you. All those negative voices have to leave right now in the Matchless Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth! Begin to inquire of the Lord God Almighty- what are His Dreams for your life. Design a vision board. Pick up a Journal. Begin penning down what the Holy Spirit impresses upon your heart. There is so much that Jesus wants to speak to you. You are Jesus Beloved Child. You are His Son. You are His Daughter. He loves you and wants to spend time with you.

Spending time with Jesus and reading God's Word is what got me through high school and some of the most trying times of my life. When my high school friends abandoned me; I clung to Jesus. When my world seemed shattered; I forgave and I set my sights on Jesus. He reminded me that those hard times were temporary and wouldn't last forever. When I could have turned away from God; instead, I gave God everything. Even in the difficult moments, when life didn't make sense-Jesus was still there. There have been beautiful moments in my life too. The young people and adults I've mentored throughout the years. I have seen countless precious people be completely transformed in the Presence of God. There's one thing I know for certain. God has always been there for me; no matter what. He's there for you too!

I pray this book finds you feeling stronger in your faith and in knowing that God will never your side no matter what. No matter the length of this book, it is my heartfelt prayer that you are already better because of reading it. Wherever you find yourself, remember this:

You're an inspiration to many. God has placed within you indescribable giftings and talents. You're more loved than you possibly can ever imagine. Ephesians 3:20. Now, Go and change your world for Christ!

Everyday, let a smile rest on your face as you remember God's Goodness and Faithfulness each and every day! Your journey is as unique as you are. Your entire life tells a story. What are you doing with it? It's never too late to make an impact on someone. Share with others how much Jesus loves them. I encourage you guys to bring a smile to someone's face today. Ask God to show you the gold in someone- meaning: bring out the best in others. Be the reason somebody is alive today. You are making a difference whether you realize it or not. Pray for everyone. Love everyone just as Jesus first loved you.

God is healing your heart right now. Those painful ashes of deep pain are being washed away by Jesus Blood. Hold your head up today. Love yourself. Instead of seeing yourself as being unworthy or unloved, you're a beloved Son of God and you're a beloved daughter of God is transforming your pauper mindset. Into one of royalty. God is removing your spiritual rags and is beautifully replacing them with elegant ballroom clothes. The finest tuxedo and the most extravagant ball gown. Exquisite with cascading diamonds and other flawless jewels & gemstones. My dear friends, that is how God sees you. And I'l say it again: You are all royalty in Christ. You have just to believe it. When you start viewing others through the heart of Jesus and from the perspective of Heaven: you begin to see them through His Eyes. That's the Beauty of having a heart of God for others. You begin to cry out for them. What a precious gift it is to get to pour into others through prayer and building them up.

You are leaving behind a powerful legacy for God that will impact countless souls for eternity. This is my journey and I'm so so blessed to include you guys in it! There are some pretty amazing people who have always been there for me and their prayers&encouragement are a huge reason why I'm alive today. They have poured into me . They have prayed with me and for me. They have encouraged me. They have built me up when I've been down. I want to say a huge thanks:

First to God-Thank you for always being there.

To my Dad Michael Farnam-I love you so much. Thank you for always having my back.

To my Husband Michael Wolf-You're my best friend, my lover, and my rock.

To My Camp Girls-you are all amazing! I love and pray for you gals daily!

To all those I've impacted over the years-I've never stopped praying for you or ever stopped believing in you!

To Carrie Park Sears-You're one of my best friends, my precious sister in Christ. Thank you for building me up when I've need it most. Let's not forget all the ugly laughter and ugly crying.

To Kelc- for being one of my besties and praying for both of our spouses-many hours of prayer and tears!

To Tisha-To such an amazing sister in Christ, and one of my very best friends, to a fellow infj. So many prayers.

To Kathy-Thank you for being my amazing friend and constant inspiration/role model

To Alyson-I’m so thankful that you’re one of my best friends. Jesus has truly given you a heart of gold. Life can definitely bring many challenges; but we’ve also seen amazing blessings along the way. I’m so proud of who you are

And a many thanks to so many

My final thoughts:

Never let the world diminish your light. Show them Jesus. I'd never be where I am today without Jesus.

Thanks for reading!

-Jessica Wolf