#trying to think of every tag in case people want it blocked

[i-am-become-a-name]

Wake up babe, it's 2 am and the new gally war room cover dropped

[our-lady-of-mcr]

yet again wondering when ill realize that certain people do not change and are always going to try to fuck me up ):

[felibrary]

╭──╯PAIRING: aventurine x fem!reader

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS:  Out of everyone this could’ve happened to, of course, it struck you. As a barista, you meet new customers every day but a fateful encounter with a stupid(ly handsome) stranger, turns into two and three and to the point of no return, and somewhere along the way catching yourself faltering for his persistent charms annoyance.

WORDCOUNT: 4.2k

CONTENT & GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, barista!reader, cursing, light angst if you squint, fluff, march is the n1 shipper, vague mentions of ratio, banter and bickering (more from readers side), no beta-read we die like baiheng

AUTHOR'S NOTE: the last chapter was posted like 2 weeks ago? i think not sure. sorry guys i just had no motivation in the previous few weeks at all 😭😭 but here it is, enjoy! also just cause this took super long to write doesn't equal it being super good 😓

ART CREDITS: none of the characters or art belong to me all art credits go to @/kkuekkue on x!

TAGLIST: @azullumi,@sunananaa, @milksnake-tea, @iceunhie, @nayukiyukihira, @jjzlisu, @raideneiari (if you want to be added to the tag list write a comment or send me an off anon ask! ^^)

PREVIOUS || MASTERLIST || NEXT

“Order for uh.” you abruptly stop your sentence. Furrowing your brow in confusion you look at the questionable name that is written on the paper cup that you’re currently holding in your hand. Your gaze drifts over to the barista behind you. “March..” you whisper through gritted teeth, trying to maintain a smile while pausing for a brief moment to study the face of the girl with the cotton candy-like hair. 

The short girl hums quietly, “What is it?” she tilts her head to the side, a milk-frothing pitcher in her right hand, almost empty. “And why are we whispering?” admittedly you’re not even sure yourself, after all, people come up with silly names all the time, so why are you refraining from saying this name out loud?

“Well, I'm whispering because I don't want the other customers to listen into our conversation, but, are you sure that you wrote the right name here?” you ask the girl behind you doubtfully before directing your view towards the letters that were written in cursive and were adorned by little stars and flowers drawn by none other than March. 

The '*•.¸♡𝓐𝓿𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓮 ♡¸.•*' which she wrote in cursive (and if you may add, kind of crooked) made you raise your eyebrows as you held the cup in front of her face for her to see.

She always had a habit of drawing cute smiley faces or hearts onto the cups, reasoning it by saying that it’d sweeten the customers' day. Although you’re not sure if that’s really necessary, their day probably already gets sweetened enough from the amount of sugar and sweetener March puts into the drinks.

She huffs, feigning hurt and acting offended by your question “If you want to suspect someone, blame her!” March’s eyes drift over to the silver-haired girl who is currently sitting next to the trash can near the staff rooms, playing video games and thus blocking the way: Stelle. 

The girl in question quickly lifts her head and just smiles sheepishly as if not knowing what’s going on right now. “She’s the one who gave me the receipts and told me the names before you took over, I just added the condiments and started creating cute latte art!.” you sigh at that. Well, whoever gave Stelle their name will probably be able to recognize it sooner or later anyway. 

The worst case scenario that could probably happen is the customer putting their hands on the counter and starting to scream and yell at you to the point where their spit lands in your eyes. Urging to talk to your manager: Pompom. If the customer would see them the customer would probably start scolding you for bringing out the mascot instead of the manager, leaving the shop and giving you zero stars on Maps. (definitely not talking from any former experiences.) Yeah, hopefully, that won’t happen.

You let out a throaty cough before loudly shouting once again “Order for Aventurine!” you really wonder whose mom named their kid after a quartzite stone now — hell, if you let your guard down, the next person who you’d have to call up is someone named Ashleigh or Jonaslian. 

What’s up with women who are only maybe one or two decades older than, and their obsession with horrible baby names?

“Hellooo” the o of the greeting gets dragged out by the owner of the sing-song voice. “Earth to the cashier.” The next thing you know is a hand that is covered in a black leather glove,  waving at your face, moving in a repetitive up-and-down motion. The gesture makes you snap out of the haze which you were in, and slightly shake your head, before looking up at the customer and getting a good glance at them.  

In front of you stood possibly the hottest man you’ve ever seen. Blond silky hair and was dressed in a crisp black waistcoat that was draped around his slim torso, wearing a turquoise button-up underneath it that was adorned with gold decorations around his collar. His tie that matched his waistcoat was adjusted perfectly so that it sat in the right place. Black leather gloves envelop his slender fingers. 

The last time you were enamored by someone was when you were 9 reaching 10, and seeing Asami Sato bumping into Mako with her motorcycle on TV for the first time made you fall head over heels in love with her. That woman had younger you in a chokehold.

You feel your body tensing and heating up slightly. Fuck, has it always been this warm here? Your eyes sway over to the air conditioner behind you. No, that can't possibly be it, you made sure that the A/C was on the highest level before opening the cafe. 

The blond in front of you raises his eyebrow and looks at you expectantly, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips as his eyes shift over your face as if studying your expression. There’s amusement that settles onto his face — smugness would be the best word to describe it.

 Shit, there was no way he found out that you were fawning over him.

“Take a picture. It lasts longer sweetheart.” he shoots you a small wink and you’re not sure whether to feel impressed or horrified at the fact that he was able to read you as easily as an open book where the most important words are already highlighted in a bold colour. 

So you remain silent — speechless, to be precise. There’s a familiar feeling bubbling up in your chest, one that makes you all giddy and nervous. How can someone whom you never met enarmour you so much? It’s weird, but it’s weirder that it feels all too familiar. Suspicion arises within you.

“Hmm?” Aventurine — or whatever his name may be, tilts his head to the side, a questioning and innocent expression manifesting on his face that it almost makes him look like a young boy who still has to grasp the concepts of the many fundamentals of the world.

“Spacing out already? Am I that handsome?” Yeah, keyword: almost.

It takes a second to compose yourself again before speaking up again. “Yeah.” Your eyes form into crescent moons as you give him a small faux smile (how March likes to call it: your customer service smile) before your face contorts into an expression of unpleasantness “No, in your dreams Mister. Also please hurry up, you’re holding up the line.” You point behind him and he angles his head backwards to see..no one?

“There’s no one there.” This time it’s him who looks unimpressed, a deadpan expression gracing over his features and you do have to admit that he looks kind of cute with that expression. Oh god, what were you thinking? “You know you’ll have to do better than try to tri-”

Before he can even finish his sentence you quickly cut him off. “With cash or with card?” Your customer service smile from before finds its way onto your face once more. “Miss, you’re so cruel! You didn’t even let me fini-” “I repeat. With cash or with card?” 

Your patience was running thin. Lucky for him he’s somewhat respectful and cute while bothering you and not going on your nerves. If he were some weirdo, you would’ve scurried away already. People like him (unfortunately) remind you that pretty privilege does exist. 

His gloved hand dives into the depths of the pockets of his slacks before pulling out a leather wallet and revealing a black card. Oh great, a rich guy. “With card.” he sighs dramatically. Do all rich people behave like this? “Sir, this is a café not an acting audition for some teenage romance drama.” You’re not sure what to think of this guy, on one hand, his attempts are cute on the other it’s kind of weird that he’s flirting with a cashier whom he met 5 minutes ago. “Just.” You hesitate before speaking up again. “Just type your PIN in here and you’re done.” He nods and continues to do so which the small sound the machine makes confirms. 

At that, you give him a small nod as a gesture of thankfulness, before attempting to kick him out again. “Great, thank you. Now please go and I wish you a good day.” 

“But how am I supposed to have a good day without yo-”

“You’ll live.” you wave him goodbye and that leaves him with no other choice but to step back and leave. 

Maybe you’re hallucinating and maybe you’re just imagining it but before he leaves he gives you a small smile. The soft and charming glow that emanates from his eyes resonates well with the dusking sun as if they were reflecting the last golden rays of sunshine before they were to be engulfed by the warm hues of the sky and later on painted black like the night. An inexplicable feeling rises in your chest as he bids you goodbye, wishing you a nice day.

“Oh he so has a massive crush on you.” you shudder upon hearing March’s voice. Her words ring in your ears like Christmas bells chiming during the holiday season. Loud and obnoxious. You try to drain the thoughts away but how can you when the source who started it all is right behind you? Continuously gushing about how that handsome stranger must have an enormous crush on you.

“The group chat has to know about this!” March enthusiastically squeals and quickly fishes her phone out of her pockets. Before you’re even able to realize what is bound to happen let alone prevent her from aggressively typing on her phone, she’s already sent the first message. 

At that you can only bury your face into the palms of your hand, face sinking into your hands in embarrassment. As much as you love March, it sometimes feels like she’s the oldest of the group and not Mr. Yang. Not in terms of matureness and wiseness, no more like in the sense of the kind of mom who has to share each and every one of her baby’s accomplishments online, but not as bad though, of course. Still.

“I hate you,” you complain, words muffled by the palms of your hands.

“I love you too.” she quips cheerfully, a smirk on her lips.

Safe to say March was in charge of cleaning and tidying up the café for the whole shift.

“Aww the handsome guy from yesterday isn’t here today.” March coos into your ear, a frown is displayed on her lips. She frowns, but you can see the hints of playfulness that linger in her expression. “Put on such a nice show yesterday only to chicken out. Booo, lameeee.” March rolls her eyes in amusement, giggling while doing so. 

Although you didn’t want to agree with what March had to say, she’s somewhat right. You full-heartedly believed that he’d visit again today after the move he pulled off yesterday or perhaps you wanted him to visit him again. 

You quickly shook your head at that thought, brushing the idea of someone paying you a visit at work off to humor you a bit. There was absolutely no way you wanted to see him again. 

“It’s early in the morning and you’re trying to shake the dandruff out of your hair already?” “Not funny Mar-” There was no fucking way.

If this wasn’t a deja vu, you don’t know either. It’s almost as if the interaction of yesterday was replaying right in front of your eyes and once again catching you off guard.

“You know it’s not polite to blatantly stare at people right?” he spoke with a chuckle as he observed your irritated face. “Frowning like that will make you gain wrinkles.” The twitching on your right eye doesn’t go unnoticed by him and he can only chuckle at that, seemingly amused by your morning misery. 

“What are you doing here.” you can only mutter a single question out, dumbfounded by him appearing in front of you once again. “Hm, am I not allowed to come by? I mean, everything’s quite affordable in here and this place isn’t far away from my workplace either sooo.” 

Well, you can’t judge him for that. “Then, what do you want?” with a sigh you pluck one of the sticky notes of the block of colorful sticky notes, ready to write his order and name down. “Someone’s in a bad mood.” he chirps. A blank stare is the only thing you provide him as an answer and at that, he can only chuckle, it’s obvious that he’s enjoying this. “An Iced Americano would be nice. Thanks.” 

“Mhmm, noted.” you quickly scribbled his order down onto the quadratic paper before shouting March’s name over your shoulder. “Can you come here to keep our dear customer company? I’ll prepare his drink in the meantime.” you shoot Aventurine a heavy side-eye before darting your gaze back to March. The girl only giggles in response before happily skipping over to the counter. 

“Aww, do you want to extra prepare my drink?” upon hearing his remark you turn around. Meeting a pair of pink eyes which were covered behind long blond lashes, scanning your figure from a close distance. 

Nervosity crawls at your skin as you feel yourself getting watched by him. It’s weird — screw that, he’s weird. 

“Close!” a giggle accompanies your words. “Actually, I just really wanna get away from you. Have fun with him March.” scoffing, you turn around again.

It didn’t take you long to prepare his order, filling a cup with ice cubes and pouring some shots of espresso over them was a piece of cake. “Here” You hand him his drink and he nods in contentment before handing you a few coins, a cheeky grin appears on his face and you can see the amusement glimmering in his pink eyes. “See you tomorrow” he chuckles and upon that March nudges your side, which in response you can only give her an exasperated groan. 

“Yep. Head over heels in love.” she quips as soon as Aventurine is out of sight, and you have to fight the urge to slam your forehead against the counter.

Your third encounter with Aventurine occurred on a fairly rainy day. With sluggish movements and wet clothes, soaked from head to toe he slumped over to the counter and grinning as soon as he saw you. 

“Hey.” it takes you a moment to process the situation and reluctantly you reply. “Hey.” Your eyes scan over his figure, his white dress shirt is completely translucent now and you can’t help but let your eyes drift to the tattoo on his neck, down to his collarbone which is visibly poking out, and his slim waist, ribs only covered by a thin layer of pale skin.   

Aventurine seems to catch on pretty quickly and wraps himself into his blazer, seemingly uncomfortable by the way you’re looking at him.

You quickly gather your words, and voice an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shamelessly stare, that was rude again, I’m so sor-” “It’s fine.” Aventurine interrupts, cutting your apology curt while huffing out a tired sigh. The exasperation that resides in his voice implies that he obviously doesn’t want to dwell on this topic any further.  

A meek nod is the only response you’re able to give. “Can I just get the same thing I’ve had last time? Thanks.” he pulls out his card, ready to pay for his order. 

“Really? An Iced Americano during this weather?” you let out a small chuckle with which you’re trying to lighten up the tense atmosphere that built up between the two of you. 

At the sound of your light laughter, Aventurine’s eyes flicker over your face. “You remember my order?” he asks dumbfounded.

“Well yeah, no one besides teenage girls order an Iced Americano.” you joke, the usual sarcasm back in your voice. It quenches his former uneasiness, your light-hearted words soothing him like a cool steam dripping into his parched heart.

The corners of his lips twitch and he can’t help but smile. “Oh, shut up.” His signature smirk graces his lips and upon catching sight of it you can’t help but also let out a fond smile. 

“Will.. a freshly black brewed coffee do?” you’re careful when asking him. Nervousness crawls at your skin in anticipation. 

“Black coffee?” he hums. “Yeah, that should work. Thanks.” the reassuring smile he gives you makes your tense shoulder drop in relief, easing the worry that previously swam in your stomach.

You disappear into the kitchen, searching for the container that stores the coffee beans to prepare his drink, in the meantime, Aventurine quickly types into his phone before erasing the words as fast as he wrote them.

The fresh scent of coffee beans engulfs your nose and you can’t help but smile. Freshly brewed coffee always reminds you of home; someone in whose arms you can bury yourself in, nudging your nose into their chest as they cage you with their arms, softly embracing you. The rattling of a coffee machine in the background rings in your ears, but the only thing you can focus on is a voice that softly caresses the shell of your ear. 

Domesticity washes over you — it’s all too familiar. 

Aventurine’s drink is prepared in no time and you set it on the counter which makes him look up from his phone, giving you a weak smile before wrapping his hand around the drink. It’s still hot to touch, the warmth spreading over his hand in an instant like wildfire, it’s nice — the feeling of warmth enveloping his cold hand is nice. 

“Well, I’ll get going now.” his announcement catches you off guard, and impulsively you reach out to tug on his sleeve to prevent him from leaving. The action leaves both you and Aventurine surprised. Curious, the blond raises an eyebrow and grins (oh how much you want to wipe that stupid grin off his face), expectantly awaiting your next move.

“Sorry.” you cough apologetically before quickly letting go of his semi-dried sleeve. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea to go out again when it’s still raining. If I were you I’d just wait until the rain stops.” Upon hearing your sincere suggestion, Aventurine’s grin falters and instead slowly molds into a fond smile that makes you inexplicably warm.  

“Aww, don’t tell me you're worried that I might catch a cold?” You counter his playful remark with one of your own. “Well, yeah. Who else is supposed to give me a generous tip?” At that Aventurine can only laugh and the smile you’ve been trying to hold back escapes. 

“Touché.”

From there on visits from Aventurine became frequent, always coming during your shift or during your break to chatter with you about mindless topics. You got used to his visits, and even when you gave off the impression of showing no interest in his ramblings, you always lent him an ear, carefully listening to what he had to say about his pets or his grumpy friend. 

(He told you that the both of you resemble each other in some way, aloof on the outside but caring on the inside. In response, you shot him a big side eye, cause what does he mean by aloof?)

The small conversations exchanged between the two of you, ranged between topics of the latest spots that have just opened, to operas and musicals and eventually work. 

His work to be specific.

Curiosity got the better of you and you couldn’t help but ask: “Aventurine.” upon hearing his name sliding off your tongue, he hums in acknowledgment. “What is it?” you scan his attire, the material of his black blazer is slightly crumpled and the turquoise button-up he’s wearing underneath seems to be the same one as the one when you first met him.

“What the hell do you even work as? I mean what kind of job requires you to wear a new suit every day?” befuddlement manifests on your face. “Ah, well.” Aventurine hesitates for a moment, mouth slightly agape before closing it once again as if searching for the right words to say. “I’ve told you that I work here right down the street right? I’m a teaching assistant at St. Freya University for my friend.” he gives you a small and coy smile. 

“Oh, that prestigious university for rich kids?” at that Aventurine slightly raises his eyebrows as if surprised by your remark before quietly laughing. “Mhm, I suppose you could say so.” “I should’ve known that you taught there, I bet you also went there for university.” It’s only a joking remark you made upon impulse but the amusement on Aventurine’s face slightly dissipates, replaced with a sheepish expression.  

“I didn’t go to university.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What do you mean you didn’t go to university? I mean as teaching a-” “I-i started working from a very early age on and not as a teaching assistant it’s only a job for me to help my friend with.” he quickly corrects himself. “Oh.” “Yeah.” he hums, looking away. 

The silence is unbearable. It’s weird and unusual for you to not hear Aventurine chatter into your ear. “So uhm.. what do you teach or help with?” the embarrassment quickly rises to your cheeks and you turn your head downwards to avoid any eye contact. God, why’s initiating a conversation so hard and always fucking awkward.

“Interested in joining? Want me to sign you up?” you’re relieved upon hearing Aventurine immediately responding, lifting your head only to be met with soft pink eyes that are already earnestly admiring you. 

Your deadpan expression tells him more than enough and he chuckles more to himself than to you. “Well, my friend, he has high expectations for his students. To some people, he might appear strict, but really, it’s for their own well-being — not his. He cares about his students a lot. Sharing his knowledge about certain topics and seeing the potential in all of them, for them to pick the information up and be able to use it. So the things he does in his classes differ, from practical to theoretical classes and I’m just there to assist with my knowledge.” the small smile that quirks at his lips doesn’t go unnoticed by you.

“Okay, okay, well enough about me, what about you? Any plans for the weekend?” Aventurine smoothly changes the topic. 

Upon being asked what your plans are your eyes immediately light up with excitement. “I’ve been meaning to visit the fair for a while now. Trying out the new rides and stuff you know?” Aventurine momentarily pauses. “Ah, I’ve actually never been to a fair.” his admission comes over as surprising to you. 

“Wait what? You’ve never been to a fair? You’re lying!” 

“I’m not! Or maybe I am.” he laughs. “Well, I might have gone to some but I can’t recall anything like that. Perhaps I was too short, too young, or too much of a pussy to try out one of the rides.” 

Before you can even think of how to respond to that, you blurt out a: “Go with me then!” You’re not even sure how you had the courage to ask that, especially to someone whom you’ve only met a month or hell a few weeks ago, you’re even less sure where that question even came from.

From what you can read off Aventurine’s face, he seems to be as equally surprised as you, mouth slightly agape and lips forming a smile as he stares at you with expectant eyes. 

“Really?” Disbelief settles onto his face.

“Thinking about it now, nope.” The light in Aventurine’s eyes immediately dies down, suddenly looking like a kicked puppy who didn’t get any belly rubs. It somehow makes you feel bad — somehow you sympathize with him. “..Fine.” you mumble. You can’t believe yourself. “Though there’s one condition: You’ll have to pay for everything.”

“Sure, no problem.” Aventurine agrees without any hesitation and that makes you skittish. “I was joking!” He gives you a boyish grin “Well, I know but it’s not like it’s a big deal either. Also, can this be considered a date?” he props his elbow up and places his cheek onto his balled fist, smirking while doing so.

“Aventurine,” you say in a stern voice. “Don’t make me change my mind.”

Your irritated eyes meet his fond ones. “I’m glad.” he expresses and you’re caught off guard by his sincere tone. There’s no teasing or playfulness behind it, just pure gratefulness. 

“Is it alright if I have your number? It’s easier to reach you then.” the smirk plastered on his face is enough to tell you what the actual intention behind his words is. 

“Admit it. You just want my number, don’t you?” you deadpan him.

“Hmm, who knows?” the grin on his face only grew wider, amused by the fact that you caught on so quickly.

Swiftly you fish out your phone from your pockets, unlocking it before showing him your phone number, and before you can even ask how he’s saved your number; which contact name he typed in for you, he pulls his phone away. Smiling in triumph upon seeing your irritated face.

He gets up from the chair he’s been sitting on for the past few minutes. “Well, your break is about to end soon, so I’ll take my leave.” your eyes follow him as he checks if he’s got everything. “See you tomorrow then:” he says in a playful tone before leaving. 

Yeah, you’re going to meet your demise, you just know it.

END NOTE: this is just idk man we're gonna progress more in the future chaps okay 😔

© VYNICITY 2024. stealing, copying, translating, reposting my works on other platforms or feeding them to ai is not permitted.

[infamous-if]

Dec ✮ 12 ✮ 2024 – update

Part of me hates doing these mostly because it's a whole lotta nothing and me just repeating everything I said the last update (lol) but I do like doing it because I like keeping people updated, even if it's a non-update. I may sound like a broken record (pun not intended) but I know a lot of people don't catch my updates every time so it's nice to just keep people informed yk yk

✮ — Part 2 + rewrite

Fun fact: I had written an entire essay about my excitement for the rewrite and chapter 3 and beyond but it got too long!

It boiled down to me wondering why I'm so excited for this rewrite and realizing it's because I feel comfortable enough to approach it with complete creative freedom. I wrote the first iteration of the demo with the constant worries swimming in my head like "I hope people understand what I'm trying to say here" and "I hope this situation is being read the way I intended for it to be read." And I think I sort of had those thoughts tenfold while writing Part 2. If you paid attention, you can probably see where I was trying to shut down certain discussions in the narrative lmao

Recently I had a tiny epiphany and reminded myself that it's not always about what I intend to write, but what is being understood by each reader. And yes this is basic writing 101 but let me have this moment of clarity okay. Embracing that means I can proceed with Infamous without holding back and sticking to my guns in regards to what I want for this story aka I'm just going to write what I write and like....not worry about the rest you feel (while of course integrating the common critiques and suggestions and improving on the things Infamous falls short in—I am not Shakespeare lmao)

ANYWAY my point is that I'm excited to fix up the demo !!! and just go back to it with complete confidence in myself and write whatever the heck feels right to me (and write the rest of the story lolol) and return with a better story than I have now for everyone!!

✮ — December will be for

planning what I'm going to improve and squeezing that in a reworked outline so it can flow much better narratively.

Outlining Chapter 3 and hopefully have the bare bones first draft drafted up which is mostly just be writing blocks of descriptions

I'm not sure I'll have anything substantial to justify looking for beta testers so soon yet but maybe!

work on my spice writing babey writing/reading spice makes me actually physically recoil but im determined to get better! which reminds me to finish the 6k follower gifts!

And also take a small breather because I am moving!

✮ — Patreon

I've already mentioned this on Patreon and a few times on here, but I do want to reiterate that Patreon content is coming out in bulk this month, in case anyone was wondering why I'm not posting as frequently. The content is still the same in terms of the quantity, it just won't be released every few days! thank you guys for being understanding of that <3

✮ —

My activity has is decreasing little by little due to my move but I do read every question and try to at least answer one question a day. I get quite a few mentions lately so I have to sort through those since I do get tagged in things, but I miss them due to my notifications. Usually I hope for the best and hope tracking the tag puts it on my dashboard <3 im not ignoring anyone!

That's all for now! Hope everyone has a happy December and Happy Holidays!

[hotvintagepoll]

Welcome to the HOT AND VINTAGE MOVIE STARS poll blog!

The Scrungly Little Guys (gender neutral) Contest will start THIS THURSDAY, September 26th. All contestants have now been processed and are ready to scrungle it up for your enjoyment. Reminder that this contest enshrines the weird, the off-putting, the comic, the character actor, and the strange cinema legend. If you need a reminder of what scrungle means, this picture is the golden standard.

All polls—including ongoing polls, previous rounds, old tournaments, the various shadow brackets, the Dracula Daily polls, and fun mini polls—can be found in the #hotvintagepoll tag. I am working on a more complete tagging system so people just here for the polls can navigate the blog more easily, but that's still in the works.

FAQs:

“Define scrungly?” For the purposes of this tournament, a contestant must noticeably present in some way as at least one of these: odd, bizarre, off-putting, disheveled, creeping, feral, small, filthy, silly, funny, kooky, comical, exhausted, or just plain strange. This contest presents a wide array of scrungly appeal, so not every contestant will hit every single one of these (but should, ideally, be a few of them). Scrungles were chosen based on how convincing their submitted propaganda was. This contest is all about oddball character actors, creeping henchmen, comic relief sidekicks—the side characters who never get the credit they deserve in proper rundowns of famous old movie actors.

"How do I decide who to vote for?" Vote on whoever seems scrungliest to you. Do not vote for someone based on hotness alone. The video propaganda, included under the cut, is highly encouraged for showcasing scrungles.

"Is this just like the hotness tournaments?" No. This contest is sillier.

"Hey! Some of these guys sucked and they shouldn't be here!" Yes, some of these guys sucked. I agree with you. For reasons I've gone into before, I don't exclude anyone from the contest for moral reasons, even if I personally think they were garbage. I do this because I cannot responsibly research and vet every competitor's background and legacy, and I'm not comfortable being the moral barometer for everyone, even in cases where I think it's really obvious. You are welcome to vote against people for moral reasons, but as mod I don’t post or boost negative propaganda about anyone.

If I see repetitive, trolling, or bigoted remarks in the comments, I will block you from this bracket. If you want to point out a competitor’s problematic aspects in the replies, that’s fine, but if I see bad-faith trolling, you will be blocked. I will also block if you start harassing other people voting on the polls. If you really hate that someone is winning, please post positive propaganda for their opponent instead.

I welcome additional propaganda for the scrungly little guys in reblogs or asks. I boost the best propaganda I see and try to boost equally for everyone. I don't accept propaganda that’s post-1970 or from non-film appearances. When sending your propaganda, please don't send me too many pics or videos at once (I max out at about four per ask.)

The views expressed in the propaganda are not my own. I don’t alter submissions beyond fixing obvious spelling mistakes. I do choose the poll pics, purposely trying to pick the silliest ones possible for this contest; if you think I could do even sillier, send me one I can use instead. If you think a contestant needs more propaganda, send me an ask with some and let me know if you'd like it added to the poll post if they make it to the next round.

“Who won the major hottie tournaments?” Eartha Kitt and Toshiro Mifune are the reigning hotness champions. They are both living it up by the pool in the sunshine, as far from the shadow realm as possible.

“The....the shadow realm?” All hotties who fail to continue in a hotness tournament are sent to the shadow realm, far below the crust of the earth where the sun never shines, a dark and dismal and gloomy place. (Boris Karloff keeps making everyone try his sherry-based guacamole.)

“Was [this famous person] submitted to any of the tournaments?” Try a tag search for them (ie, [#famous person name] in my search bar). If you still haven’t found your hottie, they either did not fit the criteria of working in movies from 1910-1970, weren't convincingly scrungly in their submission, or were not submitted at all.

“My FAQ isn’t on here :(” send me an ask! I love hearing from you guys—just please check these basics first.

Thank you for being here! Enjoy the polls.

Tournament schedule post-hiatus:

Ongoing: Dracula Daily casting polls

Starting September 26th: Scrungly Little Guys contest (gender neutral)

After that: Ultimate Hottie Tournament (top brackets of the hot men & hot women competing together)

TBD: Hottest On-Screen Couples (Astaire and Rogers, Bogie and Bacall, etc)

TBD: Horror Hotties (Frankensteins, Draculas, Brides, etc.)

TBD: Dandy Detectives (Marples, Sherlocks, Nancy Drews, etc.)

fun mini polls that pit sets of characters from the same movie together, like the Philadelphia Story or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ones (these can be found in the #minis tag)

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part thirty

summary: you were back in the capitol, and you would be damned if you didn't try your hardest to make it worthwhile.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 3.4k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, depictions of mental illness, also she's is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: guys i've been listening to this playlist again and it actually still tears me apart every time i think ab them. anyway lol enjoy!!

my asks are also open to talk about this series! (i do have emoji anons open now too!)

send me any and all of your thoughts! here!

series masterlist // playlist

Coryo hadn't seen you in a while, he thought you would be back after going to get water but you never returned. He could only bear Livia and Festus for so long before he couldn't take it anymore, leaving to go look for you.

He's scanning the room for your white dress and your angel wings, the telltale tones of your hair, or any other sign of you when Sejanus walks up, standing next to him. "Looking for your girlfriend?" He asks, leaning close to him to make sure he could be heard in the loud room.

"Do you know where she is?" Coryo asks, not giving him another look.

"Yep." Sejanus nods, lips pressed together in a thin line. "She's in my bedroom bawling her eyes out."

Coryo's head swivels to look at him, eyes wide. "What? What happened?" He frowns, not waiting for Sejanus to answer before he begins striding toward the stairs. "Did someone say something to her?"

"Yeah, you did, actually." Sejanus replies as he follows after him, the bitterness in his tone suddenly obvious to his friend as he stops in his tracks.

"What? No, I-" Coryo stammers, looking down at your friend as he steps in front of him to block his path. "What... what did I do? Did she tell you?"

"Lyssie came and found me, and I went to talk to her. The gist of it is that she's suddenly realizing how you're embarrassed of her."

"What?" Coryo asks again, his anger and confusion shifting into sadness as his eyes soften.

Sejanus shrugs a bit. "That's just what I was told."

"No," Coryo insists. "That's not... That's not what it is, not at all."

"Isn't it?" Your friend asks, raising an eyebrow at him. "That you won't tell anyone, that you're keeping her a secret? That you told people she's nothing more than your tribute? After all this time? I can't think of another reason you would treat her like this."

"Of course you can't!" Coryo spits, anger suddenly returning. "You're so caught up in your rebellious bullshit that you can't think ahead, can you? Sejanus- if anyone finds out they'll crucify her! They'll do the same to me! Our lives will be ruined if that gets out at the wrong time!"

Sejanus rolls his eyes. "Her life, or yours?" He asks. "She'll be sent home. Everyone loves her too much to kill her. The worst case scenario for her is that she gets sent home to live her life as normal- with her family and friends. Happy, back in Twelve. The worst for you is that you'd have to decide whether or not you love her enough to go with her."

Coryo opens his mouth to speak, but quickly closes it when he finds he doesn't have an adequate response.

"You're taking every extra effort to turn her into everything you are. Forcing her to become me- a District kid who had to leave their life behind for nothing more than the money just so you can have her without people looking at you funny, but have you ever asked her what she actually wants? I didn't have a choice, but Y/N does. You just won't give it to her."

He has never seen Sejanus this angry before.

"You know she had to leave. She didn't have a choice." Coryo says through gritted teeth.

Sejanus shakes his head, laughing dryly. "It's not about that, Coriolanus. That didn't mean she had to pack up her life and never return- she never needed to change who she was, but look at her! She's doing everything she can to fit in with you and your life!"

"I did what we had to do because you never can! You only ever think of yourself! The world doesn't work the way you want it to, and you can't stand it. I get that, but we want the same thing. I just know how to get it. She needs people to listen to her- so we can actually stop the games, do you think they'll listen to her if she doesn't play pretend for a while?"

Sejanus huffs in frustration. "If you're not going to listen to me, fine, but don't do this to her." He shakes his head. "At the very least you could have explained why you were lying to her."

"I've never lied to her!" Her answers impulsively- he's sure he has, but not with the intention to hurt you. Never to hurt you. "Look at what happened when she found out, huh?" Coryo gestures vaguely up the hall. "I'm just trying to protect her. That's all I care about! That's it!"

"If you had just told her that from the beginning she wouldn't be hurting like this. You know that, Coryo."

"Okay, and I'm going to explain right now. So leave me alone." He grumbles, moving to push past Sejanus, who quickly stops him, giving him a knowing look.

"Sejanus, get out of my way."

"No," Sejanus states. "Because you're not the only one who cares about her, and right now, I'm the one protecting her."

Coryo grits his teeth together, breathing heavily as he looks at your friend in the quiet hall, music echoing from seemingly everywhere else in the house. He hates considering that Sejanus could be right.

There's a warm breeze that's serving to keep you cool while you walk through the market, dripping wet from head to toe. Your hair is clinging to the skin of your neck and back, allowing you some freedom from the heat as you hold onto Coryo's hand.

With your clothes soaked and stuck to your skin, you could at least convince yourself that was why people were staring.

"So, how often do you do this?" Coryo asks, unable to help but to laugh as he looks down at you.

"Only during a heat wave." You shrug, already scanning the street for the shops you needed to stop at. You had offered to pick up groceries for your Ma, considering the heat and the walk would have made it difficult. At least you could make it fun, and you would have some company.

"Makes sense." He chuckles. He had to admit, the dampness of his clothes was helpful in keeping him cool. It almost made up for the lack of air conditioning in the District.

"The goal is to get home before we dry off." You explain. "Lennox and I play this game sometimes."

Before he can reply, you're dropping his hand and walking over to one of the stalls.

"Y/N, it's been a while." The woman working states, smiling at you somewhat nervously.

"Yes, well, I'm back to business as usual now." You smile, pulling the empty glass bottle from the bag at your side and holding it out to her. "Or at least tryin' my very best."

"I can see that." She chuckles, shaking her head as she takes the bottle. "No Lennox today?" She asks, preparing to fill it up with milk.

"No ma'am." You smile, shaking your head and digging in your pocket for the change you brought and placing it in front of her on the table. "He's off getting into some kind of trouble, I'm sure."

"Take good care of him, will ya? He's a good kid." She hands the now full bottle back to you with a sealed cap.

"Yes, ma'am." You nod, tucking it back into your bag. "Thank you."

She nods at you and you're on your way down again, Coryo allowing you to pull him along as you grab his hand.

You go stall to stall, picking up everything your mother asked for as your shoulder bag steadily fills and Coryo takes it from you to carry instead. He was much stronger now than he was when you first met him- the Plinth Prize had fed him well in every sense of the word.

You look up as you near the end of the street, surrounded by locals who are talking and shouting all the same. The market on a Saturday always was busy, and today was no exception.

"What is it?" Coryo asks, looking at you as you freeze in the street and a smile steadily grows on your face.

"Listen." You tell him, tuning in on the steady clapping coming from the end of the street. When he puts in a little bit of focus, he can just make out the music.

By the time he does, you're grabbing his hand again and pulling him toward the source of the familiar sounds.

The crowd parts around you when you get close enough, and by now Coryo recognizes the band playing as the Covey. There are people dancing in the street despite the heat, sweating and laughing and having fun. It takes a moment for him to notice you being pulled away by little Maude Ivory, who had set down her hip drum to come dance with you.

The smile on your face was simply unmatched, lighting up the shadows cast by the buildings where the sun couldn't quite reach. You hardly even seem to notice when the people dancing around you cleared away, and it was now just you and the little girl who Coryo speculates didn't even know where you had disappeared to for most of July.

You come to a slow stop as you look around, your smile fading as the music continues.

"Thinkin' you're so fine, thinkin' you could have mine..."

Coryo couldn't just watch this. He was far from a dancer himself, but he'd be damned if he let a bunch of idiots dampen your mood because of something you couldn't control.

"Thinkin' you're in control, thinkin' you'll change me, maybe rearrange me,"

You hardly hear your favourite part of the song you loved as you're focussed on Coryo taking the spot of Maude Ivory who's carrying your bag of shopping and placing it down next to their instrument cases and picking her drum back up.

"Think again if that's your goal!"

The extent of Coryo's dance experience was limited to ballroom, and that showed as he quickly raised your hand to spin you. The sunshine smile that finds its way back onto your face while you twirl around under his hand makes his fears of being a bad dancer disappear in an instant, and others must be feeling the same way as the crowd begins to clap and cheer for the two of you.

It was only another beat before others were dancing again, and someone had taken the liberty of breaking a nearby fire hydrant to spray everyone on the street. Now, your clothes were freshly wet and you didn't stand out so much anymore as Coriolanus took a hold of your waist and dipped you just as the music came to a halt.

He smiled as he looked down at you, frozen in the moment with your wet hair hanging down toward the street and your chest rising and falling quickly. Your eyes were closed, cheeks rosy and flushed, and Coriolanus Snow felt like he was on top of the world.

You wake up in Sejanus's bed in the morning, the satin dress that was part of your costume clinging uncomfortably to your skin under his blankets to accompany the horrible plague of sadness that didn't even give you a moment to breathe. Staring at the ceiling and processing your consciousness, you were disappointed with the memory that presented itself as a dream.

Disappointed in yourself for thinking you could have him, really have him, and foolish for thinking he was actually looking past where you were from. But you had made him a promise that was haunting you.

"Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love; and I'll no longer be a Capulet."

He would not give up who he was, but he claimed to love you. His stance was clear, and now it was your turn. Give up the District, or give up him.

When the buzzer rings signifying there is someone at the door in the afternoon, Coryo is flying to the receiver and praying it's you. "Hello?"

He's extremely disappointed when it's Sejanus Plinth's voice that he hears instead. "I'm here for the cat."

Coryo sighs, knocking the side of his fist against the wall as a quiet way to vent his frustration. "No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Sejanus spits, voice crackling through the speaker. "He's Y/N's cat-"

"I mean, no. I'm not giving you her cat. He lives here. She lives here. She'll come back." Coriolanus interrupts him, and he's met by deafening silence.

"Coryo-" He sighs, and the pity traveling with his tone up through the walls onto the twelfth floor is what sets him off.

"If she wants her damn cat she can come get him herself." The cat in question is purring and brushing up against his leg as he practically shouts into the wall, letting go of the button before scooping Tybalt up and walking back to his room.

He wasn't angry at you, he knew that much. He was angry at the world for forcing him to make the decisions he did- he was angry at Sejanus for not letting him speak to you last night, and more than anything, he was angry at himself.

Coriolanus Snow was never one to admit when he was feeling afraid. He had never been very good with feelings outside of the basics. He knew he loved Tigris, and now you, and he knew anger and frustration like the back of his hand, but fear- fear was a whole new beast. When it came to recognizing and acknowledging it, anyway.

When it came to you, you were everything to him. Since the moment Coryo first laid his eyes on you, you occupied every ounce of his thoughts. You and your astonishing mind, your body, your everything was like a chronic illness that he never wanted to be cured of, an illness that shamelessly followed him around- gnawing at any other area of his brain that wasn't you until you fully dominated his thoughts altogether. He had never craved anything more, no amount of power could ever make him as satisfied as he is when looking at you.

And that is what terrified him. That losing you meant so much more than losing his path to the presidency. As he places Tybalt on his bed and crawls back under the covers with your cat to rot in his own regrets, he realizes he doesn't give the slightest fuck about his future. Not if it doesn't include you.

So why had he done this at all?

You couldn't call home. You wanted to, you were supposed to, but you couldn't talk to your parents. Put on a smile and tell them everything is fine even when you were calling from the Plinth mansion and you hadn't been back at the Snow's in a day. God forbid this is the day Lennox decides to speak to you again- you couldn't lie to him, and he wouldn't be pleased.

When Sejanus comes back to the large homey mansion empty-handed, you couldn't say you were surprised.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. He's holding Tybs hostage." He tells you, attempting a lighthearted joke while he watches you clean up cups and decorations.

"That's alright." You reply quietly. "He's happy there, they're good friends."

"No, he's being childish. He can't leverage your cat against you."

"Well, it doesn't matter much. I will go back tonight." Sej's eyes go wide at your statement.

"You're kidding." Is all he can offer in response as you casually continue to take down decorations, piling them on the coffee table to dispose of all at once.

You shake your head, turning to look at him fully with a reassuring smile. "Yes, it is totally fine. I'll just help clean up before I go."

"No!" Your friend protests. "Are you not angry? He's been lying to you- he's embarrassed of us, is what it seems like to me. That's not fair to you. Not one bit, Y/N."

He had seen your pain last night. Felt it, even, and he knows that even a good night's sleep could not have solved that- but he also knew that you were a preacher of forgiveness and clung to it like a vice. You would forgive Coriolanus whether you really should or not.

"Never anger made good guard for itself."

"Y/N... Please." Sejanus replies, shaking his head at your saddened smile. "Stay here. Just for a couple of days. I am begging you to think about yourself and what you need for once."

You sigh, giving him a slight nod. If you were being totally honest, you did not want to go back yet. You just needed time.

It was such a relief to be able to finally relax, even if it was just for a few days. You lounged around in Sej's spare pyjamas, curled up in his Ma's library while she and her husband were back in District Two on some alleged business that your friend did not care to know much about. It was very much not your concern anyway.

The point of your couple days off was to not care about others, not care about the problems of the world and the mistakes you have made but instead to just enjoy the company of the books stacked high on shelves in the Plinth's mansion.

So far, a dusty book in surprisingly incredible condition had been keeping you company for the better part of the morning. Little Women. It was captivating- far from the love stories that typically drew your attention, but you couldn't tear your nose from between the pages.

You had to, eventually, when you heard your name being shouted by your best friend from downstairs. You tuck an envelope from the table next to you in between the pages and make your way down the long hall, already excited to tell him about what may very well be your new favourite book.

"Sej?" You call out, having lost track of where the voice had come from as you head for the front hall. You were aware he was leaving only to go pick up something for breakfast at a bakery he said was his favourite, one you had never been to, but that had been quite some time ago. As you walk toward the foyer assuming that's where you would find him, you guess there must have been a long lineup. "Sej, I have to tell you about the book I found!"

You couldn't keep your raving in as you round the corner, already flipping once more through the pages in preparation for citing to him some of your favourite parts while you ate breakfast.

You look up when you sense the shadow of more than one person at the door, expecting to see his parents, having returned early from their trip. Instead, your heart stops in your chest. It's Lennox. Rigid, nothing but a backpack slung over his shoulder as he stares at you. You hadn't heard from him in months, despite all your best efforts.

The book in your hand clatters to the floor and before you know it your arms are around your brother's neck, holding onto him for dear life. You hear his bag drop to the ground beside you before his arms are around your waist, firm as he pulls you as close as he possibly can.

"When I am from thee every place is distant..." You say into his shirt, gripping the back of it in your hands.

"I missed you too." Lennox mumbles.

"I'm sorry... I am so sorry." You tell him quietly and you feel him shake his head before he pulls back just to look at you.

"Don't you apologize to me." He says strictly. "Don't you dare." The tears pooling on his lash line make yours spill over again. "I'm sorry. I should be sorry."

You hug him again, and now it is your turn to shake your head. "Let's just agree to forgive each other so we can just be happy we're together..."

"Deal." He sniffs, patting your back before letting you go again to pick his bag up off the floor.

"What... what are you doing here?" You ask with a slight laugh, wiping your eyes quickly. "Howdid you get here?"

Your brother nods toward Sejanus, who you now realize was just forced to watch the whole exchange. "Sejanus called the house the other night." He explains. "Said you were havin' a real rough time, so I hopped on the freight car of the peacekeeper's train first thing in the morning."

Which means he would be here for the month- and immediately you couldn't be more relieved or excited.

"Thank you." You nod at him, turning now to give your best friend a hug. "Thank you for doing that..." You whisper and he nods, gently rubbing your back.

"Of course, Y/N/N."

taglist: @soulessjourney , @that-veela-girl ,  @dreamyysouls, @rockstarbfs, @maysileeewrites , @baybieruth , @kitscutie,  @fratboyharrysgf0201 , @totallynotkaibiased , @stelleduarte , @secretsicanthideanymore , @bejeweledreverie , @drewsandsebastianswife , @niicole-87 , @queenofshinigamis , @innercreationflower , @nallasstuff , @iovemoonyy , @thatmarvelchick19 , @wearemadeofstardust0 , @regulusblackcore , @puredreamagination , @fantasticchaosthing , @becauseseaotters , @secretsicanthideanymore , @cascadingbliss

okay suddenly tumblr isn't letting me tag more people than this so i just made some cuts unfortunately :') i just left the max amount of people i could whose users i recognized and see in my notifs all the time :) if you're not on here and you should be i'm so sorry!

also this taglist is closed now!! if you’d like to get a notification when i update, turn on my post notifications!! i promise i won’t spam y'all :,)

[lumiereswig]

I'm still seeing a lot of angry takes in the tags about how excessive Watcher's current costs are and how all fans really want, apparently, is "just shane and ryan sitting in a basement" back again. While I do think Watcher is probably spending over budget and that's a real issue, a lot of the takes I'm seeing show a fundamental misunderstanding of how video production works and where costs actually lie. So a few quick things that I just keep seeing that are bothering me:

It was never just Shane and Ryan in a basement. BFU did a great job selling that conceit and making sure you never saw anyone beyond them and maybe TJ, but they absolutely had other crew members with them on ghost hunts and they didn't do all the work on BFU themselves. This Q&A from Season 2 lists 36 people on staff for Buzzfeed Unsolved. It's fair to make arguments that Watcher may or may not need 25 people, but those arguments should not be coming from a place of "before it was just Shane and Ryan and nobody else."

If you don't know how many people are needed to make a professional video from a TV/film standpoint, you will not have a reasonable grasp of why Watcher wants to keep 25 people on staff. Sure, some YouTubers get by with a ring light and a contracted editor. The Watcher team have stated repeatedly that they do not want to work as just YouTubers and see themselves more as a production studio—so why do people keep referencing the YouTube model to understand their business? This is like asking the local shake shop why it doesn't function like the kids' lemonade stand down the block. The item category is similar but they're not trying for the same products or process.

The "gold dusted food" is not the big budget sink you think it is. On most TV shows I've worked on it's normal to partner with businesses that are shown onscreen and work out a deal where the price of the product (in this case the gold food) is reduced or eliminated in exchange for the free publicity. Watcher very likely made a deal with every restaurant it worked with to make the Korea trip affordable for the company. The real budget spends are on things you're probably not seeing but that still matter: camera and lighting equipment is expensive, insurance for that equipment is expensive, business overhead and paying your staff are expensive. So again—it's fine to critique Watcher for the streaming plan and the perceived budgetary issues, but go into this knowing the costs might not be coming from the things you see onscreen.

My source is that I work in TV and film and actually have a clue on how the industry functions. Again, 36 people worked on Unsolved (and those were the people mention in Season 2—who knows how big the team blew up past that in later seasons). Entertainment work is real work, and demands decent equipment, competent staff, and the same types of business and budget problems you'd find in any other business (overhead, staffing, etc.). Feel free to critique Watcher's business model, but first try to understand where that model is coming from and what goals it's attempting to serve.

[spacelazarwolf]

y’all i found it, i found the post that originated the claim that i’m a ZionistTM and it’s even more ridiculous than i expected.

—————————————

—————————

this is, of course, the same person who labeled me a MisogynistTM for making a half baked joke reblog basically saying “jewish standards of masculinity are different than white western standards of masculinity” then cited orthodox judaism, a community i’m not a part of, as why Actually The Jewish Community Is Horrifically Misogynistic And Bad (as if i haven’t faced misogyny from jewish cis men before???????)

anyway, my post in this screenshot didn’t once mention israel. it didn’t mention zionism. it was talking about antisemitism. i turned off reblogs because people were making it about zionism and israel, which was derailing my original point. i set a specific boundary and people kept crossing it, so i turned reblogs off and blocked people who wouldn’t leave it alone. absolutely nothing about that could possibly indicate that i’m a zionist unless you think that diaspora jews setting boundaries about being forced into a conversation about israel, especially one where we are essentially being blamed for the antisemitism we face because of the government of a country we don’t even live in and have no control over (there’s a phrase that, it’s called dual loyalty and it’s been getting jews killed for decades) or if you think simply talking about the history of antisemitism and current rising levels of antisemitism is somehow “zionist propaganda” in which case you might want to get your head out of your ass and question why you’re agreeing with literal nazis. also bonus points for this person literally just blatantly blaming jews in the tags for the rise in antisemitism because we’re apparently not being antizionist enough to deserve basic human decency and safety! not even trying to hide it anymore huh!

and of course it worked like a charm bc now, months later, you have people saying this:

“the jew is trying to disguise himself as one of you to trick you!!!!!! he is actually evil and trying to manipulate you to further his evil (((zionist))) plans!!!!!!!!!! beware!!!!!!!!!!!” which is literally just repackaged antisemitic tropes that are centuries old. i’ve never interacted with the person in this screenshot in my entire life, and yet they seem to think they have insider knowledge into my Evil Zionist Plans to infiltrate the community and spread Zionist Propaganda because they interacted with one gentile witch that threw a hissy fit about being told not to be antisemitic in discourse about gentiles appropriating lillith. this gentile decided that every single jew who disagreed with them was a zionist, and when i told them it was antisemitic as fuck to call any jew they disagree with a zionist they went on about me being a “raging zionist” and “faking being queer” for DAYS. so it’s not a mystery where the person in this screenshot got the “ooh scary (((zionist))) pretending to be queer and trans to spread his evil (((zionist))) propaganda” rhetoric from. it’s word-for-word from the gentile witch who was pissed about fucking LILLITH DISCOURSE.

bc the thing is, these ppl don’t actually care if i’m a zionist. if they did, they would be engaging with what i’ve said (which is practically nothing because i knew the second the word israel touched my blog that this would happen — which is why i didn’t want people going on and on about israel on a post about antisemitism). they know that labeling a jew a zionist is an immediate death sentence in progressive circles. they know it’s the easiest way to discredit a jew you don’t like. because it doesn’t matter how many times you say “no, i’m not” you will be forever tainted in the eyes of gentiles by that accusation. that’s why they made the accusation in the first place. and so i will continue to not share any of my thoughts or opinions other than “i’m pro palestinian liberation” and “i’m not a zionist” and people will ignore that to play yet another game of Zionist Telephone to target a jew they don’t like. it’s not the first time it’s happened, to me or in general, and it won’t be the last time. i just hope people seeing this and reading this will help people understand how fucked up and antisemitic it is.

so yeah. if you see accusations floating around that i’m a zionist, this is where it came from. a situation that is textbook dual loyalty, being punished for setting boundaries on my own blog, and people who hate trans men jumping at the chance to demonize one with one of the easiest tricks in the book as soon as they see he’s also jewish. the fact i keep having to address this when the origin of the rumor is literally just antisemitism should heavily inform how seriously you take random claims online that a jew is a zionist. most of the time it’s just blatant antisemitism, and very often it’s a way to silence an unrelated conversation that person was trying to have.

[foliosriot]

SCREAM

ghostface!noah sebastian x reader

WARNINGS!!

talk of death and murder. brief knife-play. vaginal fingering. p in v sex (wrap it before you tap it, my friends). pre-kink. fear-play i guess. non-con but becomes con. please let me know if i missed anything else! 18+ only MDNI or i’ll block you.

TAGS!!

@starsomens @cncohshit @concretenoah + everyone else who didn’t know they needed ghostface!noah in their lives hehe

AUTHOR’S NOTE!!

happy halloween, my fellow noah whores >:)

masterlist

You will admit: the recent string of murders have had your guts twisted with fear and anxiety. Because what if it’s someone you know next? What if it’s one of your friends? What if it’s you?

It has been terrifying just trying to exist the past week and a half. Three people were already dead, and who knows when the next person would be found mutilated? The last one was just down the street from you, for fuck’s sake! What’s stopping that masked psycho from claiming every other life — including yours — on your street?

Nothing, you’re sure. Serial killers are hardly ever satisfied. And this one is absolutely fucking insatiable.

However, right now, it’s a little hard to think about a psychotic killer with your boyfriend looking the way he does. He’s standing in your little kitchen, a mug of tea in one hand, the other tucked into the pocket of his sweatpants.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea if you stay over, Noah,” you finally manage to say. Noah had asked if he could stay over for the night what felt like an eternity ago. You had struggled to comprehend what he had said, and were only able to respond when your best friend and roommate, Olivia, had walked up next to you.

“Why not?” Noah asks, his eyebrows scrunching together in confusion.

“There’s a murderer on the loose, remember, dickhead?” Olivia snaps at him. “I would rather not come back to find my best friend all dead and bloody, then adding you into the mix just to make it worse.”

Olivia had a family reunion she had to go to, something that had been planned in advance long before any of the murders had taken place. She wasn’t able to get out of it, nor was she able to convince her parents to let you tag along, even though they love you like you were their own. She was heading to the airport later tonight and coming back in two days.

You watch Noah shoot a glare at Olivia as he says, “Yeah, I’m aware there’s a murderer on the loose. But I, also, would rather not come back here to see my girlfriend dead.”

As Olivia is clearly gearing up to launch herself into a heated debacle with Noah, you stop her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Guys, I’ll be fine,” you assure them, hoping they can’t hear the waver in your voice. “After I take Olivia to the airport I’ll lock the doors and windows, turn off all the lights, then sleep with my dad’s old baseball bat next to my bed. Besides, Noah has a label meeting early tomorrow morning, so he should just head home to get some sleep for once.”

Neither of them look particularly convinced. But the mention of the metal bat seems to be enough for their tense limbs to relax.

This is the exact reason your dad gave you his bat when you first moved out, anyways. He wanted you to be safe and to protect yourself in case of an emergency. And this seems to be an emergency worthy of the beloved metal bat.

Olivia sighs dramatically from beside you. “Fine. The bat is better than nothing.” She returns Noah’s glare. “You better be gone by the time we leave for the airport in an hour.”

Noah clenches his jaw. “Got it,” he says.

With an annoyed grumble, Olivia turns on her heel and stomps towards her bedroom. Your boyfriend and your best friend have never really gotten along, simply because they both want what’s best for you and they both tend to believe they know exactly what that is. They butt heads a lot when it comes to you. Thankfully, they know they can’t have you without the other, so it’s become a resigned acceptance between them, however uncomfortable they may be about it.

You are finally able to relax your shoulders after you hear Olivia shut her door with a loud thud. Olivia is very overprotective of you and would just have you attached at the hip if she could. But sometimes her worry is suffocating. Like now. So you know she just needs a few minutes to herself before she gets on her flight.

“Did you have to be such an asshole?” you say to Noah.

“How was I being an asshole?” Noah fires back as he sets his mug down by the sink.

“You never seem to know when to stop antagonizing Olivia.”

“Well, excuse me for being worried about your safety. She’s not the only one who gets a say in this shit.”

“And you do?” you scoff, resting your hands on your hips. “So would you be okay with me unlocking every door and opening every window? Turn on each light so I’m just a fucking beacon for the murderer to come and get me next?”

Noah narrows his eyes as he stares at you. You’re now beginning to forget any thought of a psycho killer, and instead thinking of letting Noah stay tonight anyways. Let him keep you safe while also letting him do whatever he wants to you. The idea is very enticing.

“But if you don’t want that to happen, just stay the night, ‘cause I know you want to,” you encourage Noah, a small smirk making its way onto your face. “You’ll still be there for the label meeting. Olivia doesn’t have to know. Come over and keep me safe.”

Silence falls around you. Noah just continues to look at you with a dark gleam in his eyes, and you can feel a white hot knot beginning to coil down in the depths of your stomach. You shift slightly under his gaze.

“You’re being a brat.”

“Oh, fuck you,” you spit at him immediately, knowing with 100% certainty that he is going to make you pay for that comment.

“I will if you stop being a fucking brat,” Noah counters sharply. “Unless you want to keep being one, and end up being punished for it.”

You remain where you’re standing. You have zero intentions on obeying Noah, nor do you plan on dropping the bratty act. Noah loves it when you’re being a bratty bitch and defying his orders, even if he doesn’t outwardly say it. You know what it does to him, so why stop?

“Stay tonight.”

Noah doesn’t say anything. His eyes remain fixed on you, and you can feel the searing sensation of his irises roving over every inch of your body. You shift once more, hoping he doesn’t catch the movement, but you know he does.

“Come here.”

His tone is almost casual. It catches you slightly off-guard that he appears to be mildly bored, when he would normally be demanding you to approach. But you’re feeling defiant, because what is he gonna do if he doesn’t get dominant with you?

“No, I’m okay,” you say with a sickly sweet smile. “I’m not feeling very passive at the moment. Thank you, though.”

That earns you a glare. You can see the way Noah takes a grounding deep breath as his gaze darkens even more. You watch him cross his tattooed arms over his chest as he settles his weight back against the kitchen counter. He angles his head downwards, his eyes still trained on you.

God, is he trying to scare you? Because if that’s the case, he needs to rethink his fear tactics.

“I’m not afraid of you, Noah,” you practically scoff at him.

“Have I ever given you reason to be afraid of me?” he asks lowly. The tenor of his voice hums in your ears.

“No.”

Noah doesn’t say anything in response. He just continues staring at you intently, his dark gaze fixed on you wholly. You aren’t able to detect any emotion in his eyes or facial features. If you couldn’t see the subtle rise and fall of his chest you’d think he were a statue — a man carved from marble with numerous, intricate paintings spanning across the beautiful stone.

As the silence drags on you begin to grow uncomfortable. Noah staring at you isn’t what’s causing you discomfort; no, it’s the anticipation and sense of the unknown he’s letting fall over you. You roll your bottom lip into your mouth and begin chewing on the skin.

But then the corner of his mouth twitches upward. The action is sly and riddled with intention.

“Then I won’t start now,” he finally says. “Unless you want me to.”

His word choice is deliberate, each one laced with a level of teasing you don’t think you have ever heard come out of Noah’s mouth. He knows what he’s doing. And he knows it is finally getting to you in the way he had initially wanted.

“So what’s it gonna be?” Noah asks. His voice is firmer as he speaks. “You gonna come over here like a good girl … or will I be giving you a reason to be afraid of me? Either way it’ll be worth it, I’m sure. But hey, your choice, princess.”

Now, there is the commanding voice you had been expecting from the start. And your heart is pumping uncontrollably now. The pulse buried beneath the surface of your neck is throbbing and vibrating, making the blood roar loudly in your ears.

He’s giving you an obvious choice: admit you were being a brat and surrender. Or, run like your life depends on it. Because it might at some point, in a manner of speaking, you realize.

“Oh, but I don’t wanna scare you too bad,” Noah continues nonchalantly, like he’s talking about the weather or something. “Especially with that psycho killer on the loose and everything, y’know.”

You’re gonna kill him. He’s being a complete ass but being so unreasonably cool and collected about it. He knows he’s getting under your skin, burrowing further beneath your veins and tendons. It has you growing enraged and annoyed with his antics, despite that searing hot coil deep in your belly.

When Noah casually pushes away from the counter, you stagger back a few steps. His grin slowly grows as he makes his way in your direction. Your feet seem to be glued to the floor as Noah is now towering over you.

“You’re gonna pay for that, by the way,” he murmurs. He brings his hand up to your face, and grips your chin between his fingers. “But not tonight. You said it yourself, princess: I have a label meeting early in the morning.”

Noah uses his grip on your chin to tug your face towards his. Your lips meet in the middle, and Noah already has his tongue in your mouth before you can process what’s happening. And you have half a brain to kiss him back, but he’s pulled away by the time you manage to catch up. You can’t control the whine that bubbles up from your throat.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” Noah says with a grin. “I love you.”

Then he’s stepping out of your space and leaving through the front door.

He leaves you breathing heavily. You nearly sprint outside and stop Noah from leaving when you hear someone walking up behind you.

“Oh, good. He’s gone.” Olivia’s voice nearly startles you. “I’ve got my stuff ready so let’s just go now. I don’t wanna get stuck in traffic.”

You nod in acknowledgement, but your brain feels fried. Your entire nervous system just got short circuited because Noah thought it would be fun to mess with you. He knows you want him to stay over while Olivia’s gone. And, you know he wants to stay over. So why did he just blow you off like that?

You don’t give yourself time to think it over before you’re following Olivia outside. You let Olivia drown you in conversation on the drive to the airport. She doesn’t appear to notice your weird behavior, or, if she has noticed, she doesn’t mention it.

But then she’s getting out of the car with her bags and you’re hugging her and you watch as she walks inside the airport and leaves you behind.

You feel like screaming.

The drive home feels like a blur. You wish you would be arriving home to see Noah waiting for you, but the house is empty. Annoyance strikes your intestines as you do what you promised initially: lock the doors, close the windows, turn off all the lights, put baseball bat at bedside.

It still feels wrong somehow. You want Noah with you, even though he has that meeting very early in the morning. In order to remedy his absence you tug on one of his sweatshirts before climbing into bed.

The next day drags on. Olivia had texted you when her flight landed and when she was reunited with her family. Noah had sent a good morning text and nothing else. You were growing increasingly angry as the hours ticked by.

You were off work today, so you had the entire day to do what you want. But your brain was vibrating with anxiety and had you stuck on the couch. You were able to get through an entire season of your favorite show, though! It still didn’t feel right.

The sun had long since fallen beyond the horizon by the time you’re rummaging through the kitchen to find something to eat for dinner. You settle on making some mac ‘n cheese, and get to work.

You’re pouring the small pot of hot noodles and water into the colander that sits in the sink when the phone rings. Another thing your dad had insisted on when you moved out: a fucking landline phone. You thought it was ridiculous, but you had humored him anyways by getting one.

With the noodles in the colander and the hot metal pot set aside you reach for the phone. You press answer and stick it between your ear and shoulder as you continue making your dinner.

“Hello?”

“Hello?”

“Can I help you?”

“Who are you?”

“I dunno, who are you trying to reach?”

“I’m not sure.”

“That’s okay. Must be wrong number. Don’t worry — it happens.”

You’re quick to transfer the phone back in to your hand and end the call. Dialing the wrong number happens all the time, so the oddity of it doesn’t irk you.

Not until you have the mac ‘n cheese all ready a couple minutes later and the landline rings once more. You furrow your eyebrows as you go to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I must have dialed the wrong number again.”

It’s that same voice. There’s a familiarity to it you can’t quite put your finger on.

“It’s alright. I’ll let you go so you can try again. Third time’s the charm, right?”

You’re about to put the phone down when the person on the other end stops you, saying, “Wait! Aren’t you gonna tell me your name?”

“Why do you wanna know my name?”

“Just in case I accidentally call you again, of course.”

“Well, I’m confident you won’t. You’ve got this.”

“In the meantime, as I’m trying to remember the correct number, let’s play a game.”

You roll your eyes. “A game? Why?”

“‘Cause it’s fun,” the person says simply. “Plus, I think we’re friends now, so it’s only fair, isn’t it?”

“I guess…”

“Good. Answer a series of questions correctly and you win. Answer incorrectly, and I win.”

“What does the winner get?”

“Whatever they want.”

You consider this for a moment. Because what’s the harm in answering some meaningless questions from a stranger? But you find yourself anxiously rethinking your decision even as you agree.

“Good. I’ll give you a couple warm-up questions. Starting with: do you have a boyfriend?”

“I do.”

“Hm. Pity. What’s he like?”

“First you wanna know about me, and now my boyfriend?” You’re growing more and more irritated with every passing second you are on the phone with this person. “You planning on stealing him from me?”

“No, of course not. Just tell me about him.”

“Oh, my god. I’m hanging up now—“

“Hang up and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

The sheer aggression and violence that ripple through this stranger’s voice forces you to stop. The phone begins to gently rattle against your ear and you can’t suppress the shaking that overcomes your body. Panic is now flowing through your veins as you stand in your kitchen in silence.

“Good girl. Now, where were we? Right: tell me about your boyfriend.”

“Um, he… He has tattoos, a-and he’s really tall. Uh, he— He’s in a famous metal band, and—“

“Yeah? What band?”

“B-Bad Omens.”

“Oh, I know them. Don’t they sing that song Just Pretend?”

You nod, even though you know they can’t see you. “Y-Yeah. Yeah, that’s them,” you murmur.

“Well, let’s start the actual game, shall we? First question: your boyfriend was at a meeting this morning with his band and their label. Who’s their label?”

The question stuns you. You’re suddenly frozen in place and you can’t gather the air in your lungs to even breathe, let alone speak. How the fuck do they know that? Why do they want this information if they obviously already have it?

“S-Sumerian,” you choke out.

“Correct. Next question: what band member left before the production of their second album began?”

You now feel sick to your stomach. You suspect this has to be some crazed fan with an unhealthy obsession with Bad Omens. If that’s the case, they should know already know the answer to this particular question. So why are they asking you?

“Vincent.”

“Good. Final question: where am I?”

“Wh-What? What do you mean where are you?”

“Where. Am. I?”

Dread floods your body. “Are you in my house?!” you practically yell in to the phone speaker.

“Come find out. But if you find me it won’t count as answering the question.”

You’re quick to tear the landline from your ear and jab your thumb against the end call button then tossing it onto the kitchen counter. Your hands are shaking as you take a few steps away from it, silently hoping it won’t ring again.

But it isn’t the phone’s shrill ring that makes you jump. It’s a sound coming from somewhere else in the house.

Your fight or flight response kicks in immediately. You rush to flee through the front door when you hear slow, heavy footsteps coming down the hallway. They sound calculated and deliberate, and you have no choice but to stand there in terror.

From the direction of yours and Olivia’s bedrooms comes a dark figure. They walk out of the shadows and into the dining room. Their body is covered in a black cloak, with a hood up over their head and a white mask on their face. The mask is a simple depiction of a screaming face. But it’s not any less mortifying as you watch them.

The figure comes to a stop when they catch sight of you. Their head tilts to one side, almost they’re considering their next move of action.

But you move first, suddenly booking it for the opposite end of the house towards the laundry room, the extra bathroom, and the garage. You hear them give chase a moment later.

You scramble your way into the garage in hopes of getting the large door to slide open. But the masked figure is one step behind you, and prevents you from hitting the door controls. They have you tripping forwards, and you nearly face plant into the concrete but you catch your weight on your hands. You push yourself up just as the intruder goes to grab you.

Darting around your car, that still sits idly in the middle of the space, you are being taunted by the figure in the hood. They stay near the door back into the house which keeps you on the other side of the car.

Then they’re skirting around the vehicle straight for you. You make a last second decision and make a break for the door inside. The intruder races back after you.

The figure chases you down the hall towards your bedroom. You go to slam the door shut before they can reach you, but you didn’t anticipate their strength. They shove the door open all the way, making you scramble back to your bed. You’re panting as you scoot backwards on the mattress.

The black-cloaked figure says nothing as they slowly stalk towards you. Adrenaline in coursing through your veins and you’re panicking. You are rendered silent as they reach the bed and continue their hunt across the sheets until they’re looming over you. The white mask is haunting as it stares down at you with that soundless wail.

“P-Please… I-I don’t wanna die…”

No response. Whoever is underneath that mask does not seem interested in listening to your pleas.

One of their hands reaches back behind them and reveals a shimmering hunting blade. The metal is clean and shiny, and you can see your fear reflected back at you through it.

Their unoccupied hand goes for your shirt, and you flinch at the contact. Your heart is pounding relentlessly as your shirt is lifted from your body. You couldn’t help but be compliant, especially with how they’ve got you situated between their legs.

You watch as they point the knife at you, then have the fine tip poking at the indent at the center of your collarbones. The barely-there feeling of the cold metal on your skin is sending your brain into overdrive. They then slowly, lazily, drag the blade downwards across your bare chest. You see how they’re clearly enamored by the goosebumps flaring across your abdomen as they continue dragging the knife down, down down…

Suddenly, there’s a hand gripping your throat. But it’s not with the murderous intention you were expecting. Instead, there is almost a gentleness to how their squeezing your neck, with the way their thumb grazes your pulse point.

You’re horrifically confused.

You nearly say something to them, but they’re taking the hand holding the knife to their mask. And then they tug off the black hood and this is the end, oh god—

“Noah?!”

And yes, that is your boyfriend kneeling above you with a wicked grin on his face and a knife in his hand. The terror and anxiety you had been feeling begins to melt away, and you can feel nothing but anger and embarrassment.

“Told you I’d see you tonight, didn’t I?” Noah says casually.

It’s a struggle to comprehend his presence. You can’t understand why he’s doing this or why he thought it was okay with a murderer running rampant.

“Wh-What the fuck?” you stammer.

“Oh, what’s wrong, baby?” Noah takes his gloved hand away from your throat and uses it to brush aside the stray hairs that were clinging to your skin. “I thought you wanted me to stay over? Keep you safe?”

You did want that, yes. But this is not what you meant. Never did you say you wanted Noah to stalk you like he were the predator and you were the prey.

But you can’t stamp down the exhilaration that is igniting your insides. You can’t get rid of it, especially with how Noah is looking at you. You suddenly want to turn in to jelly and be completely and utterly obedient to his every word.

And that sort of terrifies you.

“I-I did, but you didn’t have to do this,” you tell him. Your body is slowly relaxing beneath the weight of his own, now that any imminent danger has been found folly.

Noah looks at you quizzically. “What do you mean?” he asks you innocently. “I just wanted to make sure you were safe and sound.”

Noah begins tracing lines across your stomach and chest with the blade’s edge once more, a careful hold on the hilt in order not to pierce your flesh. The sensation has your brain faltering and not fully processing his words. Your hands inch towards his thighs.

He notices your hands moving in no time. He doesn’t stop you and says nothing.

You slither your hands under the cheap black fabric, and you immediately grip at his legs. You boldly glide your hands upwards until you reach the waistband of Noah’s pants. Noah watches as you tug lightly at one of the belt loops, then going for the zipper.

“Did my little charade turn you on, baby?” Noah moves the knife under your chin and gently pushes up so you’re forced to make eye contact with him. “Did you like me chasing you?”

You nod. And you see him grin.

“Shit, and who am I to deny you?”

But you know Noah. He’s going to tease you and get you all worked up, have you in near hysterics before he finally gives you what you want. And he doesn’t seem to be in a very generous mood at the moment.

Noah drops the knife to pull off the entire costume. He tosses it aside before getting rid of his shirt as well. A part of you knows this is what he wanted from the beginning, when he first offered to sleep over. But you can’t be bothered by that, not when he’s moving back enough to pull down your pants.

When he gets your pants off, and they join the rest of the clothes on the floor of your bedroom, Noah drags his tattooed hands up your legs agonizingly slow. He stops briefly when he reaches the top of your thighs, but then he proceeds to dig his fingernails in to the soft flesh and tugs you towards him. You yelp in surprise and are promptly shut up when you find your legs slung around Noah’s waist and his hand resting at your throat again.

“Good girl,” Noah says quietly. The hand not on your neck has begun making its way to your clothed core, which earns a weak whimper from you. “Are you gonna keep being a good girl for me?”

You whine when his fingers start stroking at you through your underwear. You think you answer him, but you don’t care enough as you are now grinding into his hand.

For a moment, you feel Noah remove his hands from your body. You whimper and whine at the loss of touch, until his hand is back at your throat and there’s a sharp cold resting on your hip.

The knife harmlessly glides against your skin once more. Then the pressure from the waistband of your underwear vanishes, to be replaced by the metallic cold of the blade in Noah’s hand. It slowly travels down past your pelvis, making you jerk in surprise.

Noah chuckles at the way your body reacts. You almost begin bitching at him when the knife disappears and is then substituted for his fingers. And his fingers feel so much better against your folds than that stupid knife could ever dream of.

And he’s just lazily stroking, avoiding slipping any one of his long, tattooed digits inside of you. You try your best to grind back against his hand, but the one at your throat squeezes for just a moment. It makes you pause, whining at the unexpected dizziness you are now experiencing.

Then his fingers are inside you, stroking and rubbing and searching for that bundle of nerves deep within. You cry out at the sudden intrusion. But then you’re pushing back on Noah’s fingers and the pressure on your throat eases a bit.

“Such a good girl,” you hear Noah murmur. “Can you cum for me, sweetheart?”

You nod frantically and he thrusts his fingers harder into your pussy. You’re moaning and writhing at his touch, and then that same pressure is applied once more to your throat and it’s just too much. Your body clenches around Noah’s fingers and you ride out your orgasm as he slows down his strokes.

The feeling of suddenly being empty is overwhelming. But you don’t have to worry about that much longer when Noah maneuvers your body off of him and onto your stomach. You feel the bed shift as he moves, and the sound of him taking off his pants has you gripping at the sheets.

Then the bed dips from Noah’s weight and he’s suddenly right above you. His bare legs are caging in your thighs and his hands are gently roaming over the expanse of your back. You can feel his cock against your ass; it takes a little too much self control to not push back into him, although you end up failing.

“You look so hot like this, baby,” Noah says. His hands halt at your hips, and he’s digging his fingertips into the bone. “So, so good for me.”

Noah doesn’t hesitate when he begins pushing his hard cock into you and using your hips as leverage. You’re crying out and moaning weakly as he adjusts slightly and then bottoms out.

There isn’t any warning given before Noah is pulling out just enough then slamming back in. He sets a brutal but steady pace as he fucks you. Your knuckles are whitening from your tight grip on the bedsheets. You quickly become a moaning, blubbering mess beneath Noah as he keeps going and going.

He keeps hitting your cervix perfectly and it makes you see stars. His hands on your hips is currently the only tether you have on reality.

Suddenly there’s a hand in your hair and it tugs at the roots until you prop yourself up on your elbows. Noah’s grip on your hair is sending spikes of pain from your scalp all the way down to your shoulders. But each thrust of his hips is another tug on the strands of hair entangled in his fingers. It’s a mashup of sensations that has you chasing your high again.

“Ah— Ah—“

God, you’re so close. You need to cum so fucking bad.

“Ah, Noah—“

“Come on, baby,” Noah breathlessly encourages you. “I want you to cum with my name on your lips.”

And with that, your pussy is clenching around him and you’re coming with a cry of his name. Then his thrusts get sloppier until he’s coming inside of you. You feel all warm as you are filled with nothing but Noah.

Noah then pulls out and the feeling of his cum dripping out of you is definitely the best thing you’ve ever experienced.

His hands are then forcing you to turn over and rest on your back. He straddles your weak body, and the sight of him above you like that makes you want to go again.

“Such a good little slut for me,” he says quietly. His chest is heaving as he drags one of his hands upwards, starting at your stomach and stopping at your tits. He palms one then the other, playing with each for but a moment. “Always so good for me, baby.”

Silence settles over you while Noah continues to just touch you. It’s calming and has your eyelids growing heavy.

But there’s still something that is gnawing at your brain. And you have to say something.

“Are you the killer?” Your voice is fragile when you verbalize your question.

It doesn’t seem to bother Noah, though. His hands are still wandering and touching you as he seems to process what you said.

“Yes. Does that scare you?” he replies. His eyes dart up to meet yours, and the dark glint has your heart pounding. “Do I scare you?”

You don’t have an answer for him, so you remain quiet.

“Are you afraid of me?”

He’s referring to what you had talked about yesterday. A part of you wants to yell out and tell him you are utterly terrified of him, that you cannot fathom the horrific atrocities he has committed. You can’t stand the thought of how much blood stains his hands. The hands that are touching you, caressing every curve…

“No,” you whisper.

Noah’s mouth twists into a lopsided grin. Your answer seems to satisfy him, and you can’t help the satisfaction you also feel spreading throughout your chest.

“Good. I would never want you to be afraid of me,” he tells you as he leans down so your faces are parallel. “You’re mine. And I’ll get rid of anyone that thinks they can take you from me.”

thank you for reading! hope you enjoyed! likes and reblogs are very much appreciated <3

♱ foliosriot 2023

[anistarrose]

So the thing is, if people ship characters who are explicitly not into romance (whether aromantic or otherwise), that ultimately doesn't affect me on a level beyond "annoyance" — I can blacklist tags, and blacklist or block people who don't tag it. What I have to ask myself every time I see these things, however, is this:

"Does this reflect how this person feels about romance-averse people in real life? Does this reflect how this person treats romance-averse people in real life?"

Because how someone engages with fiction doesn't have to be a reflection of how they treat real people, obviously — and in this case, I would of course hope that it isn't. But if you know anything about what being aromantic is like, in real life or on the Internet... you'll understand why I'm not optimistic.

Thinking two characters are so cute together that you reject a bunch of their characterization to make it happen is just annoying, not a crime! But the second you make the leap to telling a real human person things like:

"I don't care how much you say you're not interested, because you just won't realize that you and X would make such a cute couple,"

or:

"I don't care how much you say you're not interested, because you're clearly just in denial which the Right Person has to come along and fix,"

or:

"But — but — but not falling in love is just so tragic! I want you to be happy, not sad and lonely your whole life!"

like the rationales that apparently motivate so many people to ship? Then that has crossed the line into harming real people.

I don't actually think that shipping aromantic characters is the primary cause in the cause-effect diagram, when it comes to the correlating the shipping with "likelihood to say these terrible, invalidating, autonomy-undermining things to real people." Precisely, I don't think it's a cause to a meaningful degree when you compare with the opposite direction — I think people who say these things to real aromantics (or anyone else who just isn't interested!), because of what they think about these real people, are in turn more likely to think amatonormative things about fictional characters. I think that there exists a feedback loop to some extent, because fiction can influence people's beliefs to some degree, but it's not symmetric. Real-life amatonormativity causes mass amatonormativity in fandom spaces.

So... at this point, do you see why aromantic people in fandom get a little defensive about aro characters, and about other characters who overlap with aro experiences? You see why we get kind of pissy when people very selectively throw a very specific part of their characterization out the window? You see why we maybe don't want to associate with those people? Why it makes us so uncomfortable?

"Stop shipping romance-repulsed characters," in my opinion, is a understandable outcry from the community that I obviously sympathize with — but it nevertheless conceals the core of the issue, especially from non-aromantics who aren't living with amatonormativity shoved down their throats at all times, and therefore might not be able to read between the lines. At the core, this isn't actually a debate about the morality of shipping in fiction, despite overlap with that discourse on the surface.

The real cry for change isn't "stop shipping that character." It's "start accepting me for who I am, without trying to either undermine or mourn it at every opportunity." Because at the moment, the overlap between people who erase fictional aromanticism and real aromanticism is significant — and even where they don't overlap, you know what? Romance-averse folks just trying to live in peace can't fucking tell the difference.

[lingering-42-long]

The Last Goodbye

When they are Kia

Cod characters x f! reader

Inspired by MW3 and the tragic events that occurred this will be a three-part series if I do not get writers block lol.

So sorry for the not posting as much! It’s been a really crazy month and a lot of things had happened and caused me to have a bit of a depressive episode so thank you all for being super patient!

Warnings: mentions of death

John Price

You saw it on the news first before you got the visit. Your breath hitched when you saw the news of the air strike that had hit the base where your husband of 12 years was stationed at everything was decimated. And you couldn’t call or check to make sure that he was all right as he would not have his personal cell phone with him. It wasn’t until two days after the attack did two uniformed military officers showed up at your door holding prices old hat and SAS badge and dog tags. How they got them so quickly, you weren’t sure, but the news came like a sudden wave of cold water. “ we are so sorry for your loss.” One of the officers told you. The body would be arriving shortly within a week or so for proper burial you two had purchased side-by-side grave plots. And the will was already drawn up well before all of this had happened. John was a very precise man and always make sure to think 12 steps ahead. He knew his job was rough and he knew that at any moment he could drop dead. He made sure that his life insurance would be going to you, which was some relief sense the army didn’t pay much.

How to tell your daughter, that her father was not going to be coming back. What is the worst thing you could ever do to her young heart. She was only eight years old. She adored her father practically worship the ground. He walked on. She was always his little girl, and now the war stripped her of him. Stripped you of him..

When she came home from school, you had to sit her down. You held her hands, and with tears, you told the heartbreaking news. The young girl did not understand at first on why her father wasn’t coming back, and once again, you explained that he had died in action, and he would never be able to come home you’re a little girl started to cry, and when he tried to comfort her, she bolted from your arms and ran to her room, slamming the door, and she could hear her wails. You yourself cried yourself to sleep for the first few weeks all the way up until the funeral your friends and family members gathered around you doing everything that they could to comfort you and your daughter people were calling in every single day talking with you for hours on end, while other people stopped by to bring you food.

Every day it felt like a horrifying nightmare. The one that reoccurs every single time slightly more horrifying than the last. As you were going through your stuff and trying to decide what if his you wanted to keep and what of his you wanted to donate you noticed on your phone you had gotten an email from Kate Lasswell. She had sent a video to you actually several saying in the email that he wanted you to have this and gave her explicit instructions in case if he was to ever die.

Pressing the play button, you watched as his face appeared in the camera as he sat down and smiled at you. The way, his eyes twinkled and the crows feet around them creased. “ hello dove” he started at first and you had to pause the video because you were overwhelmed with the emotions. When you stabilized yourself again, you continued. “ I know it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to you and I know that if you’re seeing this, it means that I have passed….. mission was going to be botched no matter what I just didn’t want to tell you the statistics at first…” he paused himself, as he seem to be collecting his words in his own voice was shaking “ I really wish I could come back home to you. I told you that this would be the last mission that I would do before retiring… I promise to take you out on that date that you wanted to go to that fancy restaurant.” he paused again, closing his eyes, and releasing out a large sigh.

“ I’m sorry I never got to take you…. I had so many plans to do with you and Alice… it doesn’t seem fair that I didn’t get a chance to do that” once again, you had a pause the video so that you could take a minute to cry. The plans that you had with each other right now by the wayside. You unpause did it again, and continued on listening. “ I know right now you’re depressed.” he stated, folding folding his hands, and leaning on the desk in a slightly business fashion way. “ in the email that Kate sent you there is several groups that you can join that are for the spouses of the deceased militant partner. Please join one as well as make sure our daughter also goes to one for kids. She’s going to need that support… you both are.” he smiled again, but it was a Sad smile. “ I also made sure to have a college fund started for her. You don’t have to worry about it until she’s ready. There should be plenty of money for her to attend all the way up until graduate year as long as she goes to a decent university. Make sure it’s only used for that if she chooses not to go to university or to go to a less expensive one, you can use the money to buy her a car or whatever she needs to get her life started…. I’m sorry this had all come to this…. As you know I have set aside a life insurance, and the beneficiary goes to you. I also saved up a lot of my savings as well. Feel free to use it as necessary.” he knew that you were going to be smart with the money. “ He paused and looked at you “you are my beloved…. I’m so sorry my dove that you have to face this alone. Please take care of yourself. Find a husband that loves you like I did and a good father figure for our daughter.” This made him tear up. “I will wait for you in heaven and I will watch over you both. You mean so much love. No one or nothing can separate this love. The email that is sent to you also has several videos for Alice. For her birthdays, graduation, moving out to university, marriage and their child. I made sure to make a video for all of that… I also left many for you. Please don’t hesitate to just let me listen to you… I love you.”

The video ended and you sat in the chair, Thinking things though. He set life up for you and your daughter. He was still looking after both of you. You cried for a bit before getting up and knocking on your daughters door. Your little girl opened up with tears on her face. “Hey baby… daddy sent you something.” She sniffed as you picked her up and took her to your old husband’s office. After sitting down with her in his old chair, you turned on the next video. “Hey Angel!” John’s face lit up when the camera started you could see he had been crying. “Angel, im not coming home, it’s not that I don’t want to but it’s because I got called up to heaven. I want you to do something for me my sweet, I want you to watch over momma ok? She is going to need you and you are going to need her. He glanced up as if looking at you then looked back down at his daughter. “You are such a special little girl. I love you so much. Momma has the other videos for you to watch when you grow up. I’m so so sorry to leave you like this. I did not

I did not want to go. I know you were looking forward to see me and so was I… you are my sunshine. My only sunshine.” He stated singing the song he sang when she was down or sad. “You make me happy, when sky’s are grey. You never know dear, how much I love you, so please don’t take my sunshine away…. I love you my angel.” The video ended. Your daughter looked at you. “What now?” She asked. “Well… now we do what daddy said… we do our best to move on, but not to forget him. We will be OK.” You held her as you too watched the sunset fade beneath the horizon, a beautiful white dove landed on he window, cooed and looked at you before flying off into the golden rays of the pink sky.

Simon Riley

You were cleaning in the kitchen when you heard a knock at the door. Putting the sponge back in the soapy hot water. You wiped your hands and made your way to the door. Two military officers took at the door, Solum faces as they greeted you. “Hello can I help you?” You asked

“Mrs (y/n) Riley?” One of them asked.

“Yes that is me.” You looked at them worried.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant Simon Riley was killed in action.” The officer said gravely as he handed you a box of his things.

You took the box with tears in your eyes. The men told you that his body was found and would be returning soon. You thanked them and closed the door as you held the box tightly in your arms and sunk to the floor sobbing. Your sweet Simon. He was gone, never to come home to you and your son. You knew it was a dangerous job, but it never really hit you till now. Your husband, the man that always let you take off his mask, the man that would cuddle with you at night and rub your back after a long day, the father of your 3 month old son who he would stay up late to let you sleep. He was gone, ripped apart from you. How were you going to tell your son about his father, the man who loved his son from the moment he was born. You cried on the cold floor till you fell asleep, still holding onto the box. You woke up to the sound of your son crying in his room. Getting up, you walked and a dead sonter to his room. Tomas your son named after your husbands brother, was crying in his cradle. Carfully you picked him up and held him close. He looked so much like his daddy, blonde hair, dark blue eyes, fair skin. “Shhhhh my love” you rocked your son with tears in your eyes. “Daddy isn’t coming back.” You stated as a hiccup got you. “He loved you so much…. He loved me.” You knew your son wouldn’t remember this but it was still so sad to hold your little boy and know he would never have a father and son bonding.

You sobbed as you held onto him. Tomas sensing his mothers destress, he quieted down and cooed. After a while you fed him and put him down to bed once more. You opened the box after sitting down with a hot cup of tea, ready to take on what you needed to. With a sniffle, you opened the lid to reveal his skull mask, the dog tags that he wore, his SAS badge, and a few other things. “Oh Simon” new murmured as you carefully picked up the mask and set the box down as he traced over the lines to his skeletal features on his balaclava. It smelled like him. That rich, earthy smell, that he always seems to have with a hint of gunpowder and bourbon. It was a lingering sent, but it was a good one at that. You held the mass close as you leaned back on the couch and close your eyes. You already missed him more than you did before maybe it was because you knew that you would never see him again, to have him be in the house and be present with you and your son. You would go on with your life fine you are a tough woman, one of the many reasons to why Simon married you, but it was your son that you were worried about. You wanted your son to have a father figure. A dad that he would learn to grow up and love. Simon never had that sort of dad, and had always wanted to be that way for his own children.

Now Simon was never going to live out his dream, and Thomas, your son, was never going to have that sort of special bond. I thought made you incredibly sad once more but no tears fell, your eyes were all dried from the previous crying. The weeks came and the funeral happened, your husband looked peaceful in his casket. You wanted some alone time with him first and held his stiff, cold hand. “ Thomas will miss you… I will miss you. You were my rock and shield. It’s going to be hard without you Si… I will always love you and miss you.” The funeral took place and it was a sad time. The team of 141, your family and friends helped with whatever you needed. Now, you were cleaning out things from your late husband. As you were cleaning out his bedside table drawer, you saw a note, folded up neatly. Curious, you unfolded the lined paper and read the words on the paper.

“My dear (y/n), Birdie if you are digging in my drawer then that means I have passed, the mission was botched… I’m sorry… I know Thomas is in good hands with you. Please don’t worry about money. My account will be given to you. As I am writing this, it’s late, you’re sleeping next to me. It’s the night before we leave… I am looking at you for the last time, taking in all your beautiful details. Your face is so soft in sleep, you look so angelic. I am going to miss you… I know you will miss me too… I’m sorry I haven’t said ‘I love you’ that much. I hope you know I cherished and deeply loved you. I still do. I know you are a strong woman, that is what drew me to you. I know you will move on. If you wish, find someone who can love you and our son just as much as I loved you. I will be waiting for you when you come. I will always be watching out for you. Please don’t let our son forget me. I want him to know how much I loved him and you. I love you my Birdie, my beautiful wife. ~Simon.”

You held onto the paper and cried. This was going to be ruff. You were going to be ok. A sense of comfort filled your mind and warmth flooded your body. “I love you my Simon” you smiled and the familiar sent of him wafted and you felt his warmth envelop you.

Gaz

when the news reached you, it hurt like 1000 tiny little daggers. You had just gotten married to Gaz, your Relationship was just beginning. The two of you had been high school sweethearts. Times had gotten tough for both of you and you broke off your relationship before time being until you rekindled it once again, realizing that he was the only person for you. You had only gotten married a few months prior and just had your honeymoon before he was shipped off. Four months he was gone. And he was supposed to come back in two, however, the letter that you received told a different story. He would never be coming home. His body was blown up so badly that they couldn’t find all the pieces to him. We would do everything that they could to get the majority of him back home so that there could be some proper burial. This broke your heart. He would never get to share the life with you that you too so desperately dreamed about, a small home, somewhere on the suburbs of London with a dog, and maybe a child somewhere down the line. That was your plan at least but now things have changed, and now your beloved was gone.

It had been a few weeks since the death, and the burial of what was left at him. You had moved back in with your parents for the time being. As you were cleaning up your room, doing the best to get over your grieving you noticed a note on your bed they have been delivered by your mother earlier. Carefully you walked up to the letter and looked at it. It was addressed to you by Gaz. A sense of panic swelled in your chest. Did he really survive? Or was this some cool trick that somebody was playing? Quickly opened the envelope, and you looked at the letter the date showing that it was a month ago that he had sent this; before his death. With shaky hands, you begin to read the chicken, scratch lettering, tracing over every word, and taking to heart as if it was the gospel.

“Hey Love!

Things are crazy right now! We’re going to be going into a city not too far from here. I’ll make sure to pick up some stuff for you. I know you’ve been wanting to decorate the house for a while and I’m so excited to see what sort of projects you’ve been working on? How’s the art piece coming? I remember you telling me that you wanted to start up painting again. We always had such a pretty drawings. I have no doubt that they’re not going to be beautiful. I hope you hang them on the wall for us to see. I miss you. A part of me wishes that you were here at least the part that isn’t the most violent. Unfortunately, we’re not in the best area we are being attacked left and right. Don’t worry sweetheart. I’ll be home soon! I promise I’ll fix the leaky faucet. I know it’s been driving you crazy. I I sent a letter to my folks, but could you tell them that I miss them as well? I want them to know how much I miss them, but I think I miss you the most. When I get back can we get a dog? Also, can we have like a full day of playing video games just with you and me? I know I sound like I’m rambling, but it’s just what’s on my mind recently. Late night cuddles with you while playing Mario kart. It just sounds so relaxing right now. I’m really tired. Well sweetheart, I better get to bed. I love you and I hope that you have an amazing day tomorrow and the next and the next after that.

Your Husband,

Gaz”

Hugging the letter, you cried your eyes out. Tears streaming down your face as you laid on the bed, holding onto the last remnant of what your husband left you. It sounded as if he was somewhere in a safer, better place. You hoped that he died quickly that he didn’t suffer and his last thoughts were good thoughts. A breeze drifted into the room from your open window and a warm bit of sunshine hit your cheek as the breeze drifted passed it felt like a stroke on your soft face. He was there sitting beside you, even though you couldn’t see it, you could feel his presence. He was safe and he was watching over you.

Johnny McTavish

The news has gotten to you quickly. It was actually delivered by Price himself. You couldn’t believe it. Your Scottish highland your man was no longer going to come home to you. He was shot through the head. Taking a bullet to save a life. Your young son, John, named after his father, was going to be home from school soon the devastating news hurt you more than anything else out there. How are you going to tell your six-year-old son that he was not gonna have his daddy near anymore? Who was going to play football with him in the yard? Who is going to read bedtime stories? Who is going to play in the rain with him? Your son needed his father that boy looked up to his dad, like he was the sun, its self. The news hurt you hard calling his parents and his family was going to be hard as well if they had an already heard the news. He was close with everybody and his family and he had quite a large family.

The upcoming days to the Memorial as you wish to have been cremated, were hard and brutal. Everybody that you knew, and your friends and his family all gave their condolences to you and to each other he was loved and well liked by everyone your son took it hard he didn’t understand why his dad wasn’t coming home and cried and cried and cried it was like that for almost a whole week, he was doing so bad that you had to pull him out of school for the time being because he was unable to function properly. You did everything you could you hold him tight in your arms until he cried himself to sleep at night in which you also cried your own silent tears. You would go walk on the open, Highlands that overlooked the beautiful scenery where your husband, his father’s ashes, cast out upon the open landscape. A small memorial was placed there in memory. You would have picnics out there are frequently, simply listening to the birds call from high above and feel the warm sun cast It’s beautiful rays. They felt cold and dull to you, but you did your best to hold out for your son.

Cleaning out the closet with all of his stuff. What is your next task as you were taking some of his old stuff down you noticed a hard drive they had fallen out of one of his pockets with your name on it. Curious, you took the hard drive and you plugged it into your laptop. It open the file which had a video and it. You clicked play.

The video with your husband sitting on the couch in your living room, smiling at you “Hello my bonne Lass. if yer seeing this then ye know what happened and I don’t think I need ta say anymore abou tha’. I am so sorry that I cannot be with Yer. I love ye so much. I love our son John so much. Please remind hem’ every day how much I love him. Please play football with hem as much as ye can. Please read to hem every night fer me. I know it’s a lot ta ask with what’s going on but I think it might be good fer both of ya ta share tha’ quality time. I’m gonna miss ye both, but I’m always going te be with yer. I’m always going to be watching over mo little family. Don’t worry Lass, life insurance should cover a huge portion of everything. Hopefully it can help provide some security fer you and fer John. I also have tha’ university fund ye wanted me ta set up fer him. Let the money grow and add te it. If ye want by the time he turns 18 he can open that account. The files are actually in my cabinet on the right side of the desk. It has all the important paperwork and documentaries yer gonna need. I really wish I was there with ya Lass. I’m going to miss holding you at night and whispering I love yous.” His beautiful eyes stared right back at you with his stupid little mohawk and broad shoulders facing the camera. “ I know you got this, please don’t ferget about me, but I do want you moving on. Find a man that makes yer heart is happy to be with as it was with meh. I know it’s a lot ta ask for, and I’m not expecting ye ta get married right this instant… I want ta see ye happy I want to see you taken care of. I love ye, my princess.” he reached over to turn off the device that he was using, and the video ended abruptly. A new wave of tears hit your face as you laid your head on the desk and cried for the fifth or sixth time in the past few days. Your son came in the room and gently touched your shoulder. “It’s OK mama! Daddy’s going to be with us. He’s just going to be invisible.” he was quoting some thing that you had told him. When you had to break the news to John, you had told him that the angels up in heaven needed his daddy to help fight the battle up there because he was so good at his job. One day he would be able to meet his daddy up there as well. Now John had taken this to heart and there’s now quoting this in hopes to make you feel better. You carefully picked up your son and held him close to you. “ you know you’re the best against your father had ever giving me? When you were born, he had tears in his eyes and he was hugging you and kissing all over your face and just absolutely doting on you 24 seven. He told me how proud he was of you. He told me how proud he was of me. Those were good times.” Your son gently hold you tight in his own little arms. “ it’s OK mama will make it out together.” You could almost feel a kiss on your forehead as if…. As if your husband was leaning over to comfort you.

[bellaxgiornata]

You're Safe With Me [Chapter Four]

Pairing: Frank Castle x Fem!Reader

[You can find the full series summary and masterlist of chapters for You're Safe With Me here.]

Warnings: 18+; series contains violence, mentions of mass shootings, angst and comfort, slow burn romance, enemies to lovers, eventual smut

Word Count:4.5k

a/n: This one is a bit darker at the beginning, but Frank and Reader bond a bit more in this chapter! Feedback is always appreciated!

Tag List: @lunaticgurly @allaboardthereadingrailroad @linamarr @hollandorks @sleeperthelazy @marcysbear @mattkinsella @mattmurdocksstarlight @xxdrixx @v4leoftears @aoi-targaryen @danzer8705 @anon-cat-posts @heimtathurs @kmc1989 @thepunisherfrankcastle @agirlcandream84 @americaarse

If anyone would have told you a week ago that this was how you'd find yourself now–face down on the dirty carpet underneath a motel bed, a couple of opened condom wrappers scattered beside some questionable carpet stains while you overheard the Punisher himself firing bullet after bullet on a group of militia members just outside–you'd have thought they were crazy. 

Yet here you were, cowering under the bed and flinching repeatedly as round after round harshly rang out through the air outside room fourteen, the grisly sound reverberating in your ears. Hands balled into fists beside your face, you could feel your nails digging into your palms with how tightly your fists were clenched. You'd shut your eyes firmly a while ago just waiting for everything outside of the motel room to go silent again. 

You knew Frank was out there killing these people. There wasn't a doubt in your mind about that because you knew that's what he did. And even though you knew these people hadn't come to ask you nicely to not provide testimony for Madani's case, that didn't stop the sick feeling roiling in your stomach at the sound of every gunshot. Though the thought of someone other than Frank being the one to come in here and find you had you wanting to vomit–and it didn’t help that the air around where you were cramped under the bed was musty and stifling and making it hard to breathe. 

As the gunfire continued, you further curled in on yourself, your hands flying up to cover your ears in an attempt to block out the noise. You didn't want to hear any of it. You didn't want to be here. Trying to fight the bile rising in your throat, you tried to think about anything else. 

If you'd never answered that mysterious phone call the other day and gone to that Patriot Militia rally, you'd be home right now asleep in your own bed. Comfortable. There'd be no bruises on your wrists or your side. No death following you. No Punisher. No deadly road trip you were forced to try and survive. You'd be cozy and blissfully asleep. Maybe when you woke up you'd take a nice warm shower in your clean bathroom. Afterwards you might have grabbed a coffee before doing some mundane grocery shopping. Maybe you'd meet up with your friends after or sit down with a book and relax for a while before making dinner. And then you’d later crawl back into bed on your comfortable memory foam mattress and fall asleep–without zip ties restraining you to a headboard. Maybe you didn’t lead the most exciting life, but right now you wished you could experience the absolute dull and ordinary over what you were currently involved in. 

Pressing your hands securely over your ears, you grit your teeth and prayed to whatever higher power there was that things would end soon. You wanted to get the hell out of here already. But for now, all you could do was continue to pretend you were somewhere else in your mind.

Which was probably why you screamed when you felt a hand grab your ankle.

In a panic, your hands flew from your ears as you startled at the touch. Entirely forgetting that you were crammed underneath the motel bed in your fright, your head darted up as you screamed. Your head inevitably slammed into the underside of the bed with a solid thwack as you tried to yank your foot out of the person's grasp. The hand on your ankle immediately released it, your heart racing as you attempted to turn and see who had found your hiding place. 

"Hey, hey, easy there," Frank soothed. "It's me. You're alright. Didn't mean to scare you, but we gotta go."

Finally managing to turn at the waist, you spotted Frank on his hands and knees, the obnoxiously patterned comforter pulled up and no longer covering that side of the bed. You could see a splatter of blood on the side of his face and you grimaced at the sight of it. Though you’d be lying if you said his deep, strong voice that was quickly becoming familiar to you hadn’t calmed you almost immediately–and that had surprised even you. 

"Cops will be here soon after all that," he continued. "We have to get outta here before they do. C'mon."

Wordlessly you nodded, even though the thought of willingly following after a man who'd just killed a handful of people seemed to go against every rational instinct you had. Nevertheless, you gradually began to crawl your way back out from under the bed as Frank rose up to his feet and disappeared from sight. Flinching at the sharp pain coming from your bruised wrists, you slowly made your way back out from under the bed, hearing the faucet running in the bathroom as you moved.

When you’d finally gotten out from your hiding place, you sat on the floor beside the bed and ran your shaky hands through your hair. You swore the tang of blood and gunpowder hung heavy in the air around you, the taste of it settling on your tongue and causing you to cringe. Swallowing roughly, you tried to fight the bile once again rising in your throat as a hand flew up to cover your mouth.

“Don’t go gettin’ sick on me now,” Frank said gruffly, appearing from around the corner. “Don’t need you leaving your DNA here and complicating things.”

Eyes widening in horror at the implication of you being tied to whatever happened here, you felt your lips beginning to tremble. The urge to vomit only grew as Frank made his way across the room towards you, your eyes noticing the blood on his face had been washed off. But as your eyes dropped down to his thick, black boots closing in on you, you spotted the specks of blood decorating them.

Frank reached down and grasped onto your upper arm with one hand, swiftly hoisting you up onto your feet. You stumbled forward, your legs unsteady beneath you at the abrupt movement, but his large hand lingered on your bicep long enough for you to gradually regain your footing. Though he released you the exact second you had, turning immediately and heading over to his large, black bag that was lying open on his bed. He began zipping it closed without hesitation.

“Get your bag,” Frank directed as he slung the strap of his over his shoulder. “We’re gonna put as much distance between us and this as we can. I’ve gotta call Madani to clean this shit up. Let’s go.”

Weak-kneed, you hesitantly made your way along the side of the bed, spotting your green duffel bag lying on the floor where you’d last left it. Stooping down, you grabbed the strap before timidly throwing it over your shoulder as you straightened back up. Your attention shifted to where Frank was standing beside the motel door now, his steely gaze on you as one of his hands gripped the door handle. The moment you took a step towards him, he turned and swung the door wide open.

A horrified gasp fell out of you as you froze mid-step, mouth falling open. Frank came to a halt instantly, his head turning over his shoulder towards you. His dark brows were drawn together in a mixture of confusion and concern as he fixed his attention on you, clearly trying to piece together what had startled you. Though the moment he saw your face and where your eyes were focused, his jaw tightened.

“It was us or them,” he stated firmly.

Your wide eyes remained glued to the lifeless body lying just past the threshold of the door, a pool of dark red coating the pavement beside it, glistening underneath the glow of the parking lot lights. Feet rooted to the spot, you couldn’t move; all you could do was stand there and stare in horror at the dead body lying there. The body of someone who’d died because of you .

“C’mon, we don’t have time for this,” Frank said, an impatient edge to his tone as he fully turned towards you. “Cops are gonna be on us soon.”

Your vision blurred as you continued to stare. It felt like you couldn’t breathe.

“You’re a reporter,” Frank pointed out. “Haven’t you seen dead bodies before?”

You shook your head, finally managing to tear your tear-filled gaze away from the body and close your mouth. Bile soon climbed its way back up your throat and you quickly doubled over, audibly retching as both of your hands once again flew up to cover your mouth. The sound of Frank’s heavy boots rapidly approaching you met your ears just before you felt his hand on your shoulder. You jumped at the unexpected touch, your eyes flying up to meet his.

“It was us or them,” he repeated, his tone leaving no room for questions. “You hear me? Us or them. Don’t you go feelin’ sorry for them. They sure as shit wouldn’t feel that way about you lyin’ there dead.” 

Sniffling, you nodded at his words as his hand released your shoulder. Even though you knew he had a point, that didn’t ease the disgust at what had just happened here. Nor did it ease the sick still roiling in your stomach as you stayed bent in half, fighting down the wave of nausea.

Frank inhaled a sharp breath through his nose, his lips thinning out as his hard eyes continued to study you. You weren’t sure if you felt comforted or not under that heavy stare of his. 

“Close your eyes,” Frank ordered.

Your brows knitted together in confusion. “What?” you asked lamely.

“Close your eyes and you keep ‘em closed,” he repeated, turning a bit to the side before offering his arm to you. “I’ll guide you to the van. You won't have to see a thing.” He lowered his face down to yours, trying to catch your eyes with his as they narrowed back at you. “Think you can do that, Spunky?”

Nodding once, you cautiously reached a hand out towards his offered bicep. You awkwardly looped your arm through his, exhaling a shuddering breath as you felt him stiffen at your touch. Gradually your eyes closed, your pulse jumping in your throat at the contact and the trust you were currently placing in him. 

"Just follow me," Frank said, already beginning to guide you out of the room. "Keep your eyes closed."

You shuffled awkwardly beside him as he moved, stumbling and tripping over your own feet a couple of times as you kept your eyes clamped shut. Unfortunately the smell of blood and gunpowder only grew as your feet landed on pavement, a whimper sounding behind your closed lips.

"You're doing good," he assured you. "Just keep following me."

Frank's arm that you were holding onto slipped around your waist, his large palm splaying wide over your lower back. His hand pressed you further into him, helping to maneuver you around what you assumed was a dead body. Gnawing on your bottom lip, you turned your face into Frank’s arm, your nose brushing against the denim of his jacket. He smelled like gunpowder, sweat, and some sort of spice–clove?

"Almost there," Frank murmured, his voice breaking through your thoughts. "Doin' good."

Fingers gripping the thick material of his jacket tighter, you continued to follow him. It was a few seconds later before you felt him draw you to a stop, your ears picking up on the sound of the van unlocking. You heard the van door open a moment later before Frank spoke.

"Get in," he ordered. "And don't look outside if you don't wanna see anything." 

Still nervously chewing your lip, you nodded again, unable to trust your voice. Releasing Frank’s arm, you opened your eyes and saw he'd led you to the passenger side of the van. You were briefly taken by surprise that he wasn’t tossing you into the back of the van again, but the sound of police sirens in the distance had you quickly scrambling into the seat as Frank made his way around the front of the van.

Buckling yourself in, you saw Frank fling open the driver's side door and toss his bag into the back before hopping into the driver’s seat. Wasting no time, he stuck the key into the ignition and started the van before he roughly yanked the door shut after himself. Not even bothering to put on his own seatbelt, he peeled out of the parking lot and sped towards the motel exit. 

You kept your eyes straight ahead, your focus on the windshield before you. Hands clutching your duffle bag firmly in your fists, you fought the dark urge to look in the side mirror to view the carnage behind you. Instead, you focused on the increasing proximity of the police sirens that were beginning to make your palms sweat as Frank continued to speed down the road, the van flying away from the motel. 

Movement in the seat beside you caught your attention and you glanced over your shoulder, seeing Frank pull a phone out of his jacket pocket. You watched him dial a number in silence, one of his hands steering the van as his attention stayed on the road before you. After he'd finished dialing you saw him place the phone against his ear, his eyes briefly darting to you for just a second before they were focused back on the road. Nervously, you shifted your gaze back out of the windshield as the van pulled back onto the interstate.

"We got a problem, Madani," Frank's gravelly voice said, cutting through the thick silence in the van. "Seven men just ambushed us at a motel right off of I-65. Had to take care of them."

You cringed at his wording, your nose scrunching up in distaste at the gruesome memory. The sound of gunfire was still disturbingly clear in your mind.

"Need you to get the heat off of us," Frank continued. "Unless you want your girl locked in a jail cell and an easy target for more of those assholes."

Fingers curling tighter around your duffle bag, you felt your chest constricting at that thought. Apparently the seven men who'd just showed up at that motel and the two men who had broken into your house weren't going to be the end of things. Which meant there would be more people with guns hunting you down and trying to kill you. 

And that knowledge only terrified you further. 

"Yeah, well, what the hell else d'ya expect me to do, Madani?" Frank snapped in agitation. "Ask them nicely to go away? You knew damn well what you were asking me to do when you called me for help. You want her alive or not?"

There was a brief pause before Frank spoke again. 

"Good," he grunted.

Frank pulled the phone from his ear, glancing down at it long enough to end the call. He slipped the device back into his jacket pocket before he reached his hand behind himself, grabbing his seatbelt and finally buckling in. 

A tense silence fell over the pair of you as he continued to drive. Now that the adrenaline was finally wearing off of you, your eyes once again felt like they were heavy and burning from exhaustion. Your muscles were stiff and sore from the hours you had been restrained with your arms above your head in that uncomfortable motel bed. Shifting awkwardly in your seat, you rested your forehead against the window and watched as billboard after billboard passed by on the side of the road in the early morning hours. 

"You good?"

Frank's question broke through the strained silence in the van as your eyes read over a billboard for an IHOP coming up at a nearing exit. You didn’t exactly know how to answer his question because no, you weren’t. But when you continued to remain quiet, you saw Frank’s attention shift from the road to you. He said your name and your jaw tensed.

“Answer me here,” Frank pressed. “You good? No stray bullet hit you? Need me to pull over because you’re gonna be sick?”

“No one shot me,” you answered, voice sounding almost mechanical. “And I’m not going to puke right now.”

Out of your peripheral, you saw Frank’s eyes dance between you and the road for half a minute. Eventually you heard him exhale a long, rough breath, his hand reaching over to the radio and turning it on. His fingers fiddled with the dial as your eyes continued to jump from billboard to mile marker to exit sign to billboard again.

“You know you’re just–just gonna have to find a way to get right with this, Spunky,” Frank said, settling on a radio station that was playing some classic rock. “This is just the way it is right now if you want to keep on breathing.”

You shifted further away from him in your seat, wrapping your arms around your duffle bag in your lap as if it would somehow bring you the comfort you so desperately craved right now. You also didn’t want Frank to see the tear that was about to make its inevitable descent down your cheek. 

Maybe Frank Castle could get right with killing people to stay alive, but you weren’t sure how you were supposed to do that.

°•°•°•°•°•°

You held the laminated Denny’s menu in between both of your hands, your eyes blankly staring down at the writing on it but not remotely comprehending a thing. Despite the fact that you hadn’t eaten much more than a couple of protein bars and a questionable gas station sandwich in the past twenty-four hours, you weren’t sure if you had much of an appetite. 

Frank had spent the past eight hours driving, only stopping a handful of times for gas and coffee or to use a bathroom. Thankfully today he’d stopped using threats and zip ties on you, apparently figuring that the men who’d come after you early this morning trying to kill you was enough of a reason to keep you from running on him. And he’d be correct on that front because you knew if he hadn’t been with you at that motel, you’d have been dead by now. Though that didn’t make any of those deaths sit right with you.

The past few hours on the road had been pretty quiet. Frank had kept the radio on, changing it anytime static cut into the station because he’d driven too far to pick it up. He wasn’t much for conversation, only ever asking if you needed to stop to piss or needed a coffee when he got one. Though it wasn’t like you were in the mood to strike up a conversation with him yourself. Besides the fact that he was absolutely intimidating, you were still internally struggling with your situation while also trying to fight away the emotions attached to it. Breaking down next to Frank in the car sounded like a horribly uncomfortable situation for the both of you. One you much preferred to save for moments when you were alone, like when you’d first used the women’s restroom at this Denny’s.

Frank sat forward in his seat, the vinyl of the booth protesting loudly beneath him at the movement as he rested his elbows on the faux wood table. You could feel his eyes on you but you continued to absently stare down at the menu.

“You need to eat,” Frank eventually said. “Can’t be stoppin’ a couple hours from now ‘cause you’re hungry.”

“Who said I’m not eating?” you snapped defensively, eyes still on the menu.

Frank scoffed, the sound grating on your nerves.

“I know for damn sure you haven’t read a single thing on that goddamn menu in the past five minutes that you’ve been staring at it,” he shot back. 

A frown pulled the corner of your lips downwards, your eyes glaring at the picture of pancakes before you. “Can’t say I have much of an appetite at the moment,” you muttered.

From the edge of your vision you saw one of Frank’s hands rise up, rubbing across his mouth. Soon after he was squaring his shoulders, his head cocked to the side as his eyes bore into you. The intensity of his stare had the hairs along your forearms rising beneath your sweater, a shudder rippling down your spine.

“Like I said earlier, you gotta find a way to get right with what we’ve gotta do now,” he told you.

“And how exactly am I supposed to get right with this?” you snapped, eyes rising up to meet his in a challenge.

Frank simply shrugged. “You find a way,” he answered. “Casualties are expected in things like this.”

You pulled a face at his words, your back straightening in the booth as you set the menu down. “This isn’t war, Frank,” you pointed out.

“Yeah?” he asked, brows rising a bit onto his forehead. “Sure as shit seems like a covert operation to me,” he countered. “Government official tasked me to quietly keep a target alive by any means necessary. You’ve got an entire militia nationwide trying to hunt you down right now. Big name politicians and spies within Homeland trying to cover up the shit you stepped in. That sound like somethin’ else to you, sweetheart? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure it don’t.”

Grinding your teeth together, your eyes narrowed back at him. You didn’t answer though, because he had a point. Again. And you didn’t like that the Punisher was beginning to make some semblance of sense to you right now.

“This is life or death, Spunky,” Frank continued. “So you find a goddamn way to get right with this or it’ll be you lyin’ on the floor of a motel room covered in bullets.”

You grimaced, your eyes dropping back down to the menu. Your mouth felt like it had gone bone dry, your tongue suddenly feeling heavy and leaden. The thought of one of those militia members finding you and doing just that had you wanting to run back to that bathroom stall and cry some more.

“Hey, hey,” Frank’s deep voice rumbled, catching onto your shift in mood. “You good over there?”

You shook your head swiftly, burying your face in your hands as that constricting feeling returned to your chest. “I can’t do this,” you breathed out, panic and fear slamming hard and fast into you. “I can’t do this. I’m not like you. I can’t do this.”

“Hey, look at me,” Frank commanded. “Look at me.”

His hand gently grabbed onto your wrist, carefully drawing one of your hands away from your face. He ducked his head, trying to meet your watery gaze with his. You couldn’t help but notice that there was nothing hard in those dark brown eyes of his for once.

“You can do this,” he stated. “Keep a clear, level head and you’ll be just fine. You’ve got me, and I promise you I won’t let a goddamn thing happen to you, you hear me? Not a goddamn thing. Not on my watch. You’re safe with me. Alright?”

Sniffling, you ran the back of your other hand across your nose as you nodded. Frank released your hand, gesturing down at your menu.

“Good, now find something to order because I’m tired of listening to your stomach,” he said.

Wiping a hand under your eyes, trying to dry the tears that had almost fallen, you shot him a disbelieving look. “You have not heard my stomach,” you disagreed.

Frank’s head canted to the side, one of his dark brows rising up onto his forehead. Heat crept its way up your neck, embarrassment flooding you at the realization that your stomach had been that loud. After a moment he jutted his chin at the menu on the table in front of you.

“Find something to order,” he told you.

With a huff you picked the menu back up, your eyes scanning over it for something simple that wouldn’t upset your stomach. Though admittedly Frank’s promise to keep you safe somehow had you feeling a little better–but that in itself made you feel uneasy. He was the Punisher after all. The man wasn’t supposed to be right in the head, or at least, that’s how the media always portrayed him, yet here he was making sense. What did that say about you?

“Are you dears finally ready to order?”

Eyes rising from the menu, you spotted a graying older woman standing beside the table. There was a bright smile on her face and a notepad and pen in her hands. Though when she spotted your red-rimmed eyes her smile faltered.

“You doing alright, miss?” she asked.

You saw the concern slowly creeping onto her face as she glanced over at Frank, shooting him a tense smile when he looked up at her. Her gaze darted back to you, surveying you a bit closer. Forcing a smile onto your own face, you waved a dismissive hand.

“Just that time of the month,” you lied quickly. “Hormones, you know? Can I actually get the scrambled egg breakfast?”

Almost immediately the smile returned to her face as she jotted down your order. “Oh honey,” she said as she scribbled along the notepad, “I don’t miss those at all .” She lowered the notepad, focusing on Frank. “And what can I get you, sir?”

You watched as Frank ordered a burger before handing the waitress your menu, shooting her another smile as she blathered on about menopause. When she finally walked away, your eyes landed back on Frank in the booth across from you. There was a slight grin on his mouth as he watched you.

“What?” you asked him.

He chuckled, shrugging a shoulder. “Nothin’,” he answered. “Just quick on the lie there.”

Reaching a hand out, you grabbed your glass of water and brought it to your lips for a drink. Swallowing down the cool liquid, you felt your stomach finally settle just a bit.

“Blaming a period works for almost anything,” you explained.

“Good to know,” Frank muttered, still grinning.

Drinking down more of the ice water, your eyes made their way towards the window to your left as the chatter in the diner filled your ears. The parking lot was fairly filled with parked cars, the afternoon sun high overhead. The normality of this moment felt comforting after the nightmare of your morning. 

“I meant what I said,” Frank told you, his soft voice drawing your attention back to him. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”

You didn’t respond as you lowered your glass to the table, your hand now damp from the condensation on it. Instead you quietly observed Frank, watching as his own gaze turned to focus out of the window beside your booth, his fingers fidgeting with his fork.

You had absolutely no idea what to make of this man sitting across from you, but you couldn’t deny that you certainly depended on him right now.

[suffersinfandom]

When it comes to fandom, a thing that is supposed to be fun and not that serious, I'm usually a filthy moderate. I want everyone to feel safe and heard. I'll jump through a hundred hoops to avoid conflict. I only block people who are hostile or triggering because I know being blocked is hurtful to some. I genuinely try get along with everyone, even the folks I disagree with.

In OFMD fandom, I never tag my posts with "Izzy Hands," not even when it's a strictly canonical observation or analysis. I use the "Izzy critical" tag whenever I mention the guy just in case my bias against him shows. I don't outright call him abusive when I'm writing meta because I don't want to stir up drama or tempt anyone to deny my lived experiences of abuse. On the rare occasion when I reply directly to someone I disagree with, I do everything in my power to be neutral, polite, and understanding (when people aren't being overtly racist).

And you know what? It kind of sucks! I'm not having fun!

Every day I get to see people complaining about harassment that (when they link to it or refer to it directly enough for me to figure out what they're talking about) is just... other people disagreeing with them or challenging them. I see all kinds of spite and pettiness aimed at the low-media-literacy idiots who love OFMD, season two, and Ed and Stede. People like me who love Ed are called abuse apologists who're incapable of recognizing that he did things wrong (in spite of the fact that everyone I follow does recognize that, yes, Ed did do things wrong -- we just don't think that he's a monster). I get to see people telling me why Izzy, a man who does and says things that my abusers have done and said to me, is the actual victim, or why he and Ed are soulmates who invented love, or why the show would be better if the season one antagonist who abused the indigenous lead had been centered like he deserves.

Look. I don't care if people like Izzy. That's none of my business and I'm happy to leave Izzy enjoyers alone as long as they aren't being racist (that does happen) or running my mutuals off of social media. I'm not going to hang out with or trust someone who thinks Izzy was in the right, but I'm also not going to bother them. I love not bothering people! I've been doing it since I first poked my head into the fandom in June of 2022!

But, like, If you want the fandom to get along, maybe being a spiteful bully isn't the best way to accomplish that, you know? Maybe you shouldn't call people abuse apologists or idiots who are just too stupid to understand why the show that you're in the fandom of is bad and terribly written and a piece of shit with only the most lukewarm, heterosexual (?) queer representation.

And if the person who came into my inbox and told me that I'm a Zionist bitch who should set myself on fire is reading this, log off. Book a therapist.

[dottores]

okay well, i logged back in, obviously, because there are clearly some things that need to be addressed and have been taken out of context. just because i’m leaving doesn’t mean i should sit here and let my name be smeared. 

to preface this, anantaru and i had a discussion where we came to a congenial understanding of what happened, there's been an acknowledgment on both sides of misunderstanding and believing distorted rumors and people that we probably should not have, but i’m still going to give a full explanation as to the background of everything so you all can understand and come to your own opinions. plus, if there's going to be a call-out post directed majorly at me made, i want an official address of it.

please do NOT send any hate their way, we have ended this discussion on good terms and have worked out what exactly was stirring this discourse between us. (spoiler alert: there was a third-party shit-stirrer that we both considered a decent friend at the time!)

i don’t really need a reason to block someone, and i shouldn’t have to explain it, but i did and i will again but more explicitly this time: @/anantaru made a post that i did not like. it’s as simple as that. it was a post about genshin characters and sex icks and one of the lines were “venti: too drunk.” i’m not anti-dc, but there are topics that i am sensitive about because i was sa’d in my freshman year of college—that is something i have talked about on this blog before, many of you who've been around since my tr era are aware of it. i acknowledged, and tee acknowledged, that this was probably a joke and was not meant to be taken the way i took it, but the aloof/casual way it was mentioned without any TW of implied dubcon, and without acknowledging that it was at least dubcon and could border on noncon in certain interpretations made me uncomfortable. i don’t mind seeing it as long as i’m warned. if it was tagged properly, i would have moved on without much care, but it wasn’t, so i was scrolling through the post snorting and was hit with that and i was made uncomfortable because i didn't like how it was just being passed off as an ick, and i blocked. there was no reason for it to go beyond what it did, yet we are here. anantaru mentioned that if you frequent their blog, you would know that they often write about venti and reader being drunk—i don’t frequent their blog, in fact this was my first encounter with them being reblogged onto my dash by shared mutuals, so it rubbed me wrong. thats the end of it. 

i’m not sure the exact timing, but i believe it was two(?) weeks after this, when i reblogged an unpopular opinion’s post with an opinion that i thought was fairly harmless. sure, looking back on it i could have phrased it better, i’m not going to deny that, but pinpointing my one opinion out of the hundreds of others that were objectively far more controversial than mine and crucifying me for it is uncalled for. you guys know very well that i do not have the time or energy to sift through random people’s blogs to look for minors. every once in a while i glance at the notes of shit posts that happen to be on my dash and i’d be a bit startled at finding a minor in them because i still do think you should at least try to catch minors who interact with shit posts because that’s the easiest way to find them. but i was working at a medium sized firm for a year and a half at the time of the post and i am currently in law school, i do not have the time to be psychotic about people’s likes and interaction, and even if i did have the time?? i’ve always gotten incredible interaction from y’all lmfao, imposing the idea that i’m jealous is entirely inane. i do still stand by the fact that my words were twisted, i was made out, more than once and by more than one person after the next bullet point's events, to have been some psycho that stalks peoples’ posts for excuses as to why they get interaction when that is simply not the case. 

regardless, after this incident, anantaru made a vague post that was almost directly quoting my tags from the reblog and was thus sent to me because many shared mutuals put together that it was about my tags. this was upsetting for multiple reasons 1) i had blocked anantaru by this point so i felt a bit violated that i was being vagued for something by someone that i blocked. 2) i started getting hate anons en masse after it, some of which were very unnecessarily explicit. needless to say, i was very upset and made a subpost on my main account after noticing i’ve been blocked on ao3 because 1) i was already upset and i didn’t even know why anantaru seemed to have it out for me much less go to the point of blocking on ao3 which leads into my next point and 2) i thought it was a bit ridiculous because the only thing blocking on ao3 stops is people from commenting on posts and i clearly was not going to comment on a post of someone who i was not on good terms with. reasoning aside, anantaru can block who they want and i was out of line for making comments about that in particular. i’ll admit that, and apologize for it. 

a screenshot was taken from my personal—not a good moment for me, obviously, but anantaru claimed in their post that it was about them with no evidence. i dmed them about this in particular because i was genuinely confused, we spoke about it, i offered them proof that it was not them because i had a discussion about this post with a close friend at the time of posting it and they believed me. i will attach screenshots below (cropped because there's no reason to attach the whole conversation) because i feel as if this accusation was rather extreme and i wish it would’ve been removed because it was obviously not my best moment. an explanation for the post itself, i was upset over plagiarism accusations regarding something i put my heart and soul into and then seeing the same person that made them consistently on my dash just straight up triggered me, for lack of a better word lol, so i made a vent on my personal. how it got misconstrued as to be anything about anantaru is baffling to me but i suppose that's a question for the subject of our next bullet point. i don’t want to go into detail about the accusations in themselves because i don’t want people to send the actual person who it’s about hate. regardless, that post was not about anantaru, i have never called them a cunt nor have i ever called them a gatekeepy cunt, though i’m beginning to think i should probably remove the word from my vocabulary atp, i use it far too flippantly. anyway, i do not know them well enough to formulate any sort of opinion like that. aside from that, in our discussion we came to an understanding over it and i wish that would have been cleared on their blog as wel. so i'll attach here (i crossed some out because i don't want to breach any boundaries regarding what anantaru might be comfortable sharing but i do think it's fair for me to want this particular point fully cleared as it was a bold accusation remaining up):

5. in our discussion, we came to realize that we have/had a shared mutual who was fostering discourse between the two of us. many of you will recognize her as audri aka alucrds, who has supposedly left tumblr by this point—i suspected this and anantaru has confirmed it while we were talking. audri was sending anantaru my posts claiming that they were about anantaru, but i will stress that the only actual discussions i ever had with anyone about anantaru was with tee and eris about that initial joke because it had upset me at the time, it never extended beyond that and it certainly was never with audri. my only conversation with audri that mentioned anantaru at all was probably around a week or so after i made the post in point 3, when audri asked me about ao3 blocking in casual conversation and i offhandedly mentioned that anantaru had blocked me on there—audri was a close friend at that point and iirc, she had actually told me right after that that anantaru had her blocked on tumblr, i had no idea that they'd been mutuals at all but either way, it was an offhanded comment that led to nowhere (or so i thought LOL). looking back on it, it was clearly her baiting me into giving her information about the post i made a week or so prior because after talking with anantaru, they explained that they got an anonymous message claiming that i was shit talking them for blocking them on ao3 and the only person that could have put together that the vent post from point 3 was about anantaru was audri herself. audri continued to evidently cherry-pick random vent posts of mine to show anantaru and claim that they were about them. why? i wish i could tell you. i considered audri a decent enough friend, and though she had her fair share of issues with mutuals and other friends of mine, i never really thought she’d stoop to this with me. but i guess there’s really no explaining people who thrive in discourse.

6. my comment in my most recent post about being harassed on ao3 and in comments and in asks was not about them at all. i thought it was very clearly about heliotropes (my dottore series) and pressure to update from certain readers, but i'm clarifying that now.

7. i never intended on directly addressing this, which is why i did not directly name anantaru in my post, if i’d known at the time that tee was going to end up addressing all of this, i would’ve just been straight up with all of it.

anyway, i think that’s all, hopefully this will be the last post for real as i am tired mentally and now i am also physically sleep deprived. i've been up since three so forgive me for typos and grammar errors. this all has gone on for over a year. sorry for all the discourse on y'all's dash, wish i could have left with a bit more grace than this. rumors have been blown out of proportions and blindly believed, things have been taken out of context, such is life. i made my fair share of mistakes on my personal blog with my vents, others have admitted and owned up to their own mistakes, some will never admit to their mistakes. such is life. it moves on, always does. i know all of y'all are smart enough to come to your own opinions.

over and out, sorry again, and logged out (hopefully for real this time),

cat

[lily-orchard-gossip-blog]

Hello hello again! It's good to have you back for a little while! Unfortunately there is a lot of infighting in the critical sphere right now and it's not very fun to follow. And worse still Lily is as smug as ever. People are too invested in who ripped off what, who's disrespecting this or that, they should just be having fun at Lily's expense. That's what Saiscribbles has done, and you can tell how effective it is because Lily has tried every strategy in the book to prove how not mad she is.

You know what?

I think I would like to poke fun at the whole thing. I mean, it's sounds like she's gotten a bit ridiculous since I've been gone. (Ridiculous sounds like an understatement, thought.)

I've done serious and it's exhausting. You can only take her serious for so long before you realize she doesn't really even know or believe what she's saying.

As for the fighting, well... It's a shame, but let's try to focus on what's at the core of this blog: Gossiping about Lily.

...But I do have one thing I want to get off my chest, so I will mention it here and then move on. It is under the read bar just so those who don't care can ignore it.

I do have one thing to say about the drama, and that's about Ethel.

They are a liar liar pants on fire.

Seriously, I watched Evangeline Skovs video, which was one of the better coverages on the subject and there was no plagiarism. Not even of me, and I was a source!

Never mind that fact that Ethel legit lied about my blog in their rebuttal, claiming that Levi couldn't find anything on my blog about their video, or glade, so Evangeline was lying.

Their proof? Levi used the search bar, used the word minor and glade, and nothing came up except one post...

Fun fact: I'm bad at tagging things, and my search bar is kind of useless because of that.

(Side note: why would I use glade's name? Why would I want to draw attention to someone who I assumed wanted to be left alone? I'm pretty sure that was made clear in the video.)

Anyway, if you used my archive you could easily find TONES of posts from me talking about the video in question with details.

Here's one that Ethel conveniently left out:

And you know what's hilarious about that? They reblogged this take to try and rebuke it on their tumblr. (That they have long since abandoned.)

I decided to ignore it, because obviously I'm not going to try and get in a fight with them, and Ethel was so mad by that they messaged me directly to try and threaten me with legal jargon.

So I blocked them.

But hey, since I'll probably never bother with this again, here are the messages. Enjoy old drama from like...2 years ago:

Image text here:

[Okay, I've put this off for as long as possible, but please, read this case study as right now you are parroting harmful legal advice. Victim testimony not only constitutes evidence, but can be sufficient evidence to convict, a fact that was tested in Commonwealth v Gustavo Gonzalez Santos in Massachusetts.

I’ll highlight two relevant sections in case you don’t have the time to read the entire thing: “The defendant's sole argument on appeal is that the evidence was not sufficient to support his convictions. The defendant asserts that "there were no witnesses to the alleged assaults," "no physical evidence," "no medical or forensic evidence," and "no expert testimony." He argues that "there was absolutely no conclusive evidence presented at trial that suggested the [d]efendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt."” And: “Here, the victim testified to facts that constituted each element of the charged offenses. Her testimony, which the jury found to be credible, was sufficient, standing alone, to support a finding beyond a reasonable doubt as to each of the convictions. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Lawrence, 68 Mass. App. Ct. 103, 104 (2007)

("The victim's testimony was sufficient evidence of [indecent assault and battery on a child under age fourteen]"); Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, 23 Mass. App. Ct. 184, 185 (1986) ("The victim's account of what the defendant did to him in the apartment was sufficient to overcome the defendant's motion for a required finding of not guilty of rape"). The idea that long infected our legal system that the victim's testimony in sexual assault and rape cases is less credible than the testimony of victims in cases involving other types of crimes -- an idea that reflected nothing more than sexism and an unwillingness on the part of our courts to treat sexual crimes as the gravely serious matter that they are -- has been rejected both by statute and by common law.”

When you and others continue to parrot the myth that victim testimony does not constitute as valid evidence, you are harming victims of rape and abuse. This is straight up rape culture and, since I’m pushing back any video coverage on the matter until I’ve finished dealing with Lily because I don’t want to muddle things, I need you to stop promoting falsehoods. We have legal members on our team who have passed the bar, Patchie does not, Opal does not, and neither does You Can Eat Hearts. You are causing unnecessary harm to victims by breathing life into myths constructed by rape culture. To be clear, I am not asking for your denouncement of certain people, just for you to please, stop publishing bad legal takes.

This is also the case in Canada, if you're wondering - https://www.accused.ca/evidence.htm

Sorry, I just realized I didn't give you the US case study. Here it is - http://masscases.com/cases/app/100/100massappct1.html#:~:text=The%20jury%20found%20the%20defendant,We%20affirm. ]

Oct 30, 2022 9:16 AM

Whew, you have no idea how long I wanted to spill this tea.

Alright, I've said what I've wanted to say on this topic. I'm now going to focus on laughing at Lily and her horrible incest stories.

[rinmemesuoka]

I want to mod Fields of Mistria dialogue!

Awesome! Making alterations to Fields of Mistria dialogue is a fairly simple process that requires basically no coding knowledge. Please note that this is a guide specifically for making alterations to existing dialogue. Adding new dialogue would require coding and I'm not familiar enough with Mistria's code to give advice on that.

Important Consideration:

The current state of Fields of Mistria dialogue modding involves making direct edits to/replacing game files. There isn't really a tool like SMAPI or Content Patcher available yet. This is important to remember for dialogue mods because all FOM dialogue is contained in a single .JSON file. This means that you cannot utilize multiple, individual dialogue mod files. This is where knowledge of how to make dialogue alterations is important even if you're downloading someone else's mod. If you want the effects of two different dialogue mods, unless they are made by the same modder and they provide a combination file themselves, you are going to need to go in and edit things yourself.

That out of the way, let's get started.

First, you need to find the game's Local Files. You can do this in the steam client by right-clicking the game title, hovering over Manage, and selecting Browse Local Files, as pictured:

You should be taken to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Fields of Mistria in your file explorer, but your files could be stored elsewhere depending on your settings.

In the main directory, you should see a file named localization.json. Pictured:

Copy that file and paste it to another location OUTSIDE OF THE LOCAL FILES, such as your documents folder, or even your desktop. I would recommend making two copies, and keeping one un-altered as a back-up, just in case. I would not advise directly tampering with the file in the local files, and having the editing copy outside of the local files is convenient for making quick edits in the middle of gameplay.

Okay, so how do you open a .json file for editing? I personally use Notepad++ and find its interface pretty user-friendly for this type of minimal editing, but people with more programming experience might have other suggestions.

So, we've installed Notepad++, and we open the .json. . . . . . ah.

Yep, that's three-million+ characters on a single line. I don't know why it's like this. Possibly other interfaces may display it differently, but I only know Notepad++ so the best solution I have is this: select View from the menu, and click Word wrap. Pictured:

That makes it a bit more readable, but it is still every piece of dialogue in the game run together in a massive block of text. Very hard to manually locate the lines you want. This is where CTRL + F comes into play.

So the last time I used CTRL + F in this file, I was making an edit to my desktop copy of the file while I was playing, and knew exactly what line I was looking for, so I searched "old cottage ruins" to find it. But say I wasn't trying to edit a specific line, and wanted to go through and make general edits, such as changing a character's pronouns. I think the best practice, though it's still possible to miss lines this way, is to search the character's name. Pictured:

In most cases, a character will be named in dialogue to establish context before being referred to with a pronoun or gendered term. You will have to click through quite a bit of their own dialogue using this method though, as that will be tagged with their name.

Another important thing to consider is the order in which dialogue is entered in the .json. Let's go back to the cottage ruins.

Pictured: dialogue from Ryis' two-heart event. As you can see, it is not entered in order in the .json. So you may need to check before and after the dialogue you are editing to make sure you are hitting everything you need.

You can safely edit the red text in quotation marks, though I would avoid touching any of the "MISSING" text. The purple text is code and shouldn't be altered if you don't know what you're doing.

After you have saved the changes you want to make, you will need to copy your edited localization.JSON, and paste it into the local files, confirming that you want to replace the existing file. Again, I recommend making a back-up of the original file before doing this.

That being said, Mistria is in early-access, and when the game updates, your edited localization.JSON will be replaced by an updated file. So, any edits you made will have to be made manually again, to avoid saving over new content with your out-dated edit. Depending on how intensive your dialogue edit is, you may want to wait until Mistria is out of early access if you do not want to be constantly re-doing your edits.

I hope this was helpful!