#went on a ramble about his mindset earlier

[justkillingthyme]

In the 1960s two men did experiments with classical conditioning and came up with learned helplessness.

But Valerie!! Valerie!! I hear you ask. What were the experiments and what is learned helplessness?

The experiments were done on dogs. Very unethical and very sad so look it up at your own discretion. But the experiment went to show that if you punish a dog frequently and give them no choice or option of escape, eventually they learn and believe that they have no choice in the matter at all. Even when the barrier is removed and the dog is given the option to avoid punishment, they simply take the punishment instead of even attempting to solve the problem or escape pain. This was also applied to rats with similar results.

Humans function in the same way. A few examples: if a child is grounded or given harsh punishment for small infractions, it can lead to rebellion or fear (no matter what you do, you’ll be punished anyways.) or if a child is coddled it leads to feelings of inferiority. That child is unable to create solutions for themself and needs their hand held.

Now I direct your focus to Clark Triton.

For (give or take) a year, he was under constant surveillance and threat. There was no escaping, no way out, no way to tell anyone what was happening. Descole was an inescapable omnipotent presence in his life. We see one snippet of how their relationship worked behind closed doors.

Every time clark tries to argue he’s shot down by a threat

His response, while initially that of shock and anger, quickly turns to fawning.

Descole establishes, time and again, that it’s his way or no way. When looking back in LS, it becomes more evident that whatever Descole says goes.

A question could be posed. Why didn’t Clark attempt to escape? Even without the help of the police, surely he could have broken the trapdoor and escaped with his family to London, correct?

In theory it could be possible. If timed correctly, Clark most likely had the opportunity to get Brenda and Doland out of the basement and take Luke back to London. There they could get in contact with Scotland Yard, so on and so forth, and everything would be done.

This is where Clark’s conditioning comes in. Because it’s been so long of constant threats to his town, his family, and the lives of others, he no longer believes he can escape. He never contacted Hershel, despite knowing his brilliance (or it was intercepted). He was never able to get any leeway under Descole, and eventually he gave up. Even if an option was presented for his freedom or escape, he wouldn’t take it. He has no hope. Clark had learned that any action against descole has severe consequences, so it’s best to do nothing at all. He feels no control over his life or his situation. I doubt he feels much autonomy for a while after Descole is gone either.

Clark’s resistance with the wine was risky. Very, very risky. And it’s a moment of boldness that comes entirely out of the blue from what we know of Clark pre and during LS. He spent a year under Descole’s control only to take a chance that could cost him everything. It’s only his trust and hope with Hershel that makes it happen. It’s a very small spark in him that has otherwise been snuffed.

Despite all of this, Clark never seems to want revenge. He doesn’t act hostile towards Descole. In fact, he’s one of the best fathers that PL as a series has.

Of course, he had his moments in LS. He was under extreme pressure and it was natural to lash out at Luke for writing that letter. Luke didn’t know the dangers, but he could have literally ruined everything if Clark wasn’t able to convince Descole that he didn’t write for help (or if descole hadn’t heard Luke admit it). He was probably already tense to begin with, and hearing that it was Luke of all people that put himself in danger made him snap.

But after LS, he gets better. He doesn’t try and go after Descole for what he did, he’s content to have his family back, and he feels safe enough to let Luke go on a trip around the world with his friend. He’s one of the only people in the series that we really see heal from what has been done to them.

And personally I think that’s fascinating.

It posits that when highly desired outcomes are believed to be improbable and/or highly aversive outcomes are believed probable, and the individual has no expectation that anything she does will change the outcome, depression results.

so real

[lilacgaby]

˗ˏˋ🖍️crayons and connections

pairing: prohero!katsuki x nanny!reader

summary: after a harsh relationship he really didn't want another try at romance for a while. at least, not until he hired you. he thought he loved the way you cared for his kids, but you both knew it was something more.

tags: fem!reader, domestic au, use of pet names, no proofread, fluff, cursing, taking care of kids, a millisecond of angst i swear trust me, comfort

(a/n: i couldn't get this au out of my headdd)

wc: ~3k

katsuki was honestly sick of his wife.

she would nag him constantly, asking for his cards and attention without ever asking about him or how he was doing. everything was an argument now, most of their nights would eventually end up with him on the couch.

the only lights of his life were his newborn son and one year old daughter. he had adopted the 'staying for the kids' mindset, but her skipping out on their shared daughter's first birthday was his breaking point.

who knew 'i want a divorce' would be the happiest words he'd ever uttered such far? watching her cry and swear she'd be better feeding the hole of despair that had opened over their three year relationship, that had only really blossomed because she got pregnant.

he had made her sign a prenup, thankfully, so he got to keep the house. with a payment and some paperwork he was left with full custody of his kids in his house, to sleep in his bed for the first time in ages.

well, only because he hired you.

it was only natural that he needed a nanny, i mean he was gone for most of the day patrols. after taking some in for interviews, he eventually landed on you after some hours of questioning.

he was exhausted, some of these hags were terrifying, both in their practices and appearances. he relaxed a bit at the sight of you. you were really pretty.

"hi mr-- um bakugo was it?"

you and no idea who he was? it kind of hurt but would end up working out in his favor.

"yeah, just katsuki's fine."

"oh, okay! i'm [name], uh-- i have a couple years experience for babysitting and i worked as a nanny for some other families too--"

as you rambled about your past experience and why you were good for the job, katsuki's mind went elsewhere. you looked breathtaking just speaking there, he swore your hair was flowing in the wind and that the sun shone brighter around you.

not to mention you were really sweet, he had saw you making small talk to the hags earlier, which meant you really were a saint.

"so uh-- yeah that's all about me... uh, hello?"

"oh! yes? that was all really impressive [name]. so, would you be available from eight in the morning to about ten at night? those are my current patrol hours, and obviously you'd be compensated for this trial."

"yes, that's perfect for me! when can i start?"

"uh.. tomorrow?"

"okay!" you stuck out your hand, a small smile on your lips. "nice to meet you katsuki."

he shook your hand firmly and you bowed before leaving.

the next day you arrived earlier than anticipated, he was suited up in his heroes outfit, relishing in the moments where his kids were still asleep.

he heard a knock at the door and opened it. it was you, a tiny purse behind you. "hi katsuki! woah wait a minute.. are you like a hero?"

he shrugged his arms. "yeah, you know only like top three, nothing big."

he saw your eyes widen. "oh wow! sorry for not recognizing you, i don't really keep up with all that stuff-- but im sure you're really strong!"

he nodded, "hell yeah i am. anyways, come in."

you were greeted by a large family home. you were sure your apartment was the size of the kitchen alone. huge halls and grand staircases filled the space, lavish chandeliers all shaped as explosions hung from the ceiling. not to mention the crazy amount of trophies displayed.

the rocking chairs and baby blankets scattered about were seriously out of place, making you giggle a bit.

when he looked back at you, you immediately slapped your hand over your face. "something funny?"

"no, no it's just-- your house is so nice!"

"thank you? anyways, i'll take you up to their rooms now."

you followed behind him, even his kids had huge rooms. you were super kind of jealous.

he opened the door and waved you over to see a small, adorable baby boy sleeping in a cot. "this is kei, he's only eight months." he whispered. "he fusses a lot, but he loves music."

he closed the door slowly behind, and walked to the room straight across. a tiny toddler laid in a princess bed, the room drowning in all things pink. "this is kioko, she's a handful. she turned two a bit ago." he whispered, closing the door behind him to give you a basic rundown of the schedule.

"so, they normally wake up around eight. there's a lot of formula for kei in the kitchen, and kioko just likes cereal. kioko can and will play all day, but kei gets real sleepy."

you nodded along making mental notes of everything.

"they eat lunch around three, but a snack before then is fine. dinner is at seven and they go to sleep at eight."

"okay, i think i got it."

he nodded. "i think you do too. there's extra keys in the counter by the door. call my assistants if there are any emergencies, i wrote the number on the fridge."

you nodded again, "kay, i got it. you get going though, it's already eight twenty!"

"fuck. okay, i'll see you later."

"bye katsuki."

the door closed behind him and you were alone. you decided to start prepping a bottle. just as you finished, you heard the wails of a baby ring throughout the halls.

you walked up to the cot, speaking softly. "hi kei, i'm [name]." as you picked him up, he gurgled in confusion. "i'll be taking care of you from now on, let's go eat."

you kept him in your arms. he was looking up at you curiously, making you smile as he touched your face. as you walked to his sister's room, where sure enough she was awake too.

"hi kioko, im [name]. i'll be taking care of you, okay?" you said, reaching out a hand for her to shake it.

she grasped your hand. "okay. go eat?"

"yes, let's go eat. follow me, okay?" she followed after you sleepily, her blanket and stuffed animal in her arms as you led her to the kitchen.

you placed her brother in a high chair first, giving him his formula. "can i pick you up?" you asked her.

"up-up!" she said, raising her arms up in the air. you carried and placed her into one too. "so, what do you wanna eat?"

"cookie!" she pointed to an expensive cereal brand you'd never even seen before. "oh, okay."

you placed a bit in a tiny bowl, adding some milk. they ate relatively peacefully, were they really as crazy as katsuki said?

yes, yes they were. kioko was a ball of energy, walking any and everywhere. she wanted to play every single game known to mankind. it didn't help that hide and seek was hard in such a huge house.

kei clung to you. as you searched for her he never wanted to leave your side, he'd start sniffling when you even left his sight.

lunch and dinner were a blur, you made the food katsuki had told you to on the sticky notes he'd left around. you had a bit too, and man did these kids eat good.

kioko finally crashed, tugging on the back of your pants. "sleepy time." you were washing dishes, so you wiped your hand clean to ruffle her hair. "okay, go wait for me in your room."

you finished up, picked up kei from where he was sat by his activity cube, and walked over to kioko's room.

you read her a book, 'the giving tree.' she fell asleep halfway through, utterly tuckered out from the day. kei fell asleep against your chest, you went and laid him down in his cot.

you looked around the house, seeing the mess. you sighed. "let's do this."

the house was sparkling once you were done, a pot of coffee on the stove as you waited for katsuki to get back. you seriously didn't know how you were going to go back your one-bed apartment now that you've seen how the rich live.

the door sounded, it was katsuki. "hi katsuki! how was uh-- patrol?"

he was covered in soot and dirt from head to toe. you internally sobbed at your hours of mopping going to waste. "oh uh, it was good. caught some guys and shit."

"ah, that's cool!"

he looked around. "did my brats cause you any trouble?" he eyed how clean everything was, from the dishes to the floor.

"they're full of energy, but so cute it makes up for it."

he wore a soft smile. "yeah, they really are."

"you know, they both look exactly like you. it's cute."

he flushed slightly, "yeah?"

"mhm, oh! i had leftovers from earlier? if you wanted some."

"yeah, i'll eat them." she smiled and started to grab her things. "so, does this mean i pass?"

he smiled too. "yes,

yes you did."

days melted into months of your routine with kei and kioko. some days katsuki would come home early, letting you play games all together. you'd cook with him sometimes too, laughing at how precise he was about it.

everything got a bit real the second kei spoke his first word to you.

"mama."

you and kioko got so excited, recording a clip to send it to katsuki immediately.

the entire day you were so happy, treating the kids to a secret extra snack, and letting them beat their favorite baby popcorn.

a knock on the door was heard, you were feeding kei so you walked over to the door with him in hand. you thought it was odd, why would katsuki knock?

except it wasn't him, it was some woman. "uh.. who are you?"

"oh, so he thinks he can replace me so quickly? newsflash, bitch, i'm his ex wife."

"can you not curse in front of the kids?"

"i'll do whatever the fuck i want. you know why? because i'm actually connected to those kids. you're just playing mother, he'll dump you eventually."

she slammed the door behind her. "star her mama?" kioko asked behind you.

"yeah, stranger."

you had gotten a bit weird after that, acting weird about affection and things surrounding it. you didn't know why, but she really did make you question your role in their lives.

you weren't a mother, you were a nanny.

katsuki finally got fed up with your new, odd attitude. he questioned you with a look in his eye.

"why you been acting so weird?" he asked, his mouth full with food.

"huh? i don't know what you mean?"

he pointed his chopsticks at you. "you've been acting all weird 'round 'em. you don't like that they call you mom or something?"

"no! it's just.. don't you think it's weird?"

"no. i'm happy that they like you so much."

"you don't think i'm trying to replace their mom?"

"they never really had one in the first place. she was never around, so if she said some shit to you know she wasn't half the person you are."

"oh.."

"so she did come."

"yeah. she did."

"[name]. you are ten times the person she ever was. you're perfect without trying. actually, you do try. and that's why..

that's why we all love you."

you both turned red, which made you laugh. "thank you katsuki."

you reached out and held his hand.

"seriously, thank you."

he put a restraining order on his ex the next day, also going to get flowers for you as it was his day off.

you'd started to sleep over after that, the affection between the two of you growing gradually.

he gifted you a room in the house, fully furnished with about ten thousand dollars left in one of the drawers so 'you could decorate for yourself.'

that room went mostly unused though, as most nights you'd end up cuddled with katsuki in his bed.

the fridge was filled to the brim with photos by kioko, who'd love to draw all four of you as one big family.

katsuki even asked her for a small one, one that he now keeps in the back of his phone case for good luck.

he asked you out officially with kioko's help, her unwanted help that is.

she snuck out after bedtime where he was speaking to you on the couch, you in his arms as he was mustering up his courage--

"pleaseeee have a play date with daddy, pleasee?" she said, using her puppy eyes.

"we all love you a lot, but he loves you this much!" she spread out her arms to make a point, making you laugh.

"okay! okay, i already said yes kioko. go to sleep, okay?"

"yay!" she ran up to her room and you heard the door close.

"so.. about our playdate?"

he took you out to a fancy dinner of your choice, telling you to order whatever you'd like. his mom was babysitting so you two could relax.

he'd learned a lot about you from his kids, your favorite color, the music you liked, the way you like your eggs, but it was different to hear it from you.

he thought you were so gorgeous and kind, so sweet to him and the lights of his life. who was he kidding? over the last year you'd become a pillar of his life.

he enjoyed going home knowing you were there with his kids, you were there to hear about his stresses and support him.

he was happy to support you, to let you stay in his house. to let him pay for things for you, to let him make you smile.

one 'playdate' turned into multiple, you went out every other week.

he knew he had to do something, a grand gesture to show you just how much he loved you, how he wanted to continue building this perfect family of his forever.

he knew how much you treasured the opinions of his kids, he loved that about you.

so, he got them in on it. kioko and kei each held a gift for you, one of your favorite flowers and the other of your favorite perfumes.

you were at a seriously gorgeous park, streams the only noise you could hear for miles. you saw your two favorite kids sitting on the picnic blanket.

"kioko, kei?"

"mommy!" they ran up to you, kei handing you the bouquet of roses, and kioko handing you a vial of perfume.

"aw, thank you you two. where's your dad?"

"hes waiting for you! come come!"

"come!"

they guide you to a secluded area, with a natural arch of overgrown vines, where katsuki is waiting for you.

"katsuki?"

"[name]."

"what's all of this for?"

"you." he took your hands into his, looking deeply into you.

"you're important to me. you've.. you've become the thing i was missing. the thing i searched for in other people.

and, you've become that to the people i care about the most too.

so,"

he got down on one knee infront of you.

"will you marry me?"

the word yes escaped you before you even realized it. you tackled him into a hug, which prompted kei and kioko to join in.

everything was just so sweet from then on.

kioko was the flower girl at your wedding, kei was the ring holder.

your first kiss shared under the altar was magical, the memory of it forever engrained in your memories, and in your lips.

your honeymoon was bittersweet, as you missed your two headaches. but you and katsuki also enjoyed the private time alone with eachother, embracing and finding comfort in eachother's presence.

when you got home though, your picturesque family was about to have a new addition,

you were pregnant.

whilst everyone was debating whether or not you'd have a boy or girl, to everyone's surprise once you and katsuki cut the slice of cake open..

it had both colors.

you we're having twins.

as you looked over at katsuki, a shocked expression on his face, all you could do was laugh.

laugh because you couldn't have ever imagined a life this perfect for you.

but it was a wax-drawn line of fate that led you to katsuki,

and you'd always be thankful for it.

tag: @kovu-bunnbunn

[lesbianslovenamari]

More art! Higher effort this time cuz I got a stroke of inspiration so I’ve been dedicating most of today and yesterday into this:

EXPLANATION UNDER CUT:

I feel like I should give a bit of context about this part

Above are two of my own OCs, Quinn Crawford (left) and Capucine Blanchet (right)

They are set in my own fantasy universe which has little to do with Dungeon Meshi.

Usually I wouldn’t draw my own characters interacting with canon characters from a piece of media I like, mainly cuz it feels too far-fetched, but I thought it’d be fun because these two vaguely reminded me of Chilchuck and Namari

(one is skinny, ginger and has a sharp tongue, the other a chubby/muscular woman who’s more laid back but shares a similar mindset)

and also they’re bartenders (The Enchanted Lagoon is the name of the cocktail bar they work at) so it was such an easy decision to put them in the background of the other two drinking together. I like the fact that you can separate this drawing into two parts, so they’re not really interacting and it still feels like two different universes, but I get to draw them together.

(Forgive my rambling^)

.

Now for DunMeshi:

My profile should make it obvious that these are two of my favourite characters from the show.

Chilchuck I find very relatable and I love his character for a number of reasons.

Namari (who’s probably lower on the list cuz she’s still more of a side character) I saw and was straight away blown away, partly cuz I’m lesbian, partly because I rarely see characters like her represented so well in media and I love her for that.

I then went on to find they have a whole dynamic together

I love when people draw these two together cuz it’s fun to imagine the drunk confessions.

Little extra from speculations earlier today:

The rose-tinted glasses of newly-finished art are wearing off but I mentioned previously how much I struggle to convert characters from other (esp anime) art styles, so I’m taking this as a win.

If you want my usual artstyle for comparison, simply refer to how I draw my own characters.

[the-ace-with-spades]

Trying to make myself write like a monkey pilot and so random bits from worldbuilding of this fic that are only mention or not even included (this is trans Bradley fic, for people who have not read it, but some bits are universal - I'm sorry for the rambling)

Merlin has a flight school in Nevada - this is where Bradley gets his commercial pilot licence, not long after he starts medical transition. Merlin runs it with his second wife, Nandini, who was the original owner and main flight instructor. They met through Slider, who got his commercial through her school, and they got two kids and their daughter had a crush on Bradley everyone in their family holds against her any time they meet for family gatherings.

Slider, by the way, retired from the Navy the same year as Mav started on the path to become a test pilot, and got a commercial and then airline pilot licence. Mav makes fun of it constantly.

Jake and Bradley (then pre-transition) talked extensively about their future life together and in Jake's mind, it was a given they would get married and have kids eventually, they'd just wait for the right timing or until they were at certain ranks/positions. Bradley did want all of it, he just never thought/imagined how it'd actually look with him as wife/mother, only vaguely with Jake as a dad and his own image completely avoided (kinda hard to explain but it's like a very blurry picture where his own figure would be even blurrier).

Bradley still wants to get married and have kids. Once the whole wife/mom bit became husband/dad thing, he's no longer uncomfortable about the topic. He knows being pregnant would be difficult because society sucks but he's pretty sure he's at the stage of confidence when he can pull it off.

Jake's mom is the nightmare mother-in-law people joke about. For real. She is terrible to all of her kids' partners, but she is especially terrible to Bradley (pre and after transition) because Jake is her little miracle baby.

Coyote joined Jake's squadron just as Bradley left the Navy, which means he met Jake in the middle of a heartbreak and well, that's basically why he's not the biggest fan of Bradley (even if sometimes it shows in ugly ways).

Bradley and Jake also had very different mindsets about their relationship during the break-up period of six years. Bradley had been a bit in denial and tried to force himself to move quickly, thinking that ever being with Jake was impossible (or you know, a fantasy only possible in his head...). Jake up until he sees Bradley, now after transition, at the Hard Deck, thought they were like magically destinated to be together and they'd meet again at some point. He dated some girls, mostly on Coyote's insistence, but he never hit it off with any woman, liked to say he was 'ruined for life' for Bradley and never stopped believing they'd find each other again despite the years apart piling on.

Mav and Ice renewed their vows and had a second wedding after Ice went into remission. Bradley was the officiant, mostly because Ice and Mav had a massive fight about whose witness he should be.

This is implied ?? but Ice's cancer went in remission because I imagine Bradley being there and Mav being there more often because of Bradley meant Ice'd go to the doctor earlier than in canon and had better chances given it was at an earlier stage when it was found. You know, a butterfly effect and all that.

Bradley and Ice spent weeks after Bradley's top surgery playing DCS, most often in the F-14 sim with Bradley in the RIO seat, sometimes with Slider providing commentary. As stated in the fic, Slider is the one to pop the idea and install the whole thing. Ice and Mav often play while goes through his oncology treatment and Ice often uses his puppy eyes to make Mav play as the RIO (rather than have two planes and Jester AIs)

Jake has a strange view on gender, which isn't necessarily bad, but it can be disheartening to Bradley, especially at the beginning. It's almost as if he doesn't see people's gender but who the people are (kinda like similar to not seeing skin colours??) which can be great when you don't want to be perceived/treated by just gender (like Bradley pre-transition) but can be ignorant if you do (like Bradley after transition). He is also terrible with labels and doesn't really believe or use them.

(A bit nsfw/tmi ??) Bradley chose his preferred type of top surgery based on the desire to keep the sensation of his nipples (buttonhole has a higher probability of keeping the feeling), mostly because it was a really sensitive part of his body, but ended up not keeping the full sensation on one side, which is always a possible outcome with any top surgeries, and after a few more months on T realized that his chest isn't really that sensitive anymore anyway. It's probably one of the very few things he misses.

I'm absolutely ecstatic because readers picked up on it, but Jake's been so jealous of Mav the whole time the fic's been going on and it'll continue until he realizes who Mav is to Bradley actually. You can only imagine how horrified he is when he realizes how terrible of a first impression he made on Mav.

While Mav is not a fan of Jake, Ice is trying to be very neutral. Objectively, he's not the biggest fan of Jake either, mostly because he's never going to be a fan of any of his baby boy's partners, but he thinks Bradley is an adult and should be able to make his own decisions. He also knows that a lot of people would have told him Mav is no good for him and it's not true at all so he's trying to trust Bradley's judgment.

someone please make me write, i just stare at the open document and change words in already written dialogues

[corviids]

You should know that someone is stirring problems with your art and the latest installments in gilded lilies. You should know in case you get bombarded with hate comments https://twitter.com/litathesissy/status/1672795383196418049?t=uZjfGFALpfuXW_l9DkkmMA&s=19

i drafted this entire thing and then my app refreshed so bear with me 😭 i’m also at dinner with my fam but wanted to say something

1. the art: referencing older artists like claude monet isn’t uncommon (at least in the art circles i’ve ran it) but in hindsight i understand that wasn’t the best choice to do without explicitly stating i did so so i take 100% accountability for that. i honestly wasn’t giving it much thought just because that drawing specifically, i worked on-forgot about-and then saw in my files and was like “hey lemme post that”. if you want insight into how i drew it, i side by sided my canvas and reference and then overlay after doing the sketch to correct the funkiness. i will definitely add an edit stating i referenced it.

2. the fic: another author reached out to me earlier regarding this this morning and we discussed it in private but i think it best to just say something here: the similarities in the specific scene are a complete coincidence. i have had aenys presenting and going feral as a result of luke planned for a while bc i’ve known i wanted aenys to be an alpha since the start. the specific “i’m his mother” “i’m your uncle” was meant to both be kinda hot but also show how different luke and aemond’s mindsets are towards their kids. luke tunnel visions whereas aemond recognizes their natures. i have discussed the aenys-aemond-luke dynamic pretty extensively elsewhere (bc i wanna keep nsfw off here), but there is a through line in my fics that aenys is a protective mamas boy and aemond is jealous of that. as for the setting, i frequently use the training yards in my fics when i want public displays to happen (and the nursery in private). i can only say that the similarities where not at all intentional.

3. as for the specific fic, i have read it in the past but in all honesty, i never retain specific scenes in fics. this isn’t bc an authors works are not being memorable, simply that i struggle to retain info beyond my hyperfixations bc my adhd. this is why i struggle to rec fics when asked. i’ve had numerous scrapped fics bc as i worked on them, something similar popped up and i didn’t wanna create that overlap. i genuinely did not even think about the other fic while writing mine. i went into it wanting to write heat sex but also wanted to build on the world of gilded lilies by giving some info on what the kids are up to as they are older

if the other author would like me to add a note in my fic regarding the similarities, i would be happy to discuss it with them as i don’t want to do it without their permission bc i haven’t seen anything from them and don’t want to involve them if they do not want to be.

to kinda conclude, the similarities were not at all intentional. the ideas in this fic for that scene was mostly based on things i’ve already messed around with and constant rambling with others in discord. as for the art, i once again take accountability for that and apologize for being so careless with it.

also: please do not harass anyone. i want to believe no one will but i just want to say that bc i’ve seen drama unfold before in past fandoms and want to avoid exposing people to that.

lemme know if y’all want me to expand upon anything else :)

[sunflowerrosewood]

Burns ~ Tony Stark

Author's Note: Since my other account @cheekyredwillow got deleted. I am adding some of my favorite fanfictions to this account and revamping this one with new ones. I hope to make an actual list of fandoms I am still a fan of! NO requests for the time being.

On to the one shot! This is a plus size reader and a soulmate prompt where you have similar markings as your soulmate.

Ever since you turned 25 years old, you noticed burns and bruises form down your arms. You weren’t noticing these earlier but you must have recently got these with your soulmate. For a long time, you believed you did not have a soulmate. Now he or she has finally showed up.

You were so surprised but why did you have to get their burns. It hurts so much every day. It’s like working in a factory with heat. But you know your soulmate is not very happy about you. I mean who would like cellulite marks on their bodies and wrinkle marks where fat is. Stretch marks on top of it. It is disgusting.

What you did not know is Tony Stark, the playboy, billionaire, philanthropist was your soulmate. Ever since Pepper left as his secretary, he had to find someone who could fill that space. He knew his soulmate was somewhere because he started to see stretch marks where he had not used to see. While his mindset on women is the skinny broads, he realized that he would not mind someone on the thicker side. 

You were looking for a job in New York and noticed Stark Industries was looking for a secretary. You used to do secretary work in your hometown so you applied immediately. Sure you did not look the part but you did keep a mean schedule. You were called in for an interview by Tony Stark for Monday. 

As Monday rolled around, your nerves were going crazy. You dressed your best professional wear and drove to Stark Industries. A button up blouse, a black skirt, and black flats. You noticed the system JARVIS allowed you in and you saw Tony Stark in a lab.

“Morning. You must be the new secretary. Tony Stark.” He said as he held out his hand which was smeared with oil and grease.

“Y/n L/n. What do you mean new secretary?” You asked. 

“I went ahead and hired you. You’ll live here in Stark Industries. Don’t worry about it beautiful.” He said nonchalantly. 

“I don’t know what to say.” You said softly.

“Don’t say a word about it. Just take the position.” Tony said as you smiled.

“I will.” You said as he grinned.

“Perfect. You start tomorrow. Come on, let’s have a drink.” He said as you blushed.

“Bu-But-” 

"Nothing! We need to celebrate this!" Tony said proudly before pulling out some scotch and two glasses. 

As Tony picked up two glasses, one of them shattered on the floor and a few shards of glass cut your leg. 

"Ow!!" You both said loudly. Tony froze looking at your leg and his which suddenly also began to bleed. Your mind raced as you knew what this meant. Tony Stark is your soulmate and you had to go. 

You booked it with your bleeding leg back to your car in his garage. As you began to start it up and pull a first aid kid out of the backseat, you saw Tony was immediately behind your car so you couldn't leave. You sighed and rolled down your window.

"Mr. Stark please move now." You said as he crossed his arms.

"I'm not moving till you let me come sit with you and explain." Tony said as you sighed again. The doors unlocked and Tony got into the front seat. 

"How's your leg?" Tony asked as you hissed. 

"It will be fine. I just have to clean it and bandage. Yours?" You questioned as he smiled softly. 

"I wrapped it before I came out here. I feel like we need to discuss what occurred." Tony said as you finished placing the bandage. 

"What is there to talk about? You are soulmates with a fat chick that's your secretary. That's what this is about. Just go ahead and fire me and we do not have to see each other." You rambled before feeling Tony's hand on yours. 

"Y/n please let me speak." He said softly before you sighed. 

"Go ahead." You said as he turned your face to look at him. 

"I knew my soulmate was thicker than most girls I have dated. I was honestly happy to see someone different. Just imagining holding your warm and soft body against mine will be a change. Just having someone who is a lot softer will make my life so much different. When you first walked into the building, my mind was already set on asking you out. It wasn't until the glass shattering that it gave me assurance to ask you out." Tony said. 

"But I'm just some fat girl." You sighed. 

"But I do not care. You've had to deal with my injuries of creating Iron Man and I'm surprised you don't hate me. You are not just "some fat girl". You are so much more and I would love to prove that to you." He said as you chuckled.

"I honestly thought you worked in a factory." You said as he threw his head back and laughed. 

"Please give me a chance as your soulmate Y/n. I promise to treat you well." Tony said as you were blushing. 

"I will." You said as he kissed your lips. It felt like a missing puzzle piece fit right in and your lips moulded so well.

When you broke off the kiss, you turned your car off so the two of you could go back into Stark Industries where you moved in later and became his soulmate for a long time. 

[scoobydoodean]

in regards to the john abuse post- for sam there's a scene in season 8 where that crazy hunter says something to the effect of 'I KNOW john would've taken you boys out to the woodshed for this' (which is. slang for a specific thing) and sam immediately explodes on the guy and shoves him into the wall. sure he's stressed about dean in that scene but a friend of his dad's mentioning his dad hitting him was clearly what made him snap in the moment. it was clearly something sam was sensitive about. considering the age and demographics of the characters (and writers) I can't help but wonder if maybe the winchesters are the sort of people who think corporal punishment and physical abuse are somehow two different things. like, it makes more sense than not that an ex marine in the 80s and 90s with a drinking problem who's constantly scared about his kids getting killed while also putting them in dangerous situations would probably spank them. so I wonder if the reason sam and dean had such different reactions to max's abuse in season 1 was because as much as he hated what john did there werent like, broken bones or anything involved, and he could justify that its not like john was beating them for no reason, versus dean who had a lot more responsibility placed on him and clearly went out of his way to hide things from sam. it is interesting to me that as sam gets older he sort of forgives john with a 'he tried his best' mindset and seems to remember him more fondly, while dean eventually settles in a place of 'I love him but I can't forgive him for my childhood'. srry for rambling.

Context

That would be Martin in 8.09 "Citizen Fang".

Glad your dad wasn't around to hear that. He'd have a mind to take you both out the woodshed and show you what's what. Half inclined to do it myself.

I can't say I have the same interpretation of that scene or Sam's reaction. Like I said, I don't begrudge anyone building the physically abusive John interpretation, and I think this can easily fit into that list of suggestive moments. I don't necessarily understand Martin's phrasing in the same way. Maybe it's worth it to translate my view of Martin's wording here into a little plainer terms (as a certified U.S. southerner, I feel qualified to do this 🤭):

"Your father would be very disappointed in you if he heard that conversation between the three of us. It would upset him to the extent that he would wish he could punish you as if you were still children instead of grown men. It is as if you have forgotten the simplest lessons—the ones you learned about the world from your father as you grew to adulthood. If you're going to act like uneducated children, perhaps I should treat you as such and become your new father so that I can re-teach these childhood lessons."

We do hear from Dean at the end of 2.03 "Bloodlust", that John had a very dogmatic stance on monsters, and I think this phrasing from Martin makes sense in this context, whether he does or doesn't also mean to imply specific punishments he knew to be carried out when they were young. (I don't personally feel "taken out to the woodshed" has to be so literal, and my google searches seem to agree?) Martin already actually hit Dean--I don't know that he means he actually wants to go back to literally hit Dean some more, though I suppose that's possible.

To be mindful of the context here and exactly how Sam reacts... this is right after Martin knocks Dean unconscious for opposing them about hunting Benny. Sam was immediately on edge when Martin knocked Dean out. Sam went along with it in the aftermath because it got him closer to what he wanted (Benny dead) but he didn't like it. Martin's actions plainly illustrated that he's a loose canon. Sam, having brought Martin into the hunt, is now seeing shit hit the fan as a result of his choice to involve a hunter he knew to be unstable (with the added sting of Dean having called out Martin's instability earlier in the episode—a reflection on Dean being the better judge of character and his lack of trust in Sam's reasoning being warranted—a thing Sam is sensitive about). Martin is not even a little conflicted or uncertain about the completely unhinged thing he just did to Dean, and he's got a clear sense of seniority, believing HE is the leader, and not just Dean—but Sam also is a dumb little kid who should do as Martin says.

If there are two things Sam Winchester hates, they are 1) His unilateral choices having disastrous outcomes that Dean predicted would happen and 2) being treated like a little kid... and Martin goes double or nothing with this line (and mentioning John also in the mix most certainly invokes, at the very least, the origin of Sam's follower/leader false dichotomy).

Sam's response to Martin is telling—a reminder that HE is the leader, and that Martin is under HIS command and better fall in line:

You listen to me. I brought you into this. I can bring you out just as easy. So the only thing you're gonna be inclined to do is shut up and follow my lead.

Basically, I think for me personally, this one can go in the suggestive evidence pile, but I don't find it any more convincing than the other things that have been mentioned. I'm not trying to tell anyone else how to think. I think your interpretation is reasonable. I think there's two reasonable conclusions here.

[amostdelectablescribbler]

I did some mad, unhinged rambling about the Spiderverse movies to my friends’ group chat:

In ATSV, there are 2 versions of hobie: real hobie and superficial hobie. Every time we get real hobie, it always comes with a hearty does of superficial hobie, ie anarchist hobie “staging unpermitted political action” followed by superficial hobie “/performing art pieces”, or “i’m not a role model, I was briefly a runway model.” Or sometimes we get both at once, like (yanks a thing off a wall) “bet this doesn’ even do anythin’”. We only get real hobie on his own twice, those instances being “don’ enlist until you know what war your fightin’” and “palms.”

In defence of Gwen in ATSV, she has a very rigid protector mindset, and she is constantly trying to protect everyone else, pushing her own feelings to be dealt with ~later~ never. She sees Miles as her only friend since peter died, so she is trying to keep him alive, safe, and away from pain. She knew that it would hurt Miles to know that you can’t save them all, that there’s a whole society of people like him that he’s being excluded from, and that he’s being treated like a kid by them. Gwen had to grow up too fast, and Miles can’t grow up fast enough, so they each get to take their step back and forward respectively to be in that middle ground where Gwen can let loose a bit, and Miles gets to be more adult. Gwen wants to keep their dynamic static so that she can sit back with Miles and breathe for a bit when it gets hard to cope. She doesn’t have other friends after she killed peter by accident, and she hasn’t _let_ herself have other friends because they need protecting. Miles doesn’t. He’s another spiderperson. She needs that innoccent friend in Miles, so trying to keep that makes sense, and she didn’t plan to tell him, given the train chase scene.

So, shorthand of a lot of explaining i did earlier in which i joined many logical dots: Canon doesn’t matter, incursions do. Incursions is when a portal is opened between dimensions and stays open to allow people to pass for an extended period of time, which is how the watches manage to work by closing the portal and course-correcting the universes. Earth-42 is fine (prowler miles) as no extradimensional travel occured, so the canon moved to earth-1610 Miles. Mumbattan had an incursion due to the spot creating 3 interdimensional portals and fucking off. My best guess is that either Miguel was dicking about with his prototype watch in his 2nd universe, or went back and forth exploring, drawing attention to his new universe and causing an incursion. Regardless, Miles is totally fine to save his dad, as the canon is Miguel joining the wrong dots in the right way. Credit to Film Theory for this one

[introverting-rn]

absolutely incredible discussion and i’d never quite considered this before! i’d like to add something i’ve seen in my life here:

TRIGGER WARNING: someone with suicidal ideation and self harm, faith talked about regarding Christianity (the person is still alive and well, and there is no church bigotry discussed)

i’m queer and autistic and have been raised in a Christian family, so i always accepted faith without question when i was younger. upon entering high school (age of twelve for australia) i starting meeting queer and neurodivergent friends for the first time and seeing how they were really impacted by this, and in one particular group of friends, i saw a lot of people lose their faith due to the actions of the church. one particular mate, who i shall name Jack, took his personal struggle with faith really hard - he started to struggle with depression and suicidal tendencies during this same time, as his faith had been really important to him, and without it he lost a lot of purpose and understanding in life.

(i’ve been blessed with a very supporting family and have come to reconcile my faith with being queer, which is another story entirely and slightly off topic for now.)

when we were about thirteen, this group of us went on a mini-holiday together. i was under the impression that Jack and I were the only Christians in this group. one night, i went to bed earlier than the others, and when i heard them come inside i pretended to be asleep so that they wouldn’t disturb me. at this time, i overheard their conversation, and realised that they’d stolen beer from the fridge and were drinking. this was absolutely terrifying for me, and i began to panic - we were hours away from my family, in a place i was completely unfamiliar with, and my friends were drinking alcohol. i began to cry as silently as possible, and could do nothing but keep listening as i heard jack ask the others specifically not to tell me.

the next day, i talked to him about it, and to my surprise he looked ashamed. he told me he was struggling with faith and didn’t really believe in God, and for a year or so he was atheist. i continued to be friends with him, saw marks of self harm on his arms, received a message from him late one night as he contemplated suicide, and he stayed in a hospital for a few weeks - i don’t know the details. in the end i found myself drifting away from that group because that feeling of panic kept returning when i was near them, but i continued to be friends with jack.

one night he called me, crying, and said he had found faith again. he had been watching the show the chosen (highly recommend btw) which shows the paths of Jesus and his disciples in an incredibly realistic way, and it humanises all of them so wonderfully instead of leaving Jesus to feel like cardboard like He so often can. he said that realising the disciples were real people let faith feel so much less unattainable, as though his mindset had been that he was unworthy of having faith.

now, i know he’s doing much better and we’re still very close. i know he experimented with underage smoking and drinking while he struggled with everything, which is what makes me think of jesper - losing faith can also be a remarkable loss of identity and trigger difficulties in a lot of ways, and they each looked for solace in something ultimately detrimental to their physical, mental and spiritual health. i also feel that the same path to understanding could belong to jesper: seeing that the saints were people, and that doesn’t mean that he’s just worse than them, it means that all people are offered unconditional love despite our flaws and struggles.

apologies if i’m a bit rambly, as i don’t have the energy to read over this, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to share! i actually didn’t consider how much my friend and jesper could line up, and this is helping me gain a lot of potential new insight into them both.

if anybody wants to talk more about this i would be absolutely ecstatic to communicate w you! the harmony of church and queerness is something i’m very passionate about aha. God bless! <3

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about Jesper Fahey and religion.

Whilst we know that Matthias follows Djel, Inej follows the Saints, Nina was raised with the Saints but is atheist because of her understanding about Grisha, and that Kaz and Wylan adopted atheism based on their childhood experiences, we don’t get a lot of information about how Jesper feels about religion. We know he was raised with the Saints and that when he swears he says “Saints”, as does Nina, where Wylan says “Ghezen”. It’s notable to me that Matthias and Inej either rarely or never invoke a name in vain; I think Inej may say “Saints” in that context the odd time I can’t remember, but I’d argue in that case it’s probably because she isn’t specifically naming them to do so whereas Matthias would have to but I’m working off memory there so please feel free to correct me. But Jesper’s actual relationship with the Saints is arguably quite ambiguous, with no particular passages that point us in either direction. (Show!Jesper is highly implied to be atheistic in season 1 when Inej asks him what he thinks about Alina and he says he doesn’t care whether she’s real or not so long as they get paid, but there isn’t really anything like this in the books to my recollection) I think that might be because he has a far more complex and painful relationship with religion than we see on the surface level, and this has particular links to Nina’s belief that the Saints were possibly real people but were simply powerful Grisha not religious saviours/martyrs.

When Jesper was a child, his father would read him bedtime stories “from his Kaelish book of Saints”. At the same time, Colm was unintentionally damaging Jesper’s view of Grisha power and of himself by forcing him to hide it and telling him “that’s what killed your mother. That’s what took her away from us”. Alongside the self-hatred this cultivates in Jesper, seen mostly in Crooked Kingdom since he’s most open about it in the beautiful, heartbreaking chapter 24, I think it may have also impacted his relationship with religion. To be told as a child that these people are worshipped and valued for the things they could do, the same kind of things he saw his mother do and that he could be capable of, but that his power is a curse and a shameful secret that has to be hidden from the world is so damaging. It effectively raises the question: If it’s different for me than it is for them, what’s wrong with me? Why am I less worthy of love?

When Jesper already had these feelings growing inside him, feelings that went on to massively impact all the relationships in his life (most notably his relationships with Kaz and Wylan but I would also argue his relationship with Inej is affected by this as well) and actively endanger him when he began to try and fill the void he felt with gambling, to emphasise these emotions with something that could have been so beautiful and given him so much comfort by turning it into something that can be used against him by labelling him as less than others is so heartbreaking and honestly painful.

Obviously this is just an interpretation or a theory but this is how I feel about it when I reread, if anyone else has thought about this please feel free to add anything or contradict it with your own interpretation I’d love to read it.

[lucy90712]

Dream- quarantine

Warnings: mentions of anxiety and panic attacks 

Wc- 1922

~ There has just been an announcement that we have to stay inside and quarantine for the foreseeable future. Obviously I'm not happy about it and in fact I'm quite scared but I know things will be somewhat ok because I have Clay with me. The two of us have been living together for a little under 6 months now so we aren't new to it so I'm hoping we should be ok.

Clay probably hasn't seen the news yet because he's been filming all morning but it won't be long before he's done and he finds out. I don't want to be the one to tell him because I know he's not going to be happy because him and George have been talking about him coming over for the last few months but that won't be able to happen now.

He soon finished his recording and came out to join me in the living room where I had the news on. He looked over and watched what was on the tv which changed his expression from a smile to a blank expression in seconds, he seemed just as upset as I was if not more.

"How long is this going to go on for?" He asked hoping I would know

"No idea they haven't said" I said

"I guess George isn't coming over then" he sighed

"I'm sorry but he will be able to come over eventually we just have to be patient you wouldn't want things to be unsafe when he comes here" I said

"Yeah I guess, at least I have you to keep me company" he said

He pulled me into him as he text George to tell him what was going on because obviously he wouldn't know. George FaceTimed him and we all had a talk about cancelling our plans at least for a bit but then we moved on to other things which made Clay a lot happier which was great because I hate when he's sad.

During the rest of the day me and Clay went to the store to get some things that we needed before it all sells out because people were flocking to buy essentials. It was stressful at the store but we stayed close to one another and managed to weave our way through mostly because Clay was so tall and can force his way through crowds. We made it out alive with most of what we needed so we called it a day just deciding that we would live without the stuff we couldn't get.

—————

It had been a little more than 3 weeks since quarantine commenced and my god has it been worse than I ever would have imagined, being stuck inside and only leaving to go to the store had really taken its toll on me and my mental health as well as Clay's sanity. He has been working constantly leaving me to do all the chores and be the one to go out even with cases rising at an alarming rate he doesn't seem too bothered.

We have also been arguing more than we used to with him spending so much time working and seeming to care so little I've kind of been mad at him but that doesn't seem to change anything. It's starting to feel like he just doesn't care about me anymore I mean he doesn't even come to bed at night most of the time and we only talk when I ask him what he wants to eat or when we're arguing. It's starting to feel like I'm losing him and I don't want that because I really do love him but I can't keep this up much longer I just feel like crying every night.

While Clay is doing whatever the hell he does during the day I was talking with sapnap because he called me out of the blue but it was nice to actually talk to someone for once. He was concerned that there was something wrong because Clay has been constantly available on discord when he normally takes breaks to spend time with me and he hasn't talked about me which he says he does a lot.

"Is everything alright between you two?" He asked

"I mean not really but I don't want to drop all of it in you so don't worry" I said

"No please tell me I don't mind" he said

"Ok well he's been spending all his time working making me do all the chores and go out whenever we need something most nights he just stays up then sleeps when I'm awake and we only talk when we argue or when I ask what he wants to eat" I rambled

"Y/n I'm sorry I can try and talk to him if you want me to" he offered

"No its ok he'll just be more mad if you say something I'll deal with it" I said

"You shouldn't have to put up with it he's not treating you like you deserve please don't just just let him do that to you" he said

"Ok I'll try and talk to him later" I said

Me and Nick came up with some sort of plan for later when he ends up talking to Clay he's going to leave the call so I can talk to him and have his full attention. He offered to do it sooner but I had things to do first that I had to get done as not to give Clay any reason to be mad at me even though I'm sure he'll find one.

Anxiety warning

I cleaned the kitchen and went to the store which was more packed than usual probably because of the timing but it stressed me out all on my own. People were pushing me out the way and people without masks on were getting all in my face and it scared me. This is the type of stuff I deal with all the time but today it was particularly bad to the point that I started shaking and struggling to breathe slightly in my mask. I had to try and get out of there as quick as possible which I did but probably forgetting some things in the process which means I'll have to come back probably tomorrow but I didn't care at the time.

Once outside and in my car I took my mask off and let myself breathe properly to calm myself down. It took me quite a long time to get a grip of my emotions and by the time I decided to leave I still wasn't feeling fully myself and my hands were still shaking slightly but that will probably go on for a little while longer. Nick text me just before I left saying that he was on call with Clay so whenever I was ready he would leave as he told George not to join to make things easier.

Back at home I made myself go into the bathroom to try and talk myself through what I was going to say and any comebacks I could think of to all the things Clay could say to me which was hard because he always manages to find something that I would never think of to say. I got my argument together but definitely lost the calm I had got back to earlier hands started shaking more again and becoming more clammy.

I text Nick to let him know I was ready and he text back almost right away to say that he had left the call and wished me luck as well as offered any help he could give if I needed it. I went into Clay's office to see him just sat at his desk doing nothing in particular at least that I could work out, he looked over and smiled at me which was not going to last long thats for sure.

"Clay can we talk?" I asked

"Yeah of course is everything alright?" He asked back

"I'm going to be honest with you I feel like you are ignoring me you are just working all the time and I get that your busy but before you always found time to spend with me and now I'm left to do everything by myself and it's starting to take its toll on me" I said as calm as possible

"You are kidding right I'm trying my best to support the both of us by doing all this work you think I want to be in here this much because I don't" he half yelled

"And I'm trying my best too I have been working from home everyday as well as keeping up with everything else and guess what I would rather not do that either but I do it to let you do all the stuff your doing, I had a fucking panic attack at the store earlier because it's all just too much" I said with more emotion this time

"You're not the only .... wait you had a panic attack I'm sorry I wasn't there to help" he said softly

It was like it hit him what I have been saying for weeks and it was kind of refreshing to have him finally snap out of whatever mindset he was in and come back to the real world where there are things that he needs to think about that's not just to do with me but his own health.

He got up for his chair and came over to give me a tight hug which I'm not going to lie felt nice because we haven't been this close in almost a month so it just feels nice to have some human contact. It calmed me down in seconds just like Clay does so well, he grabbed my hands and traced his thumbs over the back of them.

"I'm sorry y/n I'm so sorry I shouldn't have left you do do everything on your own you're right I've been spending too much time working and that's not fair on you" he said

"You don't need to beat yourself up over this I just wanted to get through to you and don't feel like you have to spend a ton of time with me I just want a better balance" I explained

He nodded and we talked things through like we needed to do this whole time, we worked things out and made some plans to better use both of our time but it was nothing that we had to stick to strictly or else that would cause more issues. We decided that Clay was going to try and be available to go to the store with me and most nights we are going to try and go to bed together or he will at least join me at some point.

During our discussion I got a text from Nick asking if everything went alright so I just sent a quick text back to say things went fine and should hopefully get better from now on.

Clay and I decided to spend the evening together and not just because he felt guilty he really just wanted to spend time with me after coming out of his old mindset and feeling tired of working. We didn't do much just spent time sat together on the sofa watching movies and eating takeaway. He had me sat on his lap pretty much the whole time holding onto my waist or playing with my hair.

[ace-of-gay]

Hey!

Read your post on your nead death experience with the anticonvulsant (and the tea bags), which is shockingly brutal, to be frank. The brutal part is what you went through, not the post in itself.

I also scrolled a bit through your dash, and it seems like you're going through a really, really rough time. Add the chronic illness in, and it's not even a rough time with a expiry date. And I honestly have no clue how on earth you manage to pull through all of that. But it looks like there's a whole fucking hell you're pulling through, and somehow you're doing it. Honestly, I have no clue how. But the fact that you're managing through all of that is mind-blowing. To me at least. It's simply stunning and baffling, and you're freaking amazing for it.

Just wanted to let you know.

(Tw: mentions of belittling and su!cidal !deation)

Lots of rambling

4:21 AM

*Looks at time* Cool, *cracks open a monster*

Hi lovely, i truly appreciate your kindness, its words like this i put as post-it notes on my smiles wall.

Ill be honest my dash may have what others see as alot (about me) and i mean technically it does but its also just the tip of the iceberg

I grew up under the words of "hypochondriac", "too much time on my hands" and more, those are just the main 2, people constantly belittling not just how i feeling but also what i went/go through and so much more. Constantly being told that everyone deals with my same problems and thoughts and whether that be true or not it set part of my mindset in place at a very young age.

My goal in life is to bring smiles and happiness to peoples lives because i know its one of the most influential feelings one can feel.

I write poetry (not here) as my expression, not only does it put my feelings in complicated words but it helps other feel understood and like they can reach out. I will happily be there to "hold someone afloat" just to see them finally reach their potential, i want to see people heal, i want them to love living and set goals and than accomplish them.

I would not wish the other part of my mindset on anyone because it is internally damaging and i dont want to see anyone else tear themselves apart. On a daily basis ones mind screaming to off themselves, the nights when its loud i burry myself in a corner in my room farthest from anything harmful and i wait, and if thats the only thing i can do to get through it than so be it, the thoughts that are deadset that ive been alive for way too long and everyday is just dragging on the inevitable, if i die early on in my life i will still have fulfilled my goals, day by day is terrifying and i would never wish it on my worst enemy.

I stick around for my friends and family, i want to be successful, i want to get better. I use my ailments as motivation in some backwards way, i refuse to let being ill be the reason i go out, i want to leave a mark and motivate others with chronic illness and mental illness to let whats bringing them down and destroying them to build their world where theyre win because they deserve to win, they deserve freedom from the stigma of ailments.

Theres alot more that i wont get into unless asked but im an open book with maybe like 2 or 3 pages ripped out.

The mind and body are more powerful than we think, they may be harmful to themselves but theyre also very stubborn and thats whats getting me through, im a very stubborn person so being able to be vocal about my struggles is a way of coping and hoping others realize they can aswell.

I forgot to post this earlier, its been six hours since i typed this

[tojisveryown]

𝙸𝚗 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝙴𝚢𝚎𝚜 | 𝟶𝟻

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚋𝚋𝚢𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

𝙰𝚌: 𝚠𝚃𝟼𝙸𝙳𝟸𝚀𝟺𝙰𝙺𝚄𝟿𝚏𝚛 ���𝚗 𝚝𝚠𝚝

𝚂𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜: 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚙𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝.

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚕𝚌𝚘𝚑𝚘𝚕, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚎𝚡, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚍𝚛𝚞𝚐 𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 𝟸.𝟸𝙺

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚜: 𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚎 𝙰𝚄, 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎, 𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏 𝚖𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚕𝚞𝚍𝚎𝚜 𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝙶𝚘𝚓𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚖𝚘𝚜𝚝𝚕𝚢 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛, 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚜. 𝙸 𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚊𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚎𝚛 "𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚘𝚙𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝" 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛. (𝚛𝚎𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝙸 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚏𝚎𝚖!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚐𝚗!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝙸 𝚍𝚘 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚎!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛, 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞.)

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝟶𝟻 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

(𝚄𝚗𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍)

⋆ 💌 ⋆

The next morning you were greeted with a hangover thanks to everything you consumed. Your head was pounding and your body felt gross. The faint memory of waking up next to Gojo popped in your head. “Damn I wish I woke up to him everyday.” 

“Woke up next to who everyday?” Utahime asked as she was in the middle of brushing her hair, “You know Y/N I never imagined you to be such a lightweight, it was so hard to bring you back here without you rambling about such nonsense.” 

“Huh? Wasn’t I sober when I went to go look for you?” The memory of you waking up and giving Gojo a kiss on the cheek before looking for Utahime popped in your head, you and sworn you woke up sober. 

“Yeah, barely.” She sat down at the edge of your bed giving you a stern look “Do you know how many times I had to keep you from falling over? You almost fell down the stairs, twice. You’re lucky Gojo was upstairs, without him you wouldn’t have made it out alive.” 

Huh, so he helped you after ignoring you and treating you like an outcast? What a bastard. “You know Y/N you should really be careful. Next time make sure you watch over your drinks.” 

“What are you talking about? Did I do something wrong?” 

“Well no.. it’s just that someone spiked your drink. If Nanami hadn’t taken care of you someone probably would’ve taken advantage of you so please for the love of god watch what you drink, for me?” you gave her a smile, she was worried about you and you were glad you had someone like her by your side, it’s not everyday you’re blessed with a good roommate like Utahime. 

⋆ 💌 ⋆

The up coming week was the last week before spring break came around, which meant you only had two months before the deadline for the project came to an end, that same project where you had shitty partner that abandoned you.

As the morning came around you were able to wake up in a pretty good mood. Today was the last day before break and you were glad to be getting some rest. Unlike the other students on campus you weren’t able to go back home due to the money it costs to get a ticket. You weren’t financially stable during your high school years which led you into the mindset that since you weren’t able to afford the newest items everyone was getting that you didn’t deserve to socialize. You were that weird kid who sat in the back drowning yourself in music or getting lost in a good book. You will never forget the first time you had an interaction with Gojo. 

You were seated at the very back of the class, eyes darting from left and right as the book you were indulged in sat in front of you. The loud noises of the students coming into first period had no effect in the way you enjoyed the book. You were getting to the climax of the story, getting so lost into the plot that you didn’t even notice him come in. 

“Hey, whatcha reading?” The tall white haired boy slipped the book out of your hand to take a look at it. “No Longer Human, huh?” 

You wanted to die, you hated how you got his attention, you didn’t want it, you didn’t want the kids in your class analyzing you too much. You didn’t want them to find out you were struggling with money, they’d treat you different. They already do.

“Mmm mind if I keep this?” he stuck his face in your personal bubble, his sunglasses at the edge of his nose, eyes piercing yours as he awaited your answer.

“Um.. yes, please give it back.” a small voice escaped your lips. 

“Why? It’s just some book you can buy again, is it because someone special gave it to you?” he was teasing you, the book was in your face as he began to sway it from side to side, leaving it in your reach and taking it out.

“No I’m just not done with it.”

“Mmm, too bad. ‘m keeping it.” Your face dropped and you allowed him to take your belonging. You watched as he sat down in his seat flipping through the pages of the book that once belonged to you.

Your mother struggled to earn the money needed for the textbooks your school wanted you to obtain, you hated seeing your mom bend herself backwards. You’ve always offered to get a job to financially support her but your mother wouldn’t allow it. She wanted you to have a normal childhood. You never saw her much but due to the amount of jobs she took on but you knew the love she held for you was greater than the father that left you. 

You and your father weren’t the absolute closest ever since he decided to leave but he still tried to have somewhat of a bond with you, he’d send you books and your mother would write back to him saying how much you loved reading them, the book Gojo had taken from you was the last book your dad had sent your before staring another family with another woman. 

The last thing he’s ever left you now lies in the hands of a stranger. Of course it didn’t bother you as much as it should but you couldn’t help but long for the moment of having the book back in your hands.

It was a fresh new semester and your mother couldn’t afford the textbooks that you needed. You knew that you had to drop out and attend a much cheaper school. 

You awaited the day you’d talk to your councilor along with your head teacher, during that day you wished you could get that damn book back, it was just a book but part of you saw it as something more because it was gifted to you from your dad. 

“Hello, good after noon Ms. Kalaber, Mr. Henderson.” you walked into the office and took a seat in one of the vacant chairs.

“Hello Y/N, are you hear to talk about your transfer?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to do so. I really enjoy coming here but it’s been hard on my mother and I to financially keep up and I think it’d be better for us if we made a switch.” 

“Yes of course I understand..” The three of you spent the next few minutes talking about schools that would accept you in open arms, the meeting ended up earlier than expected and you were on your way out but a certain somebody bumped into you causing the transfer papers along with school recommendations to slip from your hands.

Your second interaction with him. 

“Oh shit, I’m sorry I didn’t see you there.” Of course you couldn’t you’re 6′4. He crouched down helping you collect that papers, slowly noticing what the papers were. “Hey, you’re transferring?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh.. why?” you stayed silent and began dusting off the papers from any dirt since they did fall on a school floor. “Ah, never mind you don’t have to answer that. Well see you, I guess?”

You and Gojo parted ways.

The next morning would be your last at the high school you spent almost four years at. Your heart felt heavy knowing no one would realize you left, after all you were just one of the kids that no one really paid any attention to. 

In the middle of your first period you were summoned to the office, your mother was seated in the chair you sat in the pervious day. “Y/N, good morning. We have some news!” Long story short someone paid off the expenses for your textbooks and any financial contract you were under while attending the school. 

You didn’t really care. It’s not like you were thrilled to stay, you weren’t exactly thrilled to attend a brand school either. You just accepted whatever was given to you. Even if you wanted to know who suddenly paid off the financial fees you couldn’t since they decided to remain anonymous. You were grateful however you couldn’t help but feel as if they looked down on you. Although their intentions were very different from what you thought.

Your senior year flashed before your eyes, the amount of days left before graduation were alarming to you, you knew what college you were going to, you applied for a scholarship and with the grades you had you were able to easily get it. After all you didn’t have any friends to hang out with so you mostly studied instead of getting yourself caught in things you knew weren’t good for you.

You’ve only had two encounters with the guy who stole your book, and yet you were hoping to see him again. To get the book back of course.

During the going away party for all the seniors a tall figure waited for you to show in hopes that he’d be able to return what was once yours. He wanted a chance to talk to you again. He wanted the message he left inside one of the pages to reach you, but it never did since you believed no one wanted you there.

You imprinted in your mind that everyone would judge you for having money struggles, you gave yourself the thought that they’d judge you for the kind of clothes you wore, or the kind of person you were. 

You failed to realize that your first friend was never Utahime, but the boy who sought for your arrival 

⋆ 💌 ⋆

During the last Friday of your first semester you had decided to be productive, you were in a great mood. You started the day off by going to the cafe to read a bit, you were reading a book that Nanami had recommended to you. 

The two of you had slowly gotten closer over a short period of time, you were glad to have someone timid and reasonable by your side. He was also reliable. Unlike stupid Satoru Gojo. 

Before class started you got yourself along with Nanami a cup of coffee,  “This is what you like right?” He pulled his glasses down to sit at the tip of his nose. “What, is this not what you get?” 

“No it is, thank you Y/N.” His hand reached out to grab the cup of black coffee in your hand, his fingertips brushed against yours, so warm. “I just didn’t expect you to get me one is all.”

“Mhm, why not? Didn’t I tell you that I owed you? I owe you even more after what you did at that stupid party.” 

“Ah, that.” you watched as he took a sip of his coffee, “It’s nothing, I’d rather not let a girl like you be used.” 

A girl like you, What the hell is that supposed to mean. “What do you mean a girl like me?” You couldn’t help but think negatively about what he said, would it have been better to not make friends and remain the quiet kid whose face was always buried in a book? 

“Relax, I didn’t mean it like that. You’re a sweet girl is all, you shouldn’t have to go through anything more than what you’ve already gone through.” 

“Like you know what I’ve gone through.”

“I know more than you think.” 

“Shut up you sick asshole, who even drinks black coffee?” 

“What does my coffee have to do with trauma?”

“Shut up Nanamin.”

Nanami smiled into his cup before taking a sip. “You’re a lot like him..” he whispered.

“Huh? What did you say?” 

“Nothing.”

“’nami tell me.” 

“Enough with the nicknames.”

“’nami.”

⋆ 💌 ⋆

The day was almost over, as you were exciting the main building you caught a glimpse of all the people leaving campus. “Must be nice to go home to your family..” you sighed and followed the staircase the led to the exit closest to your dorm 

“What are you doing? Why are you making this so complicated?” Oh man a fight, this’ll be awkward. You prepared to take another step down the stairs until a very familiar voice spoke out. 

“I don’t have a choice.” you stopped your tracks as the familiar voice rung through your ears, you wanted more than anything to leave but your body wouldn’t move. 

“Bullshit. You did the same thing to me and Suguru.” another familiar voice rung in your ear, it was Utahime. “You can’t keep doing this Gojo.” 

“I know but it’s just a little while longer and th-”

“She really is right you know, you really are a stupid Satoru.” 

You didn’t mean to eavesdrop, you swore you were gonna leave as soon as your body was able to move but the next few things you heard made you freeze. If it was quiet enough you’d be able to hear the sound of your heart beating, you head felt light and your body felt limp but you knew that you had to get out of there. 

You knew this wasn’t something you were supposed to know.

⋆ 💌 ⋆

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: 𝚢𝚔 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔 𝚐𝚘𝚓𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚊 𝚗𝚊𝚗𝚊𝚖𝚒 𝚏𝚒𝚌 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚃𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚒𝚗𝚐! 𝚂𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚑𝚊𝚍 𝚊 𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚞𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚜 𝚏𝚎𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚞𝚗𝚖𝚘𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚠𝚛𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚋𝚒𝚝. 𝙰𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚜𝚔 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚊𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚌! 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚜𝚎𝚎𝚖𝚜 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚏𝚊𝚝 𝚏𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚖𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚘𝚖𝚐, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚝'𝚕𝚕 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚜𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚘𝚗? 𝙸 𝚑𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚕𝚘𝚕. 𝙰𝚕𝚜𝚘 𝙸 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚄𝚝𝚊𝚑𝚒𝚖𝚎 𝚊𝚋𝚜𝚘𝚕𝚞𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚑𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝙶𝚘𝚓𝚘 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚠𝚎'𝚕𝚕 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚌𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢'𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚕𝚘𝚕. 𝚆𝚎'𝚛𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚏𝚠𝚊𝚢 𝚍𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚆𝙾𝙾𝙾𝙾!! 𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢'𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚎𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥

⋆ 💌 ⋆

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝: @peppytine @enesitamor @fairyblue-alchemist @diluczs @honouredsatoru @thankuary @sookyshima

𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚃𝚑𝚞𝚛𝚜. (𝟺/𝟸𝟿)

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

⋆ 💌⋆

[yourstrulyray]

then.,... fhen here comes the chorus . sighs☹️☹️☹️

this one is still connected to the second line!!! when the time comes that he must actually kill the bull, he is given two equally scary options — to betray his family, or betray his morals and his heart.

but as the true guy he is, he went for a guitar thrown at him

the following scenes, mainly which was carlos getting mad at manolo, aligns with the rest of the chorus.

here comes the part you've all been waiting for

"but I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo" if we recap the earlier scenes this specifically lines with manolo's internal conflict between family and love. if he betrays maría, the girl he'd love for years would begin to see him with betrayal and possibly bitterness (creep). if he betrays family, he'd be considered and outcast and a shame (weirdo). ARGUE WITH THE WALL THE "CONFLICT" IVE BEEN YAPPING ABOUT IS ACTUALLY PART OF HIS DESIGN (read alt text)

"what am i doing here?" this specific part could actually mean a LOT of things, but it mainly focuses on the sànchez family (again). this could be manolo questioning why; why he was a sánchez, why does he have to live up to a legacy he didn't ask for. "I don't belong here" could mean that he feels like he doesn't deserve to be a sànchez.

and also, doesn't deserve to be in maría's heart.

i like to think that manolo's mindset at that time was that he thinks maría would never love a fraud, because for all his time spent with maría he always stood up for her, showed off, etc. only for her to see under his skin that he was a coward for not being able to follow even simple family tradition. something like that. i forgot what i was saying

anyways im done rambling make sure to stay a true tbol fan and always listen to creep 🤑🤑🔥🔥🔥🗣💯‼️‼️ that's all pookies BYEEE

nah cuz u arent a REAL fan if you laugh when manolo sinfgs creep ..,... real tbol fans FW CREEP 💯💯‼️‼️‼️ (/hj /lh)

if you're like me and you're an over-observer and notice the smallest obscurest details ever, you would realize that creep actually aligns SO much with manolo for the first half of the movie. (also heads-up warning this is not organized well, bear with me 😭)

"ay maría, when you were here before, couldn't look you in the eye" that line alone represents manolo's feelings EVER SINCE childhood — when maría was still in san ángel, he'd always be with maría (and if you look hard enough HE ALMOST ALWAYS LOOKS AT HER, usually w/ admiration/curiosity), then when she left he "couldn't look her in the eye" anymore both literally and figuratively because when manolo showcased his bullfighting skills, carlos trained manolo 24/7 to the BONE for like. what 10 YEARS???!,!, for the entire time maría was away

for those exact 10 years, his life revolved around the phrase "music is not work fit for a sánchez bullfighter" when he knOWS to himself that bullfighting isn't really his thing — even IF he's skilled at it — and he's rly passionate about music. apart from that the point of bullfighting is to kill the bull, in which he rejects the idea because killing is wrong and maría loves animals. hes a LOVER, not a fighter 😭😭

he loves his family EQUALLY as he loves maría and music, so you can definitely tell he was conflicted by that.

gonna need a part 2 cuz i ran out of image space 🥹🥹 wait for meeee

[whatiwillsay]

submission: we need to talk about ttb (spade-riddles)

Hey Cam. Seeing that ask defending TTB’s doxxing has sort of pushed me to finally share some of my story on Tumblr, I guess. I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about this to anyone fully, so this will probably be long, but I hope you don’t mind me venting.

I’m one of the people that got emailed by TTB. I don’t feel comfortable posting this off anon, but I was in a Discord server with you and @bisluthq and some other people back in Dec/Jan. I don’t know if you remember me, but my name on there was one word and began with an L and ended with an S.

I want to share the full story, but I also don’t feel comfortable with sharing certain details publicly because I’m still very wary of getting outed further by her if she sees this, so I’m gonna be vague about some things

Request to her followers — If you see this, please don’t send this to her. Like I’m genuinely asking you not to because I don’t trust her not to cross any more lines. My dad is a major homophobe with serious anger issues who has literally been arrested for violence before, and she doesn’t really think carefully or maybe even care about how any actions she takes could lead to people being harmed, so I’m not eager to see how she might react.

Anyway, I first got an email back in December, and I was really freaked out by it at first. I spoke to one of my mutuals about it, and although we both agreed it was super weird and invasive and creepy, we ended up trying to see the funny side of it. So, I kinda just brushed it off and moved on. I was mainly just really confused about why I had been targeted because at the time, I thought it was only me who’d gotten an email like that. I didn’t understand why she’d specifically targeted me instead of other people who she clearly disliked a lot more.

About a week later, I saw someone on Tumblr mentioning a strange email, and I realised other people must have gotten them too. I spoke to Nat about what happened to me and ended up in the Discord

At the time, I felt like I’d gotten off really easy comparatively to others because I initially didn’t realise that she’d contacted anyone else. And so I tried to act chill about it because I didn’t want to make things about me, but honestly, I was extremely anxious. I felt on edge for over a week. I would keep checking her blog again and again because I was super worried that she would post our personal details publicly. I scrolled through my entire blog from start to finish and deleted a lot of posts that were either personal or that I just didn’t want anyone I knew in real life to read.

This part I have to be vague about because it would basically give away who I am, but it was only a while later when I thought I was in the clear that someone I knew in real life texted me and mentioned seeing a weird email about me. The email had been sent a while back, and they’d been shown it by the original recipient/s. Multiple people had been shown it, but luckily (kinda), only two of those people were actually people I saw on a regular basis

I’m mostly closeted, but I’m kind of technically out to a few of my immediate family members. But it’s very much a DADT situation because they’re not accepting, and they like to just pretend I’m straight. And so I basically have to act closeted even when I’m around them, and I can’t even ALLUDE to being gay.

But with my dad, it’s different. He’s very homophobic. I’m only gonna mention this next part so that people understand what kind of dangerous situation that TTB could have put me in. (And the other people that she doxxed too because she didn’t know how safe their individual situations were). It’s all really personal, and I wouldn’t ordinarily feel comfortable sharing any of this at all, even anonymously, but I think it needs to be said because her actions were extremely fucking irresponsible.

Right, so when I first “came out” to my dad, it was actually an accident, and he reacted… extremely badly. This was back in like… 2018 or 2019, I can’t remember the exact year

(TW // physical abuse, homophobia)

He was extremely angry, literally shaking. He yelled at me, he described in graphic detail how he was going to “break every bone in my body”, “strangle the life out of me”, “drown me”, etc. He kept telling me that I’m disgusting and going to Hell, you get the idea. He was having a lot of fun with making strangling motions and stabbing motions with his hands, and he kept slamming his hand onto the table. That went on for about 15 minutes, and then he stood up and threw a chair from the dining table at me. That was fun lol. And he punched me in the head pretty hard which kinda knocked me back. I felt dizzy, I had to sit down on the floor. At that point, my mum who had been crying and asking him to stop physically intervened, and he ended up storming out of the house instead. My mum’s a genuinely good person btw. She’s a little homophobic, but she cares about me a lot, and I’m very grateful for her. She hates him too, but she’s kinda stuck with him… It wasn’t her fault

He literally hates gay people. He complains about us on the regular. One time, he threw the remote at the TV and cracked the screen just because there was a gay male couple kissing onscreen. Another time, he threw a rock at a gay man on the street. There was also a time where he forced a few of my siblings (who didn’t want to do it) to throw peeled oranges out of the window at people celebrating pride while he drove past them and yelled insults at them. He found that really funny. Anyway, I’m sure you guys get the idea of what kind of person he is

He hasn’t laid a hand on anybody in several months though, so I do think he’s trying to be better at least. Like he’s still verbally abusive and controlling and awful, but I appreciate that he’s at least making an effort to calm down with the hitting and kicking and stuff

Anyway, with my dad, it’s less DADT and more that I think he’s got it in his head that he managed to scare me into “seeing the error of my ways” and that I’ve “stopped choosing to be gay” and that I’m now straight. So, if it had been HIM who had gotten that email, it would’ve been like… extremely bad. Like I’m getting anxious just thinking about it. And this is why I’m so angry at TTB. It was extremely, extremely irresponsible of her to not consider these kinds of possibilities before she sent out her stupid emails. She’s supposed to be an ally, but it didn’t even cross her mind that these emails would lead to people being outed and possibly even harmed?? It’s not okay at all. I’m just very grateful that she didn’t send one to him because I don’t even know what kind of situation I would be in right now.

Anyway, enough about my fucking awful dad… I feel uncomfortable that I even typed all of that out, but I wanted people to understand how dangerous her actions could have been. Like I mean, my dad’s got PTSD and extreme anger issues from his teenage years, so I do try not to judge him TOO harshly, but there’s no excuse for being a huge bigot or occasionally violent. The idea of him being the one who got that email is still so scary to me. Like my heart is racing just thinking about it

One of the people that DID read the email was the male friend I mentioned earlier though. He was shown it by someone else for a particular reason, and he was a very important person to me. Like he was a good guy, we were close, he helped me out with certain personal issues I have and is one of only two people that I know in real life that I felt comfortable confiding in about them. We’d always meet up once a week, sometimes twice, and we’d just talk about stuff and make an effort to help each other out with things. Like he was very important to me.

It turns out that he’d looked through my blog before I’d got around to scrubbing it, and he asked me if I was gay in person the next time we met up. I couldn’t lie because like… he’d have known I was lying right to his face. So, I told him I was, and you should have seen his face. It made me feel so awful about myself. He looked really stunned and shocked and kinda uncomfortable. Like it got so awkward, and I started rambling and making things worse. He was avoiding eye contact, and my voice was shaking.

I ended up making up an excuse to leave about 5 mins later and had an actual anxiety attack. Again, this is embarrassing and something I’d never usually talk about online, but I just want to get it all off my chest so that I can move past it all.

So, I was like on the verge of tears (I don’t cry easily), I couldn’t breathe properly, I was pacing around the building, and I just wanted to escape, so I headed straight for the doors. There was a queue of about 100 people lined up and waiting to leave, and I couldn’t think straight or breathe and just needed to be outside, so I tried to go out through the other exit which is for staff only. The security guard stopped me and basically publicly humiliated me in front of all of those people. He loudly shamed me and said I “didn’t have any decency” for attempted to jump the queue, lectured me in this really condescending tone, and then sent me right to the back of that huge line. Meanwhile, I was literally in the midst of a bad anxiety attack.

And then I eventually got outside and had to call my mum to come and pick me up instead of just making my own way home like I usually do. She’s amazing though tbh because she actually came to get me and didn’t even question why. I had to skip all of my plans for the rest of the day and instead just hid upstairs in my bedroom with the lights off until the next day. I refused to tell any of my family members what had happened even though they kept asking. I just felt so, so awful, and my anxiety was through the roof

To be honest, before that happened, my mindset was like: “I mean, if I get outed, it obviously wouldn’t be good, but I think I’d be able to deal with it fine”. But then, when it actually happened, and I saw the way my close friend reacted, I had like a whole emotional breakdown lol. It’s like, you think you’d be fairly chill in a situation, but when it actually happens, your reaction can be really unpredictable. I was so embarrassed by everything about that entire incident. I didn’t even want to show my face the next day.

It’s been almost two months since that happened, and in that entire time, my friend has contacted me once. We literally used to meet up once or twice a week (and during lockdown, we’d do video calls or phone calls instead), but since then, we’ve barely even spoken. Things are just so awkward now. I know this sounds stupid, but I feel like TTB’s taken one of my best friends away from me. I don’t think he’s a homophobe or anything, he has openly gay friends and is fairly accepting, but I think it’s just the way that he found out that has just made things so weird between us now. I feel like if I’d had the chance to come out to him myself in my own way, he wouldn’t have reacted like that. But I’m gonna text him next week and see if we can maybe try to fix our friendship, but I doubt it at this point

The other people who were shown the email, I mostly just avoid. I don’t really care about them knowing that much because I wasn’t close to them, but it’s just really embarrassing knowing that they probably scrolled through my Tumblr blog before I scrubbed it

And about Tumblr… This used to be the only place that I could fully be myself. It was like a “safe space” for me which feels ironic now. But I haven’t been active on my blog since December. I still lurk occasionally, but I just don’t feel comfortable here anymore. I did consider deleting my current blog and starting afresh with a new one, but I don’t think it’d make much of a difference… Like she’s kind of ruined Tumblr for me. I do still enjoy reading people’s blogs every now and then, but I don’t feel relaxed here anymore, I just feel on edge.

It’s mainly the fact that SHE’S still here. She still has a platform, she still has a bunch of followers. It’s been so hard seeing her face next to no consequences whatsoever for the horrible things that she’s done to so many different people. And it upsets me that she hasn’t even acknowledged that what she did was wrong. Plus, it makes me feel even worse that the Hard Kay blogs and some other people are still supporting her and pretending that this whole thing just didn’t happen. Like do they just not care? Or is it that she’s twisted things and made them believe that the situation was different to what it actually was?

And tbh, this whole situation has even set me back in my own sort of personal self-acceptance journey. I had such bad internalised homophobia when I was younger, and it took me so many years to get to a place where I had mostly accepted myself. But now I just feel ashamed again, and I’ve gone back to my old habit of trying to force myself to be attracted to men. Like I downloaded Tinder the other day and set my preference to men and was swiping through profiles. It’s kinda silly actually. I did snap out of it and delete the app the next day though. But I don’t know, I feel like this whole thing has just kinda fucked with me a bit. I am trying to work this stuff out and get back to normal though. I think I’ll be good again in maybe a month or so, hopefully.

And… yeah. I just really resent her, and this situation upsets me. Because the reason she did this was so petty and ridiculous, and I guess she didn’t even realise how much it would impact people? Like I do know that my situation wasn’t as bad as some of the other people’s situations, and I feel really bad for them, and I hope they’re all doing okay. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them. But it still has impacted me a lot more than I actually thought it would. I thought I’d get over it within a couple of weeks. But it’s been like two months, and I’m still not completely over it

I know it might not sound like a huge thing, but being outed really does affect you, even if it’s only to a few people. Because to me, I feel like I’ve had my sense of like, security and comfort taken away, and it’s kinda distressing. Sorry if I sound dramatic with any of this, I just really needed to say all of this stuff to other people besides myself lol

Like her actions have literally led to me being outed to a few people. A close friendship that I had has basically been ruined. I don’t feel comfortable or secure on Tumblr anymore, even though it used to be an important outlet for me. I’ve had a resurgence of anxiety about my sexuality. Etc.

And again, my dad is extremely homophobic and literally made death threats to me and physically attacked me back when I accidentally came out to him in 2018 or 2019. And if he had gotten that email, I don’t even know what would have happened. I don’t think he would have like… SERIOUSLY physically harmed me, but there would definitely have been a repeat of the first incident. More throwing chairs at me and hitting and screaming and death threats. I don’t really want to think about it.

It just bothers me that she didn’t even consider that? Like did it not even cross her mind? And my dad is bad, but I’m sure there are people in the fandom who have even worse parents, and she could have got one of those people instead. It’s just so… I don’t know, it’s just so frustrating to me.

Anyway, I just hate her for what she did… Like maybe I shouldn’t, but I really do resent her so much, and I don’t think I could forgive her even if she apologised to us all (which I don’t think she even would because she doesn’t seem to have any decency whatsoever). The least she could do is at least express some kind of remorse, but she just genuinely doesn’t care, and that’s super messed up. All over some stupid Tumblr blog that is much less important than she thinks it is.

But anyway… I apologise for the whole rant, and if anybody read all the way down to here, I appreciate it. I do actually feel a bit better now that I’ve got this all typed out. And I’m sorry for the oversharing lol, I usually don’t do this, but I just felt like I really needed to tell people and get it off my chest so that I can try to get over it — L

submisssion⬆️⬆️⬆️

ok L i am trying to remain calm here because this isn’t about me.  but i am very emotional right now.  i am so so so infinitely sorry that you had to go through this harrowing and terrifying experience.  ttb (now blogging under spade-riddles) is absolutely disgusting, lower than dirt, that she would put your life, safety, and well-being at risk over a fucking kaylor blog.

please please please im me or get in touch somehow because i want to offer you support.  have you been financially impacted by this?  we can raise money.  do you need therapy?  we can help you find the support you need.  this community is unequivocally here for you.  whatever you need, if it’s in my power to help you get it, i will.  you have my solemn promise on that.

i am so deeply and desperately sorry that you have gone through this.  i was shaking while reading your story.

i am in touch with other people and we are in discussion about the best way to let tumblr know what happened.  this will be a safe space for you (and all of us) again if it’s the last thing i do.  this community is 100% here for you in any way we can help, sending you all the support and love we have.

[eliemo]

Blameless

Summary: Logan knew it was only a matter of time until Thomas found out, but he had no intention of pushing Virgil out of his comfort zone. Unfortunately, things are a bit different right now. 

Masterpost

Notes: I plan on writing the “incident” mentioned throughout this fic sometime soon. It’s killing me to plan out

Logan had known it was only a matter of time until Thomas found out. 

He’d been the one to suggest telling him right away, just days after Virgil’s past had come to light. After all, it couldn’t do any harm to have him on the same page when it came to redirecting a harmful mindset.  

But he’d quickly dropped it upon seeing how distressed the idea made Virgil. Logan wasn’t quite sure what he was so afraid of, (Rejection? Dismissal? Annoyance?) but he had no plans to push the anxious side out of his comfort zone. 

Unfortunately, things were a bit different right now. 

It had been almost a week since the...incident had occurred, and while things were steadily improving, they were still hardly back to normal. 

Virgil was still horribly jumpy, wide eyed and trembling far more than usual, apologizing relentlessly for even the smallest things like he was terrified they were all still upset with him. 

Not that anyone had been upset with him to begin with. Just...stressed and worried, was all. They’d all triggered some kind of panicked response from Virgil before, but last week had been a whole different story. 

But that was in the past. It wouldn’t happen again. 

That being said, Virgil still needed time. And Thomas wanted to film today. 

Logan had done what he could to get the date rescheduled, but logically, there was no reason not to film today. Not without a viable excuse, and he knew better than to push the idea of telling Thomas the truth. Virgil would open up when he was ready. 

So now they were all in Thomas’s living room as usual, sharing wary glances as they talked through their host’s latest problem, hoping he wouldn’t notice Virgil was just a bit quieter than usual. 

Virgil’s hands were still wrapped in bandages- and Logan made a mental note to check how those were healing when they were done here- but he was able to keep them hidden beneath his sleeves. 

The issue today was fairly standard- Thomas panicking over a reaction from one of his friends, frantically scrambling as he tried to figure out how to respond and move forward. 

It was the kind of discussion that would usually have them all bickering, shouting over each other with no real malice, probably getting frustrated and carried away in the process until they inevitably came to some kind of conclusion. 

Today, they were careful to keep the volume low, cautious not to lose their temper, Patton and Roman sending less than subtle glances Virgil’s way every few minutes. 

Really, with how obvious they were being, Logan would be more worried if Thomas didn’t pick up on something being off. At the very least, he was bound to be feeling a little extra anxious recently. 

But he hadn’t said anything, Virgil left to his quiet fidgeting from his usual place on the stairs, so perhaps they could--

“Virge? What do you think, buddy?” 

Then again, perhaps not. Thomas was speaking softly, and Logan knew he was only trying to gently encourage Virgil to voice his thoughts, but the anxious side still jumped at the sudden attention, eyes widening slightly. 

“I...s-sorry, what?” 

“I was just wondering what you thought,” Thomas said. “About what Patton was saying.”

Logan saw Patton wince at the question, at the way Virgil was beginning to look helplessly cornered, Thomas still watching with oblivious confusion. 

He should have tried harder to get them to reschedule. Today was a bad day. 

“I- um, I don’t know,” Virgil said. “Sorry, I-I was just, I was…”  

“Zoning out a bit?” Thomas offered, his smile easy and gentle. He’d meant it lightly, Logan knew, but Virgil actually flinched at the implication. 

“N-no I was listening,” he said quickly. “Or, I- I was trying to, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to space out.” 

“What? No it’s...It’s fine, Virgil. Honestly, we were all just rambling at this point, right guys?”  He turned, just in time to see the worried glances Patton and Roman were failing to hide. 

“Right!” Patton exclaimed, too quick and too cheery, and Logan resisted the urge to groan at how utterly horrible the two were at nonchalance. “Everything’s ok! You’re doing great, kiddo!” 

Virgil sunk even further into his hoodie, fiddling with the strings, looking like he would rather be anywhere else in the world, the attention clearly overwhelming. 

Thomas noticed, frown deepening, and he quietly cleared his throat before turning to the creative side. “Roman? Can you stop the recording for a sec?” 

Roman hesitated, looking to Patton and Logan as Virgil began noticeably trembling. But he did as he was told, moving to shut the camera off as Patton hurried to Virgil’s side, talking too softly for the others to hear. 

“Alright, what’s going on you guys?” Thomas asked, missing the way Virgil flinched again. “Logan tried to change the schedule earlier, which we all know is unheard of, and all of you are acting...really weird.” 

Logan opened his mouth to answer, everyone else stubbornly silent, but Virgil beat him to it, his voice heartbreakingly small. 

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, we can...we can keep f-filming, Thomas.” 

Immediately, Thomas’s expression softened. “Hey, buddy it’s ok. I’m not upset, I just wanna know what’s going on. Obviously something’s been happening for a while.” 

Virgil stared resolutely down at his lap where Patton had intertwined their hands, and Roman was shifting restlessly by the camera, clearly waiting for someone else to take the lead. 

Logan sighed, realizing that despite his own lingering stress, he was still the most composed person in the room. As was usually the case. 

“Thomas,” he said, hands automatically fidgeting with his tie when the others turned their attention to him. “There was a...situation a few days ago. It’s been sorted out since then, but today might not be an ideal time to film.” 

“A situation?” Thomas echoed. “Is...is that why I had a panic attack earlier this week?” 

Virgil’s head snapped up at that, kept only from scrambling to his feet by Patton’s tight hold. “You felt that? I- I’m so sorry I thought I...y-you said you felt fine and I thought--” 

“No, no, Virge it’s ok.” Thomas was moving towards the stairs, crouching to Virgil’s level, careful to keep a couple feet of space between them. “It wasn’t that bad. Your panic attacks don’t usually get to me, but this one felt...different.” 

Virgil shrugged, but offered a reluctant nod. “Yeah it was...more intense than usual, I guess. Sorry.” 

“What did we talk about, kiddo?” Patton squeezed Virgil’s hand, smiling sadly. “You don’t have to apologize. It wasn’t your fault.” 

Virgil didn’t answer, still refusing to meet anyone’s gaze, shoulders hunched under the weight of their stares. 

Thomas inched closer, ankles brushing the stairwell, finally breaking the silence. “Virge, can you...tell me what happened?” 

Logan was actually surprised by how quickly Virgil shook his head, looking like Thomas had just suggested something ludicrous, like talking to a cute guy in public. He’d known Virgil was adamantly against telling Thomas any of this, but he hadn’t realized just how hesitant he was. 

“I-I can’t,” he stammered, looking to Patton for help. “I can’t say, I’m sorry, I just...I can’t tell you.” 

“Perhaps it is time we told Thomas,” Logan suggested. “He’s bound to find out eventually, Virgil. And I can assure you, there is nothing to worry about.” 

“But of course, you don’t have to!” Roman added, looking almost just as nervous as Virgil. “It’s entirely up to you!” 

“I’m not gonna pressure you into anything,” Thomas said. “But you know you can tell me anything, right? I’ll do what I can to help.” 

Thomas’s living room was silent for a long moment, the only noise being Patton’s overly exaggerated breathing to keep Virgil from hyperventilating. They all waited, patient and silent, careful not to do anything to make the anxious side feel rushed. 

Logan blinked, surprised when Virgil’s eyes were suddenly locked onto his. 

“Can…” he paused, chewing on his lip. “Can you tell him? Please?” 

Logan gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile and nodded. “Of course. Would you prefer to be in the room or wait somewhere else?” 

Virgil hesitated, free hand tugging at his hoodie, glancing up at Thomas as if to make sure he wasn’t upset with the change in plans. 

“Do you want to wait in the other room, kiddo?” Patton asked. “I can come with you if you want.” 

Virgil nodded, the relief in his eyes painfully obvious, but Logan didn’t miss the tremble that stayed in his hands, the wary, anxiety riddled glances he kept sending Thomas’s way as Patton led him up the stairs. 

“I’ll come get you in a few moments,” Roman called, moving to sit on the edge of the couch, wringing his hands in his lap. “Teach?” 

Logan cleared his throat, adjusting his tie again as he turned back to Thomas, suddenly painfully unsure how he was supposed to continue. 

“Right...Yes. Well,” he started. “A few weeks ago we became aware that, ah...actually Thomas, would you like to sit down?” 

He was stalling and they all knew it- he wasn’t exactly trying to be subtle. But Thomas went along with it anyway, sitting opposite of Roman while Logan awkwardly remained in his usual spot, careful not to fidget. 

“You are, of course, aware of the other sides.” 

“Yeah,” Thomas said. “The dark sides, right?” 

“You have, being a complex and emotional person, many facets of your personality,” Logan explained, ignoring the question. “Some are not as...developed, or as fundamental as the four of us. Most you will likely never interact with. I doubt they even have the ability to manifest.” 

“Okay?” Thomas looked to Roman for some kind of clue, concern clearly morphing to confusion. “What does this have to do with Virgil?” 

Roman clasped his hands in his lap, switching between staring intently down at the floor and looking at Logan- who was frantically trying to figure out the best way to put the delicate situation. 

“Soon after we had accepted Virgil as one of us,” Logan said. “It...came to our attention that he was not...treated well, in a sense, by a majority of the other sides.” 

Roman scoffed. “That’s one way of putting it.” 

“We had all noticed right away, of course, that he was uneasy around us, and always a bit on edge. We all thought he was merely nervous about being rejected again and assumed it would pass.” 

Logan was resolutely not looking at Roman. He would not lose himself, would not fall apart in front of Thomas. He was simply restating facts. That was all. 

“I found him in my room about two weeks into our attempts to get to know him. He was borrowing some reading material and he...well, he believed I intended to strike him as punishment, since he was used to that being standard.” 

Logan risked a glance up, allowing himself to be relieved at Thomas’s expression. He was horrified, as was expected, but there was compassion and understanding flickering in beneath that. 

He wasn’t sure what he had been so afraid of. Perhaps Virgil had been rubbing off on him a bit. 

“But he’s...he’s alright now, isn’t he?” Thomas asked. “I mean, he knows he’s safe with you guys. Right?” 

“It’s a...work in progress,” Roman admitted, and Logan quickly jumped in to elaborate at Thomas’s growing distress. 

“And he is making a great deal of progress. We’re all very proud of how far he’s come in such a short period of time. But it is not something that fixes itself right away.” 

Thomas nodded, scrubbing a hand over his face, and Logan shared a worried look with Roman, both sides at a loss of what else to say or do. 

“How long?” Thomas asked suddenly. “Do you know...how long it went on for?” 

Logan shook his head. “Not exactly. We’ve all...helped Virgil talk through his experiences in chunks whenever he is comfortable. But from what I’ve gathered, it would have been several years at the very least.” 

That, clearly, was not what Thomas had wanted to hear, distress only doubling as he dropped his head into his hands, Roman frantically attempting to provide comfort. 

“Thomas--” 

“Years?” Thomas pushed himself off the couch, Roman hurrying to follow. “It went on for years and I just-- fuck I just let it happen?” 

“You did not let anything happen, Thomas.” 

“He’s my anxiety, Logan!” Thomas shot back, and Logan couldn’t help but be thankful that Joan wasn’t over to hear this particular rant. “It happened in my head and I didn’t even--” 

“Thomas.” Roman’s hand on their host’s shoulder shut down his rambling, the Prince's voice uncharacteristically grim. “There was no way for you to have known. None of us knew- hell Virgil didn’t even know it wasn’t normal!” 

They’d all gone down a spiral of self blame, obsessing uselessly over what could have been since they’d found out what Virgil had gone through. 

If they had just been kinder to him, welcomed him sooner, tried harder to get him to open up from the beginning, then maybe they could have stopped it, saved him from the treatment sooner…

But there was no use in those thoughts. All they did was upset Virgil, who refused to allow anyone to feel guilt over him, half the time convinced he was still just a minor inconvenience. 

“Placing blame is not of importance,” Logan said. “What’s important is Virgil’s safety, and learning how we can undo what has been done. He’s been...conditioned to have a very unhealthy mindset.” 

Thomas took a shaky breath, still much more pale than Logan would like but noticeably more collected than before. 

“You guys found out about this a while ago,” he said after a moment. “What about this last week? You said something else happened?” 

And just like that the tension in the room skyrocketed once again, Roman meeting Logan’s stare with wide, questioning eyes. 

It was like they hadn’t talked about it. They’d had several long discussions, both with and without Virgil, doing all they could to ensure nothing like that ever happened again. 

But Logan didn’t think they’d ever really...recounted out loud exactly what had happened. They all knew. They didn’t need to relive the details. 

Which was illogical, of course. It happened, it was terrifying at the time- the glass, the blood, the way the mindscape had been too quiet- 

But it was over now. It was a mistake, an oversight, and it wouldn’t happen again. And Thomas had the right to know. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” Thomas said, and Logan was surprised by the sheer force of the relief that hit like a tidal wave. “It’s ok. I trust you guys to take care of him.” 

“We will,” Roman agreed. “Always.” 

Logan nodded and Thomas took a breath, running his hands through his hair before glancing at the empty stairwell. 

“Roman, do you think you could go get him? I wanna talk to him if he’s up for it.” 

The creative side nodded, glancing at Logan for some kind of unspoken approval before hurrying up the stairs, disappearing the way Patton and Virgil had left, leaving Logan and Thomas alone in the suddenly much too quiet living room. 

The logical side adjusted his tie once more, eyes trained on the floor. “Virgil has been worrying over your reaction for weeks,” he said. “Please attempt to keep your emotions in check.” 

He couldn’t help but think back to that first day, when Patton had lost himself in his emotions, and Virgil had been convinced that anger was directed towards him. 

Luckily, Thomas seemed to pick up on the uneasiness because he just nodded again, glanced once more at the staircase, and moved back to his spot on the couch. 

“Did...did Deceit hide this from me too?” 

“Not that I’m aware of,” Logan said, and unfortunately that was the truth. He didn’t know. “But from what I’ve gathered, I don’t believe he ever laid a hand on Virgil.” 

That, of course, didn’t mean he hadn’t known about the abuse. No one had really gotten the nerve to ask the dark side about the affair.

But there wasn’t a need to fill Thomas’s head with any more doubts.

It wasn’t long before there were footsteps from the stairs, Virgil reluctantly following Patton into the living room, Roman lingering a few paces behind. 

Thomas waited until they were all off the staircase before scooting over, patting the spot next to him. “Hey, Virge. You want to come sit?” 

Virgil shrugged, shoulders hunched and hands buried in his pockets, but he made his way over to the couch, sitting as far away from Thomas as possible. 

He didn’t look like he was panicking, Logan noted with some sense of relief, just miserable and wary, like he was expecting the worst. 

“Did Logan tell you?” Virgil asked, pressed up against the back of the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest. 

“Yeah, he did.” Thomas moved closer, still careful not to crowd the anxious side. “Buddy...do you think I’m gonna be mad at you?” 

Virgil shrugged. “No. I...I don’t know. Maybe.” 

“I don’t think Thomas has ever been angry with you, kiddo,” Patton pointed out from his spot by the window. “And I really doubt he’s gonna start now.” 

“Of course I’m not angry with you, Virge. Why would you think that?” 

A beat of heavy silence, and for a second it looked like Virgil would refuse to respond at all. But there were no tell tale signs of a panic attack, even as he took a small, trembling breath. “Because you should be.” 

It was mumbled, barely audible, and Logan frowned as Thomas looked like he’d just been slapped. “I- what?” 

“You should be,” Virgil snapped, finally looking up to face the others. “All of you should be! You should...you should be furious with me and you’re not and it’s been months and I don’t get it!” 

His breaths were steady, albeit labored, eyes wide as he met each of their stares, voice only slightly wobbly, and Logan briefly wondered how long he’d thought about saying this. 

Roman took a careful step forward, still hesitating by the stairs. “Virgil...why do you think we’re going to be mad?” 

It was a question they’d all asked him before, when he got that panicked look in his eyes when he thought he’d done something wrong. But this...Logan knew this was something different. This wasn’t panic. 

He didn’t like it any better. 

“I don’t,” Virgil argued. “I know you won’t be and that’s the problem.” 

No one knew what to say, exchanging helpless glances as Virgil took a steadying breath, finally focusing on Thomas. 

“I just...let them do that to me,” he said. “They said I had to be- be h-hurt and I just believed them like an idiot. It probably just hurt you and I didn’t even realize!” 

“Virgil, there was no way you could have known. You thought what was happening was normal.” 

“How is that any better, Logan? I thought I deserved it just because they told me I did. I never tried to fight back! It just...to me it just made sense. I deserved it. I...I still think I do sometimes.” 

“Virge--” 

“But you’re all so nice to me. I just...I-I love you all so much and I don’t know how...I just keep messing up and panicking over stuff I let happen to me and making your lives harder and it’s...what if I don’t get better? After what happened last week how long are you gonna…” 

He paused with a shaky breath, clearly resolutely determined not to cry. “What if I don’t stop doing this to you? I-I keep...doing this and- and I try to listen to you but sometimes I...I get it. I get why they did it. I mean, if I’m just such a fuck up that that’s the only way to control me, then why don’t you guys just do the same thing and beat the shit out of me so--”

“Virgil!” 

Logan hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but he could see Virgil getting more and more worked up, and the last time he’d brought up any of them getting fed up enough to resort to violence Patton had burst into tears, which would do nothing to help the situation.  

Luckily, the flash of fear in Virgil’s eyes as he fell silent only lasted a second, recognition taking over as his shoulders dropped. 

“Sorry,” Virgil muttered. “Sorry I didn’t mean to say all that, I know you guys...I know you won’t do that. I just worry...I don’t know.” 

Thomas was scooting closer again, watching Virgil with an expression Logan couldn’t quite read. Sadness, definitely. But it was also fond, something protective and kind. 

Logan thought Thomas was the only person kind enough to look at their anxiety like that. 

Good. Virgil deserved that kindness. 

“Virgil,” Thomas said, arms now open and inviting, his smile warm and genuine. “Come here?” 

Virgil didn’t hesitate. His face crumpled and the facade he was trying so desperately to put on faded as he fell forward into Thomas’s embrace, holding him tight. 

Logan smiled, sinking out along with Roman and Patton. They would need to talk about what had happened- all of them, but it could wait. 

Virgil needed some time with Thomas, and Logan had no doubt he would be taken care of. 

To Virgil’s own, silent amazement, he managed not to dissolve into tears the second he realized Thomas not only wasn’t upset with him, but offering physical comfort. 

The others had sunk out sometime into the hug, leaving the two of them alone on the couch, and he did his best to breathe through the lingering panic at the memories of what he’d just said. 

Thomas didn’t let go, but didn’t try to pressure a conversation either, seeming to know Virgil needed some time to find his voice again. 

Instead he just leaned back slightly, enough so both of them were resting comfortably against the back of the couch, and turned the tv on to some mindless show, the background noise helping to ground them both. 

His arms were still wrapped around Virgil, comforting and safe, and the anxious side’s breath hitched as Thomas began carding fingers through his hair, unable to stop himself from leaning into the touch. 

Thomas shouldn’t be taking care of him like this. Not when Virgil had done nothing but hurt him. 

He pushed those thoughts away, closed his eyes, and willed his mind to focus. 

It was impossible to tell how much time passed, everything fuzzy and far away, but Thomas never pushed, waiting until Virgil was ready to talk on his own. 

“I’m so stupid.” 

The fingers in his hair stopped, just for a second, before starting up again, even more gentle than before. 

“You’re not,” Thomas said. “You’re not, Virge. You were being hurt and manipulated. It wasn’t your fault.” 

He’d heard this all a thousand times before. It wasn’t his fault, it was manipulation, his reactions were normal, he shouldn’t blame himself. 

It helped to hear, sure, but only in the short run. It all came creeping back eventually, taunting, jeering voices mercilessly screaming in his head. 

“I know,” he said against Thomas’s shoulder. “But I believed them. I know what they did wasn’t my fault but I never questioned it. I hated the way it made me feel and I still never tried to get it to stop.” 

“You thought you didn’t have a choice.”

“Nobody else would be stupid enough to believe that,” Virgil muttered. “You wouldn’t, the others wouldn’t, I just always thought...I thought I was helping but I always just make it worse.” 

For a second, Thomas didn’t answer, the low volume of the television the only sound in the living room. For a terrifying second, Virgil thought Thomas was going to agree. 

“You make us better, Virgil,” he said, the same words Princey had spoken in his room. “Not worse. Never worse. Don’t forget that.”

Thomas pulled back slightly, just enough to meet Virgil’s eyes, carefully moving a hand under his chin when the anxious side averted his gaze. 

“You aren’t stupid, buddy. And you did not deserve that. Any of it. You couldn’t have known- we all treated you like a villain, and you thought you had to be the bad guy.” 

Virgil shrugged, taking a shuddering breath. “I thought...I was just trying to protect you.” 

“And you do,” Thomas said. “You always have. Nobody blames you for believing what they told you. Especially not when you were scared.” 

Thomas finally allowed Virgil to look away, the side staring down at his lap, forcibly reminding himself not to pick at the bandages under his sleeves. 

“I hated it,” he mumbled, face burning. “I wanted it to stop so bad so I don’t know why...why I can’t accept that it’s over.” 

“You’ll get there,” Thomas promised, more certain than Virgil had ever heard him. “You’ll realize someday you didn’t deserve it. We’ll show you that you deserve to be loved, Virge.” 

Thomas pulled him close again, the hug tight and desperate on both ends, and for just a moment Virgil thought that with an embrace like this, a family so open and understanding, he would never be afraid again. 

[leonawriter]

I often see that when people do meta or analysis (or even headcanons/fics) on Chuuya, they’ll touch on how he is with the mafia, and they’ll ask the question of “is he actually happy there, how free is he” among other things. Often these opinions are ones I have conflicted feelings about, as I’ll freely admit I’m biased toward him staying in the mafia, and some may have a harsher view on the mafia’s influence on him, or just in general, than I do.

Earlier I saw a post that touched on several things about Chuuya and the mafia that made me think. Some aspects had been mulling in my mind for a while, too. 

(I may go into a ramble here. I’m tired and there’s stuff going on. I just hope some of it makes sense.)

The first thing is that when we compare Chuuya’s relationship with the Sheep to that with the PM, it’s easy to say “he was never respected in the Sheep, they took advantage of him and used his power, emotionally manipulating him to feel responsible” but something that sticks out when Chuuya is dealing with Mori is that in spite of the Sheep being a “democratic” organisation, everyone outside of that group sees Chuuya as its leader. He’s the one who looks out for the members, he’s the most visible, so he’s the “king.”

Effectively, Mori treats him as such in their interactions, and recognises and respects that Chuuya, despite saying “I’m not a king, I just have a trump card up my sleeve!” several times, does want to have that kind of respect. To be listened to when he says to people “don’t do that” because he knows it’s in their best interests.

Chuuya’s downfall in the Sheep is that he’s the one with the most power in terms of violence and raw physical power, having all of all of his agency and social power taken away from him in small ways. Even such things as him wanting the kids to not go to the docks and buy alcohol is them saying that they don’t care about his opinion, they don’t care about his well-being. In their opinion, they do as they like, and when they fuck around and find out, he bails them out. 

Despite his repeated protestations of “I’m no king!”, he must have on some level have internalised the idea that not only should he take responsibility, but that the responsibility to look after the kids under his protection means that they should, in theory, listen to him as well. He was no king because he was a puppet monarch; someone who is there for show, but doesn’t make any decisions.

When Chuuya watches the way that Mori works, he’s already seen how the Sheep treat those they’re afraid of, even those that they should have trusted. He sees that his former allies, his former family, would give him up in a heartbeat if they thought he was a threat. Anyone who went through that would at some point ask “where did I go wrong?”, and Mori is the one who answers him in a way that doesn’t spare his feelings, and also encourages him to pick himself back up.

If you look at what Mori says, it explains to Chuuya why Shirase (and assumedly the Sheep council) acted the way that they did. He isn’t stupid, he knows it was controlled and orchestrated by Dazai and Mori, and even says so when he’s picked up by the mafia after being betrayed. But hearing Mori leads Chuuya to understand why it happen, and if you can understand why something went wrong, then you can learn how to handle things better next time.

Chuuya respects people, he likes people, he wants them to live. He grieves their loss. I truly think he’d come at being the boss - as I think he’d inevitably become, at some point in the near or distant future - in an entirely different way to how Mori does, purely by how Chuuya doesn’t think about things in such a logical, optimal solution-based way. However, he does very much think in a way that suits the mafia. He can weigh one life against another’s, and choose the life of his own against that of someone who's done no wrong other than to go against him. He can choose the “organisation” over other people. He was good at the jewellery business when he first started out, and I’d love to know what he’s been doing since then. And he doesn’t seem to show any discomfort with that!

The thing is this - there are many reasons Chuuya stays in the mafia. 

One is that he respects and admires the people he works with, and his boss. That respect and admiration is also not a one-way street; these people see him as more than just his ability, even when they know what that is and what his origins are. That’s enough for a lifetime of gratitude, and more than just gratitude, but a feeling of “how can I ever repay this?”. And the only thing that they want from him in return is that he keeps developing, becoming more confident and better at his job(s).

Another reasons is, as said above, he has the mindset for it. He is that strange kind of person who is both infinitely kind and capable of love but also infinitely capable of cruelty and violence. Each time I think “where would Chuuya be if he weren’t in the mafia” I think of how the closest we see to his sort of mindset is either in another criminal organisation, in the Hunting Dogs (who aren’t criminal, but are the only organisation that are allowed to do such things and also be within the law), and, well... Tanizaki. Tanizaki, who would be perfectly happy to assassinate a guy just to save his boss’ life, and who someone said would do just fine in the mafia. 

The thing is, the ways in which Chuuya is trapped by the mafia are general only of his own making. He seems to have this idea that he has to have a certain kind of self-image, one that he began to cultivate back when he first joined, so that he would be given respect. In some ways, however, this also is reminiscent of Mori himself, who will be acting in an unprofessional way (trying to get a “young” girl to please get some clothes on) but have to cover that up once someone walks in. 

But this isn’t just a mafia thing! Fukuzawa does it too, and we can see it in the way that he wants to make the right kind of responses, but if he weren’t director, he’d just go with the flow more. With how he wants to just go out places and pet cats, but has to put up this image of the dignified director that people can rely on. 

In Chuuya’s case, I think it’s something he needs to work on, so that he can become a self-assured and confident adult, but in general it’s just... adulthood, to need to look professional while you’re doing your job. The problem with some of these characters is that their job is so closely tied with who they are.

To summarise:

Chuuya wanted the respect of being a leader even as he was denied personal agency while in the Sheep, and was given the ability to work toward that respect and earn it from others on his entry into the mafia. Mori’s words showed him what he lacked, but also highlighted what hadn’t been given to him before.

Chuuya’s place is in the mafia as it is where his talents lie, but more importantly it is most likely where he would feel the least out of place, and the least uncomfortable by peoples’ assumptions that he “should” act or think in a certain way. Just as in many ways he is seen as “too nice and kind” for the mafia, so would he be seen as “too violent, cruel, and callous” to work in the light, within the law, and his continued ability to stay loyal to the mafia without discomfort for what they do would make it impossible for him to work for the ADA.