#which is fine. I just want more bonding between these 2. but I'm also barely halfway through this vid lol

[i-put-the-s4p-in-s4pphic]

ohhh my gosh, watching play through of ddlc+ and the conversation between natsuki and sayori during reflection is soo good!!

so many good points, and I really love the main conflict, but this part especially just:

natsuki: how do you know so much about this stuff? (seperating your darker thoughts and feelings from yourself as a person)

sayori: I just have a really difficult roommate (referring to her feelings in her head) called depression..

natsuki: depression? but you're the happiest person I know!

sayori: I am not my feelings.

just wow, the writing is so good. and my 2 faves are together and I just loce their dynamic and I'm feeling emotional😩

[cave-monkey]

Monkey King Episode 8 (Part 2/2)

*BUSTS THROUGH THE DOOR* All right, time to finish this!

It's been two days since I watched this episode let's see what stuck.

"The Six-Eared Macaque has six ears! Isn't he really cute?"

Ginseng Fruit thinks Six Ears is cute. Canon.

Okay, so. The fake bunny ears? Absolutely adorable. Holy shit. These kids are the cutest. Jade Rabbit's body dysmorphia is probably on a level to qualify as the full disorder, and that's less cute and more sad and distressing, but it's so nice this attempt at comforting her worked and they were able to make her feel a little better about it.

Stone Monkey was so worried about her, too! Six Ears was clearly only there as emotional support (desperately needed, because Stone Monkey was not doing okay) since he had no idea who she was and Ginseng Fruit just didn't like her, but Stone Monkey probably would have started ripping the island apart stone by stone to find her if they hadn't managed to coax her out. He was worried! And emotionally unstable about it! Ginseng Fruit losing their patience and insulting her got them attacked.

Like, it took Marshal Ma a multi-episode timespan to wear Stone Monkey down enough to have him almost lunging for Marshal Ma's face. Ginseng Fruit got there in about two sentences. Even Six Ears was pretty alarmed about it. (Six Ears trying to comfort an angry and distressed Stone Monkey by cautiously reaching out to touch his shoulder from an entire arm's length away is very monkey of him. I just had to note that.)

Also that thing again of Stone Monkey's genuine anger being pretty violent. And how much quicker he is to lose it if the ones you're jabbing sticks at are his friends and not him.

I can't even really blame Ginseng Fruit for being upset they were spending so much time and energy checking on Jade Rabbit, since from Ginseng Fruit's perspective she was actively trying to hurt/kill the two of them nearly since Ginseng Fruit met her. They have reason to not like her and not want Stone Monkey around her. Still not the time or place, but their concern and frustration was understandable!

From Stone Monkey's perspective, what's a little attempted murder between friends, I guess? They had a Bash Brothers bonding moment against the Demon King's army before Jade Rabbit's headwrap was knocked off and she panicked, so clearly it's all square now. She was just upset! She didn't even manage to actually hurt them! It's fine! It's also possible he blames Ginseng Fruit for Jade Rabbit being angry at all, since if Ginseng Fruit had just stayed away from him like Stone Monkey had wanted them to, and hadn't tagged along, they never would have had a chance to run their mouth and set her off. Which isn't really fair, but. Stone Monkey barely seems to tolerate Ginseng Fruit at this stage of their relationship and that was true even before all this went down. I'm not sure he would be fair. Especially not when they're shouting insults his already hurting friend might be able to hear.

Six Ears got them to work it out, of course, but I definitely noticed that Ginseng Fruit's tears weren't even enough to rock that look of utter disdain until Six Ears scolded Stone Monkey about it.

(Ginseng Fruit: *sobbing*

Stone Monkey: Suffer.

Six Ears: Hey. Hey, isn't it funny how all your friends keep getting sad around you?

Stone Monkey: 😟*🎶SHOT THROUGH THE HEART🎶*)

Six Ears really did go for the throat, though. Jade Rabbit wasn't even Stone Monkey's fault! Don't imply it is! He'll believe it if it comes from you!

I thought it was pretty funny and cute though, that Six Ears apparently just took it upon himself to carry Ginseng Fruit around while they were accompanying Stone Monkey. Looking at all of this though, it might also have been him just trying to keep Ginseng Fruit alive. He put Ginseng Fruit down for FIVE SECONDS and in the next scene they're picking a fight with an already upset Stone Monkey and almost getting their skull crushed in. They were right back on Six Ears's hip in the next shot lol. Can't take these guys anywhere.

But in reality it was probably just Six Ears's self-appointed Monkey Kinda-Maybe-Prince Boy Scout babysitting reflexes kicking in. He accompanied an upset Stone Monkey to go find this other friend of his, saw this little guy with tiny little legs trying to keep up with them (and especially Stone Monkey who was probably not in the mood to slow down or have Ginseng Fruit on him), and just scooped without a second thought. And Ginseng Fruit likes him! At least if their comment about Six Ears being cute later is anything to go by. You have a stalwart fan now, Six Ears. You carried them, spoke up for them a bit, and now they will die for you. Ginseng Fruit does nothing by halves.

This episode had so much character relationship building in it. I loved it a lot. The actual editing of the episode was a bit more like a fever dream or like the guy storyboarding it hadn't slept in a week, so I hope they're all right, but the writing was hitting all the beats. It was so good. Easily my favorite.

[ourmondobongo]

Hey! How are you? I was reading a fic, well almost a meta on Levi&Hanji's relationship in which something really bothered me. The OP said after Erwin's death Levi did follow Hanji as the commander and fulfilled whatever goal she gave him; however, despite the fact There is trust between them, the level of this trust would never reach to the one he had towards Erwin as well as his leadership. The thought makes me feel so uncomfortable because I don't think for a second this is true. Where do you think such a ridiculous opinion stem from and what do you think about the whole idea?

Hello!!!

I hope you are doing fine! Sorry the lateness on this reply!

Hmm, the idea that Levi trusted Erwin in a way he didn't trust anyone else is somewhat based on their relationship dynamics, imo.

For example, there are instances where their trust bond is particularly highlighted: in the Female Titan arc - where Levi says to Erwin "I'm going to trust your judgment" after the Commander orders him to replenish his gas when "there was no time and he already had plenty"; or in the first snk guidebook that highlights Levi's relationships, and it's trust with Erwin again; or also Levi’s character monologue:

So I think Isayama really wanted to put the trust bond of their relationship as something different from everyone else! What makes sense considering 1) Levi's hard past and horrible grow up in the Underground, and 2) the way he chose to share the same goal as Erwin in his life mission being to save humanity.

I know, though, that some people often says Levi trusted him blindly or without question, as if he was only a mindless soldier obeying orders. But the truth is that while Levi does trust Erwin, he questioned stuff (ie, in the Female Arc); he called out Erwin’s "gambles" (ie, in the Reiss Titan fight), he reprimanded him (ie, in the pre-RtS battle). Above all, Erwin was also a great strategist, and he "brought the best results" as per Levi's words in his character song as well as Erwin’s journey up until his death. So Levi choose to follow and trust him for very grounded reasons, and his personal belief something would come out of their struggle for humanity.

That said, the experience Levi had under Erwin was very different from the one he had Hanji, imo. While Erwin always felt like he was walking ahead of everyone, and Levi came to stand in equal footing with him more toward the end of Erwin's life when the latter bared his whole to Levi in the crate scene, Hanji had always had a complementary open book relationship with Levi.

Like, idk, Erwin is of very confident leader, and Levi stresses a few times how he doesn't know what Erwin is thinking (like in their smartpass) but still trust the man, and the text ends highlighting how they both are the greatest men of the SC; or Isym saying Levi felt a little betrayed after discovering Erwin’s dream, but still followed him. While Hanji and Levi are completing each other's sentences, or having telepathic conversations, and listening to each other's trail of reasoning to reach a mutual understanding and trace plans of actions. So things are just different between them all...

As for the level of trust Levi had in Hanji as Commander, I think the fact Levi asked Erwin to let Hanji lead the troops in the RtS battle and "wait for the good news" gives a solid idea of how much faith Levi had in her leadership too.

Hanji was an integral part of their advancement with her intelligence and inventions, her experience as Squad Leader was one of the best in the battlefield considering her group had the highest survival rates because of their constant experiments/studies of Titan behavior, and aside from her absolutely excitement with Titan Studies when the opportunity for it seemed fitting, Hanji was fully committed to fight to death for Humanity and showed pretty much deadly willpower to fulfill her mission. (Also, Erwin believed that Hanji could one day unveil the mystery of the Titans, and he trusted the SC leadership to her hands since Uprising Arc. These things are not small stuff.)

So that's it imo - their relationships were different, and Isayama did put an emphasis on Levi and Erwin’s trust bond.

[catsintei]

I'm terrified that they'll make Mercury the new Adam for Emerald in Volume 9. I don't want Mercury to be villainized if he feels like Emerald's abandoned him but I don't want him to be JUST fine with her leaving and joining the good guys.

I feel you 100% anon; but I think that in order to answer your ask properly and to put into context my words and feelings regarding it, I first need to talk about Emerald’s “redemption arc”.

This is a long post so...

Basically, it was not good to put it lightly. The buildup towards Emerald leaving Salem was certainly there, if only just barely. I’m not going to deny that the writing was on the wall from the beginning, but it was very, very, sparse in regards to an actual full fledged redemption arc. A few sad and scared looks here and there, an “it's almost sad” said in the face of a brutal massacre of innocents, and an “I don’t know if what we're doing is right because Cinder isn’t here”, do not a solid foundation for a redemption arc make.

This barebones buildup would have sufficed had CRWBY decided to make v8 the very beginning of Emerald’s path to redemption, instead of ending it as soon as it started. This totally could have happened, as I said previously, the buildup to Emerald leaving Salem was there, and hell, they had it down initially; Emerald didn’t leave Salem because she saw the error of her ways and decided to change for the better. She only escaped because her life was in immediate danger, not because of some sense of morality, and I think that’s a good thing, it's completely in character for her! Emerald through her actions is neither a nice nor good person. This could have been built upon further if the writers chose to go for the “strained alliance the enemy of my enemy is my friend” angle, in which Emerald, after working closely with the protagonists to survive; building a bond with them in the process, realizes the true error of her ways and puts in the work to better herself.

Unfortunately, nothing of the sort happened. Emerald instantly seemed to become besties with Team RWBY & Co. smiles and giggles all around even after she uh, tried to murder Penny mere hours before. I hate to constantly compare each and every redemption arc to Zuko’s, but in this case I think it’s a good example of the general structure of a redemption arc. Emerald at the end of v8, does not feel like a Book 2 Zuko, just starting to realize the error of his ways. Emerald decidedly feels like a late stage Book 3 Zuko, minus the character development. It doesn't feel like the beginning of a redemption arc, it very much feels like the end.

Now that I have that off of my chest, let's get to the main point.

I don’t see Mercury being made into Emerald’s Adam, that honour goes to Cinder (which is why I would really like for there to be a Mercury and Emerald vs. Cinder confrontation/fight sometime in the future). Mercury has been shown to care about Emerald A Lot, making him out to be her Adam would be the biggest pile of bullshit in any form of media known to mankind. Mercury’s and Emerald’s relationship with each other bears absolutely no resemblance to what Blake’s and Adam’s relationship was. Decimating the great relationship that Emerald and Mercury have would be an insanely stupid move.

However, I can certainly see Mercury being villainized, both in show and chiefly by the fandom, if he has a negative reaction towards Emerald leaving, especially if he feels as if she left him. Mercury has already been blatantly villainized by the fandom post v8, I have seen many posts detailing how Mercury is “the villainous counterpart to the hero, Emerald”, how he cannot leave Salem because he is “in too deep” and has gone too far. Most of these posts ignoring the fact that it has been pointed out directly and indirectly through his body language and dialogue, that Mercury is actually deeply uncomfortable with working for Salem but is too afraid to leave her and the only life he’s ever known, and frankly I can’t blame him for that. 

In general, a negative reaction from Mercury in regards to Emerald’s “departure” from Salem’s cabal is to be expected, especially because Tyrian literally threatened to hunt down and kill both of them if they dared to betray Salem, which Emerald has now done, and also Tyrian is like… right there… with Mercury… whoops. Nevertheless, in my opinion, Mercury would understand why Emerald escaped Salem and where she is coming from but he wouldn't be just fine with Emerald leaving for the aforementioned reasons; because he cares about her and everything she has done so far went against the self preservation agenda Mercury carries, and could get her very swiftly killed. 

I don't think we will see much of Mercury and Emerald in v9, but when they do eventually show up and reunite, I could see there being some (hopefully swiftly resolved) conflict between them concerning their respective decisions, with them coming to a mutual understanding. However I doubt that Mercury will double down on staying with Salem, if the entire “Salem is gonna destroy the world :)” thing from Tyrian didn't change his mind then the hours-long plane ride with him probably has.

So yeah, I really hope that Mercury is treated well going forward, I think he deserves positive character development, I think he deserves to leave Salem, I think he deserves the opportunity to live his own free life, and I want his character to be done well and for his story to end on a positive note.

I had a lot more on my mind that I wanted to say here, but decided to keep it on the shorter side. Thanks for the ask and the opportunity to ramble, feel free to send more ^-^

[binickandros]

Hey I know it was a few days ago you said this but I'm coming into your asks to also complain about how much they sidelined Nick in the Stand. I legitimately don't understand the creative choice to focus on Harold as the main character and sideline Nick and the other, bigger characters. Yes Owen Teague is a fantastic actor, he was amazing, but the decision was presumably made long before his casting. Why was this the Harold Lauder show whereas Nick was barely in it, I... don't understand :(

Stand ranting anon again: I just wanted to add that I would be fine with the amount of screen time Harold got, if all the other characters got the same amount, like if it was a 20 episode season and we could get a whole episode of Nick backstory, of Frannie etc. We only even saw Frannie pre-plague through the fence whilst Harold was creeping on her, which is really... Not Great. So yeah I just feel like it was bizarre they used their limited time in the way they did, very confused.

Listen, nonny, LISTEN: I may never be over this injustice. I am a CANCER, we hold GRUDGES, and you can consider this one fuckin well HELD. Uh this gets long sooo...

I watched the 94 miniseries when it aired and of course immediately loved Nick. Shortly after that I read the book for the first time and loved Nick even more (Larry is 2nd, then prob Fran, then Stu), and over the years I’ve rewatched the mini-series and re-read the book and I was always like “man, I’d love to see an adaptation of this without network TV limitations, just like dark and creepy and atmospheric, but with the good guys winning the day” as they do.

So fast forward to 2011 or whenever and there are tentative announcements of a movie. Eh, not great, nowhere near enough time. Then!! A limited series!! Which is just a miniseries made fancy.

My dumb ass: more time in Shoyo!! Maybe Rita AND Nadine!! More time with Fran and her dad!! Etc etc

Welp I guess I got one of those things, but at what cost!! A whole entire Lucy, and uh...p much everything else I might have wanted.

I was talking about this with someone else (you know who you are but don’t wanna tag you in case you, like me, avoid the mortifying ordeal of being known at all cost) and we were both like “okay what EXACTLY about our culture right now made the adapters here (including King’s own son, Owen) think that a story about good v. evil somehow needed to focus on the red pill incel????”

Like they obviously had some idea about making the story more diverse, but because of the way they then used those characters, it felt like performative with no substance.

Ralph Brentner is now a Native woman?? Love it!! She’s also a glorified extra until the last few episodes?? Oh pls fuck off.

Larry is Black?? Great! A Black main character!! Except of course he’s NOT because HAROLD IS.

Nick’s now Latino! Buuuut played by a hearing actor. Which actually only matters in principle because we’re going to try to sweep our bullshit decision-making under the rug by hardly having him on camera. Won’t show up till episode 3, gone by episode 6, in one 2-minute scene in episode 5. Good job, guys! *high fives all around the writers’ room*

I’d honestly like to see someone with way more time on their hands do a screen time comparison between Nick and Harold, or Harold and literally every other character on this show. They opened with Harold, he was in every episode in a major way, he got a CLOSING MONOLOGUE and MONTAGE of his LIFE, while Nick just blew up and then was mentioned a few times and that was it.

I mean I guess they attempted something meaningful by having him...looking at that picture or postcard before the bomb? Which was like someone on a boat, so was maybe his mom, or reminded him of his mom? But how the hell were we to know that, bc we got the piece of exposition about his mom from FLAGG in ONE SCENE, and we’d never seen that picture before, nor do we have any idea of the significance of “Silencio,” which was written on the picture and was the title of the episode. It was literally not meaningful AT ALL bc we as the audience didn’t know a goddamn thing about it, and it was “blink and you miss it.”

I thought 9 hours would give us more time for backstory. That’s what I was looking forward to. Like Fran burying her dad was sad bc duh he’s her DAD and he’s DEAD, but it’s so much more meaningful when you’ve seen them bonding. Even the 94 miniseries, which had to cut some stuff for time, showed us how close they were, and the scene of her stitching his shroud was heartbreaking.

How did Stu, a 45-year-old man (tho that’s James Marsden’s age and I think they mean for Stu to be younger), come to fall in love w Frannie, a 20ish-year-old girl?? Who knows! He saw her on the road and thought she was cute and I guess that was that. She’s a college student from Maine and he works in a calculator factory (or something idr) in East Texas and there’s a huge age difference, so what do they have in common? Ah fuck it who cares let’s see what Harold’s doing.

I just honestly would like to know the thought process here. I think. Let’s be real. This is what happens when your main creative team is nerdy white boys. They identify with Harold: he’s an “outsider,” he’s “misunderstood,” if only people hadn’t been so mean to him!

An adaptation created by 2 white dudes. A writers’ room with all white dudes, except ONE woman who, for all we know, was just there, again, as tokenism. This is what happens when white men create for themselves without any real input from women, POC, or members of the LGBT community. Because the “gay rep” on this show is a whole other rant.......

Anyway, nonny, I’m writing a Nick fic rn that will hopefully see the light of day soon, and it’s literally. All Nick. And an OC bc Nick deserves love too!! And no Julie does not count. I’m not saying that just as shameless self promotion, but also to show that I was so incensed by this bullshit adaptation that I’ve now written 35k words and they JUST LEFT SHOYO, all while starting school doing something I’ve never even dipped my toe into before, so it’s fairly intense work.

Justice for Nick Andros. He deserved better from the source material, and somehow an adaptation made in 2020 (when we should all know better) made it So. Much. Worse.

[the-overgrowth]

Please don't read this ask as combative, I'm just genuinely curious. How do you justify the age difference between Sidra and Val? I know you said Val is technically a teenager/young adult in fae years but isn't that the same justification a lot of immortal/mortal pairings use? (Like Twilight with Edward being "frozen" at 17.) The fact is that Val's lived literally 200+ years more than her and that has to color the experience divide, right? Is there a way authors CAN make these age gaps work?

No worries! I think it’s a good question and gives me an opportunity to clarify some stuff! I should preface this by saying that it’s totally ok if people aren’t comfy with the “young woman paired with ancient magical dude” trope that’s common in fantasy nowadays. It’s not for everyone and that’s fine. I’ve tried to make my take on it more morally palatable, but if it doesn’t work you, then it doesn’t work for you.

Putting this under a cut because it got long, oops.

Val isn’t “frozen,” he literally ages 10 times slower than Sidra, including mentally and emotionally. 50-year-old fae are the equivalent of 5-year-old children. Val being 223 is basically him being in his early twenties, barely mature enough by fae standards to be considered an adult. So while Val has been an adult longer than Sidra has been alive, from her perspective, Val has also been an official “adult” for like, 2-3 years, from his perspective. He also doesn’t see Sidra as being 2 years old, he sees her as being similar to himself in age, as a young adult. In fact, it fucks him up a little that she’s a fully grown person when she’s the same technical “age” as a toddler. The same way it fucks Sidra up that he’s still alive. He can’t wrap his head around how “quick” humans are. To him, growing a mind and a body and a personality takes centuries and she did it in two decades? Weird. Gross.

I should also mention that while yes, technically the sheer amount of stuff he’s seen is more than what Sidra has, the fae also perceive time differently than humans as a result of their immortality. So he doesn’t necessarily retain all of the stuff he’s lived through, or it doesn’t affect him the same way it might affect a young developing human.

However, this is all details compared to what I think is the most important thing in cases like these: framing.

In the case of Twilight, the framing emphasizes how Edward is mature and has been through high school and college multiple times, how he knows and understands more than Bella. His age is written as adding to his power, his allure. He doesn’t consider himself a teenager, and neither do his vampire peers. In every way but physical, he’s an ancient adult. It’s supposed to be intriguing that an older, intelligent and beautiful man would find a plain teenager attractive, and his age is used to reinforce his power and dominance.

If Edward perpetually had the mind of an actual 17-year-old instead of being “physically” 17 and mentally 109 or however old he is, I think Twilight would have the opposite problem of Bella eventually dating a teenager as she grows older unless she turns into a vampire. That’s sort of touched on in the books but it doesn’t go much further beyond “I will be a wrinkly old woman and you’ll be hot forever!” because, again, Edward already had Bella beat in the “life experience” department, and would still have that over her even as she grew older.

In the case of ACOTAR, it’s a similar thing. I don’t recall if it’s ever explained how the fae mature, but I do know that Rhys has been “waiting” for Feyre before she was even born? Like, the mating bond paired him up with a human infant at some point? And he has to wait for her to become an adult before they can boink? Same with Jacob and Renesmee. That’s just straight up magical grooming, fam. These men are adults for an extremely long time while they wait for their younger partner to catch up and become legal, often not even letting her live a life independently before they marry and have babies. These men become their partners’ lives.

In my case, Val’s age is framed against a backdrop of much older fae who patronize, belittle and insult him because he’s a young man poking his fingers into things that he’s too naïve to understand, according to them. This on its own doesn’t automatically solve the age difference, but he’s not framed as having power over Sidra, he’s not considered one of the oldest and most powerful fae, he’s not held up by the narrative as an older man who somehow, against his better judgment, is lusting over someone much younger than him because she’s just so mature and full of life and special. His age isn’t held up as a mark of experience and maturity and power. It’s just a thing that marks him as different from Sidra, on a magical worldbuilding level.

The younger party is also important. Are they inexperienced and naïve? Are they a young sheltered teenager, only now entering their first ever romantic/sexual relationship? Are they entering this relationship without any prior knowledge of who they are and what they want from life and a relationship with this person? Is this adult their first and only entry point to adult life in general? (Not saying you need to have multiple partners before you can find “The One” or anything, but having a frame of reference and knowing what you want out of life and the relationship is important IMO.)

Sidra doesn’t see Val as superior to her, she doesn’t think he’s above her and that she doesn’t “deserve him” or that he’s too good and cool for her, that she’s somehow not enough because she’s younger. She sees him as an equal, which makes any attempt at pulling the age/experience card pretty meaningless, because she doesn’t believe he knows what’s best in any given situation just because of his age. She doesn’t see him as an authority on most things and doesn’t consider herself below him in most things, either. She has already built a solid understanding of who she is and what she wants (or doesn’t want, at least). One of the first things that happens in the book is her rejecting a man because she realizes that she doesn’t want for herself what he wants for her.

And while yes, Val does eventually become a large part of her life and helps her figure out what she wants and needs and what she wants to become, she does the same thing for him. He isn’t a jaded old man taken with a pretty young thing who brings light back into his life or some other cishet-white-man nonsense, he’s young and stupid too and she helps him realize what he wants and who he wants to be. And they don’t do this on purpose to each other, it just happens through their interactions. Even if it were one-sided Val simply doesn’t have the maturity and experience to essentially “groom” Sidra into anything. Plus, they don’t get married and have children at the end (spoilers, I guess). They’re not bound to each other the same way many YA fantasy books often “bind” their young protags to their much older love interests (mating bonds, marriage, kids etc). Sidra still has the choice and ability to leave him whenever she likes and she’s fully aware of it.

That being said, my solution isn’t perfect and tbh I don’t think there is one? But this is fantasy, mortal-immortal pairings will always have weird dynamics because they’re not real and everyone makes up their own reference for how they should or shouldn’t work. Things like these will be subjective, and as long as the characters involved are adults, are making informed decisions and don’t have significant power imbalances because of their age difference, I think it can work! 

(The target demographic is also very important I think. Impressionable teens shouldn’t read things that make adult men attractive or desirable. My target demographic is a bit older than that and I hope most of my future readers will have enough sense and independent thinking to know not to imitate fiction. Plus, again, I’m not playing on or emphasizing the typical age gap power dynamic.)

Hope this answered your question!

[ontherockswithsalt]

A Made Man

/1/ /2/ /3/ /4/ /5/ /6/ /7/ /8/ /9/ /10/ /11/ /12/

A/N: So much revealed and confessed in this chapter. Poker playing makes for good bonding. Also I had fun actually coming up with the cards in play on this round of poker so that I could figure out who would win. Read on to see!

Chapter 13.

“So when's the last time you had sex?”

His question makes my thoughts stall a moment and I just look at him in confusion. “When's the last time you did?”  I have to laugh at the sort of lazy chuckle he lets out as he peers down at the deck of cards he’s shuffling. His idiot smile makes my face feel hot.

“Present company excluded,” he clarifies. “When was it?”

“Oh my god,” I mutter before downing another swallow of my beer and killing time reaching for a piece of cheese. “Uh…” Then I shake my head venturing a guess because I can barely remember that law school unofficial five year reunion in Boston, even though it was just a few months ago. “This past summer some time,” I tell him.

“Some time?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I don't know. I'm just curious,” he insists. “Who was it?”

I laugh at him. “Why do you want to know?”

“Was it a girlfriend?”

“Not really. No,” I tell him. “I was back in Cambridge to visit some old friends from law school. A girl from my class I sort of had a thing with when we were 1Ls--” Then I shrug, figuring that was a good enough explanation of the easy hook-up with Dana I had chalked up to for old time’s sake.

“Wait, where did you go to law school?” He questions.

My gaze narrows and I regret that I used the dead giveaway city name. Dammit. I tip my bottle all the way until my head falls back and I finish my beer, then I breathe out. “Boston Community College.”

He lets out this rumbling chuckle. “No, tell me.”

“What's with the interrogation?”

“Did you go to Harvard?”

“Yeah.”

His head arches back and he cackles this loud laugh up to the ceiling. “What the fuck?”

“It's not a big deal. Don't be one of these people who thinks it's a big deal.”

“Okay it's not a big deal.” He concedes with this tic at the corner if his lips. He cuts the deck and shuffles one more time.

Easing my chair back, I head to the kitchen. “I’m getting another beer. Want anything?”

“Yes,” he answers. “There’s a lot I want from you. Now let’s play, so I can get it.”

****

“Why would you do that?” Noble mutters. With loose fingers, he fidgets with a stack of his blue chips.

Settling back, I narrow my gaze. “Do what?”

“Call on the flop and then raise big on the turn.”

I glance between us at the stacks of chips that don’t actually hold any monetary value, they’re just a placeholder to determine who’s winning. “Because I felt like raising.”

“You just told me you have an Ace.”

I laugh. “I didn’t tell you shit.”

“The way you bet tells me.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” My flippant smugness amuses him. “But there’s a hundred dollars right there so if you wanna call, then call. But if you’re too scared, I guess you’ll never know.”

He sputters a hard laugh, a grin pulling at his cheeks and he leans back to assess his chips. The stacks he has so clearly outweigh mine. But I’ll still talk shit.

“Look at you,” he murmurs. With he edge of his thumb, he lifts the corner of his cards again and checks them against the ones on the table. “You have weak Aces. But it’s cute that you think I’d be scared.”

“You don’t know what I have.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“What are weak Aces?”

“You have an Ace,” he assumes. “And a six.”

I hold still, unwavering, but I feel the slightest twitch at my lip.

He exhales a soft laugh, plucks a black chip from his stack and carelessly flicks it in the pot. “Fine. I’ll call, Ace-six.”

“It’s not like it’s real money,” I remind him.

“We agreed, though, that we’d play as if it’s real money. The strategy is in the betting, not the cards.”

“Fine, let’s see the river, then.”

He shakes his head and reaches to flip over a card from the deck. “You better hope it’s a six.” He turns over a Queen and lays it on the table.

I watch his face, unchanged but it’s difficult to tell how hard he’s trying to mess with me.

Glancing down at his chips, he leads off with the bet. He considers it, then picks up a hundred dollar black chip before he looks at me once more. Then he picks up another one, challenging me with a two hundred dollar bet as he tosses the chips in the middle.

“Dammit,” I whisper.

“You can fold.”

“No, I want your money. You’re trying to get me to fold.”

He merely shrugs.

“You’re bluffing with that two hundred dollar bet.”

Another shrug. “And you have a pair of Aces, which is fairly solid.”

“Stop guessing my cards!”

“You’re a cop.” He reaches for his beer, the amusement evident on his face. “Aren’t you supposed to know whether or not I’m bluffing?”

“My judgment is skewed with you.”

“Do you even have two hundred in chips over there?” Angling forward, he peers at my dwindling chip count.

“Shut up. Damn.” I sigh. “Okay, hypothetically, let’s say I have a pair of Aces--”

Noble props his chin in his hand on the table and offers a meaningful nod.

“Would it beat whatever you have?”

He doesn’t look anywhere else but me as he lets out a quiet laugh. “Is this your strategy? To be so cute that I just tell you my cards?”

“I don’t know how else to do it.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“What can you tell me?” I attempt.

“I can tell you that it looks like the only one getting fucked here tonight is you.”

My brows pull together as my mouth falls open. “Asshole.”

He chuckles. “Hey, I’m sad about it. I was hoping you’d win.”

“Game’s not over,” I mutter, peering down to study my cards once again. “I’m not surrendering that ass just yet.”

“I have questions about that, by the way.”

“About what?”

His brows shift as if I should know what. “I know you're just good at everything, so I guess that's how. But. I mean--” He pauses with a pensive glance away. “Is the trick to just relax, and then it's--”

“I'm good at it?” I laugh. “I'm good at being your bottom?”

“Hell yeah you're good.”

“Well you're good too.”

“But I, you know -- I'm… interested.”

“Interested in mixing things up?”

“Every now and then. Maybe.” He smirks. “I probably have to work up to it huh?”

“I had some help. I did my homework.”

His eyes flash with curiosity when one eyebrow jumps. “I had a feeling you’d been up to something. What kind of help?”

“I practiced.”

“With like a butt plug?”

I nearly choke on my beer with a laugh and set it down hard on the table. “I'll send you a link.”

“Wait, really?”

“Dude you're big. You think I could just sit on it and take it like it's no big deal?”

Noble sputters a surprised laugh so hard he keels over in his chair. “I-- oh my god,” he sighs the words in a weary breath. “I really really like you. God damn.”

“You really really like me?” I eye him underneath an arched brow as I tap my stack of red chips on the table.

“Mm-hm.” He works to tame a smile as he glances down to look at his cards once more. “Well looks like I have some homework to do once I get back to Miami.”

“Or maybe you'll just get a crash course tonight once I win this pot.”

“Oh-ho, look at that.” He smirks. “You're feeling pretty confident about those Aces.”

“Alright, that's enough out of you.”

“Can you call my two hundred?” He gestures to the chips in the pot. “Or do you fold?”

“You never answered the question about the last person you slept with.”

Averting his gaze as if he has to mentally search his memory, he stalls a moment. “Uh-- Nobody serious.”

“Okay so--?”

“You'll judge me.”

“Probably.”

“It was before… you came back into the picture. Well--” He pauses and glances up to reconsider. “Sort of.”

I have to laugh even though a part of me feels a tug of jealousy that I know is unwarranted but I can't help.

“It was a girl I would run into here now and then. But with her it was just a one-time… bad idea.”

“Was it the girl from the pool party?” When I ask I'm mostly joking but he makes this face that tells me I guessed right. “The one who told me her dad owns this hotel?”

“Yeah,” he admits.

I groan, glancing back toward his bedroom.

“It wasn't here,” he clarifies. “It was her room.”

My forehead creases with my critical gaze. “Really?”

“Dude, I'm not proud of it. I was in a weird place that night after seeing you and… I don't know,” he trails off.

“Oh, I had something to do with it? I doubt that,” I say. “I'm sure I was easily forgotten once she got you upstairs.”

“Never,” he murmurs.

“I thought you said she was nineteen.”

“Man--” He starts with a shake of his head and I can't help giving him a hard time. “Don't-- I regret asking this question.”

“Sick pervert,” I mutter the tease.

“My brain wasn't functioning,” he explains. “I had just seen you for the first time in a year. And I couldn't figure out why I was seriously aroused seeing you in that uniform.”

“I don't want to hear it.” My lips twist to deny a grin but it breaks through anyway when he looks at me like he's trying to convince me of his innocence.

Glancing down, I manage to gather together two hundred dollars out of all the blue and green chips I have left and push them into the center. “I'll call, player.”

He glances up at me, intrigued, then picks up his two cards to show them on the table.

My brow wrinkles as I study the ten and Jack that he has. “What's that?”

“A straight.”

“Fucker,” I mutter as I push my chair back before I flick my cards to the table. “There's your goddamn Ace-six--”

“Ha!”

“How'd you know?” I cry. “Did you see them?”

“No, your face!” He chuckles. “And the way you play. That's how.”

Picking up my beer, I prop it against my lips and manage a heavy gulp before I land it hard on the table. Then I turn and stalk off to the bedroom.

“You played pretty good though,” he calls out from the dining room. “If it weren't for that last Queen, you would have won.”

After I fish my off duty handcuffs out of my backpack, I make my way back. “Whatever, don't patronize me,” I tell him. “Get up. Put your hands on the table.”

Noble's eyes light up as his mouth opens in a hopeful smile. “Really?”

“You won didn't you?”

He glances down at himself, then at the handcuffs I’m holding. “Don’t you want them behind my back?”

I look at him, the coy shine in his eyes when he smirks at me and assumes I’ll let him run this game. But fuck that, the one he’s good at is over. “I need to search you,” I tell him.

He breathes out a low, amused exhale and lifts his gaze to me. “Oh yeah?”

“I’ll ask the questions, alright?” I warn him, with a meaningful pull of my brow but I can feel the playful flicker in my eyes anyway. “Get up.”

Letting his head fall back, he cackles a loud laugh at the ceiling. “Holy shit.” Then he clears his throat and slides his chair back to stand up. “Absolutely, officer.” As he turns to face the table, he glances back at me over his shoulder. “Wait, if I resist, what happens?”

“Try me.”

He eagerly drags his teeth along his bottom lip, then breathes out a whispered, “Fuck.” He drops his palms hard on the table, spread wide and hangs his head. “You know I will. I can't behave.”

With one leg, I knock him closer against the table and follow in behind, my hip pressed against him.

He lets out a gravelly exhale when my weight traps him and I run my hands down his sides.

“Why don't you tell me about this girl?” I start. “Is that what you want?”

“No. There's nothing to tell.”

“Why not?”

“Because I hardly remember-- mmh…” He tilts back, a sharp breath hitching in his chest when I stroke my palm up the front of his pants. “You're all I remember from that night.”

“What do you remember?”

“That I got hard just seeing you there.” He stops as a hot exhale escapes him and he pushes himself into my hand. “And it wasn't the first time.”

I feel one eyebrow jump as I lean in and touch my mouth to the back of his neck. “Is that right?” With one hand, I unbutton his pants and begin to ease the zipper down.

“Yes,” he manages.

“Thought you didn't have feelings for Jimmy Riordan.”

A soft laugh escapes him as he rocks back, the curve of his ass seeking friction against my growing hard-on. “I don't know what I felt but if you think I wouldn't have sucked your dick in the bathroom of that bar after I met you, you're wrong.”

I breathe out hard, slipping my hand into the open waist of his pants for a firm grope of his shaft that strains against his boxers. “Yeah you looked hot that night. There may have been a window of like, three seconds where I forgot I was a cop.”

He merely manages another lazy groan in his chest, slowly rocking himself into my hand.

“Until you basically fell out in the middle of the floor--”

“Dammit!”

I have to laugh as I push my other hand up his back, under his t-shirt and down the firm plane of his side.

“Why do you have to bring up that part?”

“I was hoping it was about to be the best party we've ever been to,” I remind him of his own promise. “But it didn't turn out that way.”

“Well I'm not that stupid anymore. So we can make that party happen tonight, Officer.”

I push his shirt up his body and lean into him. “Are you attempting to bribe me?”

“Yes.” He moves his arms and ducks his head to help me but quickly returns to his position as soon as I toss the shirt to the floor.

“With an illegal substance?”

“No, with my mouth.”

I hum a low laugh behind his back and ease my hand once more in and out of his pants prompting his apparent frustration. “It’s tempting,” I tell him. Then, gripping his forearm, I guide his arm behind his back. “But we’re not finished.”

He groans in a hot breath as I tug the other arm back and grasp the cuffs I had tucked into the edge of my pocket.

“You wanna change your mind?” I question him.

He glances over his shoulder and offers this helpless quirk of a smile at his lips. Squinting one eye, he answers, “Kinda?”

But I close one of the handcuffs around his wrist anyway. “What?”

“Oh my god,” he sort of moans and laughs at the same time.

Once I secure the other one, I hold onto the bend in his elbow and pull him back to me. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” he answers, almost arrogantly.

“Good hurt, or bad hurt?” I wonder.

He clears his throat and tries to adjust his arms. “Good hurt.”

I laugh softly and turn him in the direction of the hallway. “Yeah? Let’s go see how good it hurts in the bedroom.”

[pack-the-pack]

Hey! I'm pretty new to the omegaverse and just had a question. What happens if an alpha bites/marks an omega against their will?

Harô there, anon. And welcome to the dumpster fire that is ABO lol. As for your question: Well, I think it depends on some factors. Let me explain. When an Alpha bites an Omega that is known as a claim mark. So as the name implies, by biting on an Omega’s scent glands what the Alpha is doing is claiming them as their Omega. Usually this is all fine and dandy, but since your question is not about those, here are the possibilities: 

The Omega will be tied biologically to the Alpha for an undetermined ammount of time. 

I say undetermined because that depends for how long the Alpha bit into their glands, if the Omega has or hasn’t been bitten before by another Alpha, Beta or Omega, and if the Omega is already mated or not. See, when an Alpha and an Omega bite each other what they’re doing is introducing a set of proteins to their mate’s body through their saliva. Which will in turn mingle with their own proteins/natural scent and signals to their brains that this is their mate. Their brain then signals to the pituitary gland that they must start producing a scent that incorporates this new protein as part of their own new scent. This is why one’s scent changes when they mate with one another.

What this does is making your body create a sort of “addiction” in this new protein your mate has. Thus, why one craves for their mate’s scent when in distress. One starts to see said scent as essential for their survival and well-being.  When only one of the two people involved has said arrangement, that causes an imbalance in the power dynamics between the two. An Omega (or Alpha) that is bitten against their will, will be held captive of this unfortunate fate. Having their bodies depending on the other person’s scent and presence without having the reciprocity of the act.

The Omega (or Alpha/Beta) will feel incredibly insecure. They smell like the Alpha but the Alpha doesn’t smell like them. It is a sign of rejection. And for an Omega to be rejected by their mate is a serious detriment for their quality of life and mental state. Thus, why mating it is not taken lightly by people (at least in my verse). It is something that must be made with mutual understanding and consent, because it’s not just a bite mark on one’s neck. It is something that will interfere with the way your body responds to the world and the way your mind works on itself.

To bite someone (regardless of dynamics) unwillingly is a serious crime and carries terrible consequences. From more than 30 years in prison to life imprisonment. Some people in-universe would be even capable of arguing that mating is an immoral act on itself because of its intrusive nature (But that is an argument for another time). 

Regardless of any factor previously mentioned at the beginning, I think that anyone that is bitten will be temporarily addicted to the perpetrator’s presence. Which doesn’t mean that they are enslaved to the thought or that they’ll live every minute of every hour only craving that. That’s not what I mean at all. It means that they’ll still be operating as their normal self, but deep down their body is calling for something else, something missing. Even more so whenever they are faced with a particularly devastating or challenging situation. But honestly speaking I think that this extreme dependence would not exist in 99% of mated couples and here’s why.

“Since mating works like a “drug dependency” One just craves more of it the more they become immune to its previous effect”. 

The Ammount of bites one receives and how long they are attached DOES matter. 

Much like smoking a cigarette once doesn’t make you a smoker, being bitten once by one person doesn’t make you chained to her forever. If I recall correctly I read in a fanfiction (Dirty Little Secret, I think), how forced biting could affect an Omega when done for extended periods of time. There the bites were inflicted on an unmarked, unmated, young and scared Omega through the period of several weeks. This created an addiction that permanently linked the Omega to the Alpha. When he was finally rescued, the bond was already made and reinforced so many times that even intense rehab and neglect of the substance didn’t really make it go away. His mind was no longer clouded by the excessive ammount of “substance” within his body that made him crave for the horrible Alpha that had done that to him and he had regained his autonomy in every way possible at principle. All except for his bodily one. At least not entirely. 

That is because his circumstances were incredibly unfortunate and much easier to take advantage of. He had just recently presented, which made his body unbalanced with all the new changes, making it easier to temper with and to tarnish. He was not mated, which means he had not yet created a romantic association within his brain with another Alpha, Beta or Omega yet. In addition, he was unmarked, which ment his body had never been introduced to said procedure before. His body and mind were a blank canvas yet to be filled with various experiences and slowly develop into its own behaviour. However, this was stripped from him the moment someone pumped his veins full with unwarranted excessive amounts of Alpha juice. 

The “solution”, was simply intense rehab and keeping the Omega away from said person as best as they could. But the damage had already been done, and he remained unmated. The fact that his body needed to be claimed again when in intense distress didn’t change. Thus, the only other Alpha in his life took upon himself and started to bite him instead whenever the Omega was in an intense state of depravation and emotional recklessness. This brought upon many problems. This not only didn’t fix the problem by simply replacing Alpha 1 for Alpha 2, it also made it that everytime the Alpha bit him to give him relief, he was only reinforcing the idea in the Omega’s mind that they were mates. Which they weren’t (at that point at the story at least). So there was no real “solution”. It ended up being a “the lesser of two evils” situation. 

It’s also worth noting that this is an extreme case. The worse of all bad scenarios. In which there is no real solution other than replace one addiction for another. For most other people that pass through this and don’t fit these circumstances, the dependency is not as bad. It will vary in intensity from person to person depending on their age and when they presented, if they already have a lot of social links with other Alphas or not, if they are mated, if they were bitten before, etc. So I’m confident in saying that even if a person was bitten unwillingly by someone, through rehab, therapy and allowing their bodies to heal on their own and with the help of their significant others the effect is not permanent.

And after they are clean and the mark has completely vanish they will no longer be dependent of the perpetrator. There’s a catch though. Their scent will be permanently changed. Much like mated people don’t go back to their original scent entirely even after their own claim marks had vanished, a person that was unwillingly bitten won’t either. Their bodies already assimilated the substance as their own. And although it becomes weaker with time, it will never vanish entirely. Like a somber, invisible scar that they cannot get rid of.

The only way of doing so is having another person claim you again. Much like the previous example I gave, that will gradually “overwrite” the scent of the other Alpha. Your body will learn to crave something else and to produce something more effective than the previous “claimer” had given you. Something fresher and that makes you happier.  

 Treatments and living unmated but dependent. 

I do think however that one can have a fulfilling life without having a need to mate or to be bitten ever again. Say that in your verse you din’t want the solution to be replacing A with B. Then fine, why not replace A with B to Z? I’m fairly certain that medical care could come up with either a donation system or a synthetic replacement. In the case of the latter, you’d have the addiction fulfilled without being dependent of a single person, becayse your body doesn’t even have time to create an addiction with the new Alpha before you introduce it to another one. And in the second you don’t even need and actual Alpha to fulfil said addiction. The synthetic can do it on it’s own. Obviously the outcome would depend on which one you’d respond better to. Nevertheless, the important thing to keep in mind is that, like this, this terrible incident would not mean one’s entire life would change because of it. They can still live peacefully with all their autonomy and with barely any meltdowns until they found someone go take the wheel. And if that person never came, they’d be fine too.

I think that as tragic as all of this sounds, it is not the end for anyone. One could still have options and you could still be happy. No claim mark in the world can keep that away from those who are willing to overcome such ugly realities and strive for a better future.

Holy fuck this was long >.> I’m sorry for rambling for so long. I hope I didn’t lost you half way through this mess. I also apologize if I got any biological fact wrong or if my writing is confusing. I was tired when I answered this. But I did my best to correct all the mistakes I could spot on a second read. I really hope this clarified all doubts you could have.

And remember this is just my verse, you can have this sort of thing happen however you want in your verse. There are no wrong interpretations. I did enjoy answering this though. So thank you very much for the ask ^^.

[hidden-otaku-stuff]

(1) Hello I am back!! I'm sorry it's been long, these past couple of weeks have had me swamped with homework :( and yet I still didn't do it all 🤡 also get ready for a bunch of messages because 1.) responses and 2.) my thoughts on Lockscreens. Spoiler: I am Emotional haha. Aww, thank you :') I used to think it was weird to give yourselves nicknames but I'm past that now haha. Another one I go by sometimes is "Lizard" because I stick my tongue out a lot when I'm talking??

(2) and people think I'm cold blooded because I get really cold easily and like to bask in the sun. I mostly just did traditonal sketches and a lot of screencap redraws. I want to get into art again, but I'm taking it slow for now and focusing more on my writing. And I feel that too LOL. I'm going to start a blog dedicated to reblogging x reader fics that I like because I'm too embarrassed to do so on my main blog (I tell all of your followers 🤡)

hey Honeymoon! as long as you’re taking care of yourself, that’s all I care about 💞 i’m gonna post my responses into two parts. a Lockscreens segment after you send in the rest of your thoughts and a get-to-know-you part for now!

(also I’M FROM CA TOO AND WHY ON EARTH ARE YOU SENDING ME MESSAGES AT 3AM OML)

ngl, i feel like the best person to give you a nickname is yourself! i jokingly gave myself the nickname ‘Daddy’ and that’s literally become my “rave” personality LMAO. but i can understand why some people think it’s weird 🤷 honestly lizard is a bad-ass nickname !! i’m the same way - being in the cold makes me sooo sleepy and i’d rather bask in the sun 😂

i’d love to see your artwork or writing sometime! please feel free to send it over 🥰

(3) Honestly even with all my issues it's kind of nice being a hopeless romantic! Like you said it gives me the chance to day dream haha. Maybe I have my head in the clouds a lot but sometimes it's nice to be there. There's so many, but I think it's a tie between enemies to lovers and friends to lovers. I love the drama and comedy from the former but I'm so Soft for the latter, and that's highkey how I want my relationship to start.

(4) I think building that bond with someone before you even start dating them is really sweet, and having that connection by the time you commit to each other is 💓 I'm sorry you've been having writers block, that's the worst :( if it helps, the past two chapters have turned out amazing, I love them so much!! I think the closest I got to hardcore shipping something that wasn't canon was RinHaru? But there was also a lot of tension and affection in their relationship so I could see it being canon

there’s nothing wrong with having dreams! just so long as you can ground yourself at the end of the day. 

enemies to lovers is always the funniest for me to read TBH. because it’s such an inevitable cliche haha. friends to lovers though -- oooo my heart. 

the best relationships start with friendship. it’s the most authentic imo. like for me, it’s exhausting bearing my heart open to new people each time i want to get involved with someone romantically. but having someone who already knows you inside out??? swoon. what about a trope you dislike?

ah tyty, i’m glad you enjoyed them! the writers’ block wasn’t too bad for these chapters. i’ve had them typed up for a few weeks now :’) 

rinharu is so cute though! but Harukoto (or whatever the ship name is tbh) is super cute too. but maybe i just really like the best friend to lovers trope LMAO

(5) I just looked at their insta and !!!!!!!!!! that's so cute! I like bokuaka but I've never looked into it as much as others, but their art made me have Feelings lol. I think that is a good view to have on family tbh. I've developed a relationship with my blood family and we're close, but there's something special about the relationships and love you have for people you choose to stay with. I love Tiana!! I think she's a really underrated Disney character :(

(6) She really encompasses Disney's message of working hard to achieve your dreams, and she's a strong, independent woman without being closed off and rejecting her feelings. I think it's so cute and cool that she had that much of an impact on you :D Oof, I get that 💀. Men are gross 🤢 I don't get it very often because I live in SoCal and tbh to a lot of other people brown just equals mexican lol. They're right but I really don't look full mexican. Portuguese and Islander people can tell though

bokuaka art makes me have ~ feelings ~ i also really like @/liann1009 and @/maddox_rider on IG! (tbh idk if they have a tumblr whoops) liann1009 does a lot of OiHina whereas maddox_rider does bokuaka which is ridiculously cute too 🥰 

DUDE OMG YES!!! Tiana and Kita (from Atlantis) are under-rated QUEENS who deserved better!! we need representation out here in this b*tch!!! 

idek why, but some people think i look hispanic 🙃 but yes bby, men are gross and should be better!! i have yet to meet a man who deserves to stand on equal ground to me, imma be real. (2d men don’t count but y’know). does it bother you when people mistake your ethnicity? 

(7) Thank you!! Ngl it's kind of scary wondering about what the industry is going to be like because I'm sure I will run into a lot of biased people and sources, but learning to navigate that is just part of the job. Of course there's people who will read biased sources and attack you too, but you can't always escape those people :/ and thank you love, you're so sweet 💕 That's really admirable! It takes a lot of work and creativity to start a business, I'm sure you'll be successful 😊

(8) what kind were you thinking of? and psych is super cool too! Having that understanding of people and the world can be really eye opening and fun :D It's okay, he was one of my favorite teachers but looking back he was an asshole. He had his good/funny moments and did a lot for me, but he also abused some of editors in my journalism class, and some friends of mine :/ He wouldn't appreciate their work, sometimes insult them, and even encouraged my friend to not sleep for the sake of the paper

i’m positive that you’ll do just fine once you get out there! it seems like you have a pretty thick skin :) 

i really wanted to open a business to help support under-represented groups receive an education - with major focus on minority groups such as orphans/foster children, veterans, and the homeless. there’s so much logistics that tbh i’m too ~stressed~ to think about so i’m tabling that for awhile :’) 

bruhhh fuck that teacher. drop his addy, i just wanna talk real q 💞   if you can’t support all of your students, then there is no point in being a professor!! there is literally 0 reason to be rude when you’re in a position of power, especially when it involves someone’s passion, career, and/or education.

(9) I just remembered that there's a limit to how many asks you can send in a certain amount of time so if these suddenly stop I'm sorry! I'll come back when I can haha. I wouldn't say I'm all that great tbh, but I'm proud of a lot of my works LOL. My favorite part about it is using makeup and tools to just turn into something else. Wounds are always fun, but making yourself a gargoyle or some other creature is what makes it so interesting to me.

(11) I'm OBSESSED with the makeup and costumes from LOTR. It's my biggest inspiration. I can go on about it haha. That's so cool!! Being a part of the whole production, especially all sides to it, sounds so fun. Do you have any favorite memories from your time in high school? I'd love to hear them if you have any :O Confession: I have never seen any of those asdfkljvk. I know I really should though and it's on my to do list ! I've heard really great things about all of them !

imma be real, i didnt know there was a limits on asks LMAO. i did hear that they sometimes get eaten though, so i really hope that doesn’t happen 😅 

we all start somewhere. your first step will never look like someone else’s, nor should it. as long as it’s something that you can look back upon and be proud of and know that you’ve grown from, that’s all that matters! 

just imagining someone using makeup to turn themselves into a gargoyle has my head spinning  🤣 like ya girl can barely do her eye-makeup, let alone anything as intense as that! what’s been the most difficult project? 

DUDE, I LOVE MEDIEVAL-HISTORICAL WORKS! like the dresses from that Mary from Reign wears has my heart so softtttt. dfsnosdf. please!! tell me some of your fav things about LOTR  💖

omg high-school was so long ago, i don’t think i have any favorite memories from it 🙃 i think the opening night of a production would be the best. listening to the audiences reactions as the performers left their hearts on-stage, seeing all the pieces fall together, that was always absolutely incredible. wbu, what did you enjoy about hs? 

i have very strong opinions on those musicals LMAO. i can talk about them forever  🤩

[caesurabywriting]

do you have a drabble or headcanon of your otp: fooling the world & each other becoming engaged? pretty please. c: i'm curious.

because you said please + i’ll take any excuse to talk about them, i’m obligated to answer this. honestly i have way too many headcanons but i’m going to try and be concise and coherent here (+ huge apologies for how long this is anyway, but these two are hella complicated and i’m way too Extra for their angst)headcanons:

- they only get engaged because she claims she’s pregnant (spoiler alert: she’s not, but she’s relying on the fact that she can get pregnant soon after/in a close enough window for it to be true) - she uses that excuse to get his attention bc he seemed to be getting more and more distant and passive re: their relationship and she wanted to have a way to lock him down even if she has to heavily manipulate the situation to get her way. she’s like a milder form of amy dunne.- she’s also the poster child for abandonment and trust issues because her parents were awful, but it’s what brought them ~together~ in the first place. his ex-gf, viv, was her best friend. they all lived together in NYC, along w tom’s own bestie, for six years ( which is what #manhattan memoirs is about ) before viv one day abruptly moved out without an explanation, dropping contact with them both, abandoning their perfect unit of four. up until that point tom and tessa barely tolerated each other + had an ongoing banter thing going on. she had a short fuse and he loved to light it at any chance he got. antagonizing her was his favorite hobby. later on, they proceeded to ‘bond’ over angry and angsty hate sex to avoid being sad over her viv’s departure. but then feelings were caught. oops. anyways…- she’s a ~first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby~ kind of person, and he knows this. having a baby without being married first would be a huge deal breaker for her. if he declined stepping up to ask her to marry him there would be no baby and she’d tell him to leave (in theory, but between you and me i don’t think she could and would have come up with something more dramatic to get his undying attention)- it was very non romantic and went down more like a business deal discussion. she presented a serious ultimatum that needed addressing. she sprung it on him. essentially, pre-proposing his proposal. there was no ring or down-on-one-knee business. it was very much a highly staked version of ‘should i stay or should i go?’- she went out by herself after the ‘proposal’ and chose her own ring and everything. anything he chose would have been complained about and returned- he wanted/wants to propose again in a more romantic and thoughtful way because even though he’s pretty neutral about marriage, he sees it’s important to her and she deserves the best of things. alas, time kept ticking by and it seemed like he’d lost his shot, so he kept such plans to himself and lets her resent him a little extra for his apparent lack of involvement, as usual.i do not have a full drabble composed ( yet - but i probably will one day even though it will ruin my life ), but i do have various fragmented flashback/extracts from actual replies/past threads that may or may not make sense out of context but, regardless, i’ve collected them below if you’re interested on a glimpse of things somewhat engagement-related:

1. Their tables had done more than shift, they had been flipped and spun out. The undeniable truth tightly wrapped around his reality, pinning him transfixed in place. For better or for worse, those two lines had seen Tom’s uncontrolled fishtailing hitched onto a finite track. A duo of one dimensional pink had the power to change everything. Tom blinked over dilated pupils, his sentimental conscience sucker punched by a one-two hit of remorse and disquietude. It was all still etched into him like the grooves of a record, designed to be played on repeat at his masochistic leisure — Tessa presenting herself empty handed after already discarding the evidence, bearing the news with clutched hands and a penetrating gaze. Her voice, poised and decisively urgent: ’Stay.’ They were standing in the same room for the first time in three days. He’d avoided the sheen of her dark hair for the floorboards, ‘That’s not all you’re asking.’ His timbre noticeably wavered in comparison to hers. Like a whip, Tessa’s voice cut across with a warning flatline: ‘No. It’s what we are.’ Her eyes, calculating, soften magnanimously the moment he looks up, ‘You know your answer, don’t you, Thomas?’ 2. Her reveal had been a surprise. Admittedly, he was the only one to blame for that belief, his sense of awareness not particularly careful nor attentive during the time between an office shift ending and them falling from a fight into a bed together. In all it’s ‘A one time thing. We’re not doing this again,’ ( gradually switched out for ‘make it a one more time thing,’ ) glory. What had only ever been meant to be a secondary arrangement, intended to fill space, to pass time. The most beneficial way to end a combative argument. It was an exhausting interlude that matched the tone of his routine, wearing him down until he was nothing but fine grains. He had been confused, torn, and collectable.3. No celebratory graduation ceremony marked their progression as they impassively watched their shared temperature rise from ‘fling’ to ‘fiancé’, endlessly fluctuating between offensively heated and dishearteningly tepid throughout. Their anniversaries as somber as the sticker announcing it on the square of calendar. That catalyzing moment of history turned away from very deliberately. There were no sweet heart-eyed how did you two meet narratives to supply. Just Mr. Type-B and Ms. Type-A, two heartbroken kids susceptible to distraction. Amusing themselves until it became real. Maybe it did. Or maybe it was harmless and it was pure paranoia making it seem like a neon sign blinked above his head in an infinite line of alarmed exclamation marks.4. Wreckage was imminent no matter which way the pieces aligned. Home ( now ) was sleeplessly staring at a ceiling, deliberating in the dark and into the glow of the morning. Most of all, an internal pleading line of looped thought: Oh, God, let today be a normal day. Let him be normally nervous, unhesitating, and spontaneously happy. Let him not squint as Tessa walked away, the disheveled shadow of dark hair thrown down her back strongly evoking of another’s in poor lighting. Familiar shades of umber and taupe clashing with the lesser known notes of sangria and mint on her breath, the scent of rose in her hair. Tessa, an intended sojourn; a breathing space. An operating lightbulb to illuminate the dreary darkness of a vicissitude neither wanted to admit they were blind in trying to navigate. No one was ever prepared for a demotion into the limited edition status of another’s life when, viewed in the other direction, they’d presumably been branded essential. But it had happened, and Tessa was the only tangible reason not to go too far off an precipice that led to no tomorrow. Pulling at hands smudged with paint instead of cigarette ash in a desperate attempt at capsizing the insurmountable detritus of past imprints drifting throughout his system. Taking the brunt of all frustration, tremor, and every emotion banned from expression. Aggressively sidelining the only language he wanted to feel, touch, and listen to. Relearning a different one. Everything that had been absentminded and easy now requiring vigilance and humorless behavior. Yet as exhausting as all her short tempered glares and cavilling was, it had also been her strict accountability and interception between him and acts of stupidity that kept him together.5. She was a person to whom his surrendering murmur of ‘I love you’ often had the bitter aftertaste of something over-steeped. His palliative precursor, a promising commitment not to be cowardly, invitingly interchangeable with other prosperous phrases of three: I am here. I am staying. We are family. The woman who’d engaged in an unrequested initiative, yanking the dusty rug out from beneath their at-risk stale situation and pulling them into dazzling sunlight. He couldn’t have said no if he’d wanted to. He was prepared to try — faking it until it was true — just as he shouldered everything else. Maybe saying yes to Tessa, and in turn something that scared him, had been the gateway drug.6. There were many shouldn’t-ridden clauses, both spoken and not, between the two of them. Tessa and Thomas. One of the very first in-depth conversations they’d had ended with a shouldn’t. The first time he hadn’t felt the need to crack a prolonged, tensely held, silence with something deprecating. Instead, tentatively entering the humid air, a plea and a concern all in one: We shouldn’t do this, it’s too soon. Then, only two days later: we shouldn’t stop, I can’t do this alone. And the rest fell into natural order, the reoccurring theme of expectations fallen short: He shouldn’t come home so late. She shouldn’t have to ask twice. We shouldn’t talk about that. The clarity of her voice in his head was almost identical to a certain other someone’s. A different inflection, a different time — but just the same; a damning memory able to be plucked from the recesses of his mind at the most inconvenient of moments. Tessa’s censorious commentary was never far behind. He’d been consumed by it in slowly advancing increments for nearly ten years. In the beginning, a day-to-day routine of merely pretending he was listening to her as he dotingly observed the accompanying figure that she’d arrived with. More recently, her unimpressed narration wove through the fabric of any of the romantic or couple-y things they tried to do. Tom, begrudgingly following her into the overcrowded abyss of whatever public outing she’d pre-arranged, always far too absentminded, staying alert for all the wrong reasons. Looking down to check on even the slightest vibration of his phone — a problem? A meeting? A respite? — whilst completely avoiding having to provide any input on Tessa’s newly favorite subject ( it rhymed with bedding ). Their verbal tennis matches, a ceaseless tit-for-tat game of passive aggression, could run steady laps around everything else they did. It was almost an entity of it’s own. There was Tom, there was Tessa, and there was that low pressure that hung in the atmosphere whenever they entered into the same room as if someone had made tasteless a joke at a funeral. The one beam of hope through it all was the fact that, admitted to or not, they knew each other too well. Despite what they withheld from one another — even though, if presented the same card drawn during a Rorschach Test she’d see the shape of a book where he’d see a pint of beer — they could never return to being strangers. Getting to know her had been a muffled process, a slowly sinking feeling. The diluting of a strongly flavored concentrate with hot water. Three parts scathing to one part cordial. Mild enough to eventually be widely palatable as opposed to the too-potent original double dose; the sort of thing that appealed to rush-seeking junkies and hyperactive children and those who fell somewhere in between.