#and fucking pathologically cruel

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Clara is an extremely tragic character, but the thing that hurts my heart the most is her relationship with her Saburovs. she’s a little girl who needs and clearly wants loving parents, and the way that she gets this olive branch extended to her in the form of a mother and father, only to have it brutally severed when she’s disowned is so sad. the way she then mourns the loss of her relationship and stability only adds salt to the wound, like how she cries to the Albino about Katerina or how she runs to Anna Angel’s house to hide while sobbing because she was just cast out and is being hunted. again, she’s a child who needs a family, but even that isn’t given to her, and she never gets it back.

#clara is the most tragic character in the game and you can fight me on that #there’s so much about her character this is just so cruel and awful and sad #children mourning parents just Gets Me #but homegirl deserves better than those two fucks #i’m a saburov hater till the day i die they SUCKED ASS #pathologic #pathologic hd #pathologic classic hd #clara saburova #clara the changeling #clara pathologic

[tofixtheshadows]

You guys really need to stop and consider the ways you're talking about Kabru I am dead fucking serious. Like I know that flattening characters is just what fandom does to a certain extent, but Kabru's actual personality is getting lost to the fandom hivemind insisting that he's aggressive/cruel/sociopathic/hateful, and these are particularly concerning takes to see leveled at the only brown character in the main cast day after day. "My poor sweet golden child Laios needs to be protected from this scary brown man" is not a good look! Like, it's very telling that the bulk of the hate and bad faith readings are reserved for Toshiro and Kabru. Everyone else's flaws get to be discussed and validated and forgiven (or erased), meanwhile people are straight making up things to be mad about with Toshiro and Kabru but patting themselves on the back for being smart.

The worst part is how undeserved it all is. I'm trying to lay off anime-onlys because we're still kind of in the red herring stage of getting to know Kabru, but I would still like to gently suggest that even if you think Kabru is up to something, you don't gave to get in the tags of every fan creator's post and bring up how you hate him or You Can Tell he's totally evil. Sometimes I think Kabru's blue eyes give people license to say things about his appearance that they know would sound completely racist otherwise, but referring to his blue eyes acts as a get-out-of-racism free card. The jokes about the dog with brown contacts are getting old, by the way.

For people who have read the manga, it's disappointing. Kabru is one of the most complex and important characters in the story, and if you base your interpretation of him and all your fandom interactions on shallow first impressions you are completely missing out.

I know part of this is because Dungeon Meshi is a comedy, but the story also wants to be taken seriously. For example, it's admittedly really funny when Chilchuck calls Laios "sick in the head", but that doesn't change the fact that the way Chilchuck casually belittles Laios caused him to hide the fact that he was "hallucinating" from his friends for weeks. Those feelings matter.

Like, this

is funny.

But this?

Is not. This is just a very clear example of a brown boy with PTSD. As someone else with PTSD, just looking at this fucking sucks, man.

The only reason why Kabru thinks about killing Laios is because he is in the middle of a flashback. He's struggling through a panic attack. If he truly wanted to kill Laios because he's violent or because he finds Laios inherently annoying, he wouldn't otherwise talk with Laios normally. Notice how he doesn't act this way at any other point in the story- it's just because he's triggered by monsters. Even when he's thinking about his plans to "deal with" Laios later, he's reluctant to actually kill him and only considers it to prevent another tragedy. Despite his deadly skills, Kabru relies far more on "soft" power- insight, persuasion, diplomacy. He's a rare example of a character who absolutely is, or at least can be, manipulative, but seems to use his abilities for good. He's not a pathological liar, he isn't looking down on everyone behind a smile. He's someone who is extremely emotionally intelligent, and he's willing to put aside all his own basic wants and needs to stop the cycle of dungeons devouring humans.

I'm going to cut a potential thesis on his character short and just give some examples of things that fandom should consider about his personality more:

Racism in fandom isn't just about whitewashing in fan art, or using racial slurs. The insidiousness of bad faith readings, reductions to racist tropes, lack of fan content for characters of color, and dismissal of a character's complexity are far more common. You can believe yourself to be completely neutral or even positive about a character and still churn out low-grade bile about them into fandom's collective unconscious. Fandom reflects real life.

And I have been around fandom long enough to see how these behaviors (mostly from my fellow white fans) affect fans of color, how it makes a fandom feel hostile and unwelcome to them. It's fun to make jokes and memes, I'm absolutely not saying that everything needs to be a deeply nuanced take, but we need to be careful that it doesn't veer into toxicity. Please think about how our contributions to fandom come across, and what sort of vibes they cultivate in this communal space.

#Dungeon Meshi #Kabru #Kabru of Utaya #Dungeon Meshi meta #I'm putting it in the tag. I'm making you look at it. #if you come into my inbox to bitch about this just know that people used to send me b*heading videos in there for similar racist reasons #so I will not be impressed #I'm in a fucking time loop someone get me out!!!! #musings with Dea

[blossomwritesthings]

𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞. | 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠

⬷ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 ┊ 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 →

pairing: felix x fem!reader (afab) // chan x fem!reader (afab)

genre: nonidol/collegegrad!felix. waitress!reader. college au. hurt/comfort. angst. fluff. smut - MDNI, 18+ only. reader pov. friends to enemies to lovers au. slowburn romance. lots of pining. cheating. abusive boyfriend/ex. drama galore. the sexual tension is REAL in this one.

content & warnings: depictions of domestic & verbal abuse are at the beginning of this chapter, please take care in reading. explicit & strong language. very thematic elements. felix is reader's estranged childhood bestie. chan is low-key an asshole in this ngl. heavy topics are mentioned such as: abusive/toxic relationships, cheating, and pathological lying. drinking/partying. the summer vibes are real in this one. there will be humor/fluff throughout to balance everything. and ofc smut too because who am i if not a whore for filthy felix smut. 😉

word count: 3.0k

summary: ever since you were born, all you've ever known is living a simple life in the small australian coastal town of bridgeport bay. you're content with working at your parent's beachside restaurant angel waves for the rest of your life, and you're happy with your place in the world - you have good friends and an even better boyfriend. that is, until everything comes to a standstill when a familiar face from the past visits town for the summer. and in the wake of his return, lee felix upturns everything you thought you were content with here in your comforting little beach town.

a/n: I wrote this in a fitful manic episode yesterday morning when I should've instead been working on uni hw instead... that's the story of my fucking life, apparently. 💀 we're finally getting to the very climax of this entire fic ya'll... and I promise that this won't be dragged on forever lmao, so there's only a few chapters left to this series~ 😃

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ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʀᴇᴘᴏsᴛ ᴛᴏ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ sɪᴛᴇs (ᴛʜɪs ɪɴᴄʟᴜᴅᴇs ᴛʀᴀɴsʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴs). do not copy, spin-off, or write inspired work based off of this fanfic without full permission to do so. ©ʙʟᴏssᴏᴍᴡʀɪᴛᴇsᴛʜɪɴɢs ⤐ ᴀʟʟ ʀɪɢʜᴛs ʀᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ

“You are nothing, and you’ll never be anything else besides the girl I fuck on the side,” Chris was saying to you with a deep sneer on his face. He was staring up at you, as he leaned in and kissed Yeji in a lewd kind of way there on the sofa. “I never loved you as much as her.”

 “I fucking hate you…” You started to seethe out in a low voice, your entire body shaking. Yet you couldn’t stop watching - couldn’t stop looking at the train wreck unfolding in front of you. “I fucking hate you so much, do you know that?!” 

 Chris raised an eyebrow your way at your screams, and soon, he was standing up from the couch, trailing over to you silently with brooding eyes and sloped shoulders. Yeji glared at the interruption, clocking you with a nasty frown as she looked on with disinterest. 

 Your ex reached out to you, and despite your best efforts, you weren’t fast enough for him. 

 Soon, he had his hands wrapped in your hair, yanking your head back to display the redness of embarrassment that dusted your cheeks and nose at that moment. 

 “Look at you- all worked up like a pathetic little bitch because you don’t have my attention any longer,” He grumbled, yanking on your roots a little harder and making you yelp out in pain. “You’re truly astonishing— thinking I’d ever love you enough to keep you around.” 

 Instead of replying to his cruel words, you just leaned forward and spit on him. It sprayed across his face, and instantly, you knew that it had been a mistake. 

 The fire in his eyes darkened, and before your mind could even register what was happening, he was pushing you to the side so hard, that you fell across the floor at his feet. One side of your face hit the hardwood with a resounding slap, pain immediately radiating across your left cheek.

 Soon, he was getting on top of you, hitting you across the cheek before taking hold of the column of your neck and beginning to squeeze. 

 The grip was so strong, you could feel your pulse racing at the base of your throat. Your heartbeats clamored in your ears, drowning out all other sounds - the way you could hear Yeji snicker in the background, and how he was saying something. 

 His lips were moving, but you couldn’t hear a single word. 

 Instead, you could only feel the way the warm tears leaked out of the corners of your eyes, the way your limbs shook underneath Chris as he pinned you down to the floor. 

 “Stupid cunt- you think you have the right to spit on me?! I’ll teach you a lesson!” That’s the last words you caught before he squeezed even tighter. 

 The blackness took over everything, bleeding into the corners of your vision and blurring your surroundings. And soon, you were closing your eyes to stave off some of the hurt. To hide from the way the two of them looked on at you like that - their faces painted in evil streaks of crimsons and violets. 

 And for one last time, you let out a guttural, heart-wrenching scream. The kind that strained vocal cords and your throat and made your tongue feel heavy in your mouth. 

Too suddenly, you were being shaken. 

 At first, you thought it was Chris stirring you awake to torture you once more. 

 But, when you cracked your eyes open, you were met with glaring sunlight. The golden, yellow orb was hanging high in the sky, shining against a bright blue backdrop. It twinkled through the nearby curtained window, casting everything around you in a soft kind of hue. 

 Then, you realized the position you were in. And turning away from the window, you noticed… 

 Felix. 

 Laying right there beside you, in bed...

 In his bed. 

 And he was holding onto you - arms wrapped around your waist tightly. 

 He was the one who had been shaking you. 

 Shaking you awake. 

 Felix was staring at you, dark brows pulled together in concern and faded, blonde locks messy from the pillow he was lying on. Reaching out, he brushed a gentle finger underneath your chin, before resting his warm palm against your cheek. “Angel… are you alright?” He asked in a soft voice, swiping away your excess tears with the pads of his thumbs. 

 “I-I had a bad dream, that’s all.” You said, not being able to hold eye contact with him anymore and looking away. Slowly, you turned in his arms to catch small glimpses of his room. 

 It was almost the exact same as when you had last seen it, all those years ago, before he had left for Korea to attend university. His full bed frame was decorated with the seashells he had found on the nearby beach as a middle schooler, the ones he had glued into the wood with your help one weekend during the summer a decade before. He still slept with his dark blue comforter that was just as soft as you remembered it. The rest of his bedroom was decorated similarly, with dark blue and white accents throughout. 

 His desk was full of junk - crumpled-up papers and clothes and shopping bags. He was a spender, that was for sure. His nearby dresser had a collection of skincare products on top of it… ranging from different toners, about five moisturizers, and a bunch of other things you had no clue what the uses were for. 

 “Nothing’s changed in here.” You mused softly, turning on your side slowly so that he wasn’t holding onto you so tight. But Felix took your stirring as a sign that you wanted to be free of his grip, so he began to shift his arms away. “No— please, don’t.” You reached out to his retreating arms, already feeling the tears well up in your eyes again. “I— I need you right now.” 

 Felix gave you a faint smile, a tiny bit of his eyes sparkling in mirth as he reached out and pulled you even closer to him. Soon, you were nestled into his chest, breathing in his familiar scent of musk and vanilla, and feeling comforted by his mere presence. 

 “We slept just like this, you know…” Felix began, and the sound of his voice so close to your ear sent a jolt of energy down the center of your spine. “You… you woke up when I got home and when I tried to sleep on the floor you were— were begging me to hold you. So I— I did.” And as he spoke, you could sense just a tad bit of hesitation from him. Like he felt uncomfortable telling you about the night before, afraid he'd possibly trigger you. 

 “Thank you,” You whispered, burrowing your face in the warmth of his t-shirt, half in embarrassment and half in sadness. “You’re always there for me when no one else is.” 

 “Not all of the time- not for the past four years.” 

 “I know- but that wasn’t your fault. You… You were just protecting yourself.” 

 Felix scoffed dryly, and there wasn’t an ounce of humor in the laugh. “Yeah— protecting myself, that’s what I was doing.”

 Slowly, you turned away from his chest and stared up at him. And only then did you realize how close the two of you were. You could practically feel his warm breath fanning against your cheek from the closeness. You could see every single dark freckle that was scattered in the constellation across his cheeks and nose. And on impulse, without even realizing it, you were reaching your hand out and brushing a few of your fingers against his smattering of freckles. You could feel the way he tensed up underneath the touch, holding your gaze as you studied his soft skin. 

 “You’re the single-most person to ever be there for me, no matter what, Felix,” You muttered in a low voice, tracing the slope of his nose and sharp jawline with your index finger. “And it doesn’t matter who was at fault for the last few years… it was both of us, I think. But despite all of that shit from the past— you came back to me. And you’re here now, unlike… other people in my life.”

 “Of course, I’ll always be here for you, y/n,” Felix started, clasping a warm hand over yours and squeezing it tightly, pressing your palm against his cheek and leaning into the touch ever so slowly. “And I’m sorry about the silence, from all of those years ago. It was shitty of me to do.” 

 “Yeah, I’m sorry too.” 

 “And I’m sorry about Chris— I… I should’ve warned you that—“

 “No. Don’t even start with that bullshit. You did nothing wrong. And besides, you tried to warn me. For such a long time. But I… I was blinded, like a stupid fucking idiot and I—”

 You felt slim fingers fitting across your mouth before you could say anything else, as Felix covered your lips to stop you from talking. “Do not call yourself that. You’re none of those things, I don’t care what Chris tries to tell you.” 

 Staring up at him, you saw all the emotions so clearly flowing through his eyes just then… adoration, sadness, and even anger. You swallowed down the feelings that were starting to bubble up around the lump that had formed in your throat from the night before. 

 “Do you… wanna talk about your dream?” Felix asked, hesitantly, like he had been wanting to bring up the subject but didn’t know how. 

 Your fingers grasped onto his wrist, pulling his hand back just gradually so that you could place a soft kiss against his open palm. Then you were guiding it back to your waist. 

 “It was— scary. He was scary in it, and… so was Yeji.” 

 “You know, you can cry about it if you want. This is a safe space for whatever you’re feeling right now.” 

 “Yeah, I know,” You flashed him a gradual, humorless smile. “I guess I’m just too exhausted to do anything else but lay here. I feel like— he doesn’t even deserve my time or emotional energy.” 

 “Well yeah, and you did cry yourself to sleep last night, so maybe that’s why you have no tears left.” 

 Your eyes widened in surprise at Felix’s words. But it made sense, from the way that your throat felt all scratchy and dry, and your eyes were puffy at the edges. “I bet I was a fucking mess last night.” Scoffing, you shook your head in disbelief. You wished you could’ve been stronger the night before, but at the time, you just had no more energy to fight off the feelings. 

 “A beautiful one, that’s for sure.” 

 Felix’s words were met with deafening silence for a few moments, as you processed them. All you could hear was the faint whirr of the nearby air conditioner wall unit and the soft lapping of waves against the shoreline just outside of his window. 

 Your eyes flicked up to him just then, and you raised a quizzical eyebrow to play off how badly his words had affected you. Shoving his shoulder playfully, you chuckled heartily. “Yeah, if you call runny mascara and a swollen face beautiful…” 

 After that, the room grew quiet once more. 

 But it wasn’t an awkward kind of quiet. It was the kind you had been so used to with Felix, the one that was comfortable and heartwarming. 

 And soon, you found your lips moving again and your voice flowing out once more. 

 “I should’ve known, that he would do something like this… I mean, he was the fucking star of the soccer team in high school. He had girls at his beck and call every single second of the day.” 

 “No one could’ve known, angel. Don’t beat yourself up over it.” 

 Felix’s words did little to soothe your racing heart and mind. 

 And while half of the emotions you were feeling were due to Chris and the fresh breakup, the other half were… things you didn’t know how to put a name to. Things you had no clue about. But all that you knew, what that they related to... Felix.

 “You did, Lix.” 

 Shrugging nonchalantly, Felix rolled his eyes dramatically to try and take some of the tension out of the stifling air around the two of you in bed. “I don’t count in this equation, ‘cause I always know these kinds of things.” 

 Slowly, you began to pull away from his arms. And the sudden absence of his hold around you forced anxious butterflies to stir in the pit of your stomach. But one look outside of the nearby window behind Felix, and you could tell that it was growing late in the morning. 

 “I was out all night- my parents will start to worry if I stay here any longer.” You said as an explanation when Felix tried to reach out to hold you again. Because as much as you wanted to stay there with him - basking under the warm sunlight and curling up against his side underneath the blankets - you also had other responsibilities to attend to. Like working at Angel Waves and studying for an upcoming exam you had. 

 “Don’t even worry about it, I understand.” Felix flashed you a gentle smile. But you knew him well enough - had grown up with him for most of your life - and you knew when he was feeling sad. Because at that moment, you supposed he would also feel your absence from his bed and arms. 

 It was only after you stumbled out of his sheets that you remembered what you had been wearing the night before on your date with Chris. The short, red mini-dress that he always loved. Too bad it wasn’t enough to keep him, though, the dark thought crossed your mind so quickly it was hard to stop it.But as quickly as it dawned upon you, you also decided to brush it away. 

 Because there was no use in crying over a man who didn’t love you. Who hadn’t loved you in probably a very long time. Who had been shanking you in the back with a knife since day one. 

 You could physically feel Felix’s gaze on you, as you awkwardly yanked down the sides of your dress. But it was so fucking short, it barely covered your ass. You reached down near the bed frame to pick up your purse and shoes that had been cast aside haphazardly. And when you stood up, Felix was already out of bed and right beside you, holding out a lengthy jacket. 

 “What’s this for?” You asked skeptically, as you took it from his hands. Raising a questioning eyebrow his way, you slipped it on and were immediately overcome with the familiar scent of him. It was comforting and pleasant and… made the butterflies in your stomach flitter around in a frenzy. 

 For a few moments, Felix’s gaze left yours and traveled down the expanse of your body, skirting up your legs and stopping somewhere at your… middle, before landing back on your face. From a few beats, a dark look crossed over his face. Like he was thinking about something entirely different than you covering up in his jacket. “Uhm— probably wouldn’t want your parents to see you wearing that when you walk in the front door this morning.” Felix chuckled softly, rubbing the back of his head like he always did when he was feeling awkward. 

 “It’s fine, I’ll just climb through my bedroom window.” 

 “Still, take it.” 

 “Why?” You said in a low voice, twirling around in your spot tauntingly with the jacket covering your shoulders. “Because it’s too... slutty?” 

 Felix gave you a deadpanned look, the sparkle in his irises twinkling just a little bit at your teasing. “No, I just mean that—“ 

 Laughing heartily at the way pink began to dust across his cheeks and the tip of his nose, you slapped his arm playfully. “Don’t worry about it Lix, I was just teasing ya.” 

 Just then, you caught sight of the clock that was on top of his dresser. The time read just past eleven in the morning. You could feel the anxiety beginning to rise inside of you as you realized how late it was... 

 And your mind registered just how long you had spent at his childhood house, in his bedroom, in his bed. With him. 

“Shit— it’s getting really fucking late, I gotta go!” You scrambled to slip your heels on, shouldering your small purse and wrapping the jacket a little tighter around your waist. Reaching forward, you grabbed Felix’s hand and squeezed it once. “Thank you so much, for everything. I owe you big time, Lix. Keep in touch, yeah?” 

 Felix tilted his head just marginally to the side, offering you an easy smile. “You don’t have to thank me, angel. It’s what... friends do.” 

 And the entire five-minute walk home, after you left Felix’s house, your mind kept repeating his last words to you over and over again. 

 But… 

 Friends don’t call each other beautiful, 

 Friends don’t hold each other in bed like that, 

 Friends don’t beg for the other not to let go, 

 Friends don’t kiss each other’s palms, 

 Friends don’t look at each other’s bodies with such a ravenous heat in their eyes, 

 Not like Felix had done just that morning when he looked you up and down. 

 Yes, friends definitely don't do any of that. 

To be continued...

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[yaoist]

the fact of the matter is everyone with any other shitty and traumatic experience gets to fucking write about it and their emotions unharassed and without society going over it with a magnifying glass looking for reasons to be cruel. so long as you are pathologically obsessed with finding the secret evil pedos you're going to relentlessly abuse csa survivors to satisfy your discomfort paranoia and selfishness. censorship means you're just prioritizing the idea that some people might enjoy art in a way you find personally gross over actual people who deserve the same right to express themselves in imperfect complex and unpalatable ways as every other goddamn person in the fucking world.

[astxrwar]

ties that bind [3/8]

SUMMARY: Quentin Beck-- your old college biology professor-- is still a bastard. Apparently, you’re kind of in to that.

RATING: Explicit

WORD COUNT: 7k+

CONTENT WARNINGS: extremely under-negotiated kink, character-typical behavior (negging, being manipulative and an asshole, etc), me bestowing upon reader!character my own shameless oral fixation/pathological lack of a gag reflex, gratuitous sex, overstimulation, me pretending that condoms are optional (they are not irl!) the most FUBAR relationship ever etc.

PART 1 | PART 2 | [PART 3] | PART 4

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, there are many things that you are immeasurably grateful for in the aftermath.

One of the most immediate ones– which might have been surprising in the moment, if there were any parts of your brain capable of engaging in conscious thought at the time– is Beck’s ability to be completely unmoved by anything . The knock on the door had made your blood run cold, sent a shock of nervous adrenaline lancing through your body that had cut clean through the not-unpleasant haze of whatever the fuck you had been feeling before that–

Beyond cursing under his breath, his eyes flashing dark with some unidentifiable emotion, Beck didn’t react– didn’t panic– at all. He had fixed you with a pointed stare and pressed a finger to his lips– be quiet – and then, apparently otherwise unfazed, he had reached for his belt from the desk and began working it back through the loops of his dress pants. 

The knocking– a student, presumably, because it was office hours, after all– stopped after a few minutes, and then there was silence, and when that silence had dragged on for what you deemed to be an appropriately safe amount of time, you slipped out the door of his office, not looking back once. Beck didn’t say anything to you, and didn’t make any attempt to stop you from leaving – your brain had been buzzing, overstimulated and racing with frantic, scattered thoughts that you couldn’t hold onto long enough to complete before they would disappear from you and others would take their place, and because of that none of it had actually felt real then. It would have, probably, if you’d been forced to focus on him again for even a moment– but he didn’t say a word, and so you didn’t have to, and you were glad for that, too.

You don’t remember getting back home, only that you must have. It had been a Friday, another thing you’re grateful for, because looking at yourself in the mirror of your apartment bathroom after having mechanically directed yourself through the process of a too-hot shower, there was a rapidly-darkening bruise at the base of your throat, another right over your jugular– something you knew, instinctively, in a distant and far-away part of your brain, would be there for a while. The sight of it triggered a twinge of something, like an echo, the flutter of your slightly-uneven pulse quickening in response– but it was still too recent to really register, then, still felt like a fantasy, or some strange hallucination existing in the realm somewhere between a dream and a nightmare.

It’s not until probably about eleven at night that everything slots into place and the memory fully realizes itself, integrates into the collection of all the other facts and realities that you know to be true. You’re laying sprawled out on your bed, motionless, staring up at the slowly-turning blades of the ceiling fan in the dark; these moments trickle back in reverse-order, in broad strokes, mostly. And maybe it’s because it’s late and you’re tired and you’re not thinking straight or really thinking much at all, but also maybe for other reasons that you refuse to acknowledge or elaborate on– but the very first thing you recall in its’ entirety, in brilliant, blinding detail, is what he’d said to you, his mouth low over your ear and his breath coming fast and hot–

Come on, honey. It plays back in your head, the edge to it, biting and cruel, not really urging you on as much as just telling you, like he knew that he was going to make you cum and he knew that there was nothing you could do to stop him if you’d even wanted to–

The surge of heat that flushes through you at the memory is so immediate and overpowering that it shocks you to your core. Your breath catches and then escapes in a totally involuntary, inarticulate sound, and you cover your mouth with your hand and screw your eyes shut as tight as you can— because after that it’s like the floodgates have opened or the dam has been breached and whatever wall you’d constructed between yourself and what had happened is gone, destroyed, swept away in the rush of everything you’d repressed rearing up to the forefront of your mind again, drowning out any other thought in a sea of white noise.

The mess of emotions that surges up with it is thorny and unfathomable and entirely too complicated for you to even begin to extricate, but you can recognize immediate, surface sensations, and wanting is one of them, the strongest one, probably, followed by fury and frustration and shame, none of which, you realize– alone or together– even come close to the intensity of your desire. Which is fucking embarrassing, honestly, what the fuck had he done to you? What the fuck had you let him do? And more importantly why and how do you already know with such a crushing and steadfast and terrible certainty that you’d let him do it again?

Your mind brings to the forefront, completely unbidden, the thought of what Beck might be doing, right now– you wonder if he’s thinking about it, like you are, but your instinct tells you that he’s probably not. He’s probably doing whatever the fuck it is he normally does at this time, collected and generally unfazed; you imagine that if he had any idea of you, the state you’re in, he’d smile one of those infuriatingly condescending smiles like every other time he’s managed to burrow his way under your skin, and your cheeks and your chest burn with an all-too-familiar embarrassment.

It’s not fair.

There’s an ache between your thighs again, a need, pulsing and trembling and wearing incessantly on the foundations of your fucking psyche, and you really, really, really want nothing more than to ignore it, to just roll over and go to sleep and not give him another inch of your resolve or the fucking satisfaction, but–

But the look he had fixed on you, before he kissed you, it plays behind your eyes; the feeling when he did kiss you, finally, how it had sated that frustration inside in a way that the confrontation hadn’t, better than anything else ever had to a degree that it was fucking frightening. 

You don’t push the thoughts away. 

So. Yeah. You’re grateful for a lot of stuff, in the immediate aftermath. Most of all, you’re grateful that it’s Thanksgiving break– that there are a whole ten days before you have to see Beck again, if only because it’s reason enough to justify that touching yourself to the thought of him later that night isn’t going to just make this whole thing that much fucking worse.

Ten days, it turns out, is not actually long enough for any of what you’re feeling to fade.

Come Monday morning you’re so high-strung that your anxiety is palpable– you drop your backpack on the floor twice just trying to hang it on the hooks on the wall outside of the lab, which is apparently out of character enough to warrant a concerned Hey, everything all right? from Dr. Banner, which absolutely does not help. Somehow, you manage to spin something about underestimating what a ten-day-break from XL coffees does to a person’s overall tolerance for caffeine, a spur-of-the-moment excuse that you’re quite proud of, especially considering it gets a laugh out of both him and your fellow grad students. 

You don’t actually see him at all that day. There are moments where you can almost completely forget about it, absorbed in lab busywork or chatting with labmates or grading assignments for Dr. Banner’s undergraduate microbiology class, but then there are also the moments where you’re alone and unoccupied and the thoughts are unavoidable, that same turmoil of emotions leeching up to the surface like a fresh bruise that you just can’t stop yourself from pressing down on.

Tuesday, too, is much of the same, and then Wednesday and Thursday after that; you’d have thought it would get easier with time, but it actually doesn’t– the longer it’s been since that day the fuzzier and more distant the memory, sure, but that frustration starts to build again in its’ absence. It’s kind of ironic, in a grating, infuriating way, the fact that you’re pissed off this time– for the first time– because he’s avoiding you, instead of the opposite. But it’s also so just like him– of course he’s unaffected, immune to this, and of course you aren’t, and of course he doesn’t give a shit. None of this is new, not really, it’s just different.

On Friday you end up having to stay late because one of your labmates fucks up a chemical extraction procedure that you were meant to be handling for the undergrads, meaning somebody has to remain in the lab for an extra three hours to run the dry ice bath and then transfer and separate the extract– it can’t be the person who actually fucked up, because they have work, apparently. But it could be you, of course, with nothing better to do, and you readily volunteer, because doing something is actually leagues better than sitting at home and wallowing in your myriad of unresolved issues– anger, mostly, but also other less appropriate things that you don’t want to think about.

So.

It’s five-thirty when the extraction is finally finished. You’ve run through the motions of locking up, putting all of the supplies back in their respective places, shutting off the overhead lights, kicking the door jamb out from where it’s wedged, the door itself having already been locked when Dr. Banner left at three. It’s November– December, now, actually– and so it’s dark and near-freezing outside by the time you’re done; the other end of the chemistry building is nearest to the parking lot, and so you decide that, in the interest of retaining feeling in your fingers, you’ll go down through the building and exit on the other side, thereby limiting the amount of time you actually have to spend out in the cold. 10/10, all-around solid plan.

Except Beck’s office is on this end of the building. You know that, and the knowledge prickles somewhere at the base of your spine as you sling your backpack over your shoulder and head in that direction, but you also know that it’s late, and that he doesn’t really ever try to hang around past four– much less past four on a Friday– so you’re comfortably certain he’ll have already gone.

(You’re wrong, because of course you are.)

You’d been thinking about what you were going to make for dinner, staring down at the faded tiling pattern on the floor and not really paying attention, until the sound of a door closing echoes down the hallway. You glance up, instinctively, drawn towards the noise, and–

Oh, fuck.

You see him before he sees you, and your brain kind of– short-circuits , freezes and stalls and shuts down like a glitchy computer. He’s turned with his back facing you, probably locking up. If you were thinking more clearly, maybe you would have turned back before he finished, but you don’t, can’t, frozen to the spot and unblinking.

Beck turns from the door, stowing the key ring in his pants pocket, and when he sees you his expression shifts from a kind of neutral ambivalence to one of those too-knowing smiles that had always struck you as just a little bit wrong in ways you hadn’t been able to figure out, not until he’d pinned you against his desk and–

You swallow, screw your eyes shut tight for a moment, and try your best to rid your mind of the thought. 

“Hey,” Beck calls out to you, “Heard you might be here late, honey.”

His tone is deceptively mild, conversational, but even so the nickname still kindles that heat again, brings all those thoughts you were trying so hard to suppress flooding right back to the surface, the echo of come on, honey that had played back endlessly any time you’d so much as closed your eyes ringing in your ears, somehow even louder than your thundering heartbeat. It takes an embarrassingly long second before the rest of what he’d said starts to filter in, drowned out at first by the immediate surge of heat that had flooded you; he knew you were here, you realize, and he’d probably been waiting for you. Waiting to get you alone.

Three weeks ago that thought would have made you furious. Now, though–

“Yeah,” you say, still moving towards him– towards the door, fuck; even the way you phrase the thought in the privacy of your own head feels like you’ve betrayed yourself. You’re aiming for nonchalance in your reply but you miss that mark terribly, breathless with anticipation and unable to fight off the impulse to shiver.  “Somebody fucked up an extraction that we needed to have ready for Monday, so I said I would stay—Dr. Banner’s gone to New York City for a conference, or I would have just come in over the weekend.”

You’re talking a lot, you realize, the words tumbling out of your mouth with a far greater ease than you’re used to when it comes to him; you know he’s able to tell, that he’s aware of the difference, he must be. But he doesn’t react or respond to it at all, just watches you, eyes dark and warm and expression infuriatingly unreadable.

“You’re a good student, to help out like that,” he says, after a long, unbearable pause, “Bruce is lucky to have you.”

A part of you has trouble comprehending the sentence as complete, still waiting for the other shoe to drop; the inevitable backhanded insult you’ve learned to expect whenever he says something even remotely positive, but it doesn’t come. That’s-- actually worse, somehow.

Beck tips his head towards the door. “Leaving? I’ll walk with you.”

That hum that had started in your body at the sight of him, the one that felt like it reached every part of you, even down to your bones; it ramps up higher. “Yeah, okay.”

He doesn’t smile, but his mouth quirks up at the corners, like he wants to.

You walk in silence, your heart in your throat, a rush of energy flooding through your body, suffusing your cheeks with warmth and filling your ears with the thunderous echo of your pulse and driving a reflexive, arrhythmic twitch in your fingers that you try to hide in the bulky sleeves of your coat. This is probably the longest amount of time you’ve spent in each other’s company without him trying to upset you on purpose or you barely restraining yourself from ending up at his throat since– the last time. The thought of it– what had happened the last time, even as abstract and ill-defined as the notion was– still makes things worse, heightens your awareness of the space between your bodies; closer than you ever would have allowed him to be, before all of this. Still not close enough.

Beck trails to a stop at the end of the hall where the staircase to the upper floors sits across from the double doors that lead to the parking lot outside, having ended up a few steps ahead of you. You mean to just keep going; the door is within your line of sight, barely ten feet away, but it’s like as soon as you’re faced with having to move past him your feet are rooted to the ground, frozen, immobilized.

He’s staring at you again. You fold your arms over your chest, glad for the shapeless mass of your oversized winter coat that hides your reflexive, miniscule shiver.

“Ah–Y’know what, I forgot, there’s some things I need to grab for my lab,” he says after a moment, as if it had only just occurred to him,  jerking his head towards the door to the supply closet that’s tucked underneath the adjacent staircase and offering you an apologetic grimace that feels— exaggerated. Pre-planned. Performative. “This’ll probably take a minute. I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

You have a response already half-formulated in the pause that follows before he adds, somehow still casual, “Unless you think you could stay a little longer and help me out.”

The implication isn’t even really an implication at all, evident in the way that he’s looking at you, obvious and unrepentant, and the tremble that it elicits from somewhere near the base of your spine, that knot of anticipation in your belly twisting and turning and coiling tighter– you already want it, him, and you’re certain he must be able to tell, the way your pupils, which are probably dilated already, must blow out even wider, like planets, like deep, endless oceans of black–

“It’s late, though, and I’m sure there’s other things you’d rather be doing.” That edge is back, mocking, sly, manipulative like he’s trying to trick the words out of you– no, actually, nothing. He turns to the door underneath the staircase and reaches for the key ring he’d shoved in his pocket earlier; you’re jealous, somewhere deep down, at how steady his hands are, firm and methodical, as he flips through a set of near-identical keys until he finds the one to the closet.The click of the lock is nearly drowned out by the sound of your own pulse thundering inside your head, every inch as unsteady and as volatile as you feel. 

The door swings outwards on creaking hinges. Beck fixes you with this look; like he’s already won, just by virtue of the fact that you haven’t moved. Maybe he’s right. He’s always been capable of deciphering exactly what you were feeling at any given moment in time, regardless of whether or not you wanted him to, always been better at getting you to rise to his bullshit than you ever were at getting him to rise to yours. He knows you, knows what you’ll do oftentimes much sooner than even you do. And maybe that shouldn’t be so surprising— he’s a tenured professor, he taught you for four years, and he’s got nearly two decades on you. He was always going to be better at this.

Whatever. You don’t really care if you’re proving him right. You’re tired of fighting it, and you were never all that good at it anyway.

The inside of the supply closet is dim and dusty and cluttered and probably covered in cobwebs, but you don’t care. He’s touching you before the door has even closed all the way, stripping your coat from your shoulders and pulling you towards him by the waist, the press of his hand wide and firm and so fucking warm even through the fabric of your sweater; and fuck yes, god, even that, that one point of contact, it soothes that burning restless ache that had built inside of you for the past two weeks better than any of your own attempts at doing so ever did—

You’re the one who closes that last sliver of space, this time– and it should probably be surprising, how eager you are to do it, to drag him down by his shirt collar and push yourself up on your toes and kiss him, that nameless thing inside that’s followed you for the last two fucking weeks finally going quiet. He makes this noise against your mouth in the very first few moments, a rough and low and surprised sound, like he’s taken aback for a second. But it’s only a second, and then your back collides with the sharp plastic edges of the overstuffed rows of shelving that line the walls of the room hard enough that it forces the breath right out of your lungs, and in the moments where that gasp has your mouth opened up he licks into it, his tongue curling over your teeth and sliding against your own and wringing out a sound from you that you don’t even really try to stop this time. 

Beck hasn’t even taken his coat off, you realize dimly. It doesn’t fucking matter. His thigh is pressed up between your legs, the pressure obliging the warmth there, and you can feel his cock already hard against the jut of your hip– you wonder, hazy and far-away, if he was hard before this, before you’d even kissed him, if he had been thinking about it the whole time he was walking you to the door. He works a hand up under your sweater, and you lean into it– rough, large, warm, god, he must just run hot, because you can feel him even in the spaces where your bodies aren’t touching, his presence, like the air around you is made a few degrees warmer for it. 

When that hand under your sweater smooths down your abdomen to thumb over the button of your jeans there’s this frantic swell of panic at the immediate and overwhelming flush of heat that accompanies it, the trembling pulse between your legs— he hasn’t even touched you yet. He’s going to take you apart, again, and it’s not even going to be fucking hard. You want him to, shivering at the thought, but it’s your pride that stops you– for all that bullshit about being done fighting him, you’re not, really. 

A four-year habit is hard to break. Go figure.

It doesn’t take all that much force to push him the grand total of two feet backwards until his back is to the opposite row of shelves in the closet; he lets you, or more accurately, he doesn’t resist, if only because you don’t think he’s expecting it. With the door closed the little room is dark, the shape of him just a darker outline against a field of murky, shapeless gray, the only light the sliver of it from outside that spills out at your feet. It works out, though, because you can see everything that clutters the floor– old paint cans and ancient long-retired confocal microscopes and unlabeled industrial-sized plastic buckets of god-knows-what– and you can see right where there’s the space for you to kneel.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Beck says when you do; the question is clearly rhetorical, amused and a little patronizing, like he thinks you’re out of your depth again. You hate that it gets to you, but it does, brings that familiar annoyance searing back, bright and vicious and spiteful in the pit of your stomach. It’s the way that he’s looking at you that really does it– like he thinks that this is beyond you, or maybe just that he thinks he’s somehow uniquely fucking special, impossible to satisfy, and all of that– every possibility, every interpretation– it all pisses you off. 

“You’re such an asshole,” you reply, irritated, stubbornness ticking at the muscle of your jaw. “Do you want me to or not?”

Beck laughs at that, loud and sharp and something that might have even been pleased. He reaches to run his fingers through your hair and pulls, just a little, the pinpricks of pain rippling across your scalp as he forces your head back so that you’re looking at him, really looking at him, not just sneaking glances like you had been before. He has one of those bared-teeth smiles, something that base and instinctive part of you interprets as a challenge, even though it doesn’t really feel like it’s meant to be one. It feels like it’s meant to be a warning, maybe. Or a threat.

“Go ahead, honey,” he says, grinning wider. 

Beck doesn’t react at all when your hands find his belt, his breathing steady and his expression even and his posture annoyingly fucking relaxed; doesn’t move to help you with it, either, satisfied to just watch as you work it open and tug his jeans and his boxers down his thighs. He’s still unaffected even when your palm slides over the hard outline of his dick through his boxer briefs, and, god, if that doesn’t just piss you off more– the way that he’s just so effortlessly immune to this, the same way he’s always been immune to any of your retaliatory attempts to incite him. The painfully obvious way that you’re not; the way the sight of his cock, hard, twitching lazily, makes this unbearable warmth pool somewhere inside of you, your breath catching somewhere, hesitating enough that you know he must notice. No, you– you’re whatever the complete opposite of immune is. Vulnerable. Hyperreactive. Exposed. 

Except– 

When you reach out to touch him, several things happen at once; the muscles in his thighs twitch and his posture stiffens and his breathing goes still, all just for a fraction of a second before he’s relaxed again. That  tension is gone so quickly that you might have thought you’d imagined it, if it didn’t happen again when you lick a long wet stripe all the way up from the base of his cock and then again when you curl your tongue in a slow circle around the tip–

Maybe, you think, maybe he’s not really immune to any of it. Maybe he just hides it better.

It becomes more obvious when you put your mouth on him, not even really halfway; in the near-dark of the room you can see the shadow of him as he drags his hand down the lower half of his face, can hear, as wound-up and hyper-aware you are, the trembling breath as it leaves him, hitching when your tongue presses up against the underside of his cock as you pull back and move down again, further each time–

“Fuck,” Beck groans under his breath, the sound rough and low. “Oh, fuck, honey.” 

Yes, you think, the rush of satisfaction so immediate that it takes you by surprise; whatever flicker of shame that inspires in you is ridiculously easy to silence. Beck makes another noise, wordless and low, pretense of invulnerability abandoned-- his other hand has wrapped around one of the supporting beams of the shelf, like he’s trying to steady himself, and when you finally reach all the way down to the base and stay there, just for a moment, unmoving, his grip tightens around it so hard that the flimsy plastic cracks in his fist. Your answering laugh when you pull back is more of a hum than anything, muffled by him, cheeky and pleased– but that ruins it, whatever small amount of control he’d granted to you, something bordering on growl vibrating out of him that you would probably call touchy if you were able to speak, and then his other hand fists in your hair and he pulls, hard, drags your head back down until his cock is buried in your throat and your nose is pressed right up against his stomach. 

It shouldn’t make you feel the way it does— your tongue pressed flat against the base of his dick, your mouth flooding with saliva and your throat working around him and his hand on the back of your head, holding you there, the tremble that shudders through the solid muscles of his abdomen so close you can feel it — but your body is betraying you, again, again, just like before, your thighs pressing together with your hand squeezed between them, and even the insignificant pressure of your own palm through your jeans is enough that you wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself from making some embarrassing involuntary sound if it wasn’t for him, the way he’s compressing your fucking voice box–

There’s the snap of plastic again, that same beam from earlier; he needs to let go of it, you think, the thought fuzzy as he pulls his cock out and saliva trails down your chin and then fuzzier still as he rocks it back in again, or he’s going to break it clean in half. 

He moves like that for a while and you just let him, or worse, you fucking enjoy it; until eventually the pressure of his hand at the base of your skull lessens and his grip goes slack and you can move again, your tongue curling up around the tip of his cock and then pressing firm to the underside of it when you take him back into your mouth– 

“God, honey, you’re such— such a terminal fucking overachiever, aren’t you,” Beck says, that edge in his voice, biting and mean, and you would roll your eyes at him if you could trust yourself enough to even open them, terrified that whatever way he must be looking at you right now would simply cause you to evaporate on the spot. The words alone are rough and cruel and dripping with condescension, but there’s still, contained within them, that begrudging admission that it’s good, that compliment hidden inside an insult or maybe the other way around, and it pleases you in a way that you know it really shouldn’t. He makes another sound, slurred and inarticulate, fist tightening in your hair— that control, it’s slipping through his fingers, that immaculate and insufferable level of self-constraint shattered and crumbling, and you’re dizzy with the thought of it; that you might be able to finally do something–even just once– that might actually get to him.

It doesn’t take long, after that. He wavers between letting you move, as willing and embarrassingly fucking eager as you are to do it, and moving for you, hand firm on the back of your head as he fucks your open, waiting mouth. You can tell when he starts to get close, passes the point of being able to fight it off just by slowing down, the muscles in his thighs twitching and his breathing turning rough and irregular, hitching and catching and forced out of his chest–

“Fuck,” He grits out, his palm suddenly flat against your forehead, pushing you back, away, muscles gone rigid and still. “Don’t.”

“Why,” you reply, breathless, aiming for something like teasing or taunting but ending up so shot through with desire that it doesn’t matter what you were even trying for anyways. 

He doesn’t even warrant that with a response, just looks at you, eyes dark and pupils blown out so wide that you can’t even tell where the sliver of his irises even begins– he looks at you like you must be fucking stupid, like the answer is obvious, and—

You shiver.

Yeah. It is, actually, obvious.

He drags you up from the ground by the collar, pulls so hard that you stumble to your feet, off-balance, and nearly come crashing into him. He only looks at you— at your mouth, swollen and bruised and spit-slick and red— for a moment, and then he kisses you again and you melt for it without so much as a single fucking thought. 

Beck forces you back against the other set of shelves; it’s not hard, with only about four feet of space spanning the whole room and with you swaying and unsteady and caught up in chasing his tongue as it roves through your mouth, for him to push you until the hard plastic corners are digging into your spine and the backs of your thighs again. He doesn’t let you touch him, grabs your wrist and pins it to the edge of the highest shelf up above your head when you try, fingers squeezing so hard that it hurts a little bit– that sends a sharp thrill of self-satisfaction flickering through you, the thought that he can’t take it, that you got him that close–and then he tears at the button of your jeans, the zipper, yanks them and your underwear only halfway down your thighs, just far enough to be able to–

The noise you make when he touches you is drawn from you so abruptly that you can’t soften it or even really try to make it sound less desperate; not that it would matter anyways, with the way that your body arches up, into him, how wet you know you already are despite having spent the last fifteen fucking minutes with his dick in your mouth and without him even really touching you at all–

“You fucking liked that– you were getting off on it, weren’t you, honey,” His mouth breaks from yours just to say it, like he knows what you’re thinking or maybe just like he’d been thinking the same thing, not even really asking as much as just stating a fucking fact,  that stupid smug smile spreading wide across his face again.

“Fuck you,” you manage to reply, not even really succeeding in saying it with any amount of vitriol, voice breaking at the last syllable; all he has to do is touch you again and everything inside of you goes hot and white and blank , your free hand flying out to grab a fistful of his shirt, so tight that your knuckles are drawn and bloodless, squirming uselessly against the solid unyielding hold he has on your other wrist as he works two fingers inside of you and curls them and finds some horribly sensitive something that you hadn’t even known was there, rubs the rough pad of his thumb against your clit as he works them deeper and no, no, fuck, it’s not fair–

He doesn’t make you come like that, even though it probably would have been so easy, and maybe later tonight or tomorrow or sometime next week you’ll remember to be ashamed of how absurdly fucking easy it always is for him to get anything from you, even this, but right now you can’t bring yourself to care. He fucks you open on his fingers until you’re whining and rocking back against him and begging for it in all but actual words, and as soon as the muscles in your abdomen start to tense and the pitch of your moans shifts up higher he stops short and tells you to turn around. You don’t bother to suppress the sound that elicits from you, petulant, frustrated and wavering, but you still do what he says; when he tells you to bend, to put your hands out flat on the shelf, you do that, too, without even really thinking about it. There’s something in the back of your mind that’s absolutely indignant at your immediate compliance– add it to the fucking long list of things you’ll think about later– but it falls silent as soon as he takes the space behind you.

His hand skims your hip and you take in a shaky, shuddering breath– you can’t see him, what he’s doing, and everything in your body is still wound so tight, the combination driving such a vicious surge of anticipation that it feels for a second like you’re going to come apart at the seams, or that you might have already and just failed to notice.

Beck notches the head of his dick right between your thighs, presses forward a little, urges you up on your toes until he’s aligned just right– there, right there, you think, trembling, yes, fuck, come on, please— and then he leans over you, his arms caging yours, his much bigger hands covering your smaller ones so completely, pushing them harder into the gridded plastic lattice of the shelf. You can feel his breath against your neck, warm, the heat of his body bleeding right through his clothes, soothing the prickle of goosebumps that had spread across the exposed skin of your lower back where the edge of your sweater has ridden up, bunched around your waist. It’s cold, here, much colder than it had been in the hall– presumably because there’s no heat to the storage closet, because why would there be– and that just makes it better, honestly, how much larger he is, how fucking warm. 

Please, you want to say, only remembering your pride at the last second, but then he moves closer and pushes into you anyways like he already knows what you want, and that’s fucking gone, too.

This time— balanced up on your toes, your hands braced against the shelf, the latticed plastic surface biting into your palms and his hands over them, keeping them there, your legs only spread as wide as the jeans pulled half down your thighs will even allow— you know it will take even less to break you than it did the day in his office. Beck is barely moving, short shallow motions as he works you open, but even still he’s already nudging something sensitive and electric inside of you that has your head dropping down against your outstretched arms, against his, too, where they overlay your own. It’s the angle, probably, you manage to think,  flushed and shivery and barely breathing; or maybe it’s just him, and he’s just too good at this. He finally bottoms out and the noise you make– stretched out and filled up and satisfied, that stupid needy thing inside of you gone completely fucking silent at last-– is so unlike you that for a second you don’t even really register it as your own, even muffled as it is by the fabric of his shirt where your face is pressed to the inside of his arm. There’s a twitch in your fingers, like you’re searching for something to hold onto, and Beck obliges that with a mocking chuckle that rumbles out low in his chest and vibrates against your back– he threads his fingers through yours, his palms over the tops of your hands. There you go, honey, he murmurs against your neck, saccharine, patronizing, like you’re this poor pathetic helpless thing, and any other time you probably would have hated him for it. Maybe you still do, even now, and maybe that just makes it even better.

There is something– probably something significant– that is just deeply wrong with you both, you realize, and then he starts to fuck you in earnest and the thought vanishes. 

This isn’t anything like the last time– every inch of you goes soft and pliant like you’re melting beneath him, not fighting it or fighting him or even trying to. Every time he rocks into you it wrings out this desperate hiccupping keen that might have just been the same continuous sound, stretched out, fading and then brought back to life again before it can ever really end. He releases one of your hands to reach down to touch you, the rough pads of his fingers dragging across your clit, and that involuntary noise he’s pulling out of you pitches up higher in response, taking on this breathless shivering quality that you recognize– you’re still fucking wound up from before, vibrating with it.

You realize far far too late that he fucking did this to you on purpose, made sure to keep you from touching him, make sure to get you close before he’d even started. The thought of him fucking you past your rapidly-approaching orgasm triggers something panicky and nervous inside of you; anticipation and apprehension and the sinking realization that you had missed something like you always do, and he had gotten the better of you, again. But there’s nothing you can do about it, really, not now, its’ approach inevitable no matter how hard you try to force your breathing to steady or your muscles to relax–

You know he must be able to feel it, just like last time, the way that you tighten around his cock, the shivering pulse of your muscles and the tremble that runs the length of your whole body. He still hasn’t stopped touching you, and he hasn’t stopped moving, either, the shelf and all its’ contents shaking with the rhythm of it, and you can’t silence the sounds or even try to mute them, the wordless inarticulate whine that pitches up higher each time his cock sinks back inside— 

“Be quiet,” he pants against your shoulder. His hand– the one that had still been covering yours and pressing it harder against the latticed surface of the shelf– it moves up to your throat and then higher still, curling around your jaw, and you should remember to be embarrassed about how quick you are to just let him when he pushes his fingers into your mouth, should be fucking ashamed the way your tongue roves around them, instinctive, obedient, but you can’t think , can barely even remember to breathe. It’s somehow even worse, more overwhelming, now that he’s not bracing his weight on the shelf, the bulk of it resting against you, makes it so that his cock reaches somewhere even deeper inside, his other hand still splayed flat below your stomach, his fingers still against your clit, firm, not really even moving, the friction generated just from the force of him fucking you enough to make something drop out of the pit of your stomach like you’re free-falling because you know with a startling and crystal-clear certainty that you’re going to— that he’s going to make you— again—

Beck must know it too (of course he does, of course) because he presses the fingers in your mouth further in and down firm against your tongue to quiet the noise that breaks out of you when you come for a second time, something that probably would have been closer to a sob than anything, but stifled as it is it just comes out as another incoherent sound. You’re shivering, muscles in your calves and your thighs strung taut, sore and burning like they might give out under you, and when he starts to really touch you again you almost bite down on his fingers, hypersensitive and overstimulated and unable to even move to escape it, with the shelf in front of you and the weight of him pressed to your back–

Maybe he makes you come again, or maybe he doesn’t— it doesn’t really matter, anyways,  the usually-clear delineation between your orgasm and the build to it has been erased, your body so high-strung you can’t even tell the difference anymore. It all just bleeds together, like trying to stay standing and upright in the ocean, in water that’s chest-deep, knocked down by a wave and only barely able to regain your footing before there’s another, and another, and another, rhythmic and relentless and entirely without respite. Beck chuckles, breathless, the sound low and mocking and warm against the shell of your ear,  laughing at you, at the state of you, presumably, and it just drives that tide even higher, until you can’t keep your head above water even in the spaces between the waves.

You should have expected this, you think, with whatever part of your brain that’s still even capable of it— just like any other time you’d ever tried to get the better of him. He always pays you back tenfold.

It could be forever or it could be ten seconds before his own breathing starts to catch and turn ragged, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway, each of his thrusts making something bloom hot and bright across the backs of your eyelids, closed as they are– actual physical evidence of your brain short-circuiting, of everything falling apart; your thoughts, your sense of time, your tenuous, tattered hold on fucking reality. He moves both hands to your waist to pull you back against him, pace growing rougher, more erratic, and without his fingers in your mouth to mute the sound you have to bury your face in the crook of your arm to stifle it as best you can, fingers twitching uselessly, catching in the grids of the shelf and curling there even though it makes the tendons burn, holding tight like you’re trying to anchor yourself to it, to something , anything at all—

“God, fuck, yes,” Beck groans into the crook of your neck, one arm wrapped all the way around your waist and holding you there, flush against him, finishing so fucking deep inside that you think you can feel it in every inch of you, the steady, slowing pulse of his cock, the warmth of it, his trembling, indistinguishable from your own.

It takes a while for everything to settle, after that; for his breathing to steady and for your body to stop shaking and your brain to return to some approximation of functioning . You notice the details in pieces; the crisscrossed marks on your palms and forearms, bitten into the skin there from the latticed grid of the shelf, the ache in the muscles and tendons in your thighs and your calves , the feeling more pleasant than painful.

Eventually, Beck pulls out and his weight shifts away and a shiver runs right through you at the immediate chill of the air in the space he had occupied, the absence of that warmth; you try to straighten up, to stand, but make the fundamental mistake of letting go of the shelf before thinking to check if your numb, trembling legs can even support your weight–

The warmth is back, and you don’t fall.  “Careful, honey,” he says, mocking, mouth pressed against your hair, steadying you in his arms; you don’t even have to look at him to know that he’s grinning wide again.

“You be careful, asshole, you’re gonna stain my sweater,” you reply, unthinking, only fuzzily aware of how it’s slid back down from where it was rucked up around your waist and the solid pressure of his dick against the small of your back, still mostly hard.

He huffs out a laugh.

“Oh, right , of course, my mistake. I’ll be sure to just let you fall next time,” he replies, languid and amused and still a little breathless— and something inside of you trembles, somehow, even fucked-out and shivery and already sated as you are, going a little more lightheaded just at the thought.

Next time.

You don’t even bother to argue or to even act affronted at the presumption, the ability to even shape the words, much less deliver them convincingly, beyond anything you’re capable of right then.

His grip tightens around you for a split second before he lets go, and you’re sure that, like everything, Beck must have noticed that, too.

#quentin beck x reader #ties that bind tag #mysterio x reader #jake gyllenhaal x reader #not actually i have a deep aversion to rpf but i want Attention and apparently ppl tag actors now

[my-own-walker]

Hi! Please could you write an angst about reader taking care of Kit Walker after a caning punishment? Thank you v much!

I'm Always Gonna Be Where You Are

note: i think i've used this gif before...idk tho. thanks 4 tha request!

warnings: angst, mentions of death, violence

+++

637 days in.

I was beginning to think I would spend more days in than I had out. Before I was brought in. Before my whole life was thrown away. Before I became an ornament on the asylum's cold stone walls.

I found solace in the people around me. The people who understood. One Kit Walker stood out as someone I could say anything to. I would have done anything for him. I would have walked backward off a cliff while blindfolded for him if he asked.

He was, similarly to me, wrongfully locked in Briarcliff for a misunderstanding. I was thoroughly convinced of his innocence. And I knew for a fact that even if he did do it, and was a narcissistic manipulator and pathological liar, I'd still love him.

I never told him, though, 637 days into my stay, I still hadn't told him. 637 days into my imprisonment, I found out my mother died. 637 days in, the person who had wrongfully locked me in, the only person who could get me out, my only family, was dead.

The news came abruptly from Sister Jude. A nonchalant delivery of the most devastating news I had ever heard. An addendum to the barking of orders.

'LIGHTS OUT! Oh, and your mother's dead.'

An exaggeration of events, for sure. Nonetheless, it felt just as cruel. Soulless. I was subhuman to the individuals that ran the place.

On day 638, I met Kit in the common room in the morning, collapsing into a quiet fit of sobs in his arms. Any louder, and I would have been restrained and sedated. I wasn't mourning my mother. I was mourning my freedom. The prospect of my release.

Kit held me close, sitting next to me on one of the many sofas in the room. The upholstered fabric scratched into my arm any time I brushed against it. Another reminder that comfort was not a right, but a luxury here.

He just held me as I cried.

'I will get us out of here,' Kit muttered into my ear. 'Whatever it takes.'

His optimism and drive were two of the reasons I kept him so close. He possessed two things I had lost very early on in my institutionalization.

The couch shifted in pressure. Someone had sat on the other side of me. I didn't even care to look up.

'Not now, Spivey,' Kit gritted.

'We could go halfsies on hah,' Spivey taunted. 'She's quite a doll.'

'Don't be fucking disgusting,' Kit muttered.

I lifted my head from its cozy spot nestled in Kit's chest and grimaced as I felt just how close Spivey was sitting next to me. To my abject horror, I watched as the man unbuttoned his pants and began to reach his hand inside.

It all happened so fast. Kit sprang from my side and grabbed Spivey by his collar, bringing him to his feet pathetically. The pervert's hand was still in his pants when Kit slammed him back down to the ground. A sickening thud cracked through the space. Silence filled the room, then the sounds of the other patients getting rowdy. Two orderlies dressed in white rushed onto the scene, restraining Kit and administering a dose of something via syringe into his arm. He was dragged away without a struggle into the hallway.

I didn't even have time to react in the slightest. I sat perched on the edge of the sofa Kit and I had shared just minutes ago, staring at the door Kit just disappeared through, tears threatening to fall once again. I sat there numbly for the rest of common room time.

When they ushered us back to our rooms, or cells, more like, my eyes darted around to find the boy who came to my rescue twice in one day. Moving through the front lobby toward the cells, I looked up the stairs toward Sister Jude's office. I watched as Kit was shoved out of the door, bound by his hands, a look of anguish on his face. His punishment was through, and it was all for me.

+

I laid awake, my soul wracked with guilt after lights-out. I couldn't bear thinking about the pain Kit must have been in. All because of me.

Briarcliff was a funny place. It was old. There were tons of ways around the run-down, disgusting corridors. One funny thing I found was a way to get out of the rooms. As long as you weren't restrained, a simple clothes hanger, hairpin, or matchstick could be enough to unlock the door from the inside.

Unlatching the lock, I was careful to not make any revealing sounds that would indicate my escape. I tiptoed carefully through the halls toward Kit's room. This was a routine of ours. I would regularly meet him in his cell after hours.

I peered through the window in his door. He was lying on his side on his bed, hands still bound behind him. I couldn't see his face to make out his expression. The bed's blankets weren't even covering him.

'Kit!' I whisper-yelled. His head shifted slightly.

'Y/N?' he groaned.

'I'm gonna come in, is that okay?' I replied.

'I've never wanted you here more.'

I jimmied the lock and opened the door slowly. It closed behind me with a tiny click. His hands twitched slightly as I worked to remove the straps keeping them together. He had leather burns on his wrists. His hands were cold from lack of circulation. As soon as I broke them free and Kit was turned to lay on his back, I held them close to my chest to warm them up.

Kit's face contorted in pain. He shifted uncomfortably in his bed. Being on his back caused him pain. I silently kicked myself for not remembering the punishment he was dealt earlier.

'Oh, sorry Kit,' I muttered, standing up to allow him to shift himself to a more comfortable position.

'They smacked the shit out of me this time,' he laughed sardonically. I returned to my seat next to him on the bed once he had moved. I ran my hand through his hair, curling the light, soft tresses in my fingers. The strands bounced back into position so delicately. It felt like a metaphor for his humanity.

I leaned down to gently kiss his forehead. He looked up at me with his deep brown eyes, his velvet gaze embracing my soul.

'I love you, Y/N,' Kit purred.

'I love you more,' I replied. I lay in the small bed, in front of Kit's form, inviting him to hug me. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in closer.

'You're all I needed. Just you with me,' he murmured.

'Where I'll always be,' I sighed.

+++

Le fin, or whateva.

#evan peters #evan peters fic #ahs #evan peters x female reader #evan peters x reader #evan peters oneshot #kit walker #kit walker imagine #kit walker angst #kit walker x female reader #kit walker x reader

[amuhav]

1, 2, 3, 5, 13, 23 for E T H E T H

What memory would your OC rather just forget?

I think Eth is second only to Iskaeya when it comes to the privilege of not experiencing too many outright negative memories. He was born not that long after his mother's taking the throne, or not long into his parents' marriage. An only child long enough to have a loving childhood with both parents, with their full devotion, in which he watched and admired as they took a grieving and fractured kingdom and brought it back into the era of complacency it now enjoys. He's also very pragmatic, so he's not the type to believe in "forgetting" uncomfortable truths. To deal with the reality set before you. So even the eventual disillusionment of realising his parents aren't perfect, or the knowledge he will never be either of their favourites... those are things he's taken in stride.

What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

I dunno, a lot of Eth is very on the surface lmao. He's as prideful as he appears, if not more so. He's logical, efficient, and unidealistic. He's extremely unromantic lmao. He has an immaculate level of control over his temper and it would take something monumental to provoke it. He doesn't suffer fools easily, nor incompetence. That said. He isn't quite as cold as he appears. He can be softer in the comfort of privacy, and he deeply cares about the future of his people. He's not a diehard traditionalist, in fact he abhors traditions that lay in the way of progress. And he's not purposely cruel. Contrary to Tay's assumptions, Eth doesn't actually hate either of his brothers, not really. They just... kinda both unfortunately fall into the categories of "fool" or "incompetent" sksksksk oop. If anything, he's actually harsher with Ailos, because he really finds him aggravating in personality and behaviour, and Eth has to constantly clear up his messes. Whereas he and Tay are so far removed from each other that Tay is almost nothing to him, except a thing he doesn't really know how to deal with. They're too far apart in age to have ever had a chance to connect while Tay was young, and too far apart in the social hierarchy to do so now. Kae won't let Eth or anybody else give Tay a purpose, and so to Eth, he just kind of... exists... troublesomely. Over there. Making problems for their parents. With not a whole lot he can do about it.

What is your OC's fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw?

Flaw? EXCUSE YOU?? FLAW?? the fucking AUDACITY. Eth is perfect, you monster. Okay. lmao. With that out of the way. As I said, he's very unidealistic and unromantic, especially on a personal level, and he doesn't really respect understand those who won't see things the same way. He sees his father as lacking a backbone in not standing his ground, but he also doesn't understand why Qariel "coddles" Tay either. He sees Ailos as hedonistic with no real interest in understanding why he acts the way he does, why he doesn't just grow out of it and settle down into an advantageous marriage, as should be expected of him. He thinks his mother was naïve in her "mistake" of refusing to arrange any marriages for her children, for promising them all self-determination in that regard. Though he recognises Kae's pathological need to keep Tay "safe" hasn't helped him, he still thinks Tay has never really tried to step up to his role as a royal, that he could do so if he had any strength of character. Eth is just... not much of a nuance guy when it comes to sentiment or sympathy. And he knows this about himself... I'm just not sure he sees it as a flaw lmao. But when any plans fall apart because people are fundamentally people and react with emotion and not logic, he often gets blindsided.

How far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

Hm. He's never really had to want for anything. His ambition is to be a good king when his time comes, but he's patient and isn't the type to play dirty. He has principles he wouldn't betray simply to "win". Stemming from that unromantic and unsentimental personality, though, there are things he's willing to do or put aside for the sake of "the greater good" that others might not. Marry for politics and not for love, for example. And yet, as infuriating as he finds Ailos, however pesky Eilayna is, or even as much as a burden as he might see Tay as, he has no intention of seeing them hurt or disowned, and has in fact been doing all he can to stop that in Ailos' case. Like, he's not willing to screw innocent people over just to get ahead. At least, not in ways he would consider screwing them over...

If you met your OC, would the two of you get along?

LOL HELP. I don't even know if that would be an option. Eth would just walk past me like I was entirely non-existent, maybe a mote of dust at best. Like. MAYBE assuming I was worthy and important enough to be equal in his company... Honestly probably not lmao. I don't deal well with people who are either too uptight or too sure of their own superiority over everyone else, and I would either be too much of an awkward turtle to even have the courage to talk to him, or be far too chaotic and annoying for him lmao.

What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

wcif emotions. lmao. I half joke but... Eth doesn't really express many emotions outwardly, but he also doesn't really get all that emotional in general lol. He doesn't really get upset, nor angry just... annoyed and stressed and then gets on with it. He doesn't dwell on happiness, just the satisfaction of a job well done, or the enjoyment of personal pursuits. Though there was a time when he had to wonder if infant Tay might be a threat to him politically, he's not the type to dwell on jealousy either. He's not unfeeling. It's not that he struggles to process emotions, either, it's just that he handles them very logically, or simply doesn't acknowledge them. I suppose love? Eth doesn't really have much of an understanding of it, even though he was shown it unconditionally as a child. By his standards he does love his family, otherwise, he simply wouldn't care about them. It's just not something quantifiable he can put his finger on, nor something he consciously factors into his decisions.

#ask my characters #Ethryon Eth'salin #crown prince leo #me: I don't deserve to be in his presence #also me: nah he'd grate on me to hell and back #lmao #like I'm okay with self-assurance and even arrogance to a point #but it's the 'I'm better than everyone and I know it' that I think would get me

[craycraybluejay]

I need my men mentally unstable. I need my men homicidal. I need my men creepy. I need my men odd. I need my men weird. I need my men mentally and emotionally conflicted. I need my men geniuses. I need my men crafty. I need my men a complete and utter threat to the world around them. I need my men a threat to themselves. I need my men psychotic. I need my men anxious. I need my men depressed. I need my men violent. I need my men addicts. I need my men to have complex pathology. I need my men sadistic. I need my men masochistic. I need my men pathetic. I need my men unfortunate. I need my men traumatized. I need my men pretty. I need my men dangerous. I need my men rough around the edges. I need my men covered in blood. I need my men cruel. I need my men to have killed at least once. I need my men as fucked up as they come so we can make each other worse. Men <3

#gay posting #hannibal #boyfriend to death #prodigal son #supernatural #the witcher #bbc sherlock #ofmd #you dont understand #your honor i need my men as deeply scarred as possible #if hes not pathetically incapable of normalcy i do not want him

[katherineholmes]

Many Caroline fans are always calling Elena a "bitch" for falling in love with Damon even though (according to them) Elena was aware of the sexual abuse Caroline suffered when she was under Damon's compulsion. However, I see virtually no Caroline fans complaining about how fucking selfish and cruel Caroline was to have sex with Klaus, even though he was responsible for making Elena's life a living hell. Not only did he kill Jenna in front of Elena, but he also tried to kill Jeremy, KILLED ELENA in the ritual, forced Isobel to kill herself in front of Elena for the sheer cruelty of doing so, and also made Tyler his slave and then killed Carol.

And in fact, Elena is ALSO another r@pe victim of Damon. I have nothing against Caroline, but her fans are extremely sexist and even misogynistic when it comes to Elena or even Bonnie.

Trigger Warning : Discussions of non-con, abuse.

Okay, first of all, hello, I got this ask such a long time back, and I'm really sorry about how long it has taken me answer it.

So, I wanna break this down before I answer this. All three of them - Bonnie, Caroline and Elena are victims of the vampires on the show. And pretty much everyone on the show has been wronged by someone or the other, even Klaus. All I'm trying to say is that the show itself pits a lot of victims, especially female victims, against each other. Mostly in order to prop up men, which is why I think that TVD is rooted in misogyny.

So I'm not going to blame either Caroline or Elena, but the message you sent is very compelling, and I want to dissect it a bit.

The 'Delena' of it

Let's get to the root of it - is Elena selfish for loving Damon? I recently saw a similar question on Reddit (two minutes of silence for the time I waste lurking on that site), and I honestly could not even read it, because of some of the takes I saw. But the root of it is this - Elena is traumatised teenager trying to hold on to every last person she has left.

I saw a meta about Elena having prolonged grief, and I agree, it feels as if her grief and her survivors guilt, is almost pathological. Within the show, she seeks one particular thing from her parter - immortality. Her entire family, with the exception of Jeremy, is dead. Of these she has seen her parents, Isobel and Jenna die in front of her. It is not only grief that she feels over these losses, it's also helpless, desperation, and a lot of trauma. In these situations, she essentially a person watching a train crash - on the sidelines, desperate to help them and save them, but helpless to do so.

Because of this trauma, she seeks to include people in her life that are immortal, and hard to kill. Be it Stefan, Damon, Caroline and Bonnie who's a powerful witch, as opposed to sending away Jeremy - someone who's mortal and can be hurt. She actively keeps an inner circle of supernatural beings around her because it's hard to lose them, and tries to distance the mortal ones - like Matt and April.

So it makes sense, that when she feels that she can't be with Stefan any longer, she is drawn towards Damon. Damon who takes the notion of death lightly, and plays with it, and has survived a lot. (A lot of this has to do with the sire bond, but we'll get into that some other day). But as it is, Elena feels safe with Damon because he is tough to kill, and it isn't selfish for anyone, let alone her, to seek security within a relationship. And to her, security is to not go through that grief or pain again.

Damon and his abuse of Caroline

Having said what I just did about Elena feeling secure with Damon, that's mainly according to her priorities and her specific trauma. Because yes, watching someone die, or being a spectator to trauma is also traumatic.

But, Damon isn't really safe, for anyone. Not even Elena. But he was particularly unsafe for Caroline. When we first see Damon meet Caroline, we see him charming her (because a seventeen year old girl is easy to charm), we see him flirting with her and going back to sleep with her. The scene then cuts to Damon biting Caroline and feeding on her - in the middle of sex. And she is traumatised, at which point he compels her and presumably this goes on. In the morning, she tries to run, he compels her again and then they go back out, behaving like a couple.

Now, the show runners themselves have never, ever acknowledged this as rape but it is rape. And we can see that, but Caroline never calls it rape - because she can't, and every time, Damon's abuse of Caroline is brought up, it is called abuse. It's said that Caroline is Damon's 'blood bag', she herself says that and calls herself his errand boy, but nobody ever calls it rape.

When Elena asks Stefan what Damon is doing to Caroline, he says that Damon is compelling her to feed on her. And we never see Elena and Caroline talking about it. So, in terms of the material that we have been presented with, we can conclude that Elena doesn't realise that Damon raped Caroline, because here's the thing, nobody on the show ever calls it rape. Not just in regards to Damon and Caroline, but in regards to Damon and Andy as well. Or Katherine and Stefan.

In a nutshell, TVD has a lot of consent issues, and straight up non-con, but it never addresses that, the narrative itself doesn't, and so we cannot hold a single character responsible for not seeing it. And if we can, then where is this energy when it comes to holding Stefan responsible for enabling Damon? Or Alaric - the grown man who hangs out with a rapist?

The 'Klaroline' of it

Klaus is the worst. He's a killer, he enjoys physically and psychologically torturing people, he literally enslaved his hybrids, then killed said hybrids just because they wanted to be free, killed his mother (who admittedly isn't mother of the year either), carted his siblings in boxes, and laughed when Finn expressed his trauma from being daggered for nine hundred years. Klaus is horrible, but he's arguably one of the best characters on the show, and is probably the best villain.

But he showers Caroline with affection. A lot of it, I think at least at the beginning, is love bombing. And while Caroline isn't amused by it, she is a little enamoured by it. She really is attracted to him, and doesn't like it. The thing is, Klaus is a lot like Damon, but he also cares about Caroline, and saves her life. Caroline is also traumatised, and has this belief that she'll never be anyones first priority - and I'll be absolutely clear on this, I'm not saying that Caroline isn't anyone's first priority, I'm saying that Caroline thinks so, and whether it's true or not isn't relevant to this particular conversation.

But Klaus at certain points, prioritises Caroline. And she's enamoured by this. When they fuck in the woods, he is only there for a day, and she wants to fulfil her desires, and maybe, get it out of her system, see what it's like. But, and I'm not sure of this, I haven't seen it discussed anywhere nor do I know Caroline's character enough to know if this is true, but I think sleeping with Klaus is Caroline's way of feeling in control.

Klaus is a lot worse than Damon, and she wants to feel in control with him, the kind of control she never had with Damon, as part of a trauma response. I'm not saying it's only a trauma response, but that part of it is. It's okay if anyone disagrees with this, or anything in this post, but this is my opinion. But, in either case, I'm not going to call it selfish.

There is a larger discussion here about what is selfishness, and it's always bad to be selfish, and whether or not a character being selfish should be a hindrance to liking them, but I digress. That's for another discussion.

Damon and his abuse of Elena

In episode 1x03 or 1x04 of TVD, Damon compels Elena to kiss him, but she's wearing vervain, so she doesn't get compelled. But honestly, Damon was so in love with Katherine, that he could've done anything to Elena simply because they look alike. In s2, he tries to break her hand, and physically abuses her, and throughout her relationship with Stefan and s3, he continually hits on her. In the end, she has no choice but to accept his behaviour.

In s4, he tricks her into blood sharing, and sleeps with her when she's sired to him. It's definitely sexual abuse, dub-con at best, but it isn't discussed because that clusterfuck of a plot point, the sire bond, is fucking weird. Elena is basically enslaved to Damon, like the hybrids are to Klaus, and no consent in this situation can ever be freely given.

So, I agree, Damon abuses Elena but it is never addressed, because the sire bond is presented, according to narrative, as a romantic thing.

In conclusion, a lot of TVD is rooted in misogyny, in fact the entire concept of 'who deserves Elena' is highly misogynistic because it treats Elena as an object to be coveted rather than a person. And so, it makes that quite a few fans are also misogynistic, but there's nothing we can do about it. Like I understand your frustration, and I'm right with you about Elena being hated for the most ridiculous reason, and I wish there was something we could do about it, but there isn't.

Thank you so much for sending this ask, it got me thinking about a lot of things, especially cause I'm neither a Klaroline nor a Delena shipper.

#tw sa #elena gilbert #caroline forbes #meta #klaus mikaelson #anti damon salvatore #damon salvatore #the vampire diaries #the originals #tvd #anon asks #rape #discussions of noncon

[thestarseersystem]

honest to god im so tired. no matter what your criticisms are of a system online, you should not accuse them of ableist things or demonize their disorder. Or just diagnose people with disorders on the internet.

I have always hated this dumb bitch ass youtuber, and I like DissociaDID, sure they've got into drama and given misinformation the past, but they also went through a lot of severe harassment and hatred that they did not deserve. And this STUPID person is STILL making videos online and they're so unequivocally false that its not even funny.

Like, DissociaDID has LITERALLY SAID MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!! MULTIPLE TIMES, that do NOT let their littles on their channel, and if it does happen, it's rare. Its really depressing that this dumbass mf makes up lies and distorts the truth about a very popular system in the internet sphere.

Back to the pathological liar thing, ANYONE who uses the term "narcissistic" to mean "bad person" is just an ableist. So, if you see an online denouncing of a popular creator, and they call them a sociopath, a psychopath, a narcissist, etc. thats just a sure fire way to know that they do not know what they are talking about and have taken it into bad faith.

I'm just honestly violently disgusted about this sort of behavior, and it sucks, because I found out that I was a system because of DissociaDID, and the fact that people assume that they're faking because of whatever the fuck is cruel and horrible.

I've been afraid to talk about this because I remember the drama surrounding DissociaDID, but I have never thought that they were lying. You shouldn't ever fakeclaim people on the internet, you don't know their story, you don't know what their life is like, you don't know what they went through.

Horrible ableists like Michelle Mana and other ableist drama youtubers don't deserve to have a platform. Don't support these people, don't watch their videos, don't actively seek them out or comment. It's not worth it.

I just want to bring attention to this specifically, because this horrible person is still making videos on this stuff, and it shows that these ableists do not see people with DID as people. They do not see mentally ill people as people. They do not see those with stigmatized disorders, such as personality disorders, as people. Because otherwise, they would not fakeclaim or see NPD as the worst thing.

No matter what big systems have done, it doesn't mean they deserve to be harassed or attacked on the internet. I don't want to see this shit when I search up a youtuber or creator that I like. I know it's lies, because if it was anything substantial, it would be addressed. But it's the same old shit again.

Fuck ableist content creators, we don't need this sort of blatant bigotry. Don't support this shit, no matter your criticisms of those involved.

#post.txt #tw ableism #tw fakeclaiming #dissociadid #like... i dont know how to tell ableists that this aint their business #im sorry youre mad for people existing?? #you should not dissect people's symptoms for clout #its really really depressing that there are people out there ready to throw mentally ill people under the bus #just so that they have some sort of argument #you can criticize them on the educational value and the things that they have done #but not on their disorder or intrinsic things about them that you have no idea about #no matter how you say this it will always look bad #i would put in image ids but its too infuriating to look at and its best if you dont #also you didnt catch shit bitchelle #all you caught was stupid disease

[yourdeepestfathoms]

My Hopes For The P2 Changeling Route

Or, just some things I think would be neat to see when the time eventually comes for her route!

1. More of Clara being an emotional mess.

One thing I was REALLY surprised to see in the P1 Changeling route is just how emotionally tormented Clara is. She constantly expresses anxiety, stress, and even what seems to be depression. I mean, she literally has a line where she says she has been crying for several days. She is EXTREMELY distressed and tormented, something that I don’t really see people discuss very often. This emotional state is especially jarring because of how she acts in the Bachelor and Haruspex route, where she’s seen being snarky, cryptic, and kinda bratty. And then to play her route and see just how broken she actually is is very shocking.

P2 Clara is very different from P1 Clara. She’s less childish and more “mature,” though that maturity, at least to me, is very fragile, and you can tell this is a young girl pretending to be and acting like an adult because she has to. She’s way more bossy, way more snarky, and sometimes even comes across as rude (though—and this may just be because I’m a Clara defender until the day I die—I don’t believe she’s trying to be cruel or mean, I just think she has a really bad filter and says things that aren’t appropriate. not that any of those traits are even bad traits that make her a bad character. she is a teenage girl, or at least has the mind and body of one; that’s a very normal way for her to act, and i think it’s strange how some people shit on her because of that, despite her being a very accurate portrayal of a teenage girl—you know, minus the cryptic parts of her. but i digress!). I mean, she literally sasses off Artemy on several occasions, and Artemy is probably double her size, triple her weight, quadruple her strength, and has the power to kick her across the Steppe like a football—that’s the most teenage rebellion thing ever! And I’m sure in the Bachelor route, we’ll see even more of her being fiery and snarky because Daniil and Clara have, like, DOUBLE the beef compared to Artemy and Clara!

To have ALL OF THAT—all of that upturned nose sarcasm, that haughty “I’m smarter than you professionally trained doctors with medical degrees and a proper education” attitude, that bull-headed sassiness that makes you want to tell her to put her proverbial phone on the counter and go to her room—and then to get into the Changeling route and see that she’s actually very, very emotionally damaged and mentally ill would be a stark duality to how we’ve seen her in the past two routes. I think it would be especially surprising to those who never played P1 or at least never got to her route and never witnessed that side of her. The mask (haha) would slip off, and suddenly all of her vulnerability is raw and exposed and throbbing before our very eyes.

Because, at the end of the day, Clara is a child. She is a very young girl with obvious mental health issues and a mountain load of responsibilities chained upon her back, a young girl who is bullied and verbally abused and threatened by basically every single adult she comes in contact with (not you, Lara, you’re the real one), a young girl who has been forced to act like the adult she is not because all the grown ups in her life are too incompetent to do things themselves and would rather put it all on a child like she’s their personal work dog (i understand why this is from a gameplay standpoint, she’s the player character ofc she’s going to go off and do the quests, but Jesus fucking Christ, Maria, why are you repeatedly sending a tiny middle schooler to stop the gay men from killing each other?!), a young girl with one of the most, if not the most tragic and downright cruel existences I have ever seen in a character in all of my years of engaging in fiction.

Ahem.

I just have a lot of feelings about this character, okay?

But with the way Pathologic 2 presents it’s storytelling and with the new gameplay mechanics and how it REALLY digs into where it hurts, if IPL DOES use and revamp this aspect of Clara, I think it would make the Changeling route absolutely incredible story-wise and character-wise. An exquisite emotional rollercoaster that never seems to stop going downhill. It would be the best way to strike players where it aches the most.

OR TLDR: I want Clara’s emotional problems to be brought back and expanded upon in P2 so people can see she’s not just a sassy little gremlin child (because I have a lot of feelings about her character often being reduced to just that by the fandom.)

2. An expansion on Clara being the Sand Pest.

Out of everything on this list, I think this is the most likely to come into fruition because it’s a BIG THING with her. But I still wanted to discuss it anyway because I have Many Thoughts.

So, Clara is the Plague. We know this. But in P1, I feel like it wasn’t addressed as much as it really should have. I mean, this is a GIANT revelation—that this girl is the living embodiment of this horrible disease and thousands of deaths are, technically speaking, her fault—and it’s just kinda…swept under the rug. Clara has a moment where she’s like “WHAT” and then it isn’t brought up that much after that.

(And, for the record, I understand why this is. Everyone knows by now that the Changeling route was rushed. This isn’t me ragging on IPL, especially when the Changeling route is still INCREDIBLY well-done, to the point where I personally believe the statement that it’s rushed has been greatly exaggerated by players.)

In P2, I hope that Clara being the Sand Pest is a much bigger aspect of her character because it really is a Huge Thing that needs to be expanded upon. I want to see her have a full-blown mental collapse over this because you can’t tell me that that’s not the appropriate reaction to finding out you’re a living Plague.

3. Interactions with the Sand Pest

I’m referencing that one particular Executor that shows up in P2 to taunt Artemy about killing his kids. During my run, I referred to it as “Sandy,” so for this portion, the bird is Sandy for simplicity.

So, I want Clara to interact with Sandy!

It was terrifying enough for Artemy to face off against this thing, but imagine being Clara, staring into the glowing eyes of what is essentially herself. And she’s forced to grapple with this thing, fight against the consequences of an existence she never asked for, and be constantly reminded that with every breath she takes, she’s stealing the breath from someone else.

4. More interactions between the three Mistresses

The Clara-Maria-Capella trio is really underrated in my opinion, and I hope we get to see more of those three interacting. Because we have Capella and Maria, who clearly already have this established relationship and actually like or at least respect each other, and then suddenly Clara is there, throwing off their, for lack of better words, vibe. (I just know Capella and Maria gossip about Clara when she isn’t in the Nutshell).

5. More interactions with the Albino

The relationship between Clara and the Albino is so adorable and wholesome, and Clara deserves this inkling of kinship and love that he gives her. It’s such an underrated dynamic and interaction that happens in P1, and I REALLY want to see it happen again in P2.

I hope Clara gets to meet all those Albinos that Artemy saw in the Abattoir. I think it would be cute if she just had this flock of brothers.

6. An expansion on how Clara’s powers can just backfire and kill people on accident instead of healing them

I think there were two people Clara accidentally kills in P1- Lika and that mugger outside of Barley’s lair. It’s not mentioned at all with the mugger, and then with Lika, Clara freaks out briefly and then is like “anyway…”

This “power”—the ability to kill people with a single touch—REALLY needs to be expanded upon. Because it is a GOLDMINE for trauma and guilt. It’s also just something that needs to be explored way more because it’s a really interesting concept that P1 never gave much details about.

7. A deeper look into Clara’s existence as a child of Earth

I just really love that she is a dirt child and think it’s super cool part of her character, and I want her to have a deeper connection to those roots (pun intended). The lore in the game and the Steppe culture is so interesting, and it could be explored way more through the eyes of Clara, who is new to it, whereas Artemy knew most of it and Daniil just doesn’t fucking care to learn.

8. No more “stop the gay men from killing each other” quests

As funny as the concept of this small child stopping two sexually tensive men from beating the shit out of each other is, it got REALLY OLD after the second time. At the very least, the dialogue that you get when you speak to Artemy and Daniil each time should be different every day. If they hadn’t said the same thing Every Single Time, I think I wouldn’t have minded the repetitive quests as much.

9. Bring back the Barbie Blaster

Clara is clearly bigger and a little older than she was in P1, but I hope her hands are still too tiny to hold normal guns because I honestly really liked that little mechanic. It made her different than the other two. Also the baby gun you get is literally the best gun ever, idk what hbomberguy was talking about, that thing NEVER missed for me.

10. This funky healing mechanic I thought about

So, I started wondering about something- how is healing going to work in both the Changeling and Bachelor route? After all, they can’t exactly use tinctures anymore. But given how stupidly hard the game is, I wouldn’t be surprised if it expects you to get actual medicine yourself and make yourself go broke.

I then thought about this funky mechanic! I just wanted to put it here instead of making an entirely different post.

So, instead of using tinctures, Clara uses her hands. There are the three layers, like in the Haruspex route, and depending on which layer is afflicted, Clara suffers some kind of penalty while healing the patient, whether it be hunger, exhaustion, or thirst. This makes it to where she can’t just heal people without any sort of price to pay AND it makes her healing way more important because it really was just referenced in the first game. There were less than a handful of times where she ACTUALLY healed someone (not counting the Plague victims, as that is entirely optional). So with this she ACTUALLY heals people and has a very obvious power.

(Side note: maybe the less health Clara has, the less likely she is to heal people and instead accidentally kill them. Or if she’s infected, then she kills her patient or even infects them—or raises their infection level altogether if they’re already infected.)

11. An expansion on how Clara’s healing powers literally hurt her

Empathic healing, where a person has the power to heal but they heal by essentially absorbing the ailment of a person into their own body, is SUCH a good concept, and I don’t know if this was what IPL was actually going for, but I really want Clara getting hurt when she heals to be a bigger thing in her route. Because she DOES take damage when she heals Plague victims, and MAYBE that’s just a balance thing in the game, but even still! A lot of good game mechanics can come into play if healing harms her!

12. More Lara and Yulia interactions

I don’t have much to say about this, I just really like those two and want them to talk to Clara way more

13. A cool opening animation of her birth from the Earth

Artemy got the train sequence, Daniil is probably gonna get him slogging through the Steppe because it seems like brother really fucking walked all the way to the Town, so it would make a lot of sense for Clara’s opening to be her clawing her way out of the Earth and waking up in the graveyard! I know IPL could make a really cool sequence with that, so I have high hopes.

#i know it’ll probably be another couple of years until her route is finally released #but i just wanted to voice my thoughts #ugh WHY does the bachelor have to go next #I know why obviously #but i just want clara content 😭 #also please ignore how many times i say things are interesting and cool #pathologic #pathologic 2 #pathologic hd #pathologic ​classic hd #clara saburova #clara the changeling #clara pathologic #daniil dankovsky #daniil pathologic #the bachelor #the bachelor pathologic #artemy burakh #artemy pathologic

[kylejsugarman]

I hate to be the one to do this (blatant lie) but what do you think about Jesse’s physical health in El Camino and what sort of treatment do you believe he may need to recover physically? I think about how likely it is that he is experiencing chronic pain and illness, repercussions of what he’s been through, for the rest of his life and it hits me right in the heart.

(all the furniture flies into the walls) LIKE. ok i acknowledge that my fixation on this part of the narrative is motivated by me being in med school and having been obsessed with pathology and treatment since forever, but its also like this little part of me who wants to fill in every detail and realistically approach EVERY aspect of the story, even the ones that aren't necessarily important to the narrative. like it was way more important to show how jesse gets the money together to escape than what kind of electrolyte solution he needs DFGHDFGH

but yeah :( its hard because i know there's not really a place in the story for this physical recovery to take place, but he would absolutely need intravenous intervention for dehydration and severe malnutrition, especially in the context of electrolyte loss (i am making the horrifically realistic assumption here that he was subsisting on scraps at the compound). he specifically needs sodium and potassium, so he would need ringer's lactate IV fluid or 0.9% saline for initial hydration and so he could actually absorb the nutrients of anything he eats. then we have the matter of all those scars we see at the beginning of el camino and although most of the ones we see are keloided, there could definitely still be open or half-healed wounds and the ones that are "closed" are more likely than not infected due to him Living In A Hole and not having sufficient nutrition or time to rest given jesse was probably still cooking for them up until the very end. even if he wasn't in sepsis from untreated infection, he would at least probably need to go on antibiotics and have his wounds irrigated, disinfected, and properly closed/sutured. if u look at the physical state jesse would realistically be in at the very beginning of el camino, it's insane that he was able to drive away (adrenaline probably) and survive the night at skinny's.

as for the fucking. longer-term :( we know that jesse was physically tortured, not just at the compound but throughout the entirety of the show. based on what we see in the finale and el camino, he didn't have adequate safety gear at all when he was cooking for jack's gang, not even fucking gloves. again (digging my fingernails into tabletop) he was living in a Fucking Pit with exposure to the elements, disturbed sleep, and limited self-maintenance, which is a recipe for general illness and infection. we know that he at least survives long enough to make it to alaska, but it's going to basically be impossible for him to live there for longer than a couple of weeks without medical care. he's probably breathed in a LOT of hazardous vapors that might trigger adult asthma. his immune system is going to be absolutely destroyed. the neurological ramifications of the (many) head injuries he sustained are going to require some kind of intervention and might lead to problems with coordination and walking and memory, as well as migraines. even if his wounds heal correctly and any broken bones/muscle strains are resolved, he's going to experience chronic pain from the injury to his nerves, especially in his back and limbs from the mechanical and nerve stress of cooking while in shackles. he'll probably have more cardiovascular problems earlier in life too.

LIKE. this is so fucking long already oh my god, but its not even like a. idk, its not a torture porn thing for me, its just where my mind goes and how i think about this stuff. jesse is such an important character to me and i know its like a meme that he suffered more than christ and it would be ridiculous and cruel to want to see him suffer any more, but the idea of him actually receiving adequate medical care and having the physical ramifications of everything he's been through properly treated is just as important to me as like him getting the therapy and psychological help he would also desperately need after surviving this. its important to me.

#bookofmajora #ask #syd squeaks #u have opened. this isn't even Pandora's box this is fucking pandora's trunk #jesse pinkman #el camino #ask to tag #long post

[francesderwent]

WAIT OK SORRY IT'S SUPER LATE BUT you're losing me?

I will accept this late message because I love you, and because “You’re Losing Me” is exactly the song that my original text post complaining about Swifties missing the point was about haha 

the Swiftie lyric: “I wouldn’t marry me either a pathological people pleaser” and also to a lesser extent “I’m getting tired even for a phoenix always rising from the ashes”

the lyric we should be paying attention to: “who only wanted you to see her” and “lose something babe, risk something. choose something babe I’ve got nothing to believe unless you’re choosing me”

ugh the reaction to this song drives me up a wall. to pull out “I wouldn’t marry me either a pathological people-pleaser” WITHOUT finishing the line?? are you nuts??? because the end of the line gives us so much context!!! he’s not losing her because she wanted to make the whole place shimmer and he wanted to hide and found her people-pleasing ways annoying, no! he’s losing her because all she wanted, the only person at the end of the day that she wanted to please, was him. but actually the song keeps going, it tells us even more as Taylor does what she always does: gives very clear instructions of exactly what he needs to do to dig them out of this hole. and it’s not pay more attention to her, it’s choose her. she said in “Cruel Summer”, we say that we’ll just screw it up in these trying times, we’re not trying—and he’s STILL not. he won’t risk. but he can’t keep going on in this same way, floating in limbo forever. and so she has nothing to place her faith in, her faith that was always so strong. 

basically what it comes down to is this. the popular reception of this song I’ve seen is so focused on the one pathological people-pleaser line that it’s somehow spun an interpretation of the song as about falling out of love when you’re convinced you’re unlovable. it’s just a shade off from the “what a shame she’s fucked in the head” of “champagne problems”; the blame is turned inward, except for very brief moments where it looks out at him to spit specific accusations “I know my pain is such an imposition”, “don’t you ignore me I’m the best thing at this party” etc.  and I think that’s absolutely bullshit. “You’re Losing Me” is definitely not about pulling away and sabotaging the relationship, and it’s not even about someone doing a bunch of little hurtful things in the relationship. it’s about the relationship dying because one person won’t make a choice about what the relationship is and what it means. it’s Taylor giving the final word on the feminine experience of being taken for granted and strung along. it’s about waiting for someone to commit to you, and they never do. it’s about when you wanted to give everything, but your partner will only ever give a little, so you have to stop giving. to me, this is just clear. and I think the only reason that it hasn’t been taken note of is because the culture wants to go on believing that taking the “step” of living together while always keeping the back door open is somehow “good for the relationship”. but it isn’t. it’s not the familiar violence of being left, “this thing was a masterpiece til you tore it all up”, but it is just as destructive. it just kills you slowly. 

#ask game #aaaaaand this is why I vague-blogged about it rather than posting my thoughts haha #but the point is Taylor has never once let a man get away with anything #she’s called out cowardice and insensitivity and coldness and every other thing that a girl ever felt wounded by #and now she comes after what’s almost the last villain standing: the good guy who just won’t fucking propose #edit: women do not have a monopoly on being taken for granted and strung along #but if I can be allowed to draw with broad strokes for a second #I think generally women are taken for granted once they are ALREADY in a relationship #but the man won’t pull the trigger and propose #and men are generally taken for granted BEFORE the relationship. #there are exceptions in both directions obviously

[meirimerens]

"One cannot blame a birthday girl, a person in love, or a dancer for being cruel" goes like so so hard as a line and it's from fucking. pathologic-first-of-name's Khan character concepts texts. about his own sister, and not even about him, on his own concept pieces. L.

#it goes so hard need to use it for a caption #neigh (blabbers)

[handoverthekawaii]

We Go Together | Homelander x You | Chapter 15

Taglist: @hom3landr

Special thanks to @xieyaohuan for your analysis of Homelander’s penthouse, which came in handy as I wrote this chapter 💕

Vought Tower is closed at this hour, but you manage to talk your way through security with a flash of your badge and a lie about leaving your house keys at your desk. You break into a run once you’re past the lobby, dashing to the elevator bank and pressing the “Up” button over and over until a set of doors finally opens.

You’ve never had a reason to visit the 99th floor until tonight. As the elevator climbs higher, you experience a brief moment of panic — What if I can’t find Homelander’s apartment? And even if I can find it, what if he isn’t there?

And if he is there, what am I going to say?

As it turns out, your concerns about navigating the tower’s top floor are highly overblown. Black Noir is walking by when the elevator doors open, and he stops and (presumably?) gives you a look of curiosity.

“Good evening, sir,” you say. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I am looking for Homelander, actually. Could you tell me where…?” Before you even finish asking the question, Black Noir is already pointing down a nearby hall.

“Oh, awesome! Thank you so much,” you tell Black Noir and then, because you aren’t sure how to end a conversation where only one person is talking, you follow it up with a wave. To your surprise, the Supe waves back before you part ways.

Following Black Noir’s directions, you soon find yourself standing at the threshold of a nondescript entryway. There is no door — instead, a U-shaped hall curves sharply around a blind turn, ostensibly leading to Homelander’s penthouse. After pausing a moment to psych yourself up, you take a deep breath and step around the curve.

Destruction. That’s the only way you know to describe Homelander’s apartment as the space comes into view. You try to take everything in — the shattered wall of windows, the broken and blackened monitors, the shards of glass and plaster littering the dusty wooden floor. The upturned furniture, the defaced paintings, the priceless sculptures lying smashed and in pieces at your feet.

And right in the middle of it all — Homelander, in the nude, on the floor, curled in the fetal position in the wreckage of his grief.

He’s half-asleep, in a daze of unending suffering and hollow regret, twisted together in a pathological urge to inflict pain. On the motherfuckers who trapped him in the Bad Room for all those years, on a citizen chosen at random from the street below… on himself.

Who knows? Who cares? It doesn’t fucking matter anymore.

And that’s when he hears it: “H?”

That voice. Could it be—?

No. It must be a cruel trick of the mind, a hallucination. Divine punishment, the first in a series that will continue unbroken from today until he takes his last breath.

“H, it’s me.”

No. It’s not possible. He doesn’t dare believe it.

But he has to look.

Homelander’s lids flutter and his vision focuses — on the figure standing before him, in a stream of moonlight pouring through the picture window. Angelic, a halo of moon-kissed hair around your beautiful, perfect face.

Your face. Because it’s YOU.

Homelander’s eyes go wide, his brows lift in disbelief. His lips part and he whispers, “…Y/N?”

“Yes,” you answer, kneeling down on the floor beside him and putting one hand on his neck below the ear. “I’m here.”

Homelander sits up, his face level with yours, his expression uncertain, searching. “But you — but I — how?”

“I don’t know,” you tell him. “The only thing I know for sure is that I’m fine. See?”

You hold out your arm — the arm you used to shield your face at that unspeakable moment when Homelander lost control. There’s no burn, no laceration, no exposed muscle or gleaming bone — only a tiny, almost imperceptible mark on your skin.

It’s unbelievable. It’s perfect. YOU’RE perfect. Homelander doesn’t deserve it, he has known that every second of every day since he met you. But even so you aren’t turning him away, you’ve never shoved him aside for his sinfulness or imperfections.

You’ve come back. And the fact that you are here now, beside him, unharmed — well, that’s a goddamn fucking miracle. [continued on AO3]

#ao3 writer #fanfic #homelander x reader #the homelander #homelander x y/n #homelander x you #homelander #homelander the boys #the boys #the boys tv #the boys amazon #the boys fanfic

[neyafromfrance95]

Sylvie Laufeydottir in the Fanfics.

i love all the different takes on Sylvie in the fanfiction and i think that the fic writers should be bold when it comes to experimenting with her characterization, so i don't mean to be dogmatic or anything about it, but i think there is fun in trying to grasp the essential traits of a character and trying to write them as in-character as possible as well.

and if i'm being completely honest, there are not a whole lot of fics that have Sylvie characterized in a very "canon accurate" way.

i'm not saying that i am the one who has this correct idea of what kind of a character Sylvie is, but here are my two cents on what makes Sylvie - Sylvie.

first of all, here is what i think some people get wrong about Sylvie:

when she is reduced to exhaustion and stress.

it's true that Sylvie is an anxious character with many issues caused by her struggles, but Sylvie we saw in the series is passionate and driven.

when her one true dream and a final destination beyond revenge is settling down into a domestic lifestyle.

there is no hint of Sylvie dreaming about an uneventful, quiet, ordinary life. the flashbacks into her past suggest that her dream (and possibly her glorious purpose) was to be a hero. we see Sylvie living a low-key life in S2 teaser, and she doesn't look happy at all, she looks depressed af, which indicates that such lifestyle is not right for her.

Sylvie being sadistic.

i think the series makes a point that Sylvie is not sadistic at all. she never does more than necessary to her enemies, she is not cruel for the sake of being cruel. yes, she is feral and competitive, but those aren't the same as sadism. she puts Hunter C in a safe mental space while investigating her, she empathizes with Hunter B, she kills HWR with a quick stab. compare her approach to her enemies to pre-series!Loki's and Ravonna's - they tend to verbally hurt, scare and humiliate their enemies.

the only argument Sylvie has for fighting against Kang being "he wronged me."

yes, she is motivated by a personal vendetta. yes, she can be quite single-minded. but! her experiences with the the tva, awareness of who they are and what they represent, have shaped her worldview. Sylvie is an idealistic character, her revenge boils down to "he hurt me", but she has to believe that her mission is serving a good cause against the oppressive fascists. i believe this is why she is so discouraged and passive in the teaser of S2 - Kang tarnished her idealistic perception of her life's work. she doesn't feel like a hero any more, and it mattered a lot to her that she was a hero - Loki validating her heroism was one of the reasons why she fell for him.

Sylvie being a manipulative femme fatale.

another aspect of her persona that is portrayed very clearly in the series is her honesty. she is a straightforward character, always true to who she is. her kiss was not a deception, it was an expression of her feelings and emotions that exploded when Loki told her that he only cared about her.

Sylvie being overly-apologetic to the tva and Loki.

while Sylvie might feel like she fucked up and have an existential crisis, i highly doubt that she would feel apologetic to the very people who kidnapped her when she was a child and stalked her with an ill intent. "these new Kangs are bad so you were right when you destroyed my world and oppressed me" doesn't feel like an authentic Sylvie response. she most probably feels bad for pushing Loki away, but not to the point of self-depreciation and begging for forgiveness since she still felt backstabbed by him bc he did betray her, technically - he went back on his word and got in the way of her glorious purpose.

let's now move on to the aspects of her characterization that are pretty essential. i won't be elaborating too much on these for now.

she is assertive and strong-willed.

she does everything on her own terms, never compromising.

the themes of freedom and choice play a very important role in her story.

she has the pathological trust issues, and some anger issues as well.

she has probably been to every corner of the multiverse without ever settling in one place, so she never got to properly socialize within any cultural framework and she was exposed to the countless cultures. so, she has to be very nonconforming.

a glorious purpose means everything to Sylvie. it gives her life a meaning and is her driving force. out of all Lokis, it's probably Sylvie who values and prioritizes the glorious purpose the most.

she is truly like a feral cat in many ways.

she is the Multiverse Liberator.

(i always thought that out of all fictional characters, Sylvie is the most similar to Arya from ASOIAF btw)

but in the end of the day, we are still a new fandom, so it's understandable that there aren't many fics that have an astonishingly canon accurate characterization. it's ok and please don't hold yourself back from writing Sylvie if you are unsure about her characterization. the more you write and try, the better your vision of a character becomes! that's how the writing improves. also, i would encourage you to explore Sylvie's relationships with other characters as well. i mean, there is just so much to Sylvie's dynamic with Kang and Ravonna, it'd be interesting to write about Sylvie's journey around the multiverse, you all could let your imagination go absolutely wild, the Postman could be the ultimate OC in Sylvie fics (fancasting Will Sharpe, Sophia Di Martino's husband, as the legendary Postman)...

anyways, i think Sylki and Sylvie writers are some of the best fan writers out there (bc let's be real, there are not a lot of fandoms that characterize their faves very accurately to begin with), i'm only trying to say that if you are interested in writing very in-character, it won't be difficult since Sylvie is pretty strongly characterized in the series.

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