#i know shes being abused in some capacity and that her husband is a fucking asshole but shes a bitch so i dont talk to her at all anyway

[bunnyb34r]

Trying to undo the damage of Facebook w/o risking your relationship with a loved one is like defusing a fucking bomb sometimes I stg

#marquilla #i had a whole thing typed out ab this but ugh #im trying to explain to my mom that no they are not fighting to let children have sex changes. the only sex change sugery they preform on #minors are the fucked up shit they do to intersex kids at birth #that hormone therapy would be the only 'trans treatment' a minor could get and no it will not be w/o parental consent. and that hrt is #reversible. #id love to try to deradicalize the rest of my family but im sorry those motherfuckers are too far gone for me to try and keep my own sanity #like 1 went from far right to libertarian which isnt much better but it's something but im still leery of him ngl #and tra/dwife cousin's husband is full blown far right and i know it's wrong but i dont care enough ab them to want to try #ahdhdgdg i know it's bad but like they can all go to hell idc #and then theres the cousin i dont talk to who is a bible thumping freak who told his sister at her fucking lesbian wedding something #something god doesn't approve or something like that like 😬 #and hes in a cult of some kind im sure but i didnt dig deep enough to find out if it's just WS flavored or full on WS shit #but theyre dead to me. i only have my lesbian cousin w/that last name sorry i dont have any [name]s in my family besides her #wouldnt put it past tra/dwife cousin's sister to be in some cult or cult adjacent beliefs honestly #i know shes being abused in some capacity and that her husband is a fucking asshole but shes a bitch so i dont talk to her at all anyway #(not that her being a bitch makes her deserving of that. those statements are two sep things. i feel bad shes being abused. AND separately #shes a bitch and her being a bitch is why i dont talk to her) #ANYWAY I Have a headache so im gonna wash the gunk off and hope i feel better

[freyjas-musings]

I am going to address this here I am not on Twitter and I don't intend to be either.... To the person who sent this to me ... Thanks... I am also not blocking out the user name because she didn't bother doing so either

So Rika you really believe I want Elriel but without Elain. Here is my question... why ?

Elain is fictional so are Gwyn and Azriel . If I really liked the dynamic of that duo why wouldn't I just ship them? Ah, now you think I hate Elain don't you?

I am just going to say this and I hope to God you have the sense to actually understand, do you know how much there is to hate in the real world I will give you an example of what I hate...

I hate that a woman's been denied the right to her own body when it comes to carrying a child

I hate that young girls are denied the right to education

I hate that women in parts of the world are paid a lot less for the same amount work.

I hate the abuse thats inflicted on young girls.

I hate that human beings are assholes who don't understand they are not the only creation on earth . We don't how to coexist we litter the earth, we destroy eco systems and we are doing all of that out of greed.

So that is a brief sample of the things I really hate .... I am at capacity my friend .... this itself is a lot of burden to carry because I don't have control of any of those things . I still help in whatever way I can .... if you lot think supporting female artists is the only thing I do for women you are wrong .... its one of the many things I do... I am just as actively involved in helping women who go through domestic violence for example.

I don't hate Elain ... The idea sounds so stupid juvenile and dramatic. Unlike some of you I don't spend my life on the internet spewing nonsense and drawing straws of self worth from it .

Now coming to the Aesthetic.... I don't care what goes on in your head but I hate to break it to you light and dark is also one of the Aesthetics that fit in with Gwyn and Az .... day and night is not the only light and dark theme.... night sky and moon are considered light and dark too.... the night sky and the stars that light it also come under the light and dark theme .

Don't you people get tired ?

Listen my friend I am going to say this to you none of you really matter to me except if someone attacks one of you based on your gender in which case I will do what I can to help I don't care which side or which country you are in I will try to help.

You guys are not important to me . I am part of this fandom for some fun I stick to my lane , I do my own thing . I have a lot going on in my personal life this fandom is a way to forget the difficult things in my life and you guys are robbing me off of that.

I have an autistic toddler that I worry about all day every day whether he will have friends ... whether he will be happy .... whether he will be safe ... I have severe anxiety issues because of that .

I have a job which is so stressful that if I make one mistake it can cost a person's life and millions of dollars .

I have a husband who would get me the moon if I pouted yet I have not been able to give him the time he deserves

I have an aging family thousands of miles away who I haven't seen in over 5 years...

Do you see why you and your little friends are not a problem to me ?

Do you see how this fandom is my way of escaping my hell hole while also doing my bit for the female artists ???

I am not writing this post for sympathy or as a sob story .... I don't give a shit about a bunch of internet trolls sympathising with my life .... but I need people to understand this fictional shit isn't that deep. Just stay the fuck in your lanes and mind your own business. Why is it so hard for you lot?

#gwynriel #anti elriel #elriel #elain acotar #elain archeron

[ourflagmeansroleplay]

CW for s//xual ass//ult, among other unpleasant topics

So we actually know a great deal about Anne's early life. Like, an almost SURPRISING amount, given that the majority of what we know of pirates comes from a combination of self-aggrandizing tales and A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (Cap. Charles Johnson). I'm trying to take a large number of my cues for Anne from history, especially since I'd like to write a novel about her. You know that idea we have of the wild and free child from modest origins with a fiery tongue and a penchant for mischief? It's quite literally Anne.

Anne was born from an affair between her relatively-well-to-do father and the family maid; this affair tore the family apart, prompting William Cormac's wife to leave him. He would never go on to marry her mother, but he did take a shining to the young girl, and arranged for her to live with him...as a boy. Which she did not identify as. Eventually the truth is discovered and William, Anne, and maid/mother Mary move to--get this!--Charleston, South Carolina. From fucking County Cork, Ireland.

After the move, Anne begins displaying a "fierce and courageous temper, which in this case can be directly translated to murdered another girl and also beat a suitor half to death when he tried to r*pe her. (We stan a violent queen.) She gained a reputation for galivanting around with the wrong sorts, if you catch my drift, but is ultimately only disowned when she marries a poor sailor, James Bonny.

(JB is a professional snitch who turns in pirates and takes bounties on doing so, btw.)

So the thing is, this wild child doesn't change her ways. She's still a violent galivanting free spirit taking randos to bed, including--you guessed it!--old Calico Jack himself. History says they fell in love and Anne ran off with him; one way or another, Anne Bonny winds up a crewman on The William. (Here's another fun fact: Stede's brilliant plan to fake his own death on OFMD may actually have been inspired by Anne, who reportedly mangled a dressmaker's mannequin, smeared it with fake blood, and stood above it wielding an axe to scare the French into an easy surrender.)

Now women, of course, aren't really "allowed" at sea, even in the context of piracy, so Anne would go on to do what a lot of badass bitches have to: forcible silencing of the opposition. In Anne's case, this was a knife to the heart of one such nay-sayer. "Allegedly." Anne goes on to live her life mostly unbothered as a woman onboard The William, serving as both wife and work-wife to Jack.

--As you can maybe imagine, I fuck with about 70% of that.

Sexuality and sexual liberation being what it was at the time, I sincerely doubt Anne experienced much of it, especially much by way of choice. For the purposes of this blog and maybe my novel, JB exaggerated his wife's affairs in order to further villainize her. I do think she met Jack and became a bit star-struck by him and followed him out to sea, and I think early on she may have loved him...but I think the cycle of men using and abusing her continued. Especially if she had half as many affairs as history accuses her of at the time, I really doubt Jack would've been interested in marrying her, but I don't doubt for a moment that he led her on. I don't think they ever actually "got married" so much as they acted in the capacity of husband and wife, sometimes sharing a bed, etc. I think Anne grew discontent with being treated as lower than Jack, as some novelty for him to show off, and I think she took that discontent out on anyone stupid enough to challenge her, including the crewmate she stabbed to death ("allegedly") and literally anyone who engaged The William and her crew.

I also think--and history finally starts agreeing with me here--that Anne didn't find happiness until she met Mary Read, whom history insists was a woman who was forced to dress up as a man but whom I very strongly feel was either gender-fluid or non-binary and just getting CIS-washed because they were less known than Bonny, who actually WAS forced to pretend to be a man for large chunks of her life. I have to admit that Str8 Historians really crack me the fuck up when they insist that Anne Bonny tried to "seduce" Mary (sure, Jan) and that Mary's response was "love to but can't, I also have boobies" before showing said boobies as proof, instead of, like...y'know, Mary being in a dangerous situation and having half an ally in this woman aboard a fucking pirate ship and being like "yo bish, me too!". (Mary, at their core, was a survivalist, having first been dressed as a boy when they were a child in order to keep money coming in for their family and later switching between both identities as it suited them.) So Anne and Mary strike up an affair so torrid, Jack gets jealous and goes to kill Mary for touching his wife...only to discover Mary has boobies and doing the Str8 thing of "oh lol, they're just gals bein' pals, kay."

For the sake of this blog--and, again, my maybe-novel--it was at this point in time that Jack Really Fucked Up. Threatening to kill Mary, aka the first real friend (and probable lover) that Anne had ever had, drove the wedge between them. Mary and Anne would abandon ship without Jack's blessing, going on the run together and being badass bitches.

With all that said and understood, the Anne on this blog is a broken woman who believes herself to be without an identity--a drifter, an outcast, a creature of anger and spite, and not one capable of loving or being loved outside of the choice few like Mary, and maybe not even by them. Sex was never consensual for Anne; like many women of her day, it was a duty to be borne, particularly when one was married and/or in love. She can't picture herself living a life of plenty because she can't even picture herself living a life of enough, seeing piracy as the only viable expression of who she really is.

Historically, Anne Bonny went down swinging. Jonathan Barnett, a loyal navyman of the British crown, attacked The William during one drunken night. Calico Jack Rackham was an absolute fuck who surrendered almost immediately upon being attacked and his men stayed down in the hold while the British boarded. His "WOMEN," meanwhile, were having none of that shit. Bonny, Read, and a crewman Read had taken on as a lover fought the British damned near single-handedly. At one point during the battle, Bonny famously called into the hold "If there’s a man among ye, ye’ll come up and fight like the man ye are to be!" Nobody came. Bonny fired once into the hold, killing a crewman. Ultimately, the battle was lost and the entirety of The William were taken ashore and executed for crimes against the crown. Rackham's last request was to see Anne one last time (she says to his face "If you had fought like a man, you need not have been hang’d like a dog," effectively ending that relationship), and ten days later Anne and Mary are granted a short pardon from fucking dying because they're both pregnant. They are, of course, hung shortly after delivering the babies.

#↬ anne bonny #content tag tba #↬ m. read #↬ lore #↬ history

[aizenat]

Not you saying there's nothing about you being negative when you search your name as if posts about you dismissing male victims of abuse just to support a problematic white woman and other users calling you out pls 💀

Listen, this was really fun for a while, but you're making me have to be serious, which obviously isn't fun. So let me read you a bit.

First off, you're lying. Your "posts about you dismissing male victims of abuse" claim isn't a thing at all. The closest thing to a call out post re: me that you'll be able to find in my tag is someone putting me on a block list with random people and ZERO explanation of why. On top of that, that very person has a reputation of making random blocklists for people, and putting them on there despite them being generally left-leaning social liberals who would agree with them on anything. Searching that person's url will bring that up in two seconds. These posts you're pretending to say exist literally don't.

I also know you're lying because never have I ever on my page "dismissed male victims of abuse." If you're trying to reference how I speak out against how Amber Heard was publicly harassed by her abusive ex-husband last year, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, you're trying to defend a loser drunk who has a long history of preying on young and vulnerable women/girls, as well as abuse and violence, who literally texted his friend how he wanted to violently murder her for giggles. I've seen abuse victims deal with that trauma in a lot of ways, and never have I seen one do something like that. Seen plenty of abusers do that, though.

Whether or not Amber Heard is "problematic," it doesn't mean she is incapable of being a victim of abuse and/or misogyny. Implying her being "problematic" immediately means she can't be a victim of these things plays into the perfect victim mindset that literally kills women because, remember, a perfect victim is a dead victim. If a cop racially profiled Kanye West tomorrow and shot and killed him, we would still be upset over the racism of that action despite Kanye being...like that. Someone can hold disgusting views and you can still be disgusted with the way they are oppressed. If Amber not being a perfect victim means she can't be a victim of abuse to you, then that really shows how immature and unintelligent you are. Someone can harbor disgusting views and still be part of a marginalized identity and be a victim to being marginalized. The only way you can say that's not the case is if you believe women are not oppressed. And if we can't even agree on that, then please leave my page because I don't deal with anti-feminists in any capacity.

And to my last point, I really want you to think long and hard about why you decided to take this here over a tag on a fucking gifset. I didn't add to the post, I didn't find the man (whoever he is) to harass him, I didn't go on twitter or online sites where he'd likely see these comments to say this; it was just a random thought I had and wanted to share. The man obviously had work done, at least botox. That's just straight facts. If that annoyed you, a simple unfollow or block would do. If you wanted to send one "hey, that was shitty of you" ask on your way out, then fine.

But you spent all day basically going through my blog looking for things to criticize. You talked about wanting to see what I looked like, obviously so you mock me. You're in my inbox lying about what is being said about me in order to make it seem like I'm some monster. I'm just a random person on tumblr, the least influential social media site, shitposting in my spare time. That's it. There was no reason to take this to this point.

And this is what I mean about the way kpoppies make this not fun. I couldn't reblog something and add something cheeky in the tags without being harassed? All of this over "#idk who this man is but his plastic surgery is very distracting and ugly looking#you get work done then wanna load up on Botox why?" Really? I said a man's botox looked ugly and that warrants you trying to make me look like some horrible person who hates abuse victims or something? Does that even make sense? "Oh, this person dunked on my bias' botox: SHE MUST HATE AND DISMISS ABUSE VICTIMS!"

Like, hello? It's just kpop. It's a billion dollar industry that fuels overworking, eating disorders, body dysmorphia, depression and anxiety, capitalism and consumerism, racism, and misogyny. It doesn't need your defending. And if you decided you didn't like me just for insulting him, that's fine too. You don't need to do that thing where you try to make me "problematic" (I'm not lol) so you can justify it; it's okay to just not like people sometimes. My feelings are not hurt. You are not the first to dislike me, nor will you be the last.

I get that it's the internet and it's easy to not consider the problematic thinking and action patterns that you're engaging in, but when you find yourself rabidly going through someone's page to find "dirt," making up lies about people talking about/calling them out, and sending out hate messages after hate messages, then it's time to log off and take a step back. If you believe yourself to be a good person, and I'm sure you do, then now is a time for self reflection. Be a little self aware. Is this what good people who wish to spread positivity do? Do they send hate anons to strangers all over someone wanting to be a hater for a minute?

So I'm going to turn off anonymous messaging and put you in a bit of a time out so you can calm down and think about how inappropriate you're being. I don't take abuse lightly as I am very familiar with it, and so I will not tolerate you trying to use it as a gotcha all over a fucking gifset of a few kpop idols. One day, I hope you remember your actions today and cringe at how ridiculous you were being. And I really hope you're currently at an age where you'd be able to laugh and think "what a dumb child I was."

[babbushka]

Hey babes!! I don't have any prompts on mind but can I pls request something with supreme leader and the Knights of Ren. I love how much they worship their empress. Ahhhh. Can you do something where she has her wrists tied down. And they all take turns using her. Thanks babes 💓💓

Anonymous said: Can I request “Bite me” ”If you insist” with Supreme Leader Kylo and the KoR. Pls pls. 

Anonymous said:  hi! completely forgot to name the prompt list lol, it was the smut one! 2- just a little harder, 6- use your tongue, and 15- open your mouth. hope that’s okay!

(800w, NSFW [gangbang/group sex (PIV & anal], marking/hickies, blindfolds, frankly an obscene amount of come lol, possessive Kylo])

It’s hard to tell where one body ends, and another begins. In your quarters, Kylo and his Knights have you completely covered, have you surrounded. 

The Force thrums and pulses all around you, right down through your very bones, courses through your veins. It is pleased, so pleased, and so are they – pleased that they can pleasure you.

They’ve all returned from a mission, and you are their prize, their reward for a job well done. 

Kylo lets them have this, lets them indulge in the carnal desires of your body, only on special occasions such as these. There are rules, strict and unwavering rules that Kylo has imposed, and the Knights are more than eager to follow, for they’ll take any piece of you that they can get, that Kylo will give them.

They love you because Kylo loves you, because the Force loves you, but they do not love you nearly as much, or as strongly. So, while they have you tied up in beautiful silk ropes and bondage of leather straps, while they take their turns fucking your pussy until you’ve come all over yourself, while they shoot their loads all over your tits, your stomach, into your mouth – they know the rules, and they follow them.

One such rule, is of the marks they’re allowed to leave on your flesh; or rather, the marks they’re not allowed.

“Bite me.” You order Kylo, your voice raspy as a cock slips out of your throat, come hot and thick as it spills onto your chin. 

You don’t know whose it is, the blindfold secured around your eyes for a sensory deprivation experience that has your entire body on fire.

“If you insist.” He’s somewhere far away, but you can feel him moving towards you, can feel the hive mind buzzing around you as he manhandles you into a position where his Knights don’t have to stop their sex crazed desperation of your flesh.

Kylo is the only one allowed to make the marks, the only one allowed to bruise your skin. The Knights have your body for these fleeting moments, but only Kylo may give you lasting lingering reminders of your time together, and he does so now. 

A cock is fucking itself in and out of your cunt, an even bigger cock is up your ass, there are mouths at your nipples as come splatters onto your thighs, but the only thing you can focus on is the sharp stinging pain of teeth at your shoulder.

“Just – oh stars – just a little harder.” You moan, elongating your neck, giving Kylo more space to pierce crooked crescents into the soft vulnerable spots which will bloom beautifully, which you will wear proudly for the entire Empire to see.

“Open your mouth,” Kylo murmurs gently against your skin as he soothes the bites so the sting is not painful for long, and you do. He slips a few fingers past your lips, encourages you to suck with, “There you go, use your tongue.”

The Knights are reverent in the way they hum and chant in low ancient voices that fill the entire room with a feeling of complete and utter devotion. Your pussy is stuffed so full, you’re bursting, as the cock in your ass and in your cunt rub against one another, as they take turns thrusting so you are always filled in one hole or another, your nipples abused and sucked raw, your wrists bound above your head, the blindfold held securely in place.

It is all you can do to scream and shout out your moans of pleasure as you come and come and come, the sounds which fuel Kylo and the Knights only more more more, making them move faster, harder, a rough brutal pace. You don’t know which way is up or down, but it doesn’t matter – the only thing that matters is Kylo’s teeth clamping down on your jaw, and the pleasure thrumming through your veins.

“You’re beautiful like this precious,” Kylo pulls his fingers away and presses hard against your clit with them, careful not to catch any of their come. The only come that’s allowed to touch your pussy in any capacity is Kylo’s – another rule. You shake and sob and shout out at the feeling of your clit being stimulated with Kylo’s wet fingers, still being plowed hard fast rough, body bouncing. Kylo kisses your cheek, whispers sweet nothings like, “You take them so well, perfect beautiful girl.”

And then, as if on command, a silent order from their Leader himself, everything stops. Your cunt is freed, your ass slowly eased out of, nipples released. The stillness is excruciating, after hours and hours of brutal fucking, but you’re not concerned.

Not when Kylo himself unclips some of your restraints, unveils your vision. The Knights have had their fun, and now it’s your husband’s turn to show them exactly what it is they’re not allowed to have.

#kylo ren/reader #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren smut #knights of ren/reader #kylo ren/reader/knights of ren #kor #kylo ren imagine #adam driver fanfiction #adcu

[bisluthq]

Listen, I always believe the victim and I “cancelled” Johnny for a while but there’s a whole recording where she’s laughing at him for having an issue with being hit by her?? Like to me the whole situation sounds like she’s an abusive person and they became super toxic and both became abusive. But it’s just weird to me that you’re completely ignoring all the stuff against her??

Okay so you and I are already operating from different starting points because personally I don’t believe in cancellations and part of why I don’t believe in that is I think everyone has the capacity to be fucked up and literally everyone is flawed and imperfect.

One of the reasons domestic violence is so hard to prosecute is it’s almost always complicated. There’s a fallacy that there’s gonna be a perfect victim and an evil abuser. Shit like that is almost always extremely complicated and toxic and messed up because, as I say above, literally everyone is flawed and imperfect.

I’ve also AT NO POINT said Amber wasn’t toxic af or even that she isn’t an attention whore. This conversation started with me saying Amber really fucking liking attention didn’t end up disproving her allegations against her ex husband, which was relevant because people are trying to defend Zayn by saying “yes well Yolanda likes attention” which like is… true.

Here’s how I see the Amber x Johnny thing: this was a man 22 years older than her, richer than her, and more powerful than her. She was in her 20s. Was she an awesome person to be around? Almost definitely not. Was she a perfect victim? Absolutely fucking not. She gave as good as she got. Did she fear for her life and was she abused? Also yes. There was a tabloid cover during the libel suit that said “inside Hollywood’s most toxic marriage” and I remember that because that’s what this was.

Have Johnny - and the huge legal and press teams he can afford - tried and succeeded to spin him into the victim? Yes lol - we’re seeing anons who follow gossip who didn’t even know he lost the lawsuit.

Does that make Amber some kind of saintly victim crying in the corner? No.

Do we need to be able to discuss abuse like this - and again I’d say abuse is more often like this than just some perfect frail victim and an evil abuser - in a nuanced way instead of trying to find who’s right? Yes. Because the inability to have these types of discussions is why most people won’t ever take shit like this to court, and if they do, they won’t win.

#nat talks social stuff #tw domestic abuse

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

ok i've been reading your shannon posts (because your opinions are so good and well-written thanks for sharing btw) and i thought you brought up some really interesting points about eddie's parents and how they might 'mean well' but were obviously pretty hurtful. if you have the time and/or are interested, would you mind elaborating a bit on that? hope you have a nice day :)

Hello dear nonny, I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to this. I was taking a short break from fandom and didn’t really go on tumblr much, and I wanted to be sure to give this ask the time it deserved. Thank you for your patience and I hope this lives up to your expectations.

Now, first and foremost, I would deeply welcome any thoughts by Latinx and mixed-race Latinx people such as @extasiswings​ or Hispanic people such as @michaelgrantnash​ if they would like to add them, since Eddie’s Latinx background does play a role in his upbringing. I personally will not be talking about that, for obvious reasons. I’ll simply be addressing this from the position of someone who has experienced and is educated on abuse and unhealthy relationships.

I’m going to make some quick bullet points and then I’ll elaborate on them. Eddie’s parents are hurtful because they:

do not believe in him

belittle him

belittle Shannon, exacerbating an already tough situation between Shannon and Eddie

declare him an unfit father and try to take Christopher away from him

Obviously some of these are more glaring than others. I’ll work up to the big things. Let’s start with the belittling.

One of the best examples of this is in 3x15, when we flashback to Eddie after he’s been home for a short bit after his helicopter crash overseas. His mother criticizes how he make his son’s drink, and then mockingly refers to him as a “big war hero” - saying that he might have been all that and a bag of chips but he can’t make a drink for his son right, a supposedly small and easy thing to do.

Eddie then mentions it to Shannon a few moments later, and Shannon replies that she’s had to deal with a lot of that, too, showing us (the audience) that comments like this are a pattern with Eddie’s mother.

Small things build up. Little comments like that might not seem like a lot, but think about how the last time someone said something like that to you, it stuck with you. I know it sticks with me. But to hear something like that repeatedly from someone you care about? That has to really hurt. And Eddie and Shannon treat this as a normal, every day issue. Eddie’s probably had to deal with something like this his entire life. That wears down a person’s self-esteem and explains a) Eddie’s low self-esteem issues and b) his reluctance to open up emotionally. He’s scared he’ll be dismissed. His mother literally mocks the medal and event that have given her son trauma. That’s really not okay.

Not to mention, all of this belittling undoubtedly contributed to Shannon leaving. Shannon says that she’s raising Christopher all alone, and that is patently untrue and I will physically fight her over it but the fact is she probably didn’t feel welcomed by her husband’s family if those were the kind of comments she was used to. Eddie literally says, half joking, but really hurt, that “I can’t even give my son a drink properly,” to which Shannon replies that she knows how that feels.

This tells us that Shannon’s head to deal with this the entire time. Eddie’s parents later say that Christopher was with them nearly every day of his life since he was born. That means Shannon was with them nearly every day in some capacity until she left, so she had to deal with a lot of comments. While it doesn’t excuse her abandoning her four-year-old son (no, I’m not over it, I will never be over it), all those comments definitely built up and contributed to her feelings of abandonment and hurt.

And of course, it’s never just belittling. Abusive behavior is never just the small things (although the small things add up and they matter). It leads to bigger issues, too. And we see this spectacularly in 3x15, in the flashback after Shannon’s left.

Eddie’s parents try to take his son away from them.

Let that sink in. We have spent nearly two full seasons watching Eddie be a loving, dedicated, soft, adoring father to Christopher. We’ve seen him move heaven and earth to take care of his son - and now we see that his open affection and devotion to his child is something he obviously taught himself and worked hard on, and was not the result of a good example by his parents. Eddie builds Christopher up, tells Christopher that he can do anything, protects Christopher ferociously. Eddie’s parents, on the other hand, see their son being a single parent working three jobs and tell him it’s not good enough.

What the fuck.

They literally say, in 3x15, that Christopher should be raised by them, not Eddie. And reinforce this when they say Eddie should move back home to Texas post-Shannon’s funeral. This is actually the first time we (the audience) see them, even though this takes place post-3x15 since in that episode they’re showing up in flashbacks.

Their very first appearance and they’re telling Eddie, “You should bring Christopher back to us. He doesn’t belong here.” They’re ignoring the entire life that Eddie has built for his son here and once again implying that Eddie isn’t good enough to be a parent. Furthermore, they’re making Eddie’s move to LA all about Shannon, and how now that she’s dead they should move back to Texas, rather than realizing that while Shannon was a big part of the reason for the move, getting Christopher a better educational situation and Eddie a better job were also part of it.

All of this leads to the first bullet point: that Eddie’s parents do not believe in him. And possibly never have. We only see this in relation to his being a father and husband but I doubt it just stops there.

No wonder Eddie wanted to move to LA. It wasn’t just about Shannon. In fact it wasn’t all that much about her, seeing as he didn’t try to contact her when he got there and didn’t seem all that happy to see her when she first showed up, despite his later attempts to try and make things work. It was about his parents. Eddie’s parents tried to take his son from him, so he packed his bags and got the hell out of dodge.

Honestly, I wonder if he talked to his abuela about it. “Hey, they’re trying to take Chris from me, I need help.” Eddie’s clearly close with her, closer than he is to his parents. Just a thought.

And what about Christopher? He has to be overhearing what the adults are saying. His grandparents never hid how much they hated Shannon, so it’s likely they discussed Eddie’s supposed failures where Christopher could hear it, too. What does that do to a child? It hurts and wounds them deeply, I can tell you that.

Compare the behavior of Eddie’s parents to the 118, and specifically Buck. When Eddie was working three jobs to support his son post-military, his parents told him he wasn’t doing good enough and tried to take his child away. Buck sees Eddie struggle with a babysitter and so quietly and without judgment gets Eddie a service worker who can help Eddie go over options for his childcare. The 118 welcomes Christopher into the fire station and Bobby tells Eddie that he, and Christopher, have a safe place there.

When Eddie’s hurting post-Shannon, Bobby doesn’t tell him he made a mistake or did anything wrong. He asks if Eddie is okay. He supports Eddie and tries to get him therapy.

When Christopher’s struggling because of the skateboard incident, Carla and Buck support Eddie. They don’t tell him he’s raising his son wrong, or that it’s not okay for him to be upset.

Karen and Hen have playdates for Denny and Christopher. They talk with Eddie and build a friendship with him.

From day one, Buck has been there for Christopher, and the one time Buck fucked up (with the lawsuit), he apologized and admitted he was wrong to leave Christopher’s and Eddie’s lives without a word of warning. Buck is there for Eddie, ready to lend a helping hand, but also cheering him on.

How much must it have meant to Eddie, to have his best friend (and love interest, fight me) literally bleeding to death and not caring because he was desperate to find his son? To have that best friend devastated at the very idea of failing Christopher, and saying he would understand if Eddie didn’t trust him with his son again, because how could he? After his parents told Eddie he wasn’t good enough, to have someone so fucking dedicated to his child looking at Eddie and saying no, no you’re a great father, I’m not good enough... that must have meant more than Eddie could’ve found the words for.

Eddie telling Buck, “There’s nobody in the world I trust with my son more than you,” wasn’t just for Buck. It was for Eddie, too. Because he’s finally found someone he can trust with his child, who won’t try to take that child away from him, who won’t tell Eddie he’s not good enough. He’s found someone to help him be a father rather than steal that role from him.

Buck and the 118 have respected Eddie’s authority as a father, his love for his son, and his dedication to Christopher the entire time. And their only attempts to step in are attempts to give Eddie support since nobody can do it alone, and everyone needs help sometimes. The 118 are a better family to Eddie than his parents have been in every canonical interaction we see. They don’t tell Eddie all the ways he’s doing it wrong. They praise what he’s doing right and catch him when he stumbles.

Emotional abuse is not always big. In fact it’s often harder to catch than sexual or physical abuse. And it can be small and subtle. Eddie’s parents aren’t straight up bullying him in the way we’re raised to recognize. But they criticize him constantly. Tell him everything he’s doing wrong. And most importantly they tell him that he can’t do anything without their help, without being around them. It shows they don’t believe in him and that they want to make him dependent on them - and it means Eddie doesn’t believe in himself.

That’s not okay. I’m sure that they’re well-intentioned people who don’t realize how much they’re hurting their son. They might even be good people, by other definitions. But to paraphrase Maddie Buckley, you can be a good person, just not a good parent. And Eddie’s parents are, from what we’ve seen, not good parents. And they don’t give Eddie what he needs.

#mads answers things #eddie diaz #911 fox #911 meta #eddie diaz meta #I hope that I answered your question anon #and explained myself well #tumblr for the love of god please don't fuck up this formatting #anyway if others would like to add onto this please do #I welcome more thoughtful meta on Eddie and his family #edited to properly credit mgn's background #my deep apologies!

[bittykimmy13]

Hide and Seek (GT Horror)

*WARNING* This story contains an abusive relationship and cruel GT.

If you’ve watched The Invisible Man (2020), this will seem familiar :’) The opening scene gave me such WILD GT feels that I had a dream about it, and this story is what came of it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The digital clock read 2:37. She hadn’t closed her eyes longer than a blink, gaze drifting between the clock and the floor-to-ceiling window beside the bed. The ocean roiled under the moonlight, waves disappearing from view to crash against the cliff that the house was perched atop of. His breathing had been perfectly steady for three hours. It was time. If she didn’t do this now, she wasn’t going to do it at all. Swallowing hard, she twisted her neck to see her husband laying behind her. His expression was calm and peaceful, but his arm was heavy on her waist. With aching care, she took his wrist and lifted his arm enough for her to slip out from underneath. Once her feet were planted firmly on the floor, she slid a pillow in her place and set his arm down over it. He drew in a deeper breath than normal, and she froze. But he didn’t wake. Never taking her eyes off him, she grabbed her phone from the nightstand. She moved backward and skirted around the bed, feeling as if any movement would cause the floorboards to creak. This house was perfectly solid, however. It was perfect in every way imaginable—a dream house than anyone would kill to live in. As she tore her eyes away from the bed to look at the sprawling open-floor around her. It almost didn’t seem real. How did she, a lower-middle class girl, end up in a place like this? She spared her husband another glance. She knew exactly how.

Clenching her jaw, she tiptoed away on socked feet. The bag she’d hidden deep in her closet was untouched, much to her relief. He had no idea what she was up to. She grabbed it and slung it over her shoulder, careful not to rattle it in any way. She crept past the bed again, then the living room and kitchen, until she reached the front door. She set the bag down���a task that should have taken less than a second, but lasted for nearly half a minute with how quiet she was trying to be. She left her phone on a table by the door.

The easy part was over with. Now came the moment that could end with her bruised and bleeding on the floor. She had no choice but to disable the alarms. In all her weeks of planning, she had come to the conclusion that there was no way around it. Even if he didn’t know what she was doing right this moment, she had no doubt that the possibility was on his mind all the time. Leaving would not be as simple as waltzing out the front door. But disabling the alarms meant going down into his space. Not far from the front door, she paused in front of another doorway, bracing herself. For all his paranoia, he didn’t leave it locked, as though the idea of her rifling through his projects was so far outside of reality. As though she wouldn’t dare. The door gave way to a short set of carpeted stairs. After taking each measured step that led her to the bottom, she flipped on the lights and was nearly blinded. Lit glass cases displayed his inventions. How strange that she had seen this room more in online articles and magazines than she did in real life. There was no way she could deny it—her husband was brilliant. Within the glass cases were machines and technology that could change a person’s body chemistry and biology. He had saved countless lives, for the right price. As she set her sights on the long desk filled with sleek monitors, she noticed there was one closet-sized case that appeared empty in the middle of the floor. There was a monitor and a panel on both the inside and outside. It seemed to be humming idly, and she wondered if the case itself was the machine. He must have left it on, considering he’d been working on some project so feverishly the past year, refusing to say a single word to anyone—her or the press—about what it was for.   She didn’t care. It could be the fucking key to immortality, and even that wouldn’t make her stick around to see it work. She carefully made her way to the monitors. There, she could see herself on camera. But most importantly, she could see that he was still in bed, in the exact same position she had left him. The small victory made her nerves stand on end with excitement. A low whine at the doorway made her flinch. The dog was at the top of the little staircase, sporting his shock collar. He padded down the steps and toward her, tail wagging. He was a vicious-looking thing, yet the gentlest soul she had known since her marriage. At the moment, however, he was well on his way to ruining everything. “No, Zeus,” she hissed, rushing to quiet him. He thought it was a game. He bounced backwards, his tail smacking against the humming glass case. This startled him, causing him to flinch and bump even harder against it. The idle hum of the machine turned into full-on whirring. Skittering back, the dog ran off and went back up the stairs. Whispering curses, she hurried back to the monitors to look at the camera feed. She gave a whimpering breath of relief. Her husband had not moved. But the noise was getting louder, and it was only a matter of time before it woke him up. She rushed over to the machine as quietly as she could, circling around it to find some way to shut it off. It was apparently still in a prototype phase after all this time. The monitor on the outside displayed code rather than finalized output. She hadn’t the slightest idea what to do—all she knew was that she needed this damn thing to turn off. She pushed a button at random, but that only made it louder. She eyed the other monitor panel and hurried inside to reach it, hoping she’d have better luck. She squinted—why did it seem so much brighter inside the glass case? Before she could reach the panel, harsher light exploded around her, blinding her worse than when she’d first come into the room. That was the least of it. Pressure grinded against every inch of her body, knocking her to her hands and knees. She would have screamed if she had the capacity to. She felt like she was being dragged against the floor in every direction. When the sensation ended, a tingle still danced on her skin, and the air felt colder. She drew in a gasping breath and hunched forward, rubbing her eyes. Very slowly, she dropped her hands to her lap and blinked. At first, she thought her eyes were permanently damaged. It looked like she was no longer in the lab. But as her vision cleared completely, she realized it must have been her brain itself, not her eyes. Things towered over her like distant glass buildings, stretching past her line of sight. The white flooring spread on forever in every direction. She staggered to her feet and turned to the side. In the distance, like perfectly right-angled cliffs, were the stairs she had come down mere minutes ago. But that was impossible. Those couldn’t be the stairs. They were massive. Unable to breathe, she gave her surroundings another once over. Realization dawned slowly, then came crashing down like a lead weight. She hadn’t left the room. She was still in the glass case. Everything was the same, but gigantic beyond what she could process. Finally, breath entered her lungs. And it came out in the form of a scream. No, no, no, no. She looked up at the machine, which was no longer whirring. It shrunk her. He shrunk her. This couldn’t be happening. She pushed her hands through her hair, gripping the sides of her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, willed herself to wake up, but when she opened her eyes, everything was still enormous. Scrambling out of the building-sized glass box, she touched the bottom and circled around it. The sides were too sleek for her to climb up and try to find a solution. Panting with frantic sobs, she looked all around before setting her sights on the stairs and bolting toward them. Luckily for her, the carpet allowed her to pull herself up, ledge by ledge. She didn’t want to think about it, but judging by the height of each step, she couldn’t be more than four inches tall. Her arms were burning by the time she made it up the sixth and final step. She didn’t even want to look at the sprawling house when she made it past the doorway. She ran to her bag by the front door, only to remember that she had left her phone on the table. Twisting around, she looked up and up, knowing there was no way she could get up there. She was trapped. Covering her mouth with one hand, she tried to steady her breathing as she turned slowly to look behind her. The wide-open space made her dizzy. She couldn’t look. She sprinted to duck under the low platform of the hall table. Huddling down, she allowed numbness to wash over her. It locked her in place, made her mind go blank from sheer disbelief of what had happened to her. Minutes ticked by, then hours. She didn’t sleep, but her mind had all but shut off. She never closed her eyes, idly watching dawn light pour from the windows and brighten into late morning. Then in the distance, there was a creak of bedsprings. She shivered, her heart leaping to her throat and pounding madly. She willed him to go back to sleep, to not notice her disappearance for just a little while longer. “Cecilia?” His deep voice was like thunder rolling through the house, bouncing off the pristine surfaces. The bed creaked louder, accompanied by the harsh rustle of sheets. She could picture him sitting bolt upright, glaring at the pillow she had put in her place. The thunder cracked louder, angrier. “Cecilia!” Thudding pounded from the distance. She thought for a second that he was throwing things around in a rage, then came to the cold realization that those were his footsteps. She buried her face in her hands as the pounding came closer. It paused, and he cursed, then strode away. Less than a minute later, the thudding became even more solid. She peeked through her hands to find a pair of truck-sized boots stomping in the direction of her hiding place. She skittered back, but he moved right past the table. He was likely planning to run outside and search for her, but he paused in front of her bag. It flew up from the ground, out of her view. Clothes and plastic baggies rustled as he rummaged through her runaway kit. He slammed the bag down to the floor, making a scream catch in her throat. The boots came dangerously close as he stood in front of the table. He had spotted her phone. “Cecilia!” he roared. “Where the fuck are you?” She bit her lip hard as he stepped past the table and headed for the open lab door. Once his footfalls had disappeared down the steps, she crept out of her hiding spot and peeked past the doorway, trembling in her nightgown. He went over to the machine and shut it off, dashing her hopes that she might get some clue as to how to fix herself. But that disappointment paled in comparison to the fear that spiked through her when he went to the monitors to look at the cameras. “No,” she breathed. “Oh no, please…” It had not even crossed her mind. She stood there, frozen, as he furiously jabbed at a keyboard and tapped the touchscreen of the main monitor. He paused and watched the screen. Though she couldn’t see the screen herself, the realization that began to dawn on his massive face made her bolt. He must have played back the footage from last night. He knew. She darted back under the table, wondering if there was a camera that pointed to where she was right at that moment. She couldn’t remember. For the life of her, she couldn’t fucking remember. For all she knew, he was well aware of exactly where she was hiding. A chuckle floated from the lab, chilling her to the bone. “Well, isn’t that something?” His thudding boots came back up the stairs and paused in the doorway. He raised his voice, calling out to her in the house. It gave her some semblance of hope that he didn’t know where she was, but the sound of his booming voice right above made her want to break down weeping. “Looks like you’ve got yourself into some trouble, babe. Come on, you can come out from wherever you’re hiding.” He waited a few seconds, with no response. “Well, since you want to play games, why don’t I set the rules? If you can go twelve hours without me finding you, I’ll fire up the machine so you can set yourself back to normal.” He paused, as if she might come out to tell him what a great idea that was. “Or… if you come out right now, we can skip all that,” he said. “I’ll put you back to normal right away, and we can forget any of this ever happened. I never saw the bag. You never went into my lab.” She didn’t budge, keeping her hands over her mouth. He was lying. He had to be. He wasn’t going to restore her size, no matter what he claimed. He lived for his control over her when she was five-three. She could already hear the grin of ecstacy in his voice at the prospect of getting his hands on her at four inches. He waited a few minutes in the doorway, then paced right in front of the table, oblivious to her cowering mere inches away from him. When she refused to show herself, he sighed as though she was being terribly inconvenient. “Have it your way,” his voice rumbled as his devastating footsteps trailed right past her hiding place. “Just remember—you chose this. Ready or not, here I come.” Fresh sobs built in her chest, panic clouded her mind. He was going to find her—there were a limited number of places she could hide in this vast, wide-open house. She couldn’t reach anything off the floor, and he knew it. There was little she could do but watch as he started by looking under the kitchen island. He dropped to his hands and knees, and she caught a glimpse of his face. There was a faint smile of anticipation that made her blood run cold. The moment he stood and headed around to the other side of the counter, perhaps to check under the sofa in the living room, she didn’t think. She acted. Chest tight with terror and unfriendly to breathing, she burst out from under the table and sprinted for the kitchen island, pumping her legs for all she was worth. She had to keep to the places he had already checked if she wanted any chance of evading him. By the time she was beneath the direct center of the island, she was still shivering all over and muffling frantic whimpers behind her hand. Listening closely, she could hear that he was still moving about in the living room. Her breath steadied out in a relieved shudder. He hadn’t noticed her. For nearly half an hour, he looked without saying a word. So when his movements came to a stop and his voice boomed through the house again, she had had cover a gasp. “One more chance, babe,” he said. She didn’t move. Much to her dismay, his footsteps trailed into the kitchen. He opened the fridge, and she had to endure the sounds of him making a very late breakfast—omelettes, her favorite. She knew him. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that it would lure her out, but it would certainly make her suffer all the worse. He didn’t let her eat yesterday when he found out she had snuck an extra serving onto her plate during dinner the night before. “Now, that bag you packed,” he called out while he idled in front of the stove. “That just pisses me off. And can you blame me? I’ve given you the perfect life. One any woman would kill for. And are you grateful? Sure as fuck doesn’t seem like it to me.” You’ve given me a golden cage and top-of-the-line makeup to hide what you do. Even at her normal height, she never would have said such a thing to him. But it was almost as if he could look her in the eyes and know exactly what she was thinking. As she huddled under the island, she was at least grateful that he could not look at her. He had no choice but to guess where she was. He strode off to the dining table to eat, and she flinched at every one of his footsteps. Even as he ate, she didn’t dare come out to switch hiding places. For all she knew, he could be looking at the right place at the right time when she came out. So she stayed, She endured the creeping hours. After breakfast, he cleaned up. He made calls for work, boasting that the prototype was coming along sooner than he expected. He skipped lunch and went to his lab. There was definitely no moving for her now, with the cameras available at his leisure. She was terrified he’d play back footage from the morning and try to spot where she went, but he didn’t come out again to track her down. All the while she waited, her mind raced with ideas. Maybe when he went to bed, she could find a way to reach his phone or hers. She had no idea what to expect if she called the cops. What could they do? Force him to change her back to normal? How would any of this play out legally? For all she knew, his company would find a way to get his hands on her and run tests on her like a lab rat. But she had no choice. No one could be worse than him. When he finally came back to the kitchen, he made dinner. By then, the sun had set and cast the inside of the house in shadows, save for the dim lights he turned on. She felt weak all over, and her stomach was growling so ravenously that she was terrified he’d hear it. He made pasta; she could smell the sauce on the stove. She tried to ignore it, tried to pretend she was anywhere else. While serving it onto his plate, some pasta spilled onto the floor. She stared at where it landed by his boots, well within running distance of her. Seconds ticked by, and he didn’t pick it up. There was no doubt in her mind he had done it on purpose—to tempt her with something she wouldn’t dare to do. Soon enough, the temptation was stolen. The dog trotted into the room and ate the pasta off the floor when her husband’s back was turned. When he turned and saw the dog licking the floor, he made a noise of disgust. She winced, knowing what would come next. He kept the remote to the shock collar in his pocket. There was a beep, and the dog gave a high-pitched whimper before running off. ��See, just like you,” he said, “Zeus doesn’t learn.” His boots carried him out of the room. While he ate, she couldn’t help but watch from the distance. He was dropping bits of pasta by his feet. He was too much of a neat freak to be a messy eater. Good to know he was overcoming that obsession just to fuck with her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she reminded herself over and over that he had to sleep eventually. She looked again when he stood. He left the mess there and returned to the lab, making it impossible once again for her to leave her spot. That food was like bait in a mousetrap. Why hadn’t he looked for her? She had no doubt that this twelve hour game was bullshit, but his set time was almost up. What was the point of him teasing her with it in the first place? He was never going to let her go, no matter her size. And now, she had made it all the easier for him. No one was coming. She’d fallen out of touch with family, friends, all because of him. It would take months before anyone noticed that she was gone. She pulled her knees to her chest and tried to calm herself. Just a little longer, she begged. Just keep it together a little longer. He has to go to sleep. I’ll figure something out. I will. Already, she was dreaming about the fallen food the moment he went to bed. She didn’t care if she would be eating scraps like a mutt. If she wanted any chance of survival, she needed to eat. Finally, he came out of the lab. As he walked over to the dining table, her heart sank to the floor. She couldn’t believe she’d been stupid enough to think he’d leave the scraps there while he ate. He was so good at pretending she wasn’t there, even she had come to believe it. Tears pricked at her eyes at the hollow pang in her stomach. Sighing, she hugged her knees tighter. She hardly paid attention to him as he came back into the kitchen to throw out the scraps. So it didn’t occur to her that she was in danger when he paused in front of the kitchen island. Before she could register what was happening, his knees crashed to the floor and his hand swept into her hiding place. She jolted to her hands and knees and tried to scramble away, but his forearm rammed into her. It was like being hit by a semi-truck. In an instant, she was forced out into the open, right between where his hands were planted on the ground. She jumped to her feet and didn’t dare look up, unable to bear seeing the look on his face as he loomed above her. She ran. He shifted to block the way under the island, moving at a leisurely pace. She stepped back, trembling, primed to run with nowhere to go. There was movement behind her, and she peeked over her shoulder to find him starting to stand. The distraction cost her. A finger and thumb raced to meet her, plucking her up by the back of her nightgown skirt. A strangled scream rattled in her throat as she was hoisted upside down, feeling like she’d slip through the silk at any moment. “No!” she wailed. “Adrian, put me down!” He straightened slowly, bringing her up to eye level. It’d be like jumping from a building if she fell. Her gaze danced around wildly, looking for anything to save her. He was dressed impeccably despite not having left the house. His cold gray-green eyes regarded her. His lips pulled into a smile. “You really thought I didn’t know where you were?” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Nothing happens in this house without me knowing it.” He let go of her nightgown. Another scream tore through her and was cut short in a harsher cry when she hit the palm of his other hand. No sooner than she oriented herself to sit with her hands propped behind her, his finger slid close to probe her outer thigh and hip. “Don’t touch me!” She skittered away, feeling desperately backwards with her hands up the wall of fingers to straighten herself. “Change m-me back! I’m sorry, I-I’m sorry! I won’t leave you, babe, I-I promise, and I won’t tell anyone! Adrian, please…” He wasn’t listening. He jolted his hand, forcing her to fall to a seat. Quick as lightning, his thumb came down to pin her thighs down like a lap bar. When she tried to kick and shove it off, he didn’t budge. Then his other thumb and finger joined in the torment, grabbing her forearm and utterly engulfing it. He could rip it off with a mere twitch. She sobbed harder, throat raw from screaming. “Don’t hurt m-me,” she begged. “I’m sorry, I-I’m so sorry.” His gaze softened, and he let her arm go, but not her legs. His other hand wouldn’t leave her alone. A fingertip reached for her face and brushed at the tears streaming down her cheeks. She reached up to lay her hands on his finger, shoulders shaking as she tried to push it away. For all the good it did, it was as though she was embracing him. “You’re so cute like this,” he sighed, sounding like he meant it. “Better than I could have ever imagined.” A chill crawled up her spine. He had been imagining this. Perhaps he had planned to use his machine on her all along—she had only sped up the process and vaulted herself right into his fantasy. The world shook as he walked off and took her into the bedroom. With one hand, he pulled his nightstand away from the bed. As he lowered her to the surface, she realized it was meant to maroon her with no possibility of reaching the bedsheets to climb down to the floor. The moment she was able, she ran as far from him as the nightstand would allow. She hugged herself and stared at the smooth surface, anything to keep herself from looking up at him. “I’ll just be a minute,” he promised. “Don’t go anywhere.” That was her only moment of reprieve—him changing into his nightclothes. And that moment was far too short by the time he came back to her. “Babe,” she croaked when he paused to observe her. She forced herself to look up and saw that he was wearing only boxers. She swallowed hard. “I haven’t eaten in two days…” He cocked his head, then dropped to a crouch so suddenly that she gasped and fell back, arms raised in defense. His once-crooning voice was lower now, intense. “See, here’s the thing. I gave you a chance this morning, and you didn’t take it.” She glared through her arms. “You wouldn’t h-have changed me back anyway!” “And here I thought my lovely wife would trust me more,” he scoffed. “Well, you lost the game, so I guess you’ll never get to find out.” His hand came at her again, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. A finger and thumb pinched her under the arms, no matter how she tried to squirm away. He got into bed and propped himself up halfway with the pillows, lowering her down to his bare chest. She knelt there for a second, shivering despite the warmth of his skin. Then she bolted, aiming to jump down onto the mattress. He caught her ankle with ease and dragged her back, then let go. Panting, she looked up to see him watching like she was a particularly interesting animal in a zoo exhibit. Hysterical sobs beginning to shake her chest, she tried to run again. He caught her, put her back in place. Again. Again. Again. Until finally, she collapsed where he put her, and she buried her face in her hands. “That’s it,” he purred. When she peeked out, she saw him brush a fingertip along the path she had tried to run. “But I have to admit, that felt… interesting.” Without warning, he grabbed her in a loose fist and put her over his heart, manipulating her with his fingers until she was laying precisely the way he wanted. She was on her side, legs slightly tucked. He rested his hand over her, and she couldn’t move a muscle even if she had it in her to run again. The pressure increased when his chest rose and fell with a windstorm of a sigh. Her sobs had quieted into soft gasps, and her gaze had gone blank. “Behave yourself, and maybe I’ll let you have some breakfast in the morning,” he said. “Sweet dreams.”

#mywriting #gt #gt writing #horror #gt horror #the invisible man #giant tiny #size difference #shrunken woman #suspense #thriller

[malyen0retsev]

didnt you cancel jkr this week lol

I’m a bloody 24-year-old who is still for some god forsaken reason on this hellsite, I don’t exactly shriek ‘Someone with the power to cancel a celebrity’ do I - and also no, I didn’t. Because as a general rule I don’t agree with cancel culture. Being so emotionally invested in a public figure that you feel the need to ‘cancel’ them when they disappoint you ain’t where it’s at folks. 

To clarify: I am pissed off at J K Rowling for her comments towards the trans community this week. I am pissed off. And I aired that on Tumblr, to point out that I stand with the trans community and disagree vehemently with her, in my opinion, misguided and frankly damaging opinions about trans people. I believe she genuinely thinks she is an ally, and that makes it all the more complicated, as I doubt we’ll ever see growth from her on this as she’s made it pretty damn clear that she thinks she’s absolutely in the right. In case it wasn’t obvious, she is not. Her comments were hurtful and damaging and I absolutely agree with people calling her out on it.

However.

Just because I am furious with her for that does not mean I think it’s acceptable that The Sun interviewed her ex-husband who was also her domestic and sexual abuser. And not only that but they slammed the interview on the front page publishing tomorrow, entitled ‘I SLAPPED JK AND I’M NOT SORRY’. What The Sun have essentially done is publicly endorsed domestic abuse, and it’s so beyond disgusting that even my wide variety of daily used swear words don’t have the capacity to explain how fucking disgusted I am. 

It’s not just about her (or her daughter, for that matter, who will no doubt be traumatised seeing her mother and her story spread all across the newspapers). It’s about the tone it sets. It is never ever justified to glorify domestic abuse. This is the sort of headline that sets a really really concerning precedent to me - when women who have spoken out about previous abuse fuck up with the public, will it become common practice for papers to utilise that moment to publicise their abuse?! It reeks of misogyny and it’s vile.

And I’m also not an idiot, I know why The Sun have run this right now, and it’s because the internet is in uproar against JKR at the moment. Is the uproar justified? Well, yes. Because she’s been making idiotic and harmful comments all week. But do I also feel a small level of guilt that my comments, amongst hundreds of thousands of others, helped to create such a storm online that it made publications such as this rag of a paper sneak in and think now was the time to hit her and make public her abuse history? Yes. I do. And once again, I’m gonna take a step back and think about the way in which I talk about public figures online tbh. 

TL;DR - no, I didn’t cancel her because I believe cancel culture is incredibly stupid, but yes I was and am furious at her for her comments towards the trans community, but also yes I am furious beyond words at the way The Sun has used this moment to run on in and essentially glorify domestic and sexual abuse by giving a platform to her abusive ex-husband. END.

#asks #just my two cents #but legit #i am pissed but NOBODY DESERVES *THIS* #j k rowling #tw abuse

[particularemu]

Friendly Banter | A Lee Minho/Lee Know Scenario

Word Count: 1535

Type: Fluff

Warnings: None

Prompts: 118 (Your favorite superhero can’t be a villain)

Author’s Note: 

I’m sorry this took so long to get out omg. It took me forever to think of a plot for this one. I had fun with this one! 

Playful Minho is the SHIT! I hope you enjoy <3

I’m not taking requests from this list anymore because I reblogged a different one, but the prompts are from this prompt list.

“I can’t believe you haven’t seen the new Spiderman movie yet.” Minho’s judgey eyes made you giggle. “Like seriously, it’s one of the best Spiderman movies out there.” 

“Well excuse me for being an A+ student instead of watching superhero movies all day.” You rolled your eyes, laughing when Minho kicked you under the table. 

“I’m an A+ student too. I just have better time management.” Minho laughed. It was your turn to kick him under the table. 

Your giggles and exaggerated cries of pain attracted the attention of an older couple across the way. You couldn’t help but laugh when you saw them glare, and in that moment you realized — wow, you two were such a violent couple. 

Despite your annoyance, Minho did have a point. Time management wasn’t your best skill. You usually put off papers and homework assignments until the night before they’re due, somehow having the mental capacity to produce good work and keep the high grades you earned at the beginning of the year. 

“Stop beating me up, they might call the cops on you.” Minho chuckled before sipping his coffee. 

The two of you decided to stop at a small coffee shop before seeing The Avengers: Endgame — a movie you weren’t exactly excited to see. You weren’t that into superhero movies, but you decided to go see this one with your boyfriend because he was so excited about it. 

Annnnnnd you may or may not have told him you enjoyed superhero movies to make him happy when you first started dating a few months ago. 

“Are you excited to see Endgame.” Minho bounced in his seat, looking like an excited little boy about to enter a candy shop. 

See? You couldn’t tell him you hated superhero movies! It made him so happy to go see these movies with you. 

“I guess. I haven’t seen the first few, so I’m hoping this won’t be too hard to follow.” You chuckled when Minho slammed his cup on the table, eyes widening in horror. 

“You haven’t seen the others?” He gasped. 

You laughed at his dramatics. “No?”

“Yes you have.” He chuckled. “Remember? We had a movie marathon. It was when we first started dating. I bought you like 40 bars of KitKats because they’re your favorite.” Minho smiled, hoping you’d remember. 

Oh boy. Your heart panged in your chest. “Baby that wasn’t me.” 

Minho chuckled a bit. “Babe. You have the memory of a goldfish.” 

“It wasn’t me. That was Jennifer.” Your shoulders dropped a bit. 

Minho chuckled nervously. “No baby that was you. Remember? We had such a good time...” He trailed off when he realized — oh… that probably was Jennifer.  

Minho’s eyes widened as he realized how much of an asshole he was being. Sure, he misplaced his memories, but he was also throwing his ex in your face and practically telling you about the good times he had with her. 

“Sweetheart. KitKats aren’t my favorite. They were hers. I prefer Sour Patch Kids by the way.” You giggled, hoping to ease his guilt. You could see the pure panic on his face and you didn’t want him to feel any worse. 

After all, it’s easy to mix up memories. You couldn’t blame him. Minho and his ex-girlfriend broke up a couple months before you and him got together, so you weren’t surprised that he was mixing the two of you up every once in a while. You didn’t mind, but today was hitting different. 

You were feeling a bit insecure. The two of you had such different interests, while him and Jennifer were two peas in a pod. They were obsessed over the same things, watched the same movies, had the same sense of humor… the list goes on. You however, had to lie and tell your boyfriend you enjoyed superhero movies just to have something in common with him. 

You were positive that him and Jennifer would still be together today if she hadn’t cheated on him. If she came back into his life and apologized, he’d probably take her back in a heartbeat. After all, he was just telling you how much fun he had with her.  

“I’m so sorry.” Minho reached across the table and gently took your hands in his. “I guess I’ll have to buy you 100 bags of Sour Patch Kids to make up for that.” He chuckled nervously. 

“You didn’t mess up.” You smiled and squeezed his hands. “It’s fine.” 

“Is it?” Minho wasn’t convinced. He could see the look on your face. You were doubting his love for you already.

It wasn’t your fault. Your previous relationships fucked up your mentality on love. He could remember all those nights you spent crying on his chest because some asshole broke your heart. 

“Minho it’s fine.” You pulled his hand up to your lips, pressing a soft kiss to his knuckles. You had to find a way to get his mind off this before he combusts. “Who’s your favorite superhero?” You asked. 

“I like Iron Man.” Minho chuckled a bit before sipping his coffee. “Who’s yours?”

Shit. There were so many superheroes to pick from, and you knew none of them. Would saying superman be too cliche? Is there even a Superman movie? What about Batman? Oh, you remember seeing Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad when you watched it with Minho. You really liked her look. 

“I guess Harley Quinn. She’s pretty cool.” 

What? Minho couldn’t help but laugh. “Babe, Your favorite superhero can’t be a villain.” 

“Sorry.” You mumbled. “I only know Harley Quinn.” 

“You don’t know anyone else?” He chuckled. Oh he caught you. You didn’t like superhero movies at all. You were just pretending to like them for his sake. 

You panicked for a moment. “Oh no I like Spiderman. Sorry, I just really like Harley Quinn’s look.” 

“Is it because she wears booty shorts?” Minho wiggled his eyebrows at you. 

You kicked him hard underneath the table making him cry out in pain. “Ow! You didn’t have to kick me so hard.” 

“Excuse me dear,” The old lady from across the coffee shop tapped on Minho’s shoulder. “You shouldn’t stay with someone who abuses you like that.” 

You threw your hand over your mouth, stifling your giggles. If only she knew how you two were at home. You and Minho were constantly pushing each other, wrestling, getting into tickle fights, AND Minho did this thing where he would tap the back of your knee, making you collapse to the floor. It was all playful fun, and the two of you would never hurt each other, but you could understand how strange it would look to outsiders. 

“Thank you ma’am. I was actually coming to this coffee shop to break up with her.” Minho smiled angelically at the old woman. 

“What?” You shouted in surprise. 

“Good for you dear.” The old woman pat him on the shoulder before leaving the coffee shop with her husband. 

“You are such an asshole.” You giggled. 

“Hey, be careful how you speak to me. I just might leave this abusive relationship.” He chuckled. 

“If anyone is abusive it’s you.” You laughed. 

“Alright enough blaming me for your abuse. Let’s go.” He helped you slide out of the booth and pulled you out of the coffee shop. 

“Wait, Minho the theatre is that way.” You pointed in the opposite direction. 

“Fuck that movie. Let’s go do something else.” He pulled you along the sidewalk. 

“But you really wanted to see that movie.” You pulled your hand out of his, making him pause and turn towards you. “Let’s go see it. We already bought tickets.” 

“And you don’t like superhero movies. So let’s go do something else.” Minho said, matter of factly. 

What? How did he know?

“No I like them.” You paused when Minho glared at you, clearly not buying it. “Okay, I don’t mind them.”  

“Yes you do.” Minho laughed, holding your hand in his. “Quit suffering for my sake and let’s go get some ice cream.” 

“When did you find out?” You leaned your head into his shoulder as the two of you strolled down the sidewalk. 

“Seriously? Harley Quinn?” He laughed, dodging your hand before you could smack his shoulder. 

“Hey! Abuse!” He ran from you, giggling as you ran after him. 

“Come back, you know I’m slow.” You stopped and pouted. 

Minho laughed and walked back over to you, pressing a gentle kiss to your lips. “Please don’t be something you’re not because you think it’ll make me love you more.” He pressed another sweet kiss to your lips. “Because I love you the way you are.” 

Minho took your hand and rested it on his chest, right above his heart. “You feel that? My heart always races when I’m around you.” 

“You just ran you dumbass.” You giggled when he pushed you away from him. “No come back.” You smiled and wrapped your arms around him, bringing him closer. “I love you too, but you owe me ice cream after today.” 

Minho gasped. “Why do I owe you anything? You’re the one who lied to me?”

“You’re the one who made me out to be an abusive girlfriend to a random old couple.” You shoved his shoulder. 

“Ah, you’re right.” Minho laughed. “Alright let’s go. I’ll buy you all the ice cream you could ever want.” 

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[sageclover61]

It’s Only A Myth Witchers Don’t Need Family

@geraskierweek

TITLE: It’s Only A Myth Witcher’s Don’t Need Family

AUTHOR/ARTIST: @sageclover61

PROMPT DAY #: Day 6, Found Family

SUMMARY: The general population is wrong about a long of things. Witchers have feelings, Mages have feelings, and Bards are more than the shenanigans they get up to. Geralt might think he doesn't care what others believe him to be, but he's more than their hatred and their fears. Over time, he learns a valuable lesson about his pack.

WORD COUNT (if applicable):4881 

BOOKS/NETFLIX/2002 SHOW/VIDEO GAME: Netflix

TRIGGERS/WARNINGS: NA

RATING: T

ADDITIONAL NOTES: AO3 link https://archiveofourown.org/works/22828018

Everyone knows that Witchers don’t have feelings. They don’t form attachments, they can’t feel anything , and they’re no better than the monsters that they hunt. Those who believe in souls would say that Witchers don’t have them, can’t have them, because they’re too inhuman for a thing as human as a soul.

  Some say that Witchers were born without souls, and others would say that they were cut out of them. Either way, they were inhuman.

  They’re wrong. Witchers didn’t do families. Or attachment. But it’s a choice, a rule, a law . They’re sterile, and the only thing that separates them from the monsters that they hunt is the choices that they make. But not because they were incapable of attachments or feelings. Rather, they felt everything too strongly, and used the coldness they displayed as a means to protect themselves.

  They could live forever. No one around them was going to. Human lives were a single grain of sand in the hourglass of the universe.

Everyone knows that mages trade their capacity to feel things for the enhancements that make them beautiful and immortal and powerful. It makes them cold, and petty, and amoral. They’re human, anymore. They’re something greater.

  Humanity fears them for it, and uses them, and craves to be like them in the same pretty sentences they weave to use to abuse them. 

  Mages don’t want families. They sacrifice their ability to have children in exchange for power. They don’t need anyone. Not to depend on, not to be dependent on them. They did live forever. Even the lives of the Witchers were but a grain of sand.

Everyone knows that bards aren’t to be trusted. Their words hid too much behind them, charming wives away from their husbands, husbands away from their wives, and running away before anything could be done about it.

  But there were whispers, in dark corners of taverns at night, when no bards were around. Rumors of clandestine meetings, from which only the bard would leave alive and of coin trading hands as quickly as daggers sinking into hearts, and strange concoctions being tipped into drinks when no one was watching, leaving the drinker dead by morning.

  They didn’t have families. They didn’t need families, all the bastard children running around unclaimed. They didn’t have time for them. Lives too short, too many places to visit and epic ballads to write, and deaths to be gleaned at the hands of jilted lovers.

They’re wrong, about Witchers. Witchers are less than human, but they’re more, too. If humanity is defined by their capacity to feel, then Witchers are defined not only by their infinitely greater senses, but also their infinitely greater capacity to feel .

  Geralt can’t speak for all the Witchers, but he finds that their disdain for him makes everything, easier, somehow. They hate him, so they send him on his way once he’s helped them, often without paying all that he’s owed, and it’s easier to keep himself from getting attached to them. He says little, cloaking himself in a facade of whatever the fuck they need to keep from desiring to get closer to him.

  He pretends so well and for so long, that he forgets that he’s pretending. Opinions of him decrease and decrease, until he didn’t know they could get any worse, and then it does get worse.

  “You say that you can’t choose but you had to, and you’ll never know if you were right. Your reward will be a stoning and you will run. You will try to outrun the girl in the woods and you cannot. She is your destiny.”

  She does not tell him that the stoning is his reward for caring so much, but it is. He cares deeply, and impossibly, and being able to do so is supposed to be against the way of the Witcher.

He kills neither the girl nor the mage, but the whole town of Blaviken is dead.

  Geralt uses a Witcher Sign, and he wonders if anyone else had ever thought of such a use for it. He uses Axii to wipe the knowledge of the curse of the black sun from Stregobor’s mind, and force him to forget about Renfri.

  He manages to convince Renfri to stop hunting him, and move on with her life. She’s safe, now. She doesn’t have to run unless she wants to, and she can discover for herself what she wants.

  She’s 16 and she has never had peace. But she can have it now, she deserves it.

  Renfri trails after him for 3 days, and then, she is gone, having chosen for herself what comes next.

  She was the first of Geralt’s pack, though she did not know it.

Jaskier was, in all probability, the sluttiest slut who had ever been a slut. If not, he was definitely the sluttiest bard who’d ever existed. He who would happily charm into his bed anything and everything that could possibly consent to joining him there. The husbands, the wives, the elves, the monsters, even those who believed themselves to be the most celibate of priests and priestesses allowed themselves to be charmed into his bed.

  He loved this life of performing for the masses, and running from vengeful cuckolds. Jaskier had always craved some more adventure, and this was as fun as it got.

  But then, the great Witcher, Geralt of Rivia, walked into the bar while he was playing, and he knew that even greater adventure awaited him.

  His first adventure, and he even ended up with a brand new, elven crafted, lute. From Filavander, the king of the elves. He didn’t think it could get any better than that, but then he was falling in love with the Witcher who didn’t use enough words, and, who despite his course addressing of him, treated him well.

  Tumbling into Geralt’s bedroll with him, there was no place on the entire Continent that he would rather be.

  He was the second member of Geralt’s pack, and followed by his side, faithfully, for twenty three years.

Yennefer did not have a choice. She had a series of impossible decisions, and a destiny that led in a direction she did not wish for, so she broke it. No longer was she the little girl to accept the hand of cards that had been dealt to her. No. She needed no one. She was as alone as she had always been, but she chose power over being a wife or a mother. She did not know that was her choice.

  She did not know that humanity despised mages, even while demanding their services to fix their messes. Yennefer had the potential to be the greatest mage to ever exist, and yet for thirty years she was nothing more than a royal arse wiper.

  Nobody. She was nobody. She was hated and despised by the same people whose very lives depended on her. It was not what she had envisioned, nor was it the power she’d so desired.

  But then she was escorting the queen and the new darling princess the queen didn’t even want, and she could not allow her to so callously attempt to bargain with the assassin for her own life, with the life of her child.

  What mother was willing to allow a fiend her child if it meant that she could live?

  The assassin kills the mother with a single blade, but Yennefer is willing to risk her own life to save the babe, and the magic accepts her desire without requiring her life.

  The baby wasn’t born of her blood, but she realizes that’s okay. She doesn’t know what Kalis named her daughter, so Yennefer names the baby Ksenia.

Yennefer hates being trapped in a gilded cage for a stupid mayor of a stupid town in a stupid country that she hates infinitely. But she must provide for the little girl she’s raising as her own, and this is the only way, now that she’s left the Aedirn court.

  Ksenia is almost ten, and Yennefer loves her more than she's ever loved anyone, and if the mayor so much as touches a single hair of her head, she's burning this town down.

  She was entertaining herself with a masked orgy when a Witcher brought her a pitcher of apple juice and a dying bard. What wish did they make, she wondered, as she mixed the antidote for the tumor in the throat.

Could she use the Witcher to get the mayor off her back? She didn’t want her daughter growing up here. It simply wasn’t the best place for her to be. So what to do…

In retrospect, using the Witcher to attack the members of the council she hated the most, especially before she knew all of what was going on, was an incredibly stupid mistake. She was lucky Ksenia hadn’t suffered any harm, once the djinn had set its sights on the house they were all in.

  So was the fact that Geralt had made the third wish silently. It could be anything. But whatever wish he’d made, Ksenia was safe, and so was she. It had to be good enough.

  “You know, you could have just told me that you wanted to get yourself out of this place.” 

  Yennefer turned around quickly, seeing the Witcher standing behind her. “And how do I know you truly would have helped us? Your kind isn’t so fond of my kind, as I recall.”

  She could hear the bard speaking with Ksenia, but it wasn’t important. Whatever Geralt was about to say, however, she could feel that it would be one of the most important things she would hear for a very long time.

  “Contrary to popular belief, Witchers aren’t all heartless beings. Regardless of my feelings towards someone, I will not ignore a child in danger, especially when there is a chance I can help save them.”

  Yennefer didn’t know what to say, so she remained silent, watching her daughter. The daughter whose life she had risked foolishly, because she had been too selfish to ask for assistance.

  Ksenia was laughing at something the bard had said, she wasn’t sure what. When had she last seen such a carefree expression on her child’s face? Had she really spent so much valuable time with this worthless situation, when there were so many more important things? Like whether or not her daughter was happy ?

  There was a sigh from Geralt, then, as he moved to leave. “I will not keep you from your child any longer than I already have. All I ask is that should anything happen, you ask for help, before it is too late.”

  “Ksenia.” She did not raise her voice, loathe as she was to separate her from what she was finding so hilarious, but she also needed to know that the child really was okay after all that had happened.

  “Yes, Mama?” Ksenia turned her head in recognition of her name being called, but she didn’t move the rest of her body, and she was still grinning, eyes still laughing. She somehow looked younger than her nine years. Smaller and more innocent, but not unhealthy. Not injured . 

  “It’s time to go, My Heart. There’s another home waiting for us elsewhere.” She didn’t know where, but there would be somewhere . Anywhere would be better than this place had been for them.

  Yennefer and her daughter were the third and fourth additions to Geralt’s pack, and neither of them had any idea.

“And what does a Mage like you want with a dragon hunt?” Jaskier asked the next they saw Yennefer. “Don’t you have a daughter to be looking after?”

  The expression of sour hurt that spread across Yennefer’s face was almost enough for him to regret his taunt. But it wasn’t until she said, “Ksenia is dying from dragon pox, I need the dragon’s heart to cure it,” that he really regretted it.

  Even after so long, he could still remember the fear in his sisters’ eyes as they heard of a mysterious plague sweeping through the land, and the horror in his parents’ eyes when the youngest had fallen ill with it. He could remember watching helplessly as it spread from one sister to the next, as his parents locked his sisters away in a room, unable to watch as the sickness slowly stole away their lives.

  “Jaskier-”

  It had been the strangest, and deadliest plague. A wasting illness, a horrible rash, an ever rising fever. It had left them bedridden, lost in waking nightmares. Famished, but unable to eat, and sweating more than they could possibly hope to drink. He could still hear their screams, as the disease had taken weeks to run its course. Though he had been told to stay away, he just couldn’t. He’d snuck into their room, laying with them, and holding them as they shook and cried, praying to any god who would listen to spare his baby sisters.

  But it had all been pointless.  A month after the first signs had been noticed, they had all been stolen away from him, leaving him alone to face his parents.

  “Jaskier!”

  Jaskier found himself blinking, staring at Geralt in confusion. When had the Witcher moved in front of him? “Geralt? What’s the matter?”

  Golden eyes stared back at him, narrowed in concern. “You were speaking with Yennefer, but froze. I’ve been trying to get your attention for several minutes now.” he paused for a moment, eyes searching for any unseen wounds, but Jaskier knew that he wouldn’t find any. “What happened?”

  He shook his head, trying to calm his heart as he put on the same fake smile he’d been forced to wear all those years ago. “It’s nothing, I was just distracted for a moment.”

Jaskier might have missed the whole of the battle sleeping in, but the fight he’d missed had nothing on the scene he witnessed now. The whole of the dragon’s lair was littered with blossoming flowers in a pale blue, yellow, and dark purple, and in the back of the cave, alongside the massive body of the green dragon, a golden egg was glowing .

  He’d never seen this kind of flower before, but even from where he was standing, he could feel the magic emanating from the petals, so thick it was almost impossible to breathe.

  His sisters would have loved it. A sunny meadow would have been prettier, but even a cave full of flowers in their favorite colors would have been a hit.

  Despite himself, he reached down to pick one of the pale blue ones. Even as he bent now, it felt like blasphemy to vandalize it, but he just wanted to get a better look at the flower that reminded him so much of his youngest sister.

  Even as he severed the stem, the flower crumbled into dust.

  “Humans have all but wiped the dragons out, believing them to hold all manner of cures for their ailments. Fertility, blindness, lost limbs, even to hold the secrets of immortality. They’re wrong. There is no cure that can restore your womb.”

  Jaskier glanced to where Borch was standing in front of Yennefer. Borch was holding a handful of the flowers that he’d just tried, and failed, to pick.

  “These flowers only grow where dragon fire has burned, but they’re most common where we hatch our young. I give these to you freely. My heart will heal yours.”

  “ Dragon’s Heart,” Yennefer gasped.

  Jaskier swallowed heavily. “Borch,” he said, quietly. He did not think he could speak louder, but he also did not think the gold dragon would have any trouble hearing him. “Would flowers like these… have saved them?”

  “Perhaps, Julien Alfred Pankratz.”

  His insides burned at how ironic it was that flowers in their favorite colors might have saved the lives of his little sisters. There was a very sad, very epic ballad in there somewhere.

  A dragon’s fire breathes new life.

  “You may take these with you, Bard.” Borch handed him a bouquet of three flowers, one in each color. One for each sister. “They will not wilt, and if you were to plant them, they would grow.”

  “Thank you.” There were no words that Jaskier could say that would convey his gratitude. But his heart burned, too. These were the flowers that would have saved the lives of his little sisters, and he was only holding them too many decades too late to be of use. “Yennefer, may I come with you?” He was intimately familiar with dragon pox. At the very least, he could help Ksenia feel more comfortable while Yennefer prepared the medicine to cure it.

  “Jaskier.”

  Jaskier turned around, and walked towards where Geralt was standing outside the cave. He hugged the witcher. “I need this,” he whispered, brokenly, even as Geralt kissed his forehead. “I need closure. And you need to go find your Child Surprise. She needs you.”

  “I know you do.” Geralt’s voice was soft, almost softer than Jaskier thought was possible. “I’ll find you, or you will find me, when you’re ready. And by then, I may have my Child Surprise, ready for you to meet.”

Yennefer made the cure for dragon pox, and Ksenia lived.

  And Jaskier found himself in a place he’d never ever thought he’d return.

  There were three marked graves in a meadow in Lettenhove. The pox had been believed too contagious for them to be buried in the family graveyard, so they had been buried here instead. This was almost easier, however, because it meant that he could carry out his task without any witnesses.

  He planted the baby blue flower over the first grave, the purple flower over the second grave, and the yellow flower over the third.

  “Answer your calling,” his eldest sister had said, her dying words to him, as he’d held her hand and fervently wished that she would live. “Go be a bard.”

  He had spent his entire childhood trying to be the very best big brother that he could be. He’d learned to braid their hair, and had played dress up with them, and stolen their mother’s makeup, and cooked with them. He’d also sung an infinite number of songs, and read bedtime stories or made them up, and all in all, they were his fondest memories.

  But they had been gone for decades, and he’d left very soon after their deaths, unable to cope with their absences in a house in which the ghosts weighed more than the air they breathed.

  There had been no joy, and the pain had not only been emotional.

  “In a house of too many secrets

There’s no people, only their strife.

At the end of dying meadows,

A dragon’s fire breathes new life.”

  He sighed. “No, no, that’s not right. There needs to be something about the memories in that house. It was… rife with them.”

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry, are you desecrating those graves?”

  Jaskier spun around. A brown haired woman was leaning against a tree at the edge of the meadow. She looked young, but looks could be deceiving. “Excuse you, I would never . If you must know, they’re family.”

  “Sometimes our blood is the people we want to hurt the most. I’m Renfri. You’re… Jaskier, the bard, right?”

  She was armed, but she hadn’t drawn her blade, nor did he think that she was about to attack him. Or at least, he hoped not. He was armed too, at least. If it came to that. Not that he was very useful with a blade.

  “They died of dragon pox. I wish them no ill will, I’m simply here for closure. What brings you to the graves of three Lettenhove daughters who didn’t even have the respect of being buried in their family graveyard?”

  “I had heard that the bard who traveled with the white wolf of Rivia was traveling this way, and I wanted to meet you. I’m on my way to see Geralt again, it’s been… a number of years since I saw him last, and I thought it would be polite to ask if you cared to accompany me.”

  Jaskier looked back at the graves. The flowers seemed… healthier, than when he’d planted them. Taller, perhaps, if that was even possible.

  “As I’m sure you know, there’s an inn not that far from here. I’m leaving in the morning, but we can stop here as we leave.”

  He didn’t have his closure yet, but he did also greatly want to go back to Geralt. He’d been feeling lethargic for days.

  It was possible the woman was using him as a trap to get Geralt, but if that was the case, then she had no idea who she was dealing with. If she was telling the truth though, and he really thought she was, then it meant he didn’t have to travel to Cintra by himself, and he liked that idea.

  “I’m not ready to go back to the inn yet, but I will travel with you back to Geralt.”

He sang a few ballads in the tavern at the inn, including a new one in his rotation about the White Wolf. Songs of heartbreak and the lonely Witcher were popular with the masses, even if it was mostly an exaggeration.

  He loved Geralt, and maybe Geralt loved him back, but while his heart did feel broken, it has nothing to do with Geralt and everything to do with three little girls.

  He still channeled it into the song.

  "Did Geralt break your heart?" Renfri asked when he joined her after his performance. "I would be happy to knock some sense into his skull for you."

  Jaskier shook his head. "We both had things that we needed to take care of, and we'll see each other again when we're done. But some audiences prefer songs like that one and I like the coin they'll part with when they're satisfied."

  "I couldn't help but overhear you in the meadow, were you writing a new ballad?"

  "I'm hoping it'll bring me closure. Anyway, I think I'm going to head to bed."

Travelling with Renfri was nice. She let him ride double on her horse, and they made really good time.

  They chatted about their adventures, telling various stories or just making idle chit chat. She was infinitely more talkative than Geralt.

  But it didn’t help with the emptiness he was feeling in his chest. It was growing. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but now, Renfri’s random diversions of dialogue was the only thing distracting him away from it.

  “Tell me about the bards who assassinate people with poison while wandering around the bar with no one ever the wiser.”

  He blinked. “What?” He supposed it wasn’t exactly a secret that some bards used the opportunity provided by their ability to wander around mostly unnoticed to perform more nefarious acts, but he’d never done it himself. He’d never… felt that urge. “There’s probably good money for those with the skill and inclination. But why commit murder when the greatest pleasures in life comes from sleeping with them?”

  It occurred to him that he’d slept with a lot fewer people once he’d started sleeping with Geralt. The Witcher had a lot more stamina than your standard human. Needed less sleep, too. Meant the best of both worlds.

“The call of the White Wolf is loudest at the dawn

The call of a stone heart is broken and alone

Born of Kaer Morhen

Born of No Love

The song of the White Wolf is cold as driven snow

  Bear not your eyes upon him lest steel or silver draw

Lay not your breast against him or lips to ease his roar

For the song of the White Wolf will always be sung alone

For the song of the White Wolf will always be sung alone

  Cast not your eyes upon him, lest he kiss you with his sword

Lay not your heart against him or your lips to ease his roar

For the song of the White Wolf we'll always sing alone

For the song of the White Wolf we'll always sing alone”

  Jaskier was singing in the bar of an inn somewhere north of what was left of Cintra, and he was beyond exhausted. Sleep did not come easily, and what sleep did come was plagued by nightmares of losing what little family he thought he’d gained.

  He was about to beg off because even just lying restlessly on a bed sounded better than staying down here any longer, when who but Geralt walked in, Ksenia and a younger girl he didn’t recognize on his heels.

  The younger girl was the spitting image of Pavetta, and he realized it could be none other than Princess Cirilla of Cintra.

  “Geralt!” he exclaimed, barely noticing as Renfri made a beeline after him as he hurried over to embrace the Witcher. “I missed you so much,” he whispered, standing up on his toes so that he could kiss Geralt.

  “And I you,” Geralt answered, after kissing him back. “Ciri, meet Jaskier.”

  “Hi,” the little girl said.

  “Geralt.”

  “Renfri?” Geralt smiled at Jaskier’s traveling companion, who was standing behind Jaskier. “It’s good to see you again. This is Ciri, and Ksenia. And I guess you’ve met Jaskier?”

  “Ran into him in Lettenhove. Geralt, I would be happy to see that the girls get something to eat, and a room.”

  “You should do that,” Jaskier suggested, before kissing Geralt again. “I think Geralt and I have… some things to, uh, talk about.”

  “We do?”

  “We do,” Jaskier repeated, dragging Geralt in the direction of the room he and Renfri had already rented for the night.

They stayed a few days longer than Geralt had intended, but Renfri and Jaskier had enough coin, and Ksenia and Jaskier both needed a few days of rest before making the long journey to Kaer Morhen.

  Once they left, Ciri and Ksenia, who had been riding double on Roach, took turns riding double with Renfri so that the horses could rotate who was carrying the weight of two. Sometimes Geralt would insist Jaskier ride as well, which was new, he’d never let Jaskier ride Roach before.

  It took them weeks to get to Kaer Morhen, but Vesemir was waiting for them when they arrived.

  The eldest witcher stared at them, and then he rolled his eyes as he opened the gate to let them in. “The others didn’t bring their packs this year,” he said. “But Lambert, Eskel, and Coen are all here.”

  “Thank you,” Geralt said, and with that, he led his family into the home that would always welcome him.

Destiny would bring Yennefer back to them, and time would allow Ksenia a full recovery from her time bedridden by the dragon pox. Yennefer would have to come, someone had to teach Ciri control of her volatile magics.

  Vesemir wasn’t going to say anything, but he really hoped it was before Ciri managed to dismantle the entire keep with a single shout.

  The other Witchers learned to enjoy having some women in the keep who could remind them to stop eating traveling rations all winter long. It was a reminder, really, that they deserved good things too.

  And Jaskier… wasn’t just a bard. He taught Ciri and Ksenia, with Renfri’s help and using Geralt’s long hair, all of the courtly braids he’d learned to make of his sisters’ hair. He also made a mean chicken noodle soup.

  He also worked on his newest ballad, an ode to the memory of his sisters.

  “Jaskier! You have to play a new ballad! A sad one, those are my favorites,” Ciri begged, one eaving after supper when Geralt’s pack and all the Witchers had gathered in the main living room, in front of the warm fire. She was sitting at Jaskier’s feet, watching out the window as it continued snowing.

  Jaskier hummed, and plucked idly at his lute as he considered whether or not he was ready to play the ballad that would bring him closure. “100 years ago, the dragon pox took my little sisters away from me. I haven’t finished it yet, it’s not really telling the story I want to tell.”

  “That’s okay,” Ciri said. “I want to hear it anyway.”

  Jaskier smiled, sadly. He couldn’t deny her anything, and he didn’t want to.

“At the end of the old road

In a house built on a foundation of strife

There’s too many secrets, too many memories

Too many necessaries after too many centuries

All the things of which it was rife.

  Far too much that was all but owed

And yet, a dragon fire breathes new life

Into what first appeared a dying meadow

Being that which is not a rough

But all it ever needed was that new life.”

  He plucked a few more chords, but he didn’t resist when Geralt tugged the lute from his idle fingers. “You’ll be happy with it when you finish it, and it’ll bring you the closure you’re still seeking.”

“I’ll help!” Ciri exclaimed. “It’s just a matter of finding the right words, right?”

“Something like that.” He leaned against Geralt, and let himself find comfort in that.

#witcher fanfiction #geraskier #found family

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

what are your thoughts on the skeleton twins

Hi! I finished watching it last night but desperately needed sleep after because I knew I had things to do this morning, and I also wanted to process it (sometimes I have to take some time to process movies, other times I just word vomit about them).

This is kind of long but I’ll add a read more later when I have the chance!

Anyway; The Skeleton Twins...I really enjoyed it! I went in knowing absolutely nothing except that Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig were in it and playing twins, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I think, given the two actors I mentioned, I was expecting pure comedy or something? But I was so blown away by the film and the performances they gave.

Obviously I love both Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig anyway but this movie really showed their serious acting chops. There were some funny moments too, of course, but they’re both really talented doing genres outside of comedy too, and it sometimes takes me aback when I see comedians do such a good job with non-comedic roles - then again, comedy is probably the hardest genre to pull off, and so it’s no wonder they’re both talented anyway. (I’m rambling, sorry!)

{below here I’m talking about themes related to mental health/suicide, and I can’t put a read more at the moment because I’m currently on my mobile - I will be putting a read more here when I get the chance later!}

I was so taken aback though because the film starts with Milo attempting to commit suicide and Maggie contemplating it, and I guess...it’s something I have struggled with, and so it really made my heart drop especially when I saw Milo in the bathtub and the water turn red. It doesn’t show him actually cutting but we all know what happened. Without going into too much detail, SH and mental illness is something I really struggle with, even though I’m slowly recovering these days - it never truly goes away though, you know it’s there even if you’ve gotten better and it’s something you learn to cope and deal with.

Honestly, I was sort of pleasantly surprised by how well the film portrayed mental illness and suicide with both the main characters. I felt at times I should have hated Maggie for cheating and lying to her husband but I also sort of empathized with her (not with the cheating, just the whole situation and being in a huge mess), and I think what made the film was the relationship between the two siblings because it’s so real and natural, especially if you consider the circumstances when they were younger. Their interactions as siblings was so believeable too, like sometimes you’ll watch movies with siblings and the siblings are all mushy or too at each other’s throats, and it’s unrealistic. They both feel so relatable and easy to connect to, though I suppose I am kind of more biased towards Bill’s character because he’s the reason I watched it (after seeing the clip of him dancing online - that was literally the only part I had seen before).

This is kind of dumb, but as I said, I thought they did a great job portraying depression and the aftermath of the suicide attempts? Like when Maggie was drowning herself and then panicked and tried to swim back up but couldn’t - I’ve heard stories of people who have survived jumping off of bridges or whatever, and they’ve said that after making that jump they instantly regretted it. I think that’s so accurate - it’s not glamourizing suicide either, like it would have been so easy to have her sink peacefully and be rescued without her wanting it and then realize what she’s doing but instead they showed the panic, the regret.

I think what especially caught my eye, however, was the fact that Milo was wearing bracelets on his wrists later in the film to hide his scars and like...? That is so relatable, that is something I do during the summer if it’s been one of those instances, I wear bracelets and wristbands and sometimes even tie a bandana around my wrist to hide it.

I don’t know if that’s just something I do/have done and I’m projecting, or if it’s because actual research/thought was put into it, but either way it was something that really stood out to me and made him more relatable?

I can’t remember the name of Milo’s ex teacher but he can get fucked for all I care. He took advantage and manipulated a teenage boy and I think that’s important to remember. It would be easy to just freak out because omg cute gay couple but to me I just saw it as a one-sided unhealthy relationship where one is manipulative and abusive to the other who feels like they need their love, and it’s kind of depressing - but then Milo basically says “fuck that” by the end, and it’s beautiful because it’s like he’s deciding “you know what, I deserve to be treated better” - and he does, he really does. Beforehand it felt (to me) like he allowed himself to be used and mistreated because he felt like that was the only way he could feel worthy, but then he grows and develops and I think that’s so important.

I think I should also briefly mention that the scene where Maggie tells Milo “maybe next time you should cut deeper” genuinely broke my heart for many reasons - because she’s so upset and her marriage is ruined and everything is a mess, so much so that she actually says that to him before immediately regretting it. And ofc I was so upset because that’s literally something your brain tells you when you’re depressed and suicidal/self harm, that maybe next time...yeah. You can see the flurry of emotions on his face as he processes what she said, like he’s in genuine disbelief that she - his own sister, his twin - said such a cruel and disgusting thing to him like that. It genuinely broke my heart to see, though I was glad they did eventually mend things between them.

Some other things I want to mention but don’t have the brain capacity to talk about properly because I’m exhausted and a dumbass:

The Marley and Me joke was so relatable omg, I read the more child friendly version when I was little but I had no idea the dog died and it broke my damn heart, so that little joke about Marley and Me was hilarious to me

Honestly I’m talking a lot about Bill Hader but I do truly adore Kristen Wiig too, like she’s probably one of the most diverse actresses who does all sorts of genres and projects - from voice acting to drama to SNL etc - and she’s incredible in this film.

Lance was a sweetheart and I feel sorry for him? Like he genuinely loved Maggie and was such a nice guy, and while some of the stuff he said wasn’t always helpful or correct, it came from a place of caring and that’s what matters. Also he was totally cool with his brother in law who he never met before coming and living in his house, and he even helped Milo get some work (even if said work WAS clearing brush away)

The scene where the twins go out and Bill Hader is dressed in drag is honestly a highlight of this movie

Actually the scene where he sees himself the first time in drag is also a highlight

The scene where the mother is making a long ass toast while everyone is waiting to drink their wine, and Maggie/Kristen Wiig just downs her glass before she’s finished is so relatable

Okay but there’s a scene where Milo goes to a gay bar looking for a lay and just...the night he goes, of course it’s fuckin “Dyke Night” (their words, not mine!) and then he comes home absolutely pissed and telling his sister and his brother in law that he just wanted “some c*ck”, omg I was laughing way too hard. Also let’s not forget that he said the two “lesbian ladies” he met were lovely and taught him to play darts, we love mlm and wlw solidarity!!

Well since we’ve already established I’m fucking trash for Bill Hader, let’s just include that moment where his character is shirtless (kinda) in bed

That scene where Maggie meets up with some woman she knew (in high school I think?) and that woman has a son, and the son is a little dick and the mom and the son are cussing at each other was a whole new level of hilarious I didn’t expect, like I was deadass expecting this chick to go on about how wonderful it is to be a mother even when he’s a dick to her, how it’s a great gift, but nope, she knows and even says he’s a fucking dick 😂

THE DENTIST OFFICE SCENE JESUS CHRIST I HAD TO PAUSE BECAUSE I WAS GENUINELY PISSING MYSELF WITH LAUGHTER?!

THAT DANCE SCENE AM I RIGHT, OMG, like he’s so cute and happy in that scene and then she joins in and it’s so dorky and fun??

I LOVE all the water imagery and shit, like maybe it’s just because I’m an absolute geek for swimming (it’s one of maybe three sports I don’t totally suck at??) and I love the cinematography underwater, whether it’s the skeleton key ring sinking or the scuba diving or Milo’s goldfish. So much wonderful cinematography and imagery!

This film has ultimately shown me that Wiig and Hader deserve Oscars and awards ASAP

Also this is just a general note to anyone reading, feel free to recommend movies to me anytime because I’m a cinephile and love getting to watch new films!

#the skeleton twins #kristen wiig #bill hader #asks #long post #will put a read more later!!

[wldbirds]

HADESTOWN + TOXICITY 

I would first like to clarify that the following post is not meant to be a callout for anyone. It is just meant to be my thoughts and observations. Also the content is triggering, I’ve tagged it but please do not read if certain subjects make you uncomfortable.

I feel like as a fandom, we tend to romanticise the relationship between Hades and Persephone. It’s fair given that at the end of the musical the two come back together and hades shows the capacity to change for the better, but I think we don’t acknowledge enough how damaging and toxic their relationship was, apart from causing the Seasons to decay.

Another troubling thing is that we only see Persephone’s side of things, largely. How hades treats her, and so it looks like he takes most of the blame. I am sure in her time that Persephone has done some pretty inexcusable shit- name calling for one, it’s just now shown in the musical so I cannot adequately discuss it. This is not a hades-hate post; I acknowledge they both contributed to the toxicity of their relationship, but it is more difficult to redress Persephone. If anyone has any points about that please add them below.

To begin with, Hades’ view of Persephone is kind of fucked up. How he sings about her in Chant II is obviously very derogatory, demeaning and downright cruel. He clearly doesn’t see her as an equal, and verges on being quite chauvinistic. I wouldn’t go as far as to call it verbal abuse but to view the person you love as an object, a possession hardly bodes well for a relationship/marriage. There’s nothing “cute” or “loving” about that and those lyrics have always troubled me, not to mention she’s right there? Hearing her husband talk about her like that, not just infront of Orpheus but infront of just subordinates, his workers? Can you imagine what goes on behind closed doors?

I think we also rarely acknowledge Hades’ infidelity (Flowers, Hey Little Songbird). Anais, bless her heart, makes it quite ambiguous but there are several allusions to the fact that the contract between Hades and Eurydice was in fact a sexual one, or at least had sexual undertones. Obviously cheating is never okay. Not to mention Eurydice was taken advantage of. There’s reason to believe that Hades deliberately picked this particular girl because he knew it would hurt Persephone.

There are just a lot of major issues in their relationship that make it unhealthy and I want to reiterate again that this is not mean to villianise Hades. Persephone’s drinking is a huge problem, and she comes across as a mean drunk- she also derides him in Way Down Hadestown. Whilst I see the resolution of Hadestown as fitting - they have to get back together for the sake of the Seasons, for continuity and they also separate for something like six months, to clear their heads, it doesn’t sit right with me that it allows everyone to overlook the major flaws in their relationship, and to play down these aspects. Am I saying they are incompatible? No. Am I saying they shouldn’t have gotten back together? No, well. Maybe. Like I said it works for Hadestown, and it’s an uplifting message but it’s also ambiguous. We don’t know what happens after six months. My main point is that people (myself included) tend to excuse the really problematic facets of Persephone/hades because of this conclusion and it just has been bothering me for a Long time, that it all just goes unsaid. I will continue to write Persephades but I hope moving forward I just want to be able to touch on the uglier aspects of their relationship, and to see that we’re all somewhat in agreement, that we don’t gloss over these things anymore. 

#tw: abuse #tw: infidelity #tw: drinking #⊹ · ooc * . shut up nic #you are more than welcome to disagree #but do not send me anon hate these are just my thoughts #i just feel like we all gloss over these very bad aspects of persephades because they end somewhat happily #and that's not really right #again this isn't meant to be levelled against anyone #it's something i've done as well #but going forward i dont' really want it misrepresented anymore

[temencmoth]

TL;DR: Asked my parents (mom and dad) to talk and didn't allow them to break my stated boundaries. After they broke, I went into a locked room, and they planned to take the door off and called me ridiculous. I was able to talk my dad down from doing so, told him I would talk to them both a little later, and only my dad showed up to hear the rest. After speaking my piece, I got called lazy, that I was making an incorrect, stupid choice, and basically some unknown rules and consequences will be coming my way.

A couple days ago, I wrote out 4 pages (following the DEAR MAN assertive asking template) about my reasons for doing so, trying to be as honest as I felt comfortable. I wrote out two pages behind the four just of statements to say if when my boundaries were crossed. It was basically two pages of "Please refrain from X. If it happens again, I will leave the room and the discussion will be over." I thought of other ways to keep my boundary firm, if it means that I'll have to go into a locked room or leave the house or something.

Crazy thoughts, right? That your parents would see that you locked a door and behave in a manner so inappropriate you'd have to leave the house to enforce a boundary?

Anyway.

I asked my parents to the back of the house today to sit down and talk about my decision to not do the thesis. I asked up front not to be interrupted except for immediate clarification, such as not catching something I said. I could tell that they didn't like it and yelling was incoming, but I was still going strong. For background, I went into a University to graduate from the honors college, and to graduate from that honor's college you need to complete the courses from your chosen major as well as a thesis in your senior year. Long story short, I've decided that there's basically no way in hell I can get the thesis done, so I'm going to go out with a general studies degree I'd qualified for while working on my wanted degree.

I got to the fourth point, where I thank my mom for offering to write the paper with me. She tutors for a living, and she has helped me write papers before-- But the big reason I'm not comfortable working with her is the last time she helped me write a paper. I was called manipulative, told I didn't care about the professor and was taking advantage of [the professor] because I was too lazy and manipulative and Cluster B-- You know the shtick, I'm an irredeemably bad person. She didn't yell all at me like usual because my grandfather who was beginning to suffer from dementia was in the other room with his "friend" (fuck you Ida) who just wanted money from him. I walked out at one point and came back, and she was just the tiniest bit-- She seemed like she was angry that she went too far and I went away, more than she was upset about upsetting me in any capacity.

In any case, it was fucking traumatic. But she didn't hear me say any of the above-- I said I didn't want to work on the thesis with her and she interrupted me with I can't even remember, but she put her hands on her head and was so sad and angry I was being this stupid, but

I stood my ground.

I said "Please don't interrupt me. If it happens again, I will leave the room and the conversation will be over."

I clarified that she would not let me say my piece, then got up, said "I stated my boundary and the consequences of breaking it clearly. I will be open to having this discussion at a later time." And went into a room just down the hall that had a locking door. I went in quickly, locked the door, and stood in front of it while the handle shook and she yelled at me to open the door. That I was being-- Childish, I think the accusation was, that I'm just trying to control her and everything and I can't have my way all of the time.

My dad told her not to break the door down, he can just take the knob off. He told her to go, that he can talk to me and try to get me out of there. I can't remember the conversation too well, but some highlights were

This isn't what the real world is like [being able to leave when you said you would leave when boundaries are broken >:^(]

This is their house, so they can take down the door if I don't cooperate

I know mom is going to go off, let her spit her abuse say her peace then continue

You just have to let this happen

You're being childish.

I stated many times that I'm maintaining this boundary, and he eventually gave up on getting me out of there at that moment. We agreed on 30 minutes

("I'll give you 5 minutes." "30." "15 then," "30." "...I'll see what I can do.")

and in that I texted my friend, letting them know that I might need a ride if things go further. I made sure my stuff was together and tried not to cry too hard, because I was genuinely open to finishing what I had written and being too emotional means I would be completely discredited. At least that way, I could say I tried.

While I was doing this, my sister (former scapegoat, currently being groomed as the Golden Child) banged on the door and asked why I said my mom wouldn't let me eat. I said I never said that, because, what? But apparently my mom had come into the living room wailing about how I'm lying to all my therapists and that she's not abusive, we don't even know what abuse is, here are personal details of my husband's abuse that he has chosen not to tell the rest of the family to prove that you're not being abused. I'm a manipulative liar, she's the only victim in the house, you know the sctick. Anyway, my sister apologized and I waited the time out.

Like I said in the TL;DR, just my dad came to listen when the time was up. I read the rest of the thing, and he wasn't happy.

Which is just. How pathetic and childish, sulking because someone told her that her stepping across a  boundary would have consequences after me literally saying to her that stepping over a boundary would have consequences. It's pathetic I have to teach her basic respect like that. The metaphor that kept coming to mind was training a dog. I obviously have more complicated feelings towards her than "she's an abusive dog" but jesus christ, wanna act emotionally mature for once?

I read the rest of my reasons for getting the general studies to my dad, and I could tell he wasn't happy the whole time. Disappointed face, you know? I read it through tears, opening part of my heart, knowing that it was worthless to him. 

He said I was making the wrong decision since to graduate from scholar's I basically needed to just buckle down and do a paper. I already had work on it done, even if working with mom is unpleasant I can do it on my own and turn it in no problems.

Looking back, this response doesn't address anything but my unwillingness to do the paper. I told him how my reader left and I wasn't comfortable with anyone else, that at this point in my life academics were very detrimental to my emotional health, that I was ready to move on with my life, none of that was addressed. It was all Nike. Just do it.

And now I'm here questioning if I am making too big a deal of this, because it is just a paper, it is just a couple more classes, no way I'll have another breakdown. Nope. No possible way. No chance even that I have actually understood that I'll probably regret this and it's a regret I can live with and rectify when I have better resources.

 He asked what I planned to do next. I bought up a few things: Plans my friend and I have for an online store (it wouldn't be big, especially at first, but it would get me experience designing/maintaining a website, packing/shipping, marketing, etc.), some freelance/gig things, and that the disabilities office at school sent out a link to disability job fair.

Then I was told that I'm so smart, and creative, and ahead of 99% of the population and I don't need to be looking specifically for jobs which would work with my disability, which is a crock of shit because if I didn't have a disability I would've graduated school a year ago with my thesis done. Why does he only praise me when it will make things easier for him?

 This is way too fucking long, sorry. Just. Wanted to get it out there I guess. 

#temen #eb #so if anyone wants to hear what I'll be takling about in terapy next week

[sinsiriuslyemo]

FINALLY!!!! Here is episode 48 of Cuba v DR!! With only two episodes left after this, we’re going to do one last giveaway! I know we’ve slacked so much, so there will be more than one winner, don’t worry! I’m so excited to also say that @esparza-army​ has graciously offered a Nevada PopDoll to include in the giveaway! More on the giveaway later today or tomorrow! Stay tuned!

FUCK IT FEELS GOOD TO BE POSTING THIS AGAIN!!

EPISODE 48

“Check all the exits,” Williams said as he walked through the crime scene. “I want the entire building gone over with a fine-toothed comb.”

They hadn’t found any forensic evidence during their first sweep of the building, but now with Omar Diaz in custody, he could feel that he was on the verge of breaking the case wide open. All he needed was one hair, one fiber, anything to connect Diaz with the murder of Reina Rodriguez, but what he was hoping for was something to connect Ramirez. He hadn’t been able to keep Diaz’s lawyer away for long without veering into abuse of power.

“Captain!” His head whipped around to the sound of someone calling his name. “You might wanna take a look at this.”

Williams followed the CSI tech into the stairwell and downstairs. “Please tell me they left blood.”

“No blood, but…” They got to the bottom of the stairwell and all the way to the back door. “There’s a partial print on the edge of the door. We can run it, see if there’s a match on record.”

“Get it over to the lab immediately, I want it to have top priority,” Williams replied.

“Got something over here!” he heard from behind him. Williams turned to look at a different tech swabbing a spot on the floor. 

“Blood?”

“No, more than likely saliva or sweat,” the second tech answered.

“Alright, send it with the partial print and let me know as soon as you have the results,” Williams said. 

“You got it, Captain.”

Williams smiled in satisfaction. “Gotcha, Ramirez.”

------------------------------------------------------

It was nearing six am when you came downstairs to get a headstart on breakfast and Nevada was still sitting on the couch, staring at the wall in front of him. You frowned and cleared the last couple of steps before going to sit beside him. “Have you been sitting like this all night?” 

He sighed heavily. “Yeah, I got a bad feeling about this. Something just...feels off.”

Your brows furrowed. “Off?” You moved to sit beside him and take his hand. “What do you mean by off? You’re making me nervous,” you said with a half smile, trying to lighten his mood but there seemed to be no change in the man’s demeanor. 

“I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head with brows furrowed. “Just a weird feeling.”

You nodded, not liking the way that sounded. You had always seen your husband confident and ready to handle things. Seeing him like this was a little unsettling. “It’ll be alright, new day, same shit, remember?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he mumbled. “You’re up early.”

“Getting a head start on breakfast before the kids are up, what do you want to eat? You want a big cup of coffee, yeah?”

“Coffee for sure,” he said, nodding his head. “Other than that, I don’t care. Whatever you’re making for the kids is fine.”

“Sounds good, I’m gonna make them whole wheat waffles from scratch today, I was checking this new recipe and it looks so good. Plus it’s healthy!” 

You made a huge pot of espresso and poured your husband more than the recommended amount before getting started on the waffles.

“Are they gonna eat that? Kids hate healthy shit,” he replied, arching a brow.

“Well I’m hoping they’ll like it with fresh fruit but worse case scenario I’ll smother it in syrup and try being a good mom tomorrow instead.” 

“Good luck,” he replied. His cell phone rang and he immediately answered as he sat upright. “Chibby, give me good news.”

You turned your head and watched your husband’s face for a reaction. You couldn’t remember a time when you’d ever seen him this worried. It was beginning to scare you a little.

“Good,” he replied, standing up. “No, no. I’ll go see Jasper, you guys stay on Omar and this Williams fuck. Okay, bye.”

He hung up and grabbed his jacket, taking a large gulp from his coffee and bringing the mug to the sink.

“Found Natalia, that bitch is fucking dead,” he spat, tugging his leather on.

“You found her? That’s great right?” You stepped in closer with a frown. “You haven’t slept in at least 30 hours, Nevada. Can someone else go get her? You can rest a little? No one is functioning at full capacity without sleep. Not even you.” You were worried, he was burning the candles at both ends. You gripped tight to his leather and pressed in closer.

“I’ll be fine. I wanna finish this,” he replied. “I’ll sleep after we get Omar out.”

You nodded and tugged him closer. “Please be careful,” you whispered and leaned in, pressing your lips together with his. You didn’t usually smother him in affection anymore but his mood about this was scaring you. You wrapped your arms around his neck. “Stay a few more minutes,” you pleaded against his lips.

“I can’t, I gotta catch her while she’s not expecting us,” he replied. “I’ll be back soon, promise.”

You nodded slowly, pulling back, clearly sad to see him go. “Okay,” you whispered. “I love you…”

“Love you, too.” He kissed your lips and walked to the door, turning to give you a wink before he left.

--------------------------------------------------

Roxie loved a chance to have lunch with her mother. After their initial reconciliation, she had grown very close with her. Despite that, they didn’t often get a chance to be alone together, which was a shame. 

She sat across from her mother at the nearest table in the cafe, smiling and ordering them both a raspberry tea and a glass of white wine. 

“This is nice, Roxanne,” Helena said, smiling back at her daughter. “I’m glad to be able to have some time for just the two of us.”

Roxie nodded happily. “I’m glad too. I was hoping we could have some alone time.” When they brought the drinks they both ordered their meals. “I wish we could stay longer, I have to be on set in about an hour, otherwise I would love to spend the whole day together. Just one girl’s day, you know?” 

Girls day used to be about her, you and Amber. Now it would be just her and Josie. Which was fine, she was just a little...sad. She had loved spending time with Amber and you together. But she had to think about her family now, that’s what mattered.

“What’s the matter, darling?” Helena asked, noticing the expression on the younger woman’s face.

“I’m just thinking about how I had to say goodbye to a friend. I really cared for her, but she was toxic for my life. So I let her go. But I’m still sad about it, you know?”

Helena nodded softly. “Well, if she was toxic, then I doubt she was a very good friend. But I’m sorry she wasn’t who you thought she was. It’s understandable to miss the friendship.”

Roxie nodded. “It was sad, but it was definitely for the best.” The waiter brought over some biscuits, making her sigh contently. “I’m so glad you’re here with me.” 

“I am too,” Helena replied. “Is everything alright with Rafael? He seemed quiet the last few days.”

“Rafael decided to resign,” she said nervously. “He seems at peace with the idea. After all the rumors he doesn’t want his reputation to get in the way of someone else’s justice. And I think he wants to stay at home with Liam. I want to support him no matter what, I’m just so nervous he will grow to regret this decision.” 

“I see,” Helena replied. “Well, for what it’s worth, I’m sure he put a lot of thought into the decision. I remember how passionate you told me he is about his job.”

“He is so passionate, I’m so proud of him for always doing what he believes is right. Not many people have that same conviction.” She sipped her raspberry tea and sighed. “I’m going to chat with him later and see if he still feels it’s the best option, if he does then I guess we’ll adjust for whatever comes next.”

“Would you rather he didn’t resign?”

“I would rather he didn’t because I know he loves his job, but other than that I don’t have a preference either way. I just want him happy and lately that job hasn’t made him very happy. Not since that slag made all those allegations.”

“Well, then maybe you do without the chat,” Helena replied, bobbing her shoulders. “After all, he’s already made his decision, what’s the use in talking about it again? I’m sure if something changes for him, he’ll speak with you about it. You are his wife, after all, darling.” 

“That’s true,” Roxie said with a nod. “Yeah you’re right, this is his choice. I’ll leave it up to him.” 

As the server brought their food over, Roxie’s phone buzzed and she sighed. She’d been losing patience with work lately and put the phone on silent.

“Did you need to get that?” Helena asked, sprinkling pepper onto her salad.

“I’m sure they can manage without me for a few hours. We have some new staff at the bakery and they get nervous and call me for everything instead of the manager. They need to learn to call the manager.” 

Helena chuckled. “I’m proud of you, Roxanne. Opening a successful business and building a brand from something you’re passionate about.” 

“I’m so happy,” Roxie answered. “I worked so hard and did everything I could to make this business a reality.” 

“I know you did,” Helena replied. “And now you have a beautiful family and get to enjoy the fruits of your labor.”

“I just feel like...I don’t know. My whole life has led up to this career. I fought tooth and nail, working job after job to get it and now that things are running so smoothly...I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel as if maybe if I keep control of everything, it won’t.” 

“Oh, I know that feeling,” Helena replied with a fond smirk. “That was exactly how I felt after mine and your father’s business took off. After you were born, I thought I could keep going that way, then came Isla and after a few months, I realized that I was missing everything. I’d missed all your firsts, I’d missed most of your sister’s as well. And the worst part was that I didn’t know how to fix it. You can’t live your life that way, Roxanne. Don’t make the same mistakes that I did. Part of running a successful business is appointing people who are competent to maintain your standards so that you don’t have to sacrifice what's important to you. Trust your instincts, sweet girl, and know that you’ve hired the right people to represent your brand.”

Roxie bit her bottom lip. Her mother was right. “I...I know we are only starting to get close, I love that so much. But there is still a part of me that’s angry. I was a child and I took care of my sister like she was my own child. I always had more responsibility than a normal teenager ever would have. It made me who I am, and I’m grateful for that. But sometimes I’m still a little upset.”

“I can’t say I blame you,” Helena replied, setting down her fork to give her complete attention to her daughter. “I wasn’t a very good mother most of the time, I know that. But the one thing I am proud of is that neither of you ever wanted or needed for anything. You always had a roof over your heads, food on the table, clothes on your back. At least I got that right.”

Roxie smiled softly. “Yes, you did. Deep down, I always knew you loved us. Even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself all the time.” 

“I did,” Helena answered, nodding. “I do. And now that I have a second chance to have a real mother and daughter relationship, I promise you I will not take it for granted again.”

Roxie smiled. “I love you too. I resented you for so many years but...now that I’m in your position, I just feel like I owe you an apology. This is so hard, every day it’s a balance between the job I love and the family I love and it can be suffocating.” 

“I understand,” Helena replied. ‘You’ll see, it’ll get easier the older Liam gets. Or so I’ve heard.”

Roxie smiled at her mother before her phone buzzed again. “That’s my work. They need me at the set for filming...do you want to come along, mum?”

Helena’s eyes lit up and she nodded. “I would like that very much.”

--------------------------------------------------

With Liam strapped to his chest in a baby carrier, Rafael took the elevator up to the sixth floor at One Hogan Place. He had one hand against his son’s back and the other was holding his resignation letter. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he rocked his son as he waited for the doors to slide open.

“Should've brought your stroller, Liam. I just realized that I won’t have the hands to carry a box of my stuff out of my office,” he mumbled, kissing the infant’s head.

Stepping into the hallway, he made his way towards his office, smiling at Carmen once he reached her desk.

“Hello,” he chimed, grinning at her.

“Mr. Barba! And Liam!” She looked to the baby and giggled. “So handsome, look at you,” she cooed. “He looks just like Roxie.” 

“Thank god for that,” Rafael replied with a smirk. “I have to tell you something and I want you to know, it has nothing to do with you. It’s something I’ve been considering for a long time and now that this little guy is here, it just feels like the right thing to do.”

She shot him a nervous look. “Is everything okay, Mr. Barba?” 

“Yeah, everything is great, I just prefer that you hear this from me,” Rafael replied. “I’m resigning.”

Her eyes widened. “What? Why? Because of the article? Mr. Barba, it was a tabloid,” she said, frowning. “Everyone here knows it’s a lie.” 

“We both know that’s not true,” Rafael replied. “And even if it was, the innuendo would always be there and I don’t want it to affect any future cases. Besides, Roxie’s career is just starting to take off and someone needs to be home with Liam, that’s a job I’m more than ready to have.”

Carmen looked about to argue before sighing and nodding. “We’re going to be lost without you here,” she said with a sad smile. “No other boss is ever going to compare.” 

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” he replied  “Whoever replaces me will be lucky to have you watching their back.”

She smiled. “You better keep in touch.”

“Course I will,” he answered. “You wouldn’t wanna hold a baby while I go drop off my resignation letter and pack up my things, would you?”

“Oh, please give me that baby,” she pleaded. 

He snorted and unbuckled Liam from the carrier, carefully handing him to Carmen before he pulled off the straps and set the carrier on her desk. “Good to know you like babies.”

She bounced the baby in her arms. “Look at you, you are so much cuter than your daddy,” she teased. She looked at him, sad to see him go. “You’ve always been a bigger person than the others around here. No one would do what you’re doing now. I have...so much respect for you. I always have.” 

Rafael smirked at her. “Thanks for saying that.” He looked down at his son. “Okay, Liam, you behave. I’ll only be a few minutes.” Looking up at Carmen, he took the diaper bag from his shoulder and added, “If he gets fussy, his pacifier is in here, side pocket. I won’t be long.”

She nodded, happy to hold the baby in her arms, he was too cute. She watched her boss move out of sight and sighed to the baby. 

“Your daddy is one of the best men I know,” she said softly.

Rafael made quick work of packing his things into a box. If he were being honest, he didn’t want to be here any longer than he had to be. When he was done, he went back out to where Carmen and Liam were.

“Was he talkative?” he asked.

“He’s a sweet talker already.” She smiled down at the baby. 

Rafael chuckled, taking Liam from her and smelling his butt. “Think he needs a change. You wanna see where daddy spent most of his time before he met mommy?” he asked as he grabbed the diaper bag and walked back into his office.

The baby’s eyes opened and closed, focused mostly on Rafael as his little lips parted as Carmen followed close behind. 

“You don’t think you’ll go a little stir crazy alone with Liam all day? He’s adorable but I’m not sure you’ll leave the house too much.” 

“Oh, sure I will. Besides my sister’s kids aren’t that much older, once he gets old enough I can take him on play dates with them. In the meantime, there’s an entire city we can explore together,” he replied.

“Well he’s lucky, he’s living in the city that never sleeps. I assume he never sleeps either so it’s a perfect match, don’t you think?”

“Tell me about it about it,” Rafael mumbled as he put a new diaper on Liam. “He pretty much sticks to a schedule though, so at least there’s that.”

“So he is just like you and Roxie then,” she said with a loud laugh.

“Yep, guess it runs in the family, huh Liam?” Rafael replied, snapping his son’s onesie shut and picking him up and bringing him towards his chest. “He’s a great baby.”

“Lucky you,” she said, smiling and looking around the room. “I can’t believe you’re leaving...have you told Grace yet? She’s so attached to you, it’ll break her heart. From what I’ve heard around the office she’s been thriving lately.”

“No, she and I didn’t exactly part on the best terms the last I saw her, but I’m glad to hear that she’s doing well,” he answered. “She has a lot of talent and a lot of passion, it would’ve been a shame to see that go to waste.”

“Oh, did you guys fight?” 

“Something like that,” he mumbled. 

“Well at least she’s nicer than the other paralegals,” she mumbled. “One of them called me Cameron the other day.” 

“That must get annoying,” he answered. “I hope you don’t let them get away with it.”

“I’ll give you a guess how many times I’ve corrected him already,” she said with a roll of her eyes. 

“Well, I wouldn't worry. People like that don’t typically make many friends around here.”

“I sure hope not…” She sighed. “Some people honestly have no common courtesy.” She turned her attention to Liam who was starting to fuss a little.

“Well, I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll see you around  okay?”

“I’ll miss you, I really will. And expect me to come and visit this little one soon,” she said with a smile. 

“We’re counting on it,” Rafael replied as they walked back to her desk. Handing Liam over to her, Rafael put the baby carrier back on and set Liam inside, fastening the wraps to keep him safely in the harness. “Come by soon for dinner, we’d love to have you over.”

“I would really like that, thank you. And tell Roxie I say hello.” She gave him a smile and then a wave to Liam. “Bye cutie.”

“Say bye,” Rafael mumbled to Liam, before he patted Carmen’s shoulder. “I’m just gonna drop off my resignation letter with McCoy and then I’ll be back for that box tomorrow when my mother in law can stay with Liam.”

“Do you want me to hold Liam while you drop it off?” she offered.

“No, it’s alright, it won’t take me long,” he replied, smiling. “Thank you, though.”

Carmen nodded and got back to work as Rafael went to McCoy’s office, on the seventh floor. Dropping the letter off with the DA’s secretary, he left with his son and decided to stop by the SVU precinct.

The second Rafael entered the precinct he could see Amanda and Carisi chatting at their desks, laughing as they looked over case files. Amanda looked up when she noticed him. 

“Barba, Hey. Is this your new edition?”

“Yes! This is Liam, Liam, this is Amanda Rollins and this strange-looking man is Sonny Carisi,” Rafael said.

Carisi snorted a laugh and looked at the baby. “Oh he’s cute, counselor.”

“So is it bring your baby to work day?” Amanda asked with a quirked brow.

“I don’t work here,” Rafael replied. “If you’re asking whether I’m back at work, the answer is no, I’m still in paternity leave...and I resigned this afternoon.”

Carisi was the first one to react. “What? Barba you can’t be serious…”

“I am very serious,” Rafael answered. 

“What are you going to do? You practically live in that office.” Amanda frowned. “You love your job.” 

“I’m gonna be a father,” he replied, smirking as one hand rubbed over Liam’s back. 

Neither of them seemed to want to argue with that. 

“We’re not gonna find another ADA willing to go the extra mile like you, Barba.” Carisi looked down at the baby and smiled before nodding. “We gotta get back to work but congratulations on the baby, and we’re gonna miss you around here.”

“Especially Carisi,” Amanda said with a smirk. 

“I’m sure I’ll see you all around at some point,” Rafael answered. “Liv in her office?”

“Yeah, she’s finishing some paperwork,” Carisi said with a nod. “Been in there for hours.” 

“Well, we’re gonna go say hi,” Rafael said, looking down at Liam, who by now had fallen asleep again.

Carisi nodded and smiled looking down at the baby. “Congratulations again on the baby, counselor.” 

“The precinct won't be the same without you,” Amanda said with a smirk. “The next ADA has big shoes to fill.” 

“Thank you,” Rafael answered, nodding before he walked to Liv’s office and knocked on the door. “Knock-knock. You got a minute for a sleeping baby and a washed-up prosecutor?”

Olivia turned and smiled. “Well look who stopped in, I always have time for you and Liam,” she said with a smile. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, just wanted you to hear from me that I resigned about an hour ago,” he answered.

She quirked a brow. “Resigned? Care to elaborate? I’m not disputing it if this is what you want, I’m just curious as to why we’re losing our ADA.” 

“It’s just time for me to go, Liv. Time to do other things,” he replied.

She nodded. “They will never be able to replace someone who’s had my back like you have,” she said with a smirk. “No one else is crazy enough to take the cases you did.” 

“Well, good. Maybe you’ll win a few more then,” he replied.

She smiled at him. “So what now, moving on to a new job or…” 

“I think I’m just gonna focus on making sure this little guy is taken care of,” he answered, gesturing to Liam.

She smiled and nodded. “I wish I saw Noah more. Liam’s lucky, I’m not sure what we’re gonna do without you.” 

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“We have to be, this new case is a big one,” she smirked and looked at him. “I always thought they’d drag you out of that office when you were well into your eighties, but retirement looks good on you. One hour and you’re already glowing.” 

“He certainly helps,” Rafael replied, looking down at Liam. “It’s just not worth it. When I weighed the pros and cons...Liam is the most important thing in my life now. He doesn’t deserve for me to be stressed because of a lie that got out of hand.”

“I understand,” Liv replied, giving her friend a sympathetic smile. “Don’t be a stranger, okay? She said after a moment.

“I won’t,” Rafael mumbled back. After a pause, they carefully embraced before Rafael left the 16th precinct for the very last time.

--------------------------------------------------

“Hello, you’ve reached Roxanne. Leave me a message and I’ll ring you back just as soon as I’m able.”

BEEP

“Hey Rox, Liam and I just got home. Just wondering how your day went. We’ll see you soon,” Rafael said as he let the front door close behind him. “Love you, bye.”

He hung up, set his phone down on the counter and unbuckled Liam from his chest. Setting the baby down in his swing, he turned the apparatus on and walked into the nursery.

“Okay, Liam,” Rafael called out as he looked for a fresh onesie and a diaper before he began walking back to the living room. “Let’s get you all bathed and cleaned up for when mommy and grandma get back. Maybe we can watch Trolls or som--”

He froze in the doorway at the sight of a tall, blonde man standing with his back to him next to Liam’s swing. Turning his head towards the door, he still found it closed. He hadn’t heard it open, nor had he heard so much as footsteps. How did the intruder get inside?!

“He looks just like his mother.” 

Rafael’s heart sank at the sound of the familiar voice as the man turned around with the baby boy nestled in his arms. Charles Heeley grinned at him.

“Hello, Rafael. It’s so good to see you.”

#rafael barba #Nevada ramirez #cuba v dr #law and order svu #trouble in the heights

[aesterakae]

Ephemera Update #2

Hey everyone! Hope quarantine has been treating you well. I’m about to wrap up my college semester in about a month so it’s been wild. Online learning hasn’t been fun to say the least. I’ve been on quite a roll with short stories lately, while also doing a brief outline for my novel (details and project intro to come) and i’ve edited old ones as well as drafted ideas that have been stewing in my head for quite a while. Today i wanted to share with you guys a short story that i drafted in June-ish last year that has recently been polished (#bless) and submitted to some mags so hopefully there will be a publication in the near future! I won’t be including any excerpts as most magazines would consider that previously published.

“And God Still Held His Breath” follows Sayed, an Arabic professor who immigrated from Oman to America after the death of his wife, Sheika, and suicide of his daughter, Aliya. He has no memories of the hours leading up to Sheika’s death, however, they had a pretty abusive gaslighty relationship leading up to her death. He’s a pretty unreliable narrator and we never get confirmation if he killed her or if it was suicide. After moving to Boston, he gets a job at a local college and gets into a relationship with one of his students named Reeve, a pan-Asian girl who is studying Arabic after her trip to Egypt. To him, Reeve is sort of like an amalgamation of Sheika and Aliya, and being with her means that he gets a second chance of being a better father and husband, which is quite fucked up i know. The narrative cuts between past and present quite sporadically. I wanted to show how trauma has the capacity to warp memory and annihilate religious faith. It’s definitely one of my favorite stories i’ve written so far. I had to do a shit ton of research on middle eastern culture and Islam because i was terrified of cultural appropriation, so i’m pretty proud of how it turned out. It’s also one of the longer stories in the collection and is sitting at around 6500 words.

Playlist:

Flowerchild by Citizen

Now the one you once loved is leaving by Lydia

You there by Aquilo

For Blue Skies by Strays Don’t Sleep

The #aesthetique:

Also, i’ve got some good new recently. Another short story of mine “How to Skin A Peach” has been accepted for publication in Room magazine issue 43.2. It will be available for order in early June, so check it out if you want to read it this weird little story.

I actually drafted this story in two days and its only 2000 words long. I only did some minor edits before submitting so it’s kinda funny that this is my first published story rather than the ones that i spent months editing. Fun fact: I was actually inspired by this avant-garde short film called “Possibly in Michigan” about two house wives that are into cannibalism. It’s on youtube if you want to check it out, and i wanted to put my own spin on that energy. The story is basically just one scene set in Tokyo. It’s is a delve into the unhinged mind of a Japanese single mother named Kaede, who is preparing dinner for her son and neighbour, Jin, who comes over once a week. When she finds out that Jin’s husband has been hurting her, she decides to take matters into her own hands and things get wild.

Playlist:

Killer by Palehound

Miss Me by The Dresden Dolls

That’s all for now, hope you guys enjoyed that update!

#writeblr #writing update #moonscapes at blue hour