Tumgik
#i know some friends are finding the fandom draining as well
d0d0-b0i · 1 year
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always get so pleasantly surprised when people really like my stuff i post :) love you all. whether you celebrate something or not around this time i wish you all the best <3
#i always first and foremost post for me if not otherwise stated on the post itself#and that is what i always have done and aspire to continue. but#it makes me happy to see so many likeminded people around me#sorry. i am getting sappy and emotional; today has been draining for reasons i do not know#i am very tired and it is late for me so i will try sleeping soon#i am glad to have found such a nice and large fandom in sonic. it has allowed me to try and be more approachable and friendly while still#being myself at my core interactions. this year has been strange and new and exciting so i figured i might as well try#and make some more friends. which i have; i am happy to say :’) i have always had a hard time socializing. and to find people willing#to understand the things i say even though it’s worded weirdly#and i’m happy so many can enjoy the art i post <3 it means a lot to me#especially when i feel as if i don’t do enough. i like many others have some. issues regarding worth and content but i am trying my best#and. am getting better at it 👍 i think i might be getting sick ergo the sappiness and long tags#but i don’t regret the things i say. i love you all followers mutual ppl i follow#there is so much space in my heart and i am not afraid to admit that i get attached easily and do not know where friendships begin.#but i. am willing to try and find out! if the gods are willing; hopefully a good new year for us all next week! and more commmunity and love#i hope you understand what i am trying to convey. ive been scared of being this open but if i am not then i will never know living#and loving <3 will still be posting obvs i am simply joyous rn! gonna sleep now :3
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delicioushottubpeanut · 6 months
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♡ babysitter
oneshot - inspired by that one edit
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fandom: five nights at freddys (movie)
paring: mike schmidt x fem!reader
warnings: nsfw 18+, dry humping, sexual tension, kissing, friends to lovers, cumming in pants, submissive mike, foul language, teasing, smut, riding, dom reader, consensual sex, age gap, minors dni..
You've heard a lot about him from Abby, mainly bits and pieces that she's told you, but nothing really about him and the only thing he really says to you is that he's eventually going to pay you back. But you always refuse.
The old couch squeaks softly as he sits beside you, a gentle hand goes to reach your face but hesitates.
He’s been very busy for a while now that he has started his new job at a security guard that was shut down ages ago. When he comes home he's always so tired, like he's a different person. As if he cannot relax. You hear the door open and slam back as it he closes it.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't hear you come back.." You whisper, groaning whilst you move out of the position you had been in for a while. Yawning as you gently wipe your eyes.
Mike looks at you, half-smiling as he leans against the cushions. He's tired, you can tell. "Sorry if I woke you, you looked exhausted, so I just wanted to cover you," he whispers back, stretching his arms. "Did Abby go okay for you?" he asks.
"I told her it's bedtime an hour ago, but you know how it is with little ones." You joke.
"Abby was great, she missed you, though.." You smile sheepishly, shifting on the coach to face him. "How was work?" You ask, seeing the slight bags under his eyes.
Mike chuckles softly, leaning his head back and letting out a deep sigh as he stares up at the ceiling.
"It was long," he sighs. "I mean, I've gotten used to it, of course, but god, it's draining..." He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, looking off to the side and fiddling with his fingers, trying to find the right words to explain what just happened at work. He seems hesitant to say.
"You okay? You can talk to me if something is bothering you." Hesitantly placing your hand on his shoulder, slowly forcing him to look at you. You've known him for years due to babysitting Abby, but he's never opened up.
"Well... it's just..." Mike sighs again, still not meeting your eyes. "...Abby asked me some questions about stuff today."
He rubs the back of his neck, shifting in his seat as if he's about to say something and then thinks better of it. He leans back against the coach, letting out a frustrated grunt as his eyebrows pinch in frustration. "I... I just can't tell her."
"Is there anything I can do to help?" You whisper, staring at him, waiting for a response.
Mike's face softens a little, looking over at you before he sighs, shaking his head. "It's nothing. Abby asked about the job, and... well, it got me thinking..." He shrugs his shoulders again, still looking off to the side.
"Look, I'll tell Abby about it myself, I don't... I shouldn't put it on you..." He sighs one again, staring at the floor.
"If you need me, don't hesitate." You place your hand on his thigh, squeezing it for reassurance. Gaining confidence, you slowly move your body off the couch and sit on his lap.
"Oh..." Mike says quietly, his face turning bright red as you place your hand on his thigh. He looks down at you, his expression of uncertainty on his face changing as his eyebrows rise.
He's speechless, frozen in shock at your touch, and his entire face is practically bright pink. He's suddenly a lot warmer, his chest heaving as his heartbeat picks up speed. "... Y- you're..." he says with the last of his breath, his brain having trouble finding the right words to say.
"Is this okay..?" You grind against his lap, whispering against his ear.
"Shit..." He stammers, his brain desperately trying to process what you're doing. He looks confused, his eyes drifting down to you as his mind races.
"What... what are you... n- no, it's... we can't..." Mike stutters, trying to find a way to reject you. But the longer you're in his lap, the harder it is for him to say no.
"Just relax, Abby is fast asleep in her room.." You grind harder against him, using your index finger to tilt his chin up, making eye contact when you suddenly hear him whimper.
"T- this isn't the time..." he mumbles in response, his eyes closing at the sensation and his whimpers becoming more noticeable.
"W- we shouldn't be doing this..." he whispers, his arms hesitating in the air for a moment before they eventually wrap around your waist. He's still torn between going along with it or saying no, his heart racing as he gazes at you.
"Beg for me to continue." You stop moving your hips, feeling his arousal throb against your ass. Wanting to see how he would react.
"P- please... God.." he whispers, the breath catching in his throat and his voice turning raspy.
He looks at you, his eyes pleading, his body quivering under your control. His heart is pounding out of his chest. He swallows, looking up at you as his entire body screams for you to keep going while his mind fights back.
"You can do better than that.." You tease, breathing against his neck, gently creating bruises as you feel his slightly breath hitch.
Mike whimpers loudly when he feels your bites, his muscles tensing as he tries to relax.
"H- I- please, don't stop..." he murmurs hoarsely, sounding completely different than you've ever heard before. He whimpers again, his head tilted back as he tries to hide the pleasure in his face. He can't believe what he's doing, but he can't turn away.
"Good boy.." Slowly reaching to take off your top, revealing your covered breasts as you start to grind against him, pushing your panties to the side, creating a wet spot on his jeans.
Mike looks down at you, taking in the view as your top is removed, his face getting even pinker as his heart races.
He swallows nervously in response to your wetness, his eyes trailing down your body before they eventually turn back to your face. His cheeks are bright red, his breathing heavy as he glances back down at you, looking into your eyes as you look into his. He takes a long, drawn-out breath, his entire body quivering with anticipation.
"Just take what you want, Mike, no one is stopping you.." You tease, eagerly watching his reaction.
"I- it's..." Mike starts to say, but he can't say no to you, not right now. He leans back, pushing himself deeper into you like he can't help himself, the breath catching in his throat as he takes in the sensation. His eyes are closed as he tries to ignore his own morals.
His eyes snap open, his lips parted as he whispers, "More.."
"You close?" Whispering seductively, moving harder as you feel your climax coming fast.
"Oh, god..." Mike breathes out, his face red, and his eyes roll back into his head. He moans, bucking his hips up against you, feeling himself come close to release as he cums in his pants, feeling you come down from your high.
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randoimago · 3 months
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For bg3, could I request platonic Wyll, Astarion, Gale, and Lae'zel finding a Tav that's quietly breaking down from all the pressure of having to save and comfort people all the time. Like they want to help people, but it's becoming too much for them.
Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3
Character(s): Astarion, Gale, Lae'zel, Wyll
Note(s): They all need therapy after this, but idk if therapy exists in D&D so give them spa days and alcohol instead
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Astarion
As someone that voices his complaints easily once he's become close enough to let you in on his secrets, he also knows when the feelings are being buried away. While he doesn't want to tell you what to do, he does pull you aside when you're back at camp to exchange supplies.
Saving people and being a hero has never been something for him, mostly because he never had someone to save him. Until you came around, that is. And he thanks you for that, but you need to stop putting so much on your shoulders. You want to save people? Well you won't be able to do that if you collapse.
You've been a good friend to him, so let him do the same to you. Take a fucking break. Break into that newspaper building and change the article to something ridiculous. Do something for yourself. Astarion is more than happy to introduce you to some of his more fun morally grey activities just to get everything off of your mind. He has dealt with the aftermath of being burnt out and wasting away because bottling your emotions becomes too much, he won't see the same happening to you.
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Gale
Notices you looking tired and suggests a break. He'll always be happy to lend and ear and offer some words of wisdom. Mostly, let yourself rest. You're already doing a lot and you should find a nice book and lay down in your tent for a bit to destress.
While Gale is trying to have his morals in the right place, he also knows not everyone can or deserves to be saved. It's valiant of you to try and offer help to anyone you can, but he can see the toll it's taking on you mentally, emotionally, and physically. Honestly, Faerun is a big place, let some other adventurers lend their help, you deserve some wine.
It's a shame that Magnificent Mansion or Tiny Hut aren't spells you can get in game, but Gale would happily cast Magnificent Mansion for you to just have an impromptu spa day. It's what you deserve for being his greatest friend and for all that you do for others.
Lae'zel
She knows being a leader is hard and there are many challenges you must step up to. People will constantly seek your help and look to you for advice. She has seen it by many of her githyanki superiors and thought nothing of it. And then she finds you cracking.
Tells you that as a leader, you can't show your cracks or you'll be seen as vulnerable to enemy attacks. While at camp, rest as much as you need. She'll keep watch while you let out whatever emotions that you need to.
Will also remind you, that you're her leader. You don't lead all the people you come across on the road, you owe them nothing. Technically, you owe Lae'zel nothing as well, you have the freedom to choose what to do, morals be damned.
Wyll
He notices the cracks and he fully understands. Hell, he sold his soul to a devil because he was failing. You're allowed to break down. You're allowed to rest.
While Wyll, likes the idea of helping anyone in need, even he knows that it can be too much. A lot has happened to all of you in a very short span of time, he understands needing to rest.
He considers you a good friend and ally and if you'd allow him, he'd be glad to take the lead and let you rest. He can at least listen to those you come across and offer them comfort if you're too drained to do so.
Taglist:
@reo-the-leo @unhelpfulnpc
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coryosbaby · 7 months
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Your Face .
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Fandom: “Saw (2004)”
Pairing: Adam Faulkner Stanheight x fem! Reader
Synopsis: you’ll never leave him again.
Cw: angst, mentions of past murder, injuries, money struggles, mentions of past sex work, night terrors, codependency, attachment issues // nsfw . hand jobs, nipple play, cum eating, praise, mommy kink, oral (f recieving)
🪚
Couple’s therapy really isn’t easy when the both of you were victims of a fucking serial killer.
If you can even call it couples therapy— talking about how you feel towards each other and trying to fix your relationship is some sort of therapy, you guess.
Maybe it’s not healthy to stay with the person you were held in captivity with. But even before that, you were attached at the hip. Even if you were both on and off before the incident, you were still both incredibly infatuated with one another. You would never be able to escape that face: Adam’s beautiful, almost angelic face. It’s been that way since the end of high school graduation, and it’ll be that way until the end of your life.
You know why Jigsaw had chosen you. It was obvious, wasn’t it? Your money situation had been terrible before he had taken you, and in his mind, you were a whore, a dancer, a prostitute. But never in your mind could you ever contemplate why he chose Adam: your sweet boy, your best friend, your sweetheart. Adam.
You still dream about the last day you were there, sometimes. When you had carried out the plan Adam had come up with: just shoot me. Shoot me in the shoulder so he thinks I’m dead. And then get us both out. And when you had, trying every desperate attempt to find the key to the chains, you had reached your hand down into the sink drain. It was a wonder you had somehow escaped those chains without having to cut your own foot off. Adam’s cries sounded a lot in your ears, now. In your own haste to go and get help you had left him there with John Kramer. Even when he had begged you not to. Even when he almost died.
It was a wonder you both got out alive. It was a wonder you had managed to come back, fight the man off, and get him out of there.
And ever since, it’s like Adam has only ever though about that. The moment you left him in that room. The fear he felt, the impending doom.
Maybe you both need an actual therapist .
Some nights, nights like these, Adam has problems sleeping. When he does, it’s like he’s placed back in there in that room with you— being tortured, shot, and humiliated. And on some nights like these, he wakes you up for your affection and assistance. Eyes shooting open, an extreme amount of fear goes through the poor boy’s tired body. He’s there.
He’s quick to shake you awake. Your eyes open with confusion, and then once the situation settles in you understand it’s one of those nights. Lifting yourself up, you frown when you see the tears beginning to well in Adam’s eyes.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
He sniffles, trying to cover his face now that he’s being half brought back into reality.
“I just woke up. I don’t—“ his hands grab at his hair, pulling, as he cries. “— I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, sweetheart..”
You push his hands out of his hair and replace them with yours instead. You soothe his scalp with your fingernails, and kiss him. You used to have night terrors for this same reason, so you understand how this must feel for him. He moves down so he can lay on your thighs. He feels sad and embarrassed and scared. You stroke the outline of his face with gentle fingers: beautiful, strong nose, sharp jawline, gorgeous eyes, plump lips. Any woman’s dream.
“Do you want to talk about it?” You murmur to him. He quickly shakes his head. He lets out a pained little moan, almost like a scared little rabbit. You lean down, and kiss him on his nose.
“I know, honey. I know it’s hard. But you aren’t there anymore, okay? You’re right here. I’m right here.”
He nods, but you know he’s just trying to stop you from seeing how deeply the night terrors affect him. He’s always been such a strong boy.
Your forehead pressed against his cheek, you whisper to him.
“Do you want something to drink? Some water, some tea? I can make you some..”
“Y-Yeah. Maybe some water, momma, if that’s okay.”
That sweet little nickname you adore so much from him. You smile.
“Okay.” You lift him off of you, rounding the bed to make your way out of the bedroom. “I’m gonna go into the kitchen—“
“Please don’t leave me!”
It’s immediate, the way you freeze up and stop at the end of the bed. You almost start to cry yourself.
Adam is embarrassed at his outburst, and he sobs, all of his emotions flooding out. He crawls over to you and wraps his arms around your waist. He rests his head against your thighs. You know now that the glass of water will have to wait a bit when he utters that familiar set of words. The same tone, same amount of fear lacing his cracking voice. It brings it all back to you, just as Adam’s dreams bring it back to him.
You let him cry out for a few more minutes, stopping to grab some tissues from the bedside table and clean him up when he’s calmed. Your fingers settle into his hair; soft and wavy under your fingertips, you shush him with a gentle hum.
“I’ll never leave you, Adam,” you whisper, soft. “Never. I swear.”
And you know that it’s true. Your fingertips move down to his jaw, lifting his face up so he can look at you. He’s coming back down from his nightmare, and real life is starting to seep in. He isn’t in that bathroom anymore. He’s in his apartment— our apartment, including you, in his brain. Not the one he got taken from. Not the bathroom. This is new, this is safe— and jigsaw is dead.
You sit down next to him on the queen sized mattress you had bought together. He buries his face in your neck, breathes in the familiar scent of vanilla, laundry detergent, and sweet strawberry perfume. Unadulterated bliss.
“Promise?” He sniffles, sticking his hands in between the valley of your breasts and traveling down to your tummy. He rests it there, soft.
“I promise.”
And when he’s calmed, when you’ve wiped all his tears away, you go and get him a glass of water. Only this time, his arms are wrapped around you from behind tightly the entire way to the kitchen.
Safe.
He drinks about two glasses. When you guide him back to your shared room you sit him down on the bed.
“I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” he murmurs, embarrassed. You make sure that he doesn’t become ashamed of nights like these.
“It’s okay,” you reply. You smile as you kiss his forehead “Im off tomorrow. We can just stay up and go to sleep when you feel like it.”
Adam is now thankful that you’ve moved on from your life of sex work and into retail, because that means that he doesn’t have to worry about you as much. So it puts him in a good mood to remember that, and also to remember that he’s gonna have you for the rest of the day. He leans forward, plants a kiss to your lips. He smells like cigarettes.
You kiss him again. Harsher, a bit. Tongue slipping inside the warm canal of his mouth. Perfection.
You don’t want to urge him to do anything sexual with you right now unless he doesn’t want to. So you pull away, thumb brushing over the scar on his shoulder. It’s a spot you’ve come accustomed to— one that he’s sensitive about, but not with you. Never with you.
He leans in again and his kiss is heavy. He’s desperate, now, not only craving your body but also craving a distraction.
“Wait,” you breathe against his lips. “Are you sure, baby? Sure you wanna do this right now?”
“I want it..” he whines. His hand grabs yours and places it over his bulge. “Please? It hurts..”
You can’t resist him when he gets like this, and you know it helps him forget the things that plague his thoughts. So your palm grinds down into that spot that he laid your hands on. He breathes out a small breathy sound, one that makes him grind up into your hand. His body is slowly making its way down onto the bed. Laying down, he can see the lace slip adorning your body starting to fall down, down, down. Your cleavage is pretty, he thinks. Nice and soft enough to stick his cock in between.
He’s wearing one of his white shirts, and you lift it up to his shoulders to expose his bare torso. He’s gained a bit of weight since that wretched room, a little bit of his tummy beginning to fatten up. You find it absolutely adorable. Kissing there, you make your way up to his chest and pepper small bites on his chest. Marking him there is your favorite activity.
Your tongue laves over one of his areolas, kissing and scraping your teeth on it. He mewls, a small little “‘s good.” leaving his pretty lips. He’s always had sensitive nipples, and you love to play around with them.
He lifts himself up so he can slide the rest of his shirt off. Pretty muscled biceps replace the white fabric of the sleeves, and on one of them the gunshot scar sits. He’s still so perfect.
“My perfect boy,” you coo. “God, look at you. You’re gorgeous.”
He blushes, a thank you making its way from him. You move away from him, farther up to the head of the bed, and lean against the bed frame. He knows instantly that you want him up against your chest. You reach towards the bedside table and reach into the drawer where you keep your special things. When you pull out a vibrator, Adam crawls towards you with morbid curiosity.
You’ve used toys on him before, but for some reason, not this one. He leans back against your chest and adjusts so you can take his cock out of his pajama pants. It slaps against his lower belly, wet and dripping. He’s always had such a pretty cock, all thick and hard and red. He’s got a lot of girth, enough to make it hard to close your fist around him.
The vibrator has a lot of power to it; you know this because you’ve used it on yourself many times. You hold Adam’s cock with one hand, and with another you switch it on. He gulps as he watches the toy in your hand.
“Okay?” You ask. He nods, pretty lashes fluttering shut as you watch his confirmation. His head tilts back and his mouth falls open in ecstasy when you press the vibrator to his aching tip.
“Oh, god.” He moans.
You move it down to his base, rubbing teasing circles into the soft skin there. Adam wraps his hands around your arms, desperate to have something to grab onto.
“So pretty like this,” you praise him. You move one of your hands up to his hair so you can rest it there. You kiss his neck gently. “My sweet Adam. Your cock is so hard, isn’t it? So hard for mommy.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He chants, whimpering. “It’s ‘s good.. love you so much.”
Your heart flutters, breathing in against his neck. He smells so nice that it almost makes your head tingle.
“I love you too, sweet boy.” You say. You move the vibrator down to his balls, and a moan rips through his throat. He sounds so heavenly that you can’t resist reaching down in between your thighs and rubbing your clit. When you pull away your slick coats your fingers, and you rub them up against the boy’s lips. He accepts them greedily, keening at the taste of you on his tongue. Crooking the digits, you make sure to keep them flush against Adam’s teeth; he loves having them in his mouth.
“Never gonna leave you again, honey. Gonna stay with you forever and ever, gonna make this fat cock cum… ”
And god, if that doesn’t make Adam’s balls draw up tight then he doesn’t know what will. Precious noises spew from his lips as his orgasm approaches him.
“Yes! Please, mommy, pleasepleaseplease, gonna cum—“
And although he didn’t last long this time, it doesn’t matter to you. Once his cock is dripping white, you set the vibrator aside. Your fingers scoop up some of his creamy spend, and with a lolling tongue you lick it all up. He tastes amazing, just perfect. Your perfect boy.
Sighing, he leans against you for a moment. He turns around, gives you a sweet little sultry smile, and returns to you the same perfect amount of pleasure. He does this by shoving his magnificent tongue in between your thighs. And skilled, the boy is— he loves to please. He thinks your pussy is the best he’s ever tasted or smelled in his entire life, and while he rubs his soft wet muscle against your clit his eyes roll back and small moans leave him. When you cum he makes sure you have two more orgasms— one from his fingers, another from his cock that had somehow gotten hard for you again.
And in the scene where his cock is inside you, you’re on top of him while he lets out little grunts and moans. You bounce up and down on him until your slick is white and wet, dripping down his thighs and onto the sheets. He had lit a cigarette somewhere between three fingers inside you and now, and his lips are wrapped around it while he watches you ride him. Holding it between two of his fingers, he exhales smoke at the same time that your teeth scrape along his nipple and your nails dig into his shoulders. He gasps— angelic. Then he tilts his head back, and cums.
That face is another one you’ll never forget— his pretty eyes shutting, mouth agape and cheeks ablaze. You don’t think you could ever leave this pretty thing ever again.
© 2023 bratty-lxndry444 🤏🏻 all rights reserved. do not copy, translate, modify, repost, or claim as yours !!!
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oonajaeadira · 4 months
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I'll Leave a Light On For You
Fandom: Bloodsucking Bastards / Max Phillips
Pairing: Max Phillips x f!reader
Reader: Adult female. No other physical descriptors; no use of y/n. (There is a little description, but it’s still you. Believe me, it will make sense. We’re dealing with the supernatural here.)
Rating: T. 
Warnings: Angst. Character death. Allusions to the atrocities of war and its lasting effects. Max is a vampire. Traumatic soul memory. Me assuming I know anything about French culture of the 1930s.
Summary: Max has reservations when it comes to love, and for very good reasons.
A/N: This is my entry for the @pedrostories Secret Santa event. While I played one selfish card in my hand and wrote something of a companion to Light Only Shows You Where the Shadows Are, this can still be read as a standalone.
To my giftee, the amazing and wonderful @artemiseamoon : First of all, I admire you so much and I was really nervous to write for you. But I looked among your generous prompt choices (omgs thank you for so many good choices) and was surprised to find Max as an option. I wasn’t going to choose him at first but then my eye caught “past lives” and something in me zinged. Soul mates, angsty romance, second chance at love… and I’ve been itching to write an angsty Max. I know you are a fan of soft and whump, so all those elements had a party in my heart and here we are. I really hope you’re having a nice holiday and a good time off. Happy Secret Santa, Arte. <3
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What we’ve been told is that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes.
That’s almost correct.
The truth is…it’s not just your current life.
It’s all of them.
Max hardly remembers the fear, the pain, the cold of his draining. Even though he knew what was coming, bought into the cult, the human instinct of fight or flight is hard to dismiss no matter how well they’ve been prepped and it was to be expected. But it was a flash in the pan and once he came around to the undead side of things, those pesky human responses were all quickly forgotten.
For a time. Until he saw your light and–
Anyway. Human instincts. Pffft. Adorable. Trading the constant possibility of fear for that of glee, of rapture, of delight? Human instincts are trash. Not to mention their senses, poor suckers. The things they can’t see can’t hear can’t smell can’t taste? Tragic.
If only the feelings weren’t heightened too. It makes some things–some people–hard to ignore–
Feelings were something he could also have done without in his human life–the latest one anyway–and did whatever he could do to avoid.
It wasn’t until he died that he understood why.
As the life drained out of him and the delirium set in, there was a rushing sound, a pull through his soul like the drag of blood from his body, and he was laying, feeble, wailing, bloody and naked among the limbs of his mother.
But not the mother he so recently remembered, the one that showed her approval only when he provided her with some accomplishment worthy of crowing about to her society friends. No, this one was gentle, kind, held him and sang to him, lived her life for him until she died of fever when he was only five years old.
Max saw it all, from within himself and without, remembered the pull of his heart and watched the tears fall down his little face as they nailed his mother’s body in a pine box and put it in a hole at the top of a hill under a tree.
He always imagined he heard her singing to him in the grasses after that.
The world welcomed a new century, and not long afterward, he was a young man, looking to take over his father’s wine fields. But the chance was stolen when an archduke was shot. Max–Pierre, as he was called then–and all of the close friends and cousins he had were thrust into a great war. 
He was the only one to walk out of the fray. And when he came home, he found his father’s fields had been burned and that nothing remained.
That was a dark time. Ten years of looking back rather than looking forward. Ten years–it went by so fast–while he watched the world around him try to repair itself and find its footing again, not realizing that the roots of evil still grew beneath the soil.
He kept his head down and his hands working wherever he could.
But then he met a woman.
And she was Pierre’s life. Max’s life. Before he was Max.
It happened in the winter, just before Noël. And her name was Yaëlle.
Max remembered that before she even told him as he watched the story of this strange old life.
Yaëlle. It means “beautiful one.”
“It also means ‘goat,’” she’d said. “That seems more fitting.” She never thought of herself pretty, and perhaps she wasn’t fashionable and maybe she was stronger than she was dainty, with a weak chin and curly dark hair she couldn’t control. But the light in her eyes when she laughed–and what a laugh, like a little bird–the sway of her hips and the confidence in her carriage, her air of easy care and comfort caught his heart like a surly bear in the prettiest trap.
She’d simply been passing through the marché de Noēl, looking but not stopping, taking the kerchief off her head so the snow could land in her curls, when a child approached her selling buns in the shape of a cross and she gave the child a franc before sitting down at the statue of some cardinal or other in the center of the square.
She could have sat on any of the other benches, but she chose to plonk down next to Max. Next to Pierre.
“You want this?” she asked, offering the bun. “Not really my thing.”
How could she have known he was hungry? That he was lonely? That he was facing the market rather than the river because he was trying not to succumb to his inclinations, a pull to walk out onto the thin ice and let himself be taken by the stream?
He was instantly entranced by her. He felt himself smiling. Something shifted within. A destiny.
“You sure?” he asked.
She peered at him, scrutinized his whole self like she could see a glow around him and was looking for its source.
She found it in his eyes.
“Absolutely. I already ate three hand pies today. The last thing I need is more bread.”
He laughed for the first time in a long while. They talked. He ate.
On Christmas Eve when everyone was at the evening’s mass, she was there again, sitting alone, and this time it was he who had hot food and came to join her on the bench while the night was silent and cold and the stars were twinkling.
It was then that he learned why she was not in church–her folk did not observe Noēl. And she learned why he was not in church–he had lost his faith, that everyone he had ever loved was taken and there were not enough candles in the sanctuary to light for all of them.
“What if I lit one?” she’d asked.
“Who would you light it for?”
“For you. So you don’t have to sit in the dark.” When he was only silent, she said, “You fought in the Great War, didn’t you.” And when he looked away–when he shut her out–she continued. “My husband fought in that war. And he never could find his heart again. He said he loved me, but I don’t think he ever really did, not all the way. But I loved him all the way and when he put an end to his own life I thought I would have to do it too. Instead, I sat in the dark for a long time. It’s something I can see in a person. I can see you’re sitting in the dark.”
They stayed quiet for a time on the bench under the statue of the cardinal and when the church bells started to toll–signaling the magic of the empty square would soon be disrupted by the mass emptying into its streets–she stood and pulled her coat around her.
“My home is down that street, a little one with a red roof. It’s warm and I’ve plenty of hand pies--I made too many. I’ll leave a candle in the window until I’m asleep. You’re always welcome there, Max.”
And then she smiled and turned down the avenue where she’d pointed.
He blinked. Just before she reached the edge of the square he called out, “My name isn’t Max. It’s Pierre.”
She turned and gave a sly wink. “Good to know. I think once you get a belly full of my pies, you’ll let me call you whatever I want.”
He only sat long enough to watch the churchgoers file out of the holy service, many of them with people they loved, humming, happy, cheeks glowing in that way when one steps into a fresh cold world after being an hour or two soaking in the warmth. And once the square was empty again, he stood, gave only a fleeting look to the river, and then walked resolutely down Yaëlle’s street.
A little house with a red roof and a candle in the window.
He stayed for supper and came back many nights after.
And then one night he never left.
Max recalled the rest of that life with a lurking despair. While he couldn’t quite remember how it went, something in him carried it through to the life he’d just left…and he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was yet.
A few years of joy, of the greatest love he’d felt since his childhood. Like the mother he’d lost, another woman who was gentle, kind, held him and sang to him, lived her life for him until she couldn’t anymore.
They never celebrated Noël as the others did, but in their own way. For a handful of years they would go sit on the bench in the square and hand out pies to their neighbors and anyone who came to join them where they sat. They would listen to the singing in the church and watch the stars scintillate overhead. They would leave their shoes by the fireplace and wake up to find gifts they’d bought for each other with the little francs that they had. And they would never talk about what they would do in the future, because they knew it would be this and that’s all they aspired to and it would be a happy life.
And Max watched Pierre forget about the rot that still ran its roots through the soil.
And one day soldiers came to town when he was out in the fields and they took Yaëlle and some of the other dark-haired, joyful, bird-laughing folk about town and murdered them. By the time he returned for the evening, the soldiers had gone and left him nothing but a ravaged house and a body to bury.
There’s nothing he could have done, the mourning neighbors told him, the tide was rising. If he had fought them, they would have shot him too.
Pierre said that it would have been better that way.
Pierre stopped working in the fields when he started to hear his mother’s voice singing among the grasses again…now joined by Yaëlle’s sweet alto.
He had one more Noël in that life. He drank as much as he could take without falling over and stumbled out to sit on the bench in the square, weeping once the churchgoers had gone. He didn’t say a word, but Max remembered what Pierre was thinking then.
Love hurts too much. It is always taken. It’s not worth the trouble.
And then Pierre fell asleep on that bench and never woke up again.
There wasn’t much time between that first life and this one, maybe a few decades in the dark. Just long enough for a voice to reach him in the void–a voice he knew well and loved with his whole heart for only a short time–to say,
“That was a good first try, Max. Let’s give it another go, okay? Another place, another time, when it’s not so hard. I’ll leave a light on for you.”
____
Max’s life had been shorter this time. But he’d learned a thing or two and kept love at arm’s length. Sex was good and companionship was fine, but he wouldn’t invest in anything that could drain him in an instant and leave him destitute. 
Now power, that could fill the void. 
So when fortune smiled and he was given the choice, he swallowed hard and put his neck to the teeth, traded in his humanity for power that nobody could take away from him…and a heart that had no need for warmth.
He was wrong about that last point though.
And he didn’t even know it until he saw something that humans couldn’t see.
Heard something they couldn’t hear, a long ago and far away voice singing.
Smelled you on the wind.
Followed it to you–a woman, just another human woman–walking out of a bar along some street in the city.
And he saw a light glowing from within you.
You wore another face, another body, but all he saw was you.
Yaëlle.
Beautiful one.
He followed you that night, and several nights after. He was the reason that car swerved before it hit you, the reason you weren’t approached by that seedy guy at the club. He was the reason you kept looking behind you now and then and when you finally saw him–having dinner at the same restaurant, totally by coincidence, you on a friendly outing, him trying to charm a client into a contract–it broke his heart that you did not know him instantly.
He found he was surprised that he still had a heart to break. He’d been so fucking careful.
Max almost gave into the anger, the disappointment. Replayed the pathetic way Pierre let himself be brought down and tried to remind himself not to let himself be broken again.
But then he heard your voice in a way only those who walk in death can.
Let’s give it another go. I’ll leave a light on for you.
____
Heightened feeling is the one drawback of all this power. It’s one thing to latch onto a target, to fixate on some middle manager or accountant or IT specialist until there’s a good time to finally strike. That is an itch that can be satisfied with a well-timed, fear-seasoned, adrenaline-soaked kill.
But love sinks its fangs in and doesn’t let go. It sucks at something that can’t be drained, has no end, can never get enough. It can drive an immortal--a never-ending being of heightened existence--to madness.
There will come a day in the future when you’ll trust him for no good reason, when you’ll understand the monster he is and whisper under your breath against your better judgment, when you’ll invite him in. For dinner.
And he’ll come around again and again.
And then one day, he’ll stay.
And you’ll yawn ask him on the edge of sleep, “Why me? Of all these humans that you could easily enthrall and have without question, why choose this?”
Max will look at you in the darkness and see nothing but your light.
You won’t understand when he puts on a show of an irritated sigh and tells you, “You gave me another chance, sweetmeats,” but you’ll doze in his cold arms, absolutely confident as he is that nothing will ever hurt you again. Including himself.
And that night he’ll stay until you wake.
He won’t have you sit in the darkness alone.
_____
MASTERLIST
CHARACTER MASTERLIST
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gynnnicsworld · 4 months
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So I found this sterek fanfic that has so many parallels to the teen wolf movie, BUT this fic was written in 2019.
And I really need to talk about this fanfic because 1. I don't have anyone to do it with and 2. I was really surprised by some of the parallels in the fic.
This is the fanfic; It was a wednesday by isthatbloodonhisshirt
Words; 80k+
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(x∞)
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Okay, the fic has parallels but is not identical, for example, there is no Eli and I have no idea how many years later the story is set.
First I have to say that the fic is about trying to find Stiles, because he is missing, he has been missing for 3 years,and the pack was destroyed because Stiles was basically the glue that held the pack together but with him missing, everything went down the drain.
Everyone loses their mind, everyone hates each other, and Derek returns to Beacon Hills.
→The first parallel I found was that the sheriff and Derek became close and Derek basically took care of the sheriff because he relapsed into alcoholism. As we know in the movie, the sheriff and Derek get along very well and the sheriff even acts as a grandfather to Eli and a father-in-law/friend to Derek.
In this fic things become a little darker due to the sheriff's pain at losing his son and saying many hurtful things to Derek.
→ The other thing I noticed was that the pack was no longer together, each member went their own way, and the entire first part of the fic is about the pack getting together. I mean we have all these EPIC moments of the return of all the members, Kira, Isaac, Liam, Cora, Peter, Lydia, Jackson, and basically EVERYONE.
Except those who are dead, they remained exactly the same; dead, of course they remembered them in the fic, but it was all quite appropriate.
And we all know that the teen wolf movie was about exactly that, about bringing the pack back together but the movie was a million times less epic and very poorly developed 😬. Sorry but not sorry, we all know I'm right about this.
→ Another parallel that surprised me quite a bit was that Derek was a semi-owner and worked In a car mechanical workshop. And that place was really important to Derek.
To be honest it's not my first option to think that Derek was a mechanic, of course after the movie was released that possibility made sense in my mind. But I haven't really read too many fics with that theme, so seeing that the author of the fic even agreed on that with the movie was pretty impressive.
These were probably the main parallels but I guess I could say that "one call" was what changed everything for Derek. And can we please remember how in the movie Derek tells the sheriff to call his son? Yes, thank you, and I honestly think that call would have changed EVERYTHING.
I really recommend this fic, if you have already read it please tell me what your favorite part was and if you are going to read it, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? RUN READ IT! And then come back here so we can talk about that fic. Seriously, Jeff Davis should have opted to hire writers from the sterek fandom to make that movie...the sterek fandom knows how to do things well and they make works of art like THIS.
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bronx-bomber87 · 12 days
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Hello my wonderful fandom :) Thank you for all your lovely comments on me being delayed. Not my usual M.O. but I definitely needed the extra time to process. I was GUTTED and absolutely wrecked. Poor D had to deal with my panic spiral for most of Wednesday. (love you lol) I'll be honest I'm still little shook up and sad. Kinda grateful for the 3 week break tbh between episodes. This was a gut punch I wasn't in the least expecting. Hoping we'll get a S7 announcement during this hiatus. *fingers crossed* Get it together ABC. This took me awhile to unpack emotionally so thank you all again for being so patient.
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So I want to preface this post. There will be ZERO And I mean ZERO bashing of Tim in this review from me. Would appreciate that in comments as well. I love conversation you know I love comments. What I don't like is hate being spread. Also nothing on Eric either. I've also seen this which is utter madness. Don't touch our captain. Man loves this fandom so much. Deserves respect. If you came to this review for either of those things please promptly exit stage left. I mean that in the kindest way possible but I love Tim/Eric so it's a non starter with me.
I’ve never so deeply related with a character in all my life as I have with Tim Bradford. I’ll be dissecting this ep to best of my ability. I love both these characters so very much. Why I was knocked out for a couple days before could tackle this. I imagine my thoughts will change when I do my summer in depth one. When we have the rest of the season in pocket. I have to say this won't be mini at all. LOL So lets get rid of that concept right now ha I can't be mini with this ep. I am not brief so thanks for reading. Also hats off to Eric my god he was incredible in this episode. Melissa too killing me left, right and center you two. Let us get started.
6x06 Secret and Lies.
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Poor Lucy looks like me when I’m stressed and drained af. Tamara asking how stressed she currently is? Lucy answering 19.....She looks like a 19 if not worse tbh. This is probably the most time they've spent apart since they got together. Basically living together at this point let's be honest. Other than 6x01 they haven't really spent time apart aside from that UC op in 5x21. *sigh*
Tamara asking if Tim is still ghosting her? Lucy trying so hard to keep it together with her answer. My heart. What a wreck she is without Tim. Do love that we get to see her pin-up board btw. Good shot of her room we don’t usually get. That cupcake poster I love it so much. Although now it makes me sad...
Lucy asking what's wrong? Tamara telling her she wants to move out with some friends from school. Crap. Her moving is the last thing she needs…. But it's good for her even though the idea makes me sad. End of an era. Lucy is right she needs to live with people her own age. Doesn’t make it hurt less though. This is a ROUGH season for Lucy my god. The hits keep coming for our girl and I wanna hug her. Shield her somehow....
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Lucy touching near her tattoo when she reaches Angela. (Mini gut punch.) I do love her coming to Angela about this. If there is anyone who knows Tim like she does it's Angela. Does help she finds his behavior alarming too. I mean of course she does. You can see the immediate worry. The empathy she has for Lucy is there but she holds her cards close in her advice. Telling her to trust him even though it's literally killing her. Not the council Lucy needed to hear or was looking for.
Lucy wanted more action than 'Just wait and trust him.' She has been trusting him but she’s so insanely worried. Going out of her mind with anxiety for her person. It's exuding out of of her and she looks like she wants to cry…Ugh me too Lucy. I’m an empath and an anxious one at that. I would be going out of my mind too…. Angela looks worried as hell though. Even though she isn't conveying that to Lucy at this point. Breaking my heart as she takes off from their convo. Because if she doesn't she'll lose it right then and there.
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God I love Angela Lopez. First off well done on tracking him down. She's just a bad ass. I mean it's one of the reason's Lucy reached out to her tbh. Just gets into his car, drinking his soda, calling him out right away. I love her reasoning saying she can live off Wesley’s trust fund. Lmao. Doesn’t matter as much if she get's fired. 'Wine o'clock.' for her. Gotta love the confidence. I truly hope we get more Tim/Angela scenes the rest of this season. I always adore their dynamic.
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Tim is sold on her reasoning and starts to explain the current situation he's trapped in. Angela taking it all in and assessing everything as he explains. Once Tim has succinctly summed up his current predicament Angela's reply is the best. 'I’m in.' lmao I love this woman. ‘I got your back boo.’ That she does. In more ways than he even realizes at this point.
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Gotta commend Angela calling him out for walking away from Lucy. Not only that but his job to arrest a guy hasn’t thought of in a decade…. Ain’t no one better than her to be there to call him out his crap right now. Not only that but to really dig deep. To know this is far more than what he's sharing. This is why Angela is an incredible detective rooting things out like this. Saying this is more than just protecting Lucy. Her intuition is out of this world.
I mean she's not wrong. Lucy would understand if it was just about the benefits. She would be proud really. Thing is it's about protecting himself too. Which really just scratches the surface of why he is doing this. Tim knows he's caught even if he shrugs it off. She has him dead to rights and he knows it. 'I’m your BFF. I know you.' Ha it’s true whether you like it or not Timothy…Just like Lucy she has your number.
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Angela giving him crap with how they're following Ray. Worried he isn't being smart about this. This is so unlike him to be this sloppy and unfocused. She was right he was tailing too close… Ray catches on to their tail quickly. When he scanned the vehicle made me so nervous. Doing it while he's taunting Tim. He's so detail oriented blows my mind Tim let that get by him. This SL gave me such MASSIVE anxiety as I watched it. Oh my lord.
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The minute they get back to Angela's place she calls him out once again. Asking why he thinks this is ALL his fault? Tim shrugs it off and she refuses to take that as his final answer. Of course Angela was right there is far more to this story. Tim finally opens up to her about what happened. He had been leading his squadron for some time. Looking to move up to Sergeant.
The catch was he couldn’t be promoted if there was rampant criminality in his unit. Ray clearly was in the way of him moving up. Tim figured he could keep it within his unit if they went after him.. Oh Tim…. It was an unsanctioned mission too. Thinking if he could accomplish this would be easy fast track to his promotion.
Kills me to know he was there during the air strike ugh… Details missing from the last episode. The Humvee saved him and Mark but not his other men… I can't imagine what Tim felt in that moment. The immense amount of guilt laid on his soul from here on out. I mean it makes sense why he never left patrol before Lucy. The last time he tried to advance his career this happened. My broken boy.
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Eric CRUSHES this scene. I wanna cry. My poor Timothy. He was more focused more on his career than his oath...Got two of his men killed. My damn heart. He’s so ashamed of himself. The way he points at himself when he says 'leadership.' I knew his military past would be dark but holy crap. I wanted more of his backstory and they delivered that in spades. What a gut punch this had to be for him. No doubt his men were loyal af to him. Would've followed him anywhere and did.
He carries leading those men to their deaths because they followed his leadership. Oof. That is quite the weight to keep on your soul. Also gives us insight to why he shoulders everything. Even when he doesn't have to. Punishing himself for past transgressions such as this. I'm sure when we get to the other side of this season, I will have an even deeper respect for the writers going into his backstory like this. Giving us even more insight to this man.
This hurts so good to get this kind of info. I have no doubt that’s why he shut Lucy out. The shame he feels is overwhelming. I totally get it. Nothing scarier than someone knowing your darkest secrets. Not only that but worrying they’ll think less of you due to it. Tim already struggles with self loathing. Been a theme for him his entire arc on this series. Something I've touched on a lot. This is truly bringing that to light in the most painful way.
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We see Ray scanned Tim's car in order to gain access to it. To check his GPS to see where he's been. How he's been tracking him. When he scrolls down to Lucy's address. Made my stomach sink. Legit felt sick to my stomach....
I do love Lucy coming home and having Tamara there. Saying she ordered pizza for them. This is exactly what she needs. Do you really have to go Tamara? I wonder if she'll delay leaving now after this ep. There is a knock at the door and of course it's not the pizza. It's Ray. Hair's on the back of my neck stood up from the moment he entered that apt.
I know Melissa stated in her interview she was nervous about this scene. That she came off awkward in her anger. You are incorrect madam. Holy hell Lucy is a BAMF. Telling him the only call she's gonna make is for the ambulance. Because when she's done with him he's going to need it to wheel him out. Holds her ground like the confident bad ass we've all loved seeing her become.
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Lucy calling him shaking and demanding where he was. Ooh lord hell fire coming with her through that front door. I love Angela grabbing Tamara to another room. Like let's go mom and dad are about to have a big blow out. Let's give them some space...
Tim asking if she's ok? Truly concerned but Lucy isn't having ANY of it. 'Do I look ok?' Damn no she doesn't....Ripping into him saying how that creep could've showed up when she wasn't there. Lucy is not wrong....Oh my lord I’ve never seen her so damn mad. She is RAGING at him and rightfully so. Her home was violated, Tamara was put in danger and threatened. All because Tim was trying to protect her. phew.
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Tim FINALLY concedes to telling her something. It only seems to enrage her more. She is literally vibrating with anger in this scene with him. The more he tells her the more it doesn't explain why he left her in the dark. Lucy begging him to read her in. I mean she has earned that my love. ..Telling him to stop protecting her. Gah Tim is a deep loyalist who would protect anyone he loves even if it's not the right thing. His reply is a reflection of that.
'I can't. I won't.' He's so driven to keep her safe. His instinct is to protect her but doesn't see he's hurting her in the process. I knew she was going to be pissed he let Angela in and not her. But Tim was right she has a lot less to lose. Which doesn't seem pertinent in this moment...I do love her placing her hands on his when she also replies. 'I can't. I won't.'
Mirroring his words from moments ago. Just like he will never stop protecting her. Lucy will never stop fighting for him or longing to help him. That man is her entire world. The most important person in her life. It makes perfect sense she would help with this. Career be damned. I mean she risked her career to get him a shot at Metro. Of course she would do the same thing in order to shoulder his burden with him.
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Love her standing her ground in this moment. Like damnit I love you and you are going to let me in. Whether you like it or not I am here and I'm going to help. If this wasn't a reflection of the communication problems that still painfully exist between them I don't know what is. I mean she tried to be patient and trust him. But honestly he needed this kick in the ass to let her in. Which is a problem. Lucy needs to be the first person he goes to. It shouldn't have to come to this. *sigh*
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Their OP goes off without a hitch. Except Ray saying he was going to be an air strike on Tim's life.... God I had no idea as I was watching that scene how true it would be. Tim gets his interview and lies to protect Angela and Lucy. While keeping his own job intact as well. Also welcome back to Jackson’s dad. Hello there Percy. This is not how I wanted to see him again.
But he is IA him returning was never gonna be a good thing tbh in a post Jackson world. Regardless it was nice to see him again. The scene is Grey's office is ROUGH. Never seen Wade so disappointed in Tim. It hurts to watch. Just like this entire gut punch of an episode. Tim is just standing there in utter shame of everything. Ashamed Wade is looking at him like this.
Kills me Grey has to inform Pine of what he did. It makes sense he has to but damn that sucks. The amount of respect Tim has for Wade is immense. To watch him tear Tim apart and just stand there like a puppy being scolded hurts my soul. Especially when he tries to fight Pine knowing. Just dismissing him without further comment or argument...
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So I will say this and it's not at all fair to Lucy that I thought this I'm sure. But I felt like if there was gonna be a breakup it would be coming from her. Not Tim in this moment. That's the part of this moment that really knocked the wind out of me. She had every damn right to be the one too btw. Instead she is there waiting for him with open arms. Honestly I took a breath for the first time this entire episode when she welcomed him in.
Wrapping him up in her arms. Encasing him, rubbing his back, her fingers in his hair. Gently cradling him against her. I thought ok maybe we'll be alright. Since Lucy isn't nearly as angry as she was earlier. Maybe they can get through this together. Cause she loved on him regardless of what happened. The unconditional love she has for this man blows me away. I honestly thought with her loving on him maybe they'd make it out. That they’d work through it together.
Tim looks so very defeated. On the verge of an actual breakdown as he explains that he lied about everything. Saying it saved his job...protected Angela and her. It doesn't seem like enough of a win to him. He looks so very destroyed and this is just the beginning of his downward spiral.
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Lucy is doing everything to be his rock in this moment. To assuage him of his guilt… Most vulnerable ever seen Tim *pre tears*…. Lucy telling him it was an impossible situation. She would've done the same thing. It’s so very clear she was willing to work through this. To build them back to where they were before he got that phone call. Everything Lucy was in this scene represented her unconditional love for him. Tim is just too destroyed at the moment to see it….Also for him to accept it. It's so hard to truly accept unconditional love if you've never had it before. To truly trust in it.
Lucy is watching him spiral out of control. The way he's talking about himself with such loathing. How she never would've been in a place where she put her self interest over her team like him. She is trying her damndest to right his wrong. But Tim is having none of it. It pains me to see it... Pains Lucy too. It's the way she grabs onto him while he continues his verbal self flogging that get's me.
Trying to ground him in this moment with her touch. Bring him back to her. Something that has worked so well in the past. Sadly not having the intended affect this time around. Tim is too damn gone at this point. He feels he’s betrayed everything he thought he was. THOUGHT he was. *heart clutch* Tim has such a deep moral compass. That's why this is rocking him so very much. Ugh my heart. I too have a crazy deep moral compass. I can't say I wouldn't be spiraling out like him as well.
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This was his greatest sin brought to light. To Tim exposing him for the fraud he feels he is. Him saying he's been lying to himself for a long time is a reflection of this. That imposter syndrome coming out real strong here. Something he buried deep down came rushing to the forefront and he is imploding. Says as much above. He no longer feels worthy to be in her life now. I get this anytime I screw up with a friend or my sister. I have this deep sense of shame attached to it. Like I no longer deserve that friend or my sister cause I messed up or if a past sin comes up. That they'll no longer love me or will forever look at me differently cause of it.
It's not logical but it's deeply ingrained from my mom shaming me for doing anything wrong growing up. As it is for Tim. His father literally beat the hell out of him for ever being out of line. He has suffered emotional and physical abuse. Unless confronted and treated comes out like this. Demons making their way to the surface. I was bawling by the time he said 'I'm sorry.' He’s never seen himself worthy of Lucy’s love that much has always been evident. But to see it this raw and visceral ripped my heart out. It’s on the ground where they're both standing.
I think this is something that has been brewing in the background for Tim for a long time. Now that I've had time away to decompress and think. I'm actually very excited they're tackling this. It's clear Tim is not in a place where he thinks he deserves her anymore. Low key never has been. He acts before he thinks. Eric had a great quote from his interview about Tim "He is impulsive and he reacts instead of thinking things through, and it can come out a bit too strong.” That is this decision in a nutshell. He feels he is a burden therefore he is removing himself without thinking it through. The regret that is going to come with this is going to be immense for him.
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'You deserve so much better.' Better than me basically. He feels immense shame and that shame is launching him away from her. You know I learned something in therapy about this. About not being perfect and feeling like I'm too much. i.e. a burden. My therapist told me and it made me cry. 'You are worthy of the space you take up in people's lives. They want you there.' Tim does not think he is worthy of the space he is taking up in Lucy's life now. All his sins on the table laid out for her to see. He can't handle it. That much is very clear here. I will say I haven’t let a ship hurt me like this in a long time.
This absolutely crushed me. I couldn't even fathom assembling my thoughts. Cut me very deep. Been with this ship since day one. Also what a crushing blow this is for Lucy. Our poor girl. I mean she gave everything to this relationship. I mean EVERYTHING. She was all in from the moment Tim said ‘Unless it is.’ This was her first real relationship. First real leap into being serious. Thinking about marriage and kids. She gave her all to Tim my god. Her career took a hit for him and she never complained. Knew he was worth it (he still is btw) Fought every step of the way for him. For them.
When he was pulling back above it was an absolute panic for her. She could see him slipping through her fingers. Idk what broke my heart more Tim thinking he’s not worthy of her any longer or her begging him not to do this. She literally can't fathom how he can let go of her like this. Thought she was his person. Tim feels he’s gone back to who he was pre-Lucy and that scares him. He feels undeserving of the love she has to give him. Lucy knows everything and in his mind he can’t imagine her still loving him.
Lucy was as we all were in this scene. In disbelief... Even though Tim put her though absolute hell she was still there to comfort and support him. Because to her he is worth it even in the hard times. We all know Tim isn’t the best with his emotions. In his trauma damaged brain he thinks he’s doing the right thing here. That he’s radioactive, she deserves better than being around him and his reckless behavior.
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The kiss on her head. Lucy trying to physically push away his rejection. Stomping all over my damn heart...However this ends up playing out Tim is going to have to address his emotional instability. How he charges forward and doesn’t think things through. Ruled by his emotions in the worst way. He’s impulsive and he’s gonna have to fight to get her back when he’s in a better mindset. Her trust has been obliterated by this. She fought and clawed for them and this was her reward. He’s gonna have to do some serious healing to get back to her. Lucy has loved him the best she can but he needs to put in some work now. We see next ep he's meeting with Aaron's therapist. Don't love that but I’ve wanted Tim to go to therapy for years. He needs this. Therapy doesn’t work unless you put the effort in though.
That will be a challenge for him. When I get out of the purview of this hurt I’m feeling...I’m actually going to be really impressed and happy they had Tim go through this. Do I think this is the end of them? No I think this is some serious growing pains. It was issues that have been percolating since Lucy did that 5 player trade. Hell probably back in 5x12 when Tim sacrificed himself without telling her so they could stay together. I still think that was romantic because of it's intended nature. BUT was the beginning of the communication problems. They’ve grown so very much in that regard. We’ve seen it but there is still work to be done on that front. It just came to a very gutting painful head.
I still have faith in the writers. I still have faith they’ll be ok. It might not be right away and I'm already feeling impatient tbh. But this is some serious realism being applied to them. It wasn't some random BS angst. Honestly we’re lucky our ship gets the most attention, the best SL’s and two people who LOVE these characters. They absolutely adore them and this ship. If you haven’t read Melissa and Eric’s interviews for this episode I highly recommend. This sucks right now. No two ways about it. But we will survive this storm. They’ll come out stronger than ever. Truly believe that. But for now let's rally around each other and get through this together. There will be brighter days ahead just doesn't feel like it right now. We got this.
~~~
Side notes non Chenford.
Do love Aaron working with Harper all if of all I cared about other than their SL in this one. Nolan's I fast forwarded which I normally don't do but I had no patience for his BS in this ep lol My anxiety was rampant in this ep and had no space for him.
Also RIP Metro Tim for the 6x07 promo. This hurts to see not just cause I enjoyed him in that outfit lol But to see his career take a nosedive like this. I wanted more Tim back story. Didn’t think would hurt like this though....Feel free to comment I love you all for any interaction I get with these. <3
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stormblessed95 · 1 year
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I'm Stepping Away For A While...
Over the past week, and then some, I have been called a multitude of names in an effort to make fun of me and rude names including wh*re, p**sy, bitch, a liar, a fake, etc. I've been told I'm a fake/bad ARMY, a fake jikooker, etc. Ive had people call my friends deragatory names and misgender them. And I've also had someone in my DMs try to gaslight me into believing that this was not harassment or Bullying, but that I should apologize to my followers for threatening to block people and that people were just expressing strongly worded commentary over how my actions hurt them. And that I needed to take responsibility for creating the drama at all. And none of that is okay, and honestly it's been a lot. And the way people just brushed over the name calling and harassment regardless of if they disagreed with me or liked me, that was a lot too.
Blocking people to curate my space is not harassment or bullying or disrespectful. Its simply protecting myself and trying to curate a safe space for me personally. Nor have I ever started a hate campaign to try and drive another blogger off the platform. And if a post of mine encouraged people to send messages or hurtful asks to someone else, and I KNEW about it, I would've said something and asked them to stop. Sharing an opinion or disagreeing with someone is not me sending anyone hate. Nor would I ever want that for anyone regardless of any disagreements we had over whatever topic.
I've lost quite a few followers over the past week, people believing things that are being said and that's fine, i was never here for the numbers anyway. Id rather you unfollow or block me peacefully if you dont like me or my posts. Some of the people engaging with this hate against me were honestly surprising. But it is what it is. But I don't feel safe in this space anymore. I honestly haven't for a while. Blogging isn't as fun anymore. I don't want to post while it feels like a chore. And that's not because of anyone or anything in particular. I opened this blog because it brought me joy and it was fun. And it's really sad that something that brought me happiness is no longer doing that for me. It's not just all this drama either. It's probably been awhile coming, making my timeline posts for longer posts felt more like something I had to do for you all instead of something I wanted to do for me. And that's not what I want for this space.
So I'll be stepping away for awhile. When or if I come back will depend on if I can get that joy back for doing this and I feel like this can be a fun corner of the internet for all of us together again. And also for if I feel like I can do this without it being so mentally draining and just not good for my mental health like it has been lately.
I'll leave my blog here and my masterlist because I know that a lot of people enjoy the archive of some past content I have cataloged there. I don't want to take that away from anyone for that reason alone since I want people to be able to access that content if they can't otherwise find it. I also want the option to be able to come back to this blog again at some point. So I don't want to delete it or say I'm stepping away permanently, nor do I want people wondering what happened to me or anything. I just need a break. I do apologize for all the post series I have started that are remaining unfinished now for a little while.
If you want to unfollow me knowing that I'll be absent from here for awhile or for any other reason, that's totally fine. Honest. No hard feelings. I wish you well and hope everyone will continue to do well and enjoy the next few months of music, content and love from the members. Maybe I'll try to be back in time for JJK1 whenever that happens.
Again, this is just something I need. I'm okay, I'm not hurt or upset. I just need a break. I appreciate you all understanding. I'll still be in this fandom and be ARMY for life. I'll still be around for the next day or so. Thank you for understanding. I do love you guys and hope to back as soon as I'm able to.
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roo-bastmoon · 1 year
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Incredibly lucky to even be here
I just realized, exactly one year ago today (May 11th) I was diagnosed with endometrial stromal sarcoma and given less than a 34% chance of survival. I'm incredibly, miraculously lucky to be well and cancer-free today. I owe that to my amazing doctors, and also in a small way to BTS.
The moment I got told I had cancer, I immediately decided to only entertain thoughts of complete health and victory. It was a pure and immediate defense mechanism and I stuck to it. So no sad songs or movies or TV shows. No online drama. No negative nellies or naysayers. No stressful projects at work. No arguments, no entanglements, no regrets.
For months, I would focus only on laughter and quality time with loved ones and things that brought me joy, even as I had to deal with practical stuff like creating a will and a pet trust and filling out life insurance forms and undergoing test and surgeries.
BTS (and Jimin, as my "recruiter") gave me moments of grace and beauty and art and warmth and giggles--and kind ARMYs gave me a sense of belonging and community, especially during a dark and terrifying time, when in the quiet of the early morning hours, the sense that my own body was my worst enemy would eat at all my mental defenses. I could switch on my phone, go to the timeline, and ARMY and BTS would be there.
If I seem to be very Pollyanna-ish or boringly polite these days, it's because I decided one year ago to focus on what I want instead of giving energy to what I don't. I know bad things are very real and they need to be confronted--of course! But I also know that depression, anger, and fear can erode the myelin sheath wrapped around our nerve endings and weaken the walls in the chambers of our hearts; that toxic emotions can bleach our hair of color and rob our nails and skin of suppleness; that negativity can lengthen our immuno-response times to bruises and cuts.
So if other folks get a thrill, a hit of adrenaline, from drama and trash talking in our fandom, more power to them, I guess. It must serve them in some way I don't understand. Me? I find meanness and pettiness draining and damaging. So I'll never do that. I'll never rudely call someone out in public or go on their blog to rant or snipe openly about members or fellow ARMY. I will just keep myself to myself and do my best to be authentic and kind and hard working.
Doesn't always work. I'm human. I will absolutely make mistakes (case in point--the campaign idea yesterday that could have really harmed Jimin. I didn't think about all the consequences and I'm so grateful to the people who patiently set me straight.) Please know that if you ever feel strongly I'm going in the wrong direction, you can always speak to me--I'll ask a million questions, I'll hear you out, and I'll try to be flexible in my mindset. You don't have to hide behind throw-away accounts or talk to others about me. I will do my best to always be kind and act in good faith with everyone. (But I'll likely still make some mistakes, because my intentions are good but I myself am not perfect.)
By and large, I feel I'm just really astronomically lucky to be here. I know the kind of cancer I had is very sneaky and could come back at any time. So how I spend my time left in this life matters to me. I want to be a source of good in the world, help other people, experience bliss and celebrate good things. I don't want to be selfish or destructive. If I start to go that way, I know good friends will gently call me back.
Like BTS, I want to connect with people and help build something worthy. So if you're on board with that, let's be friends. And if you're not, let's part amicably.
I just... figured I should probably say that... out loud. So that's that on that.
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Love you guys,
Roo
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tarithenurse · 1 year
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Safe haven
Fandom: MCU Pairing/starring: Natasha Romanoff & GN!reader Word count: 1157 Content: PTSD, references to childhood trauma (abusive parent, violence, alcoholism), panic attack, there’s a sort of fluff too. Hurt/comfort. A/N: “Coming back from their first mission, Reader has to deal with more than just the normal aftermath of the Avengers’ business.” This was kinda painful to write but also very cathartic. I hope you all find your Natasha if you haven’t already. Betaed by the lovely TanteFrutsel-CreativeNurse <3
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Safe haven
You could already feel the anxiety stabbing at your heels as you hurried from the quinjet to your room. It had been a hard mission and things had gone wrong even though the overall trip had been a success.
Success.
It’s hard for you to think of it as that considering the destruction and violence you’ve not only witnessed but have helped dole out for the first time – sure, you know it came with the territory but apparently your training hasn’t prepared you fully for what it feels like to rip up in old wounds: one of the Hydra goons had had an uncanny resemblance to your so-called father. Although sober, the guy had been vicious, bearing down on you with...no, I won’t think about it. Not anymore.
As soon as you’re in your room, you strip out of the sweaty and dirty clothes, trying to ignore the flaky smudges that leave a reddish residue on your hands. Hands that are shaking. Angrily, you kick the clothes aside before turning to the bathroom, avoiding to look at the mirror image of a beat-up person with bags under the eyes.
The others had slept in the quinjet on the way home but whenever you closed your eyes, you saw Him. Maybe it’s the Hydra agent...maybe it’s the man who should have provided you a safe childhood but didn’t.
It’s not my fault, you chant silently as you turn on the water in your shower.
Not waiting for the spray to heat, goosebumps spread at the splash of cold along your skin that’s littered with tiny cuts and bumps. Well, some bigger than others. Absentmindedly, you poke at one of the welts along your side only to wince at the stinging pain from an underlying bent rib. You’ve had worse.
Eventually, the water changes, becoming scalding hot and you allow it to flow over you as you actively begin to scrub away the rest of the sweat, grime, and blood. Down the drain it goes, together with the last bit of restraint apparently, because you realize that you’re crying. Not full blown sobs but the silent constant dribble of tears that mix with the soap, making it sting a tiny bit in the abrasion on your cheek. You wipe at them angrily, barely managing to stop them.
Methodically, you finish washing and then drying, rubbing yourself raw with the towel while relishing the stinging pain. You think you’re doing quite well right until the moment where you open the closet and the darkness there throws you right back "home", sitting in your hiding spot and fearing the nights where your drunk father would get back, looking for someone to take his anger out on.
At that instant there’s a loud banging on the door that makes your heart rate quadruple.
“[Y/N]?” the voice is warped by memories that come surging.
The air sticks in your chest as if turned to molasses: thick, heavy, and difficult to expel or replenish, forcing you to breathe in laboured heaves. You’re vaguely aware of how tightly you cling to the nobs on the closet doors like a lifeline but it’s still not enough to keep you upright and next moment your legs give way. Landing hard on your knees, you don’t even register the pain it must have caused.
And there’s that knocking again. Insistent. Threatening even.
Scrambling, you crawl on all fours in between the hanging clothes, not caring about the shoes and boots beneath you. You know logically that there’s no danger and that instead this is one of your friends...but it’s as though your calm reasoning has been shoved into a little box in the corner of your brain where it’s held hostage by your panic. Fingers claw desperately at the edges of the doors, pulling them shut just as someone calls your name again.
Much closer.
Too close.
They’re in the room with you but you can’t quiet your breath enough to remain hidden and so the closet is opened once more, letting in the light to disband the darkness that had enveloped you like a soothing shroud. Blinking, you look up expecting to see your fathers face but to your surprise you see delicate features framed by fiery hair. Natasha.
“[Y/N]...honey...”
She doesn’t say anything else, just sits down on the floor outside your refuge and holds out a hand for you to take if you want to. You try to focus on the gentle gesture, the outstretched arm that waits patiently for you to make the first move.
“It’s alright...you’re safe now,” Nat coos at you.
How can she possibly mean that? But you find no sign of anger or disappointment in her voice. “I’m sorry,” you whimper nonetheless, eyes glued to her hand.
“It’s okay.”
She wiggles her fingers as if it could tempt you to grasp them...and it kinda does.
“You have nothing to be sorry for, alright?”
It sounds so simple the way she says it and you see your hand reach out for hers, gingerly settling in her light grasp. Years of therapy and it’s never sounded so true, so sincere, before but even so there’s a huge chunk of your heart that is horrified of someone witnessing your breakdown.
As if on cue, spurred on by this new concern, the molasses in your lungs turns to concrete and your throat constricts. The world begins to grow fuzzy at the edges and Natasha’s voice comes from far away as she calls for you to breathe, to focus on her which is an impossible task.
Natasha says something which you can’t pick up on before strong arms pull you out of your safe spot. But they don’t bring pain this time – instead they begin to stroke your back while she chants something. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s the rhythm of it that helps you force a bit of air in and out of your lungs. Not much, but it’s better than nothing and you can now hear her praise you for what you’re doing.
“That’s it, honey. Focus on the exhalation...slow and steady.”
You follow her guidance and breath after breath it gets easier and your logical thinking is gently unboxed until you are on the way to an exhausted calmness.
Slowly taking in your surroundings, you realize that you’re sitting butt-naked in Natasha’s lap. But she just cradles you in her arms as if it was the most normal thing.
Heat rises to your cheeks and your breathing picks up once more but Natasha will have nothing of it: “It’s okay, you have nothing to worry about, honey.” She looks you in your eyes for the first time, the grey full of understanding and pain that you never before realized was there. “You’ll be okay. I swear.”
And you believe her, allowing her to pull you closer to her chest to nuzzle in and drift away for a bit.
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missmaywemeetagain · 1 year
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Pink Scarf - Part 19 (Elvis/Austin!Elvis x Reader)
Character/Fandom: Elvis - Elvis (2022)
Requested: kinda
(Read more here--Pink Scarf Series Masterlist!)
Prompt: You are part of Elvis Presley's coveted inner circle, and the currently-disgruntled wife of one of the members of Elvis' famous entourage, the Memphis Mafia. After Elvis' dynamite first performance in Vegas, you find yourself in deep water when his magnetism finally gets to you after all these years.  [ Fem!Reader ]
TW: References to sex. Continued ANGST. Medication/drug use/overdose mentions. Dub con mentions(sort of?). Cussing. Infidelity. Historical inaccuracies in the Vegas timeline. Priscilla doesn't exist in this timeline.  
Rating: Explicit/Mature (NSFW, 18+, so minors Do NOT Interact)        ||     Word Count: 8.1k
A/N: Thank you for your patience, my beautiful lil mamas, Part 19 is finally here! We are back in Reader's headspace, and lordy, oh lordy, it's A LOT...just remember, I DID warn and promise y'all pain before a happy ending. And the end is coming soon. 😭 I know, babies, I know. 💖
If you so desire, you should now have the ability to tip my blog or different chapters in the story! Some of you have been asking about this, and of course, no one is obligated to do so! If you do choose to tip, thank you so much! I've never had anyone want to pay for my work before, so this is a big step towards my romance novelist dreams. 💜
I am so FREAKIN' GRATEFUL for every single one of you babies, honeys, and lil' mamas supporting me out there, YOU ARE EXTRAORDINARY! I didn't in a million years expect this kind of support and response for Pink Scarf, and your reactions, reblogs, messages, asks, and comments you've given me have been a blessing beyond expression. You all are the best community a writer could ask for! Thank you so much for your support. I am loving getting to know y'all better! I love every single reaction and comment and ask, and I'm sorry if I don't get back to them all as soon as I'd like but know that I love you all and am so excited to be making new friends! And a big "Hey, Y'all!" to our friends from Elvis Twitter, Elvis Discord, and Elvis Instagram--I see and appreciate you coming over to join us! 👀💋
If you feel so moved, please let me know what you think or how you're feeling (or send me asks)! I think I put everyone on the taglist who requested it, but please let me know if there are any issues or if I missed anyone. There seem to be some issues with tagging that I can't seem to fix, so please know I'm not leaving you out intentionally! Also, if you comment on a previous part that you want to be tagged, I might not always see it, so feel free to message me if I miss you!
I imagined this with Elvis in mind, but Austin!Elvis works here, too, whatever floats your boat! 
Apologies in advance if there are any grammatical errors or TW that I didn't catch. 
(I did start cross-posting Pink Scarf to my AO3 account, as well as my NEW Wattpad account. so if you are so inclined, you can check it out/support me over there with kudos and votes and whatnot!)
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Silence.
For the first time in over a week, you aren’t bombarded with images of the past or worries for the future as your subconscious desperately tries to guide you places you are not ready to go to yet. As you stir awake, you feel somewhat rested, peaceful almost. Your eyes flutter open and even though the room is dim, you still squint and hiss at the light that pierces through your eyes and seems to rocket through your head like a spear. You can’t help but groan a little at the pain behind your eyes.
The room is not familiar, however, which sets you on edge, that peacefulness of good sleep draining from you quickly. Frantically, you try to puzzle out where you are and how you got here but thinking sends a wave of nausea through you that you can’t ignore. You groan again at the feeling and crack your eyes open the slightest bit.
A man, first crouched in the uncomfortable looking chair he’s perched in, sits up ramrod straight at your movements. Despite the dark circles around his eyes, he’s a vision to behold. You know without a doubt he’s the most beautiful man you’ve ever laid eyes on, what with his high cheekbones, lusciously pouty lips, and chiseled jaw covered in what looks to be a day’s worth of dark stubble. Raven hair frames his face, thick sideburns curling at his ears and locks haphazard on his forehead. And those eyes, dear lord, those impossibly long, dark lashes rim his eyes. His eyes, which feel as deep and dark blue as the ocean itself, cut through the fog in your head, widening and looking over you with care and concern.
You know those soulful, familiar eyes anywhere.
Elvis.
You blink and the world starts to snap into focus. Through the pain and nausea, you take in your surroundings. The uncomfortable bed you’re in. The IV in your arm. The dreary paint on the walls. The smell of antiseptic.
The hospital. You are in the hospital.
This must be why Elvis looks positively distraught, his large hand now frantically grasping at yours on the bed. You swear he is shaking, steadied only once he touches you and a wave of relief falls over his handsome yet worried features.
“Y/n. Oh thank God, y/n,” he murmurs. “Are you okay? How do you feel? What do you remember?” he barrages you with questions that you aren’t sure you have the answers to yet, especially with the way your head is pounding so distractingly. For some reason, the whole scene suddenly strikes you as silly, what with the most famous man in the world looking at you so damn seriously. You can’t help yourself.
“Who…who are you?” you croak out quietly, your unused voice cracking.
The look on his face is priceless as he rolls through shock, terror, and dismay all at once. His face falls dramatically then and there is no way you can keep up the pretense because the little boy look that comes over him is just too much.
“Gotcha,” you chuckle, cracking a smile that suddenly makes your face feel like it’s on fire and making you regret your smile instantly.
“You little minx,” he growls, a relieved grin spreading over his face before he sees the pain on your face. “You’re hurtin’. Goddammit, I should’ve killed him…” he mutters heatedly under his breath.
It takes more than a moment to process what he is saying and connect that with the burning tightness of the left side of your face. You bring your hand up slowly, gingerly touching the unfamiliar swollen, hot flesh of your cheek. You can’t help but hiss at the painful sensation that runs over you when you do so.
You close your eyes, feeling Elvis’ heavy but comforting hand squeeze yours.
What in the hell happened?
Reaching back in your memory, you attempt to piece together why you are here, why you are in so much pain. Dread fills your heart as flashes of memory come at you:
Jack accosting you in the bathroom.
Losing his mind at seeing the hickies on your breast.
Him dragging you out and humiliating you in front of everyone.
Then…then…
Oh, god.
Jack did this. He hit you.
Your head falls back, and you cover your eyes with your free hand. A wave of shock, then a wave of deep sadness overcomes you. Hot tears spring to your eyes and spill down your cheeks and you don’t attempt to stop them. The salt of them stings the abrasions on your face.
How could he? How could he?
Sobs wrack your body, each one a pulse of pain through your head, shooting red-hot through you. You knew, you knew deep down it was over, but you never expected it to come to this. You never thought Jack had it in him to truly hurt you. But you are lying in a hospital bed, living proof that the man you once loved was truly gone.
And it feels devastating, yet also strangely relieving, in a way you could’ve never imagined.
“Oh, Satnin, baby. Oh, I’m so, so sorry,” Elvis whispers at you, clutching your hand, his concern evident but unsure.
The wave of devastation crashes over you, both the physical and psychic pain nearly unbearable as it throbs in your head. You feel utterly raw. Humiliated. Gutted. Guilty. Relieved. Furious.
The sudden image of slapping Jack’s face as he knelt bloody on the floor resonates through you, the sting still evident in your palm.
Elvis had almost killed Jack, blinded by a protective rage, you now remember. You’d stopped him.
Part of you wishes you hadn’t.
It all feels quite unreal yet simultaneously overwhelming, all these flashes of memory hitting you in rapid succession. And you know there are more troubling memories waiting in the wings, ready to knock you off your feet once again. You can sense them lingering at the edges of your mind, somehow closer than they have ever been but still just out of reach.
All at once you don’t feel strong enough to bear them.
Everybody knows, you suddenly realize. Your affair with Elvis was now out there for everyone to see, for everyone to judge. You open your tear-filled eyes to look at the beautiful man before you, the one you love so much it feels as though it might destroy you, because god knows you haven’t forgotten that. You cannot bring yourself to regret being with him, no matter if it led you to be here, broken and battered in a hospital bed in Las Vegas.
But something is not right. Something besides the obvious. And it’s right there, just out of view.
Your head hurts too much to dwell on it, however.
“I’m gonna take care of you baby,” Elvis finally says after what you realize is too many moments of silence. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I won’t let him hurt you ever again.”
The way he says it so softly and with such righteous conviction strikes something within you. The clasp of his hand on yours is almost too tight, the look on his face both filled with remorse and determination. You know what he says is true—he will not leave you to face this alone.
Despite this, the uncomfortable elephant in the room lingers: you would not be here if not for Elvis, and you both know it.
But with the pain in your body and the ache in your heart, that is not a mountain you can begin to climb yet. There are too many unanswered questions that you need to figure out and this is not the time or place. So, you let Elvis hold your hand with that mournful look in his churning eyes and you try to heal.
*
“Watch your step, watch your step!” Elvis supports you gingerly, his strong arm holding you at the waist, as if just walking will shatter you into a thousand pieces.
“E, I’m okay. I promise I can walk on my own. It’s just one step,” you say, trying to keep the annoyance out of your tone. He’s been hovering as much as possible for the past two days you’ve been under observation at the hospital, only leaving when absolutely necessary to do his two shows a night. He sent the hospital staff into a tizzy with demands for your care while still managing to be charming and effusive to all the employees in a way that only he could get away with.
You’re not sure that he’s slept in the past few days, as he seems obsessed with making sure you are alright. Your pleas for him to go back to the hotel and get some rest fell on deaf ears. Hopefully, now that you’ll be in the hotel, he will relax a little.
While your face is healing, it is still covered in a nasty bruise, which you are reminded of every time Elvis looks at you because the wince that passes over his features, while nearly imperceptible to others, is quite evident to you. It serves to remind you how you got here and how he seemingly thinks him controlling everything about your recovery is going to somehow put you back together and make everything how it was before.
But it’s not like it was before.
Not with the looks that the Mafia are giving you. You can sense their pity, their judgement, their fear. Because Elvis having a known affair with you threatens them all. What if it was their wife or girlfriend? What if Elvis turns on them the way he turned on Jack? Jack was their friend, too. It’s written all over their faces. And you can tell they’ve been put on best behavior because more than usual they defer to Elvis, and they are suddenly wildly uncomfortable around you, even though you’ve been part of the group for years.
You can’t help but feel like the king’s consort. The mistress. The usurper.
The only exceptions are Jerry and Sandy, of course. And Charlie, in his usual Charlie way, has been kind and endearing. But the rest are quiet. Too quiet.
You don’t know what’s happened to Jack. You also haven’t seen Red, though you can’t say you’re upset about it. The few times you tried to ask Elvis, he brushed you off, saying you didn’t need to worry about such things while you’re trying to recover.
All of it has you unsettled. You knew there would be consequences, of course you did, but you didn’t expect it to be this strange.
Thankfully, your headaches are becoming less frequent, but when they do come, they are intense and debilitating, and weirdly, each one brings a host of images and fractured memories that you must try to make sense of. The doctor said this should hopefully get better as your brain heals from the concussion. A full recovery, he said, but it might take some time. Elvis takes this to mean you need constant care, and honestly you don’t have the energy to argue with the man about it right now, so you let him escort you into his bedroom suite as though you are frail and fragile.
“There you go, Satnin, all set,” he says, fluffing the mountain of pillows behind you, and then he gently takes off each of your shoes. You lean back with a sigh, suddenly grateful for the comfort of his huge bed in his penthouse suite because that hospital bed was truly terrible.
“Maybe you wanna to get into your pajamas?” he suggests. “I had all your things brought up, but I also went ahead and bought you some things, since I know you hadn’t planned on being here this long, and—” he rambles. The look on his face is almost childlike in his need to please you, to take care of you. It is quite the adjustment after spending a week basking in his masculine sexual dominance.  You aren’t complaining at this change in him; in fact, it reminds you of when you first met, of those early years. It’s just giving you a bit of whiplash.
“It’s okay, honey, I’m fine for now,” you interrupt, trying to keep your tone light. Bringing your hand up, you pinch the bridge of your nose as another headache threatens. Overly attuned to you, Elvis grabs one of your feet and starts rubbing, using his strong hands to knead deep into the sole of your foot.
The hurts-so-good feeling has you groaning and your head falling back onto the pillows.
“That feel good, mama?” he drawls quietly.
All you can do is nod and hum in response. You’re certain if this had happened a few days ago, that statement, this action, would be laced with a fierce sexual energy. You imagine that it would last only a minute before he pounced and worked you into a state of pleasurable bliss. That latent desire is still there—you can sense it—but with everything that has happened, it takes a backseat to your pain.
This both saddens you and makes you feel grateful. You covet your sexual relationship with him, as it is the definitive thing you know he wants and needs from you. You know this for sure, and with your ever-present uncertainty about the rest of your relationship, it makes you feel off-kilter to not be able to share that with him. However, his commitment to being by your side despite the lack of sex, has been somewhat reassuring. You desperately hope it’s not just a sense of guilt that keeps him here with you.
You sigh, your eyes falling shut, and relish in the feel of his hands on you in such a comforting way as he treats one foot, then the other, to this intimate treatment. But he is uncharacteristically quiet.
He practically has you in a stupor by the time he finishes with the second foot, managing to stave off your impending headache. Opening your eyes, you catch him looking at you, those deep blues of his taking on a darker hue in the dim lighting. You can see the wheels turning, the way his hand flexes and releases over his tailored pants, how he worries his bottom lip with his teeth.
“What is it, E?” you ask gently, almost afraid it might spook him.
“I-I-I…can I hold you?” he stutters, changing tactics midway to get the sentence out, betraying his nerves.
“Of course, baby,” you respond quietly.
“I-I just don’t want to hurt you,” he says, crawling up the comforter to lie next to you. “Are ya sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” you say, as he curls into you, his arm coming over you.
All at once, you are flooded with memory. Your teenage bedroom. Your single bed. Elvis nestling close into your side, his cheeks still salty with tears. The way your heart races at his proximity and the way his touch, though innocent, burns through you like wildfire. His breath warm on your neck, tickling your bare skin.
He shows up on your doorstep such a mess, coming to you, of all people. You don’t quite understand it. (You’re still not sure you understand it—why it’s you, of all people, at that point in his life, that he’d chosen to come to.)
You fall into caring for him so easily, like it is second nature to run your fingers through his hair and massage his back as he cries in your lap, even though you’ve never touched him like this, so intimately, before. When he asks to stay, those bedroom eyes of his begging, your heart leaps in a way you are ashamed of. Your entire body feels on fire, flustering you as you consider the implications, consider just how badly you do want him to stay, and if it’s worth it to see where this might go.
It only gets worse when you find him stripped down to his underwear, waiting for you innocently in your bedroom, a place no man has stayed before. Your heart stops in your chest at the sight of him sitting there, exhausted and emotionally spent. Before you take him into your bed, he’s so good in reassuring you he would never hurt you, that he won’t touch you like that. Of course, he wouldn’t; you know this. But your trepidation isn’t because you are afraid he’ll take advantage of you—it is because part of you wants him to.
The memory makes you blush furiously. Yet another important moment you had buried so deep that remembering it now makes it feel like it just happened.
After the initial tension of him being curled so close into you wanes, you relax and let your mind wander to places it shouldn’t go. Oh, how you relish in the softness of his skin against yours, the musky scent and heat of him surrounding you as he holds on to you through the night. You wake up multiple times, thinking you must be dreaming that Elvis is in your bed, but are pleasantly surprised to really find him there, his warm, lean, young body pressing into yours in various ways. The moonlight through the window lets you see just how innocently beautiful and vulnerable he is like this, like some kind of angel not of this world, his long lashes falling over his cheeks. You feel grateful to see him this way, tucking the moment away in your mind. Despite the rollercoaster of hormones coursing through you, you’ve never felt so safe before, not with Ted, not with any man.
Or felt so aroused. That terrified you, you think, as the wave of feeling crashes over you in the present. You want him with an intensity that shocks you to your core. But he is your friend, for god’s sake, and he’d come to you upset and trusted you to help him, and here you are, suddenly lusting after him like every other girl on the planet. Oh, yes, you are so very ashamed of yourself, for the dirty thoughts you’re thinking.
But, oh, how you imagine him waking to kiss you passionately, willing him to touch you everywhere, wanting him to run his long, calloused fingers up under your nightgown and into your panties. Thinking that, in an instant, he could easily slide between your legs, and you would let him. You’ll gladly give yourself to him right this minute if he wants you. You screw your eyes shut, trying unsuccessfully to block out the image of him slowly entering you, joining with you, rocking you into submission, into ecstasy.
Back then, those thoughts were more dangerous than anything, especially when the man in question was in your bed already, holding you close. It was a different time, and at nineteen, you were young and bound by propriety, and yet, in that moment, you hadn’t cared about that part.
But it is Elvis. Your dear friend. He doesn’t think of you that way. He’s on the brink of stardom and already has half the country fawning over him, with girlfriends in every town. You know this, logically. You know this, but for the first time, you allow yourself to think that maybe there is more to the two of you than just friendship. That maybe there is a reason he’d come to you in his hour of need.
A wave of heartache rolls through you as you recall that next morning. You blearily wake up from your fitfully aroused but somehow comforting slumber to him pulling you close, pressing the front of his body into the back of yours. The heat of him permeates through the thin cotton of your nightgown, which is quite a pleasing sensation in the cold of this late-winter morning. You sigh and wiggle back into him instinctually, before you can think too much on it, just needing to be closer to him. But then he jumps out of the bed in a flash, as if you were on fire, scurrying to clothe himself, and then he practically leaps out the window to get away from you.
He didn’t want you. Of course, he didn’t want you. He probably regrets the whole thing, with the way he leaves you lying there. He is Elvis Presley, after all. Your friend, but nothing more. You’d been foolish to think it anything more.
His abrupt absence leaves you cold, tears welling in your eyes, yearning for something you know you could never have from him (or so you’d thought, at the time). You pull the covers over your head, the scent of him on your sheets enveloping you. The grease he used in his hair left a stain on your pillow, but you don’t care in the slightest because it is something tangible, something that lets you know him holding you through the night had been real and not a dream.
Now it hits you suddenly that—oh, god—that was the day Jack had asked you out for the first time. You’d been sad all day, trying to push Elvis out of your mind and Jack had shown up at the diner, suddenly quite brazen in his attraction to you. While you weren’t entirely surprised, as the two of you had been dancing around each other for some time, the timing of it helped bring you out of your funk, reminding you that in the real world, a good man like Jack wanted you.
You’d quickly accepted because you liked Jack and there was no reason not to.
Elvis Presley was just your friend, after all.
Now you realize that in that short 24-hour period, the trajectory of your entire life changed. Maybe you’d fallen into Jack’s arms so quickly because Elvis’ rejection had upset you more than you wanted to admit. It had been easier and more realistic to date Jack, and it had taken your mind off the unwanted thoughts you had for Elvis.
Oh, no.
The intense discovery of this long-hidden memory and the emotions to go with it rocket through your skull with a shooting pain, causing you to hiss. Tears flood your eyes, from both the ache in your heart and the pain in your head.
“Baby, you okay? What can I do?” Elvis shoots his head up, noticing your distress, looking you over carefully.
You can’t explain, not now. “Bad headache,” you breathe out instead. “Can you get my medicine?” You didn’t want to take pain meds if you could help it, but in this moment, everything, pain and otherwise, is too overwhelming and you think maybe you just need some sleep.
So, you take the pill he gives you gratefully. You try not to think about how the way he looks at you now has that same boyish quality it had all those years ago when you’d taken him into your bed and into your arms, and he’d left you cold.
It’s okay, you think. He’s here now, taking care of me. He wants me now, even if he didn’t then.
And with that, you drift aimlessly away into welcome darkness.
*
Everything is fuzzy, the dull ache in your head muddling the flashes that are floating to the surface in your dreams.
You kiss Elvis’ forehead, the tears on his baby-faced cheeks, his pouting, full lips. You can taste the salt of his tears on your tongue.
Not Elvis now, you think, Elvis a long, long time ago.
But that doesn’t make sense. You didn’t kiss Elvis until two weeks ago.
He’s so sad, though, so alone. He needs you, he needs you, he needs you…
And you need him.
But it’s wrong, all wrong. And so right, all at once. Your body tingles through the ache in your head as you ever-so-gently press your lips to his. You’ve wondered for so long what he tastes like.
Soft and sweet, like marshmallows.
His bright blue eyes widen with shock.
“Y/n, baby, you don’t want this…” he whispers. The words echo and swirl around you.
He’s right, isn’t he? You can’t want this. You shouldn’t. Of course not…
You’re so angry, so sad, and he’s so beautiful.
Elvis. Your Elvis.
No, he’s not, he’s not, he’s not.
He belongs to no one. He belongs to the world.
Need pulses through you, a need so deep it brings you to your knees. It cuts through the pain in your head. It singes through your heart.
It’s unbearable.
It burns through you, from the inside out.
Those eyes, deep as the ocean, rimmed in black, plunder your soul. You ride the swell of the waves in them as they rise higher and higher and higher until they shatter underneath you.
The fall is blissful and terrifying, all at once, but Elvis is with you the whole way.
Free falling through the abyss, you are scared. It’s never-ending. You don’t know when you’ll hit bottom, and the anticipation of it runs like ice through your veins.
Guilt. Shame. That ache in your chest.
And then you hit bottom.
*
Your eyes pop open with a shuddering gasp. Gripping the sheets for dear life, you frantically try to piece out where you are, that you are not falling anymore.
Just a dream. Just a crazy, medication induced dream, you pray, seeing that you are in the darkened suite in Elvis’ penthouse.
But the unease remains, lurking more visibly now in the corners of your mind, trying to tell you something you don’t want to hear. Something you don’t want to see.
The door to the bedroom slowly opens and you jump, a hand flying over your chest in surprise. Elvis strides in quietly, clad in his white gi jumpsuit, sweat pouring over him. He must have just finished a show.
You had been asleep a while.
You are still amazed at how his presence fills a room, even when it’s just you here, even when there is no one to impress. He looks gorgeous and you know he’s riding the post-show high by the way his eyes sparkle and by the flush of his cheeks.
“You’re awake, baby. How’re ya feeling?” he asks, gliding over to you on those long legs of his.
You are still reeling from the dream. You shake your head, trying to clear that feeling of dread, of falling, and as he sits on the bed next to you, you are sucked into those oceanic eyes once again.
Your heart races.
“Are you okay?” He looks concerned, brushing your sweaty locks off your forehead, thumb grazing your cheek.
“Are you okay? he whispers, his thumb grazing your cheek. You sit still in his lap, saying nothing and can feel him begin to soften inside of you, the wetness of spent arousal leaking down your thighs under your dress…
The flash of memory hits you hard, because it was then, not now. Triggered by the same gesture, the same man, but it was a different time. He looked so young…
But that’s impossible. Impossible. The first time you had sex with Elvis was less than two weeks ago.
Your heart thunders in your chest because suddenly you don’t think that’s true.
You kiss Elvis’ forehead, kiss the tears on his baby-faced cheeks, and then, with a strange boldness, you kiss his pouting, full lips. You can taste the salt of his tears on your tongue.
His pants scratch at your bare thighs as you straddle his narrow hips. His tongue explores your mouth, sending searing heat through you. Boldly, you rock in his lap, feeling him grow underneath you.
You need him, oh, god, how you need him.
The flashes aren’t complete, but they are real. You are suddenly so sure that they are, and you don’t understand, not at all. You look at Elvis now, wild-eyed, silently seeking answers. How? How?
His long fingers are cold as they part your wet folds, and he pushes one, then another deep into your heat while his thumb massages that ever-sensitive bundle of nerves at the front. It stings at first, this surprising intrusion, but he’s gentle, letting you adjust around him, letting you decide when to move.
Your breath is coming fast now, and Elvis looks more than concerned.
“Satnin, what’s happenin’? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says, eyes searching you.
You screw your eyes shut. This can’t be real. It can’t be.
You sink down on him slowly, the tightness of your canal stretching around his considerable size as you try to take him all in. It’s easier now, after he prepped you with his fingers, and the discomfort wanes quickly as you bottom out. He’s hitting places inside you that you didn’t know existed until this very moment.
Elvis looks utterly ethereal as you begin to ride him, his mouth open and pink, his freshly dyed raven hair falling in his eyes. Everything about him looks carved out by the gods, and his eyes drink you in in a way that strips you bare, right to the heart of you. He looks at you as though you hung the moon and the stars.
Those eyes are now looking at you in a panic.
He brings you to the brink easily and you crest the wave hard, your orgasm fracturing you into a thousand pieces as you fall. You’d never felt this way before, not with Ted, not with Jack, not even with yourself. The pleasure of it rips through you and he follows quickly, a warm, sticky heat pulsing deep as you cling to each other for dear life.
Oh. Oh god…
It was real. You know it now. You are more sure of it now than you’ve ever been.
Graceland, you realize suddenly, when he took you to see Graceland for the first time. That’s where it happened. Nineteen-fucking-fifty-seven.
Elvis and you had sex, a long, long time ago. And he kept it from you. Pretended it never even happened.
You push away from him and stagger off the bed in daze, flooded with so many emotions and sensations at once that you don’t know how to react. Dizzy, you sway a bit on your feet.
Flashes keep hitting you as you move. Waking in the hospital, not knowing how you’d gotten there. Elvis, worried at your bedside. The pills. The accidental overdose.
You think you might be sick.
“What the hell is happenin’? You’re scarin’ me. Talk to me, baby,” Elvis says from behind you. He feels so far away, but that deep seeded need to flee him is rolling through you and you walk unsteadily forward, though you aren’t sure exactly where you are trying to go.
Oh, he must have been so relieved when you didn’t remember anything about that night. That he didn’t have to take back what he’d—you’d—done. That it didn’t completely derail his friendship with you or Jack. That he got to keep being Elvis without any repercussions.
Twelve years. Over a decade built on lies and half-truths and pretending.
Tears are streaming down your burning cheeks now. You feel humiliated. Shocked at both yourself and at him. You’d cheated on Jack, with Elvis. It didn’t matter that Jack had cheated first. You’d had feelings for Elvis all the way back then, feelings you acted on in a moment of vulnerability for both of you. He’d been devastated about June, scared about his fame. You’d wanted to comfort him, but you had also wanted to prove to yourself that if a man like Elvis Presley could want you, then of course Jack should.
You’d thrown yourself at him. He didn’t stop you. And then he lied to you about it all.
If you’d have remembered…Christ, the repercussions would’ve been life altering.
Elvis grabs you then, in the present, his hot, long, ring-clad fingers circling your arm, pulling you back towards him.
And it is then that your anguish fully turns to anger. After everything that has happened these past two weeks, these past fourteen years…Suddenly, that sense of betrayal, your seeming lack of control of anything in your life, all the fear of the past, present, and future, pushes you to the brink. You feel done being at the mercy of the universe, done at being at the mercy of the lies and whims of men.
“Take your fucking hand off me, Elvis,” you hiss, venom in your glare.
You watch as his brilliant blue eyes widen in surprise, and with that, he releases you.
“Is this all a game to you?” you ask pointedly, voice shaking under the weight of your simmering fury.
“W-what?” he says, shaking his head. “Baby, I can’t emphasize enough that I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me for years,” you throw at him. A fueled rage clouds your judgement. You are quickly becoming unhinged and near irrational, but you are unable to stop it, almost like you are possessed, out of your mind, and watching your unusual behavior from afar. It’s as though a part of you wants to blow all of this up and you are powerless to stop this destructive side of yourself.
Elvis throws his hands up in surrender and begins to turn away. “That concussion has you bein’ all crazy, honey. I don’t even know—”
“That day at Graceland, right before you bought it. When I accidentally took too many pills for my headache. You know the one, don’t you?” you interrupt scathingly.
He stops and looks back at you, that pretty brow furrowing, and you think you can sense his panic truly brewing now. “I-I-I thought ya didn’t remember nothin’ about that afternoon.”
“Oh, I didn’t.” You think now you do, but you have to be sure. “You were awfully upset that day because of June, weren’t you? Going on and on about how you’d never know if a women would truly love you. And, come to think of it, you never did tell me how it was that I fell asleep,” you add, turning the knife with both curiosity and fervor, glaring at him.
His eyes truly widen now, his pouty mouth popping open and then shuttering closed again, his pallor turning pale.
And there you have your answer. You are not supposed to know this. He’d told you about June all over again after you’d left the hospital because you hadn’t remembered him telling you at Graceland. But he definitely hadn’t told you again about his insecurity of not knowing if a woman would love him for who he really is.
It’s all true.
That realization is horrible and vindicating and almost relieving all at once. You weren’t wrong when that voice in your head was telling you he was keeping something important from you. You weren’t crazy. And you even think this isn’t all he’s been hiding, but you can’t go there now. It’s too heavy a punch to the gut, and all you see is red.
A frantic, small voice in your head tries to remind you that you should consider Elvis’ feelings about that day, how he was vulnerable and frightened when he couldn’t wake you, and that your concussion has you not in your right mind and missing pieces of all this, but your rage kicks those thoughts aside and you plow forward anyway. You have too many unanswered questions.
“We had sex, Elvis. In 1957! How could you…how dare you then pretend it never happened! How could you not tell me?!” you scream at him, in a way that is utterly unlike the passive and quiet woman you’d become over the years. The woman who had learned to cower instead of speaking up for herself. The stubbornness and fire from your youth flares, driving you forward recklessly. It hurts your head to do it, but you can’t help it.
Elvis just stands there, staring, silent, using that well-honed talent of his to make his beautiful, godlike face an unreadable mask. It kills you inside, but you wait, unwilling to let him off the hook. But he still does not speak.
“Did it even mean anything to you?” you then ask quietly, tears prickling your eyes again, “Or was I just another notch on your bedpost?”
He blinks slowly and presses his lips together, and your heart sinks because you can’t tell if being with him so intimately meant anything to him at all. You should be able to tell, but you can’t, not when he’s shutting you out like this. And that deepest fear being realized both destroys you and pisses you off even more.
Finally, Elvis breaks his silence, voice low and measured and too careful for him, like he’s reciting lines in a movie, “It wasn’t…You were high. Your judgement was impaired. I was mortified...” He trails off, looking away. Then he pauses, taking a deep breath before challenging you with his intense eyes, “And would tellin’ you have changed anythin’?”
You choke at that and shake your head as you turn away from him. The words linger in the air, and you are irate at them, at him. They whirl within you, stabbing you in their coldness. He was mortified by being with you. Good god. The wound of that cracks through you like ice shattering.
You know deep down you didn’t sleep with him because you were accidentally high. You are certain of it. It wasn’t just about getting back at Jack, or just about feeling attractive and desired. No, it was so much more than that. After remembering what you have, you know you’d given yourself to Elvis willingly, medication or no, doing something you’d sworn after Ted that you wouldn’t do again until marriage.
He presses you on this, this thing you can’t believe he’s asking. “Would it’ve? You were with Jack, you loved Jack. And I’d just gotten home and was leavin’ again just as fast. What would’ve it changed, y/n, other than to make things awkward between us and ruin our friendship? Other than to ruin what you had with Jack?” Elvis asks from behind you, his gravelly voice strained.
You’re shaking now, your whole being quaking with physical and emotional toil, another headache slamming down upon you. Yes, you’d loved Jack, you truly had. And you know you’ve fallen in love with Elvis these past few weeks. But all of this craziness—these revelations, these secrets, these memories—are finally confirming something your mind has been trying to tell you lately about all those years ago, something you suspected and feared, but didn’t want to admit:
You have been in love with Elvis since the beginning. You had loved him then just as you love him now. And if you had remembered that, if he’d wanted it, if he had asked you, at any point, you think would’ve dropped everything for him.
Even if it would’ve ruined you both.
A bile of panic rises in your throat because, besides the times you truly can’t remember because you’d literally been dying, there had been all those other moments throughout the years where you’d pushed down your love for him. Important pieces of your life that you’d just forgotten, sometimes right away, in order to spare yourself the pain of this realization, the pain of Elvis’ rejection.
Maybe it started in the diner when he comforted you after Ted broke your heart, or maybe it began even earlier because god knows you can’t trust yourself or your memory. In fact, you are quite sure that there are still things he’s keeping from you, pivotal things you still don’t remember and it’s maddening. But after the diner, it feels like every moment you repressed is a missing piece to the puzzle of your life and reminder of how everything has gone so completely wrong.
Oh, and isn’t it rich that you are laying into him about keeping this naughty little tryst from you when you’ve been conveniently forgetting all these crucial moments of your relationship over your lifetime, a logical voice in the back of your head hurls at you.
Fuck you, you throw back, dread seeping through you.
And now your deepest fears are confirmed—Elvis hadn’t wanted you, not like that. He was mortified by it, in fact. He had a taste of you in a moment of weakness, because he’s just a man after all, and got lucky when you didn’t remember. Thinking better of it, he kept it all to himself. All these years, he’d lied by omission. And for some goddamned reason, he’d swung back around to you after all this time, destroying your life as you knew it in the process.
You spin back around to face him. Nausea rolls in your stomach because, suddenly, you’re not sure you know the man in front of you at all.
“Fuck you, Elvis Presley. It would’ve changed everything,” you say vehemently, honestly, leveling him with your stare.
And it looks like you just slapped him by the way he recoils.
You can’t stop yourself from digging deeper, too angry to care, “But I’m sure that’s not what you wanted, since you were so quick to decide that I didn’t need to know, so fucking cocksure that you didn’t even deem to ask what I wanted. No, you just got laid and got lucky and moved right on to the next girl.”
“Th-that’s not—“ he sputters, those azure eyes a little frantic.
“Isn’t it, though, Elvis? Isn’t that exactly what happened? We fucked and you decided it was a bad idea, so you didn’t bother to tell me when I couldn’t remember myself. Who cares what I thought, right?! Then you went on with your life as though nothing happened.”
As if it hadn’t mattered at all, as though you hadn’t mattered enough to bother. You can’t bring yourself to say that part, though, as the icy pain of saying the rest out loud like this sends more tears pouring down your cheeks, despite your anger wanting to keep them at bay.
As if the rest isn’t bad enough, another thought hits you sideways, “My god, you even pushed Jack to marry me, didn’t you?” You look at him incredulously, remembering how Jack had joked about it after he’d proposed. The words ache through you as you say them, as you realize the implications of that. Yet another one of your deepest fears confirmed.
Elvis looks stricken as he backs up to the bed and sinks down on the edge, putting his head in his hands.
“I-I-I w-was no good for you,” he mumbles.
“You don’t get to decide that, Elvis! You took those choices away from me!” you cry at him.
You watch as he holds his tongue, as his body stiffens at your words. His jaw clenches and his breathing changes. You know the signs by now, but you don’t care. You don’t care that he’s getting ready to explode and that it’s you pushing him over the edge. You want him over the edge. You want him to care enough to be mad about it.
“And what? Did you finally decide after twelve years that maybe you did like my pussy after all, so you decided to come back for more?” you spit at him nastily, driving him right over the threshold.
“I was protecting you!” Elvis bellows, leaping to his feet, face red with anger. His eyes darken and flash in a way that might have caused you to pause before, but not today, not after this.
You don’t let up. “Protecting me from what exactly? A bad marriage? A man that doesn’t love me?” you laugh haughtily at the irony.
He doesn’t elaborate, just bites his tongue in frustration and glowers at you, pulling himself back.
Then, another sinking realization drags you under. “Good lord—you had your hands in my relationship with Jack every step of the way. From day fucking one. You pushed us onto each other, a-a-and then you took him away from me, over and over again. The women Jack ‘dated’…Jesus, that was when he went to Vegas to see you that first time, wasn’t it? Of course. I should’ve known that’s when he started fucking other women. Because of you,” you point at him, more fury boiling in your stomach as you ramble.
God, was it all lies and subterfuge? Every fucking thing in your life related to these men?
Elvis stands there, jaw gritted so hard he might crack his veneers, his hands fisted at his sides, his leg going a million miles an hour. But you don’t stop.
“And then you came back home to find me upset, pretended like you didn’t know why, and then you fucked me?” The memories come to you too quickly, too painfully, fractured moments flashing in your aching head, weaving back together what you’d lost for so long, fueling your pain, fueling you forward. “And that was just the beginning. You sucked Jack and me both into your world, then played with our lives because…why? Why, E?” you demand.
Still, he says nothing, eyes fierce and his body vibrating with energy, letting you continue your verbal assault.
Your heart is going so fast you fear it’s going to explode, but you continue anyway, knowing that this isn’t like you, that perhaps this isn’t truly what you want. I love him, don’t I? But you are so mad, so exhausted from feeling like a plaything in the lives of the men around you, that you can’t stop. They’ve treated you as if you have no agency of your own. As if you were nothing without them. And you are done.
You shake your head. “You screwed with our lives because you could. You and your fucking egomaniacal, insane, manipulative bullshit. Nobody can be happy unless the King is happy, right? What the fuck is wrong with you?” you hiss, beside yourself with anger at him, on what he’d done to your life. In this moment, your love for him is entirely consumed by your rage, as your addled and bruised brain tries to piece together just how screwed up this entire situation is.
Elvis roars then and sweeps everything off the nightstand, sending things shattering and flying to the floor. You do your best not to wince at the outburst, unwilling to let him shake you. Then, he looks at you, like a caught, caged beast, his chest heaving and eyes dangerous. But he isn’t blacked out, and you know it because you can see the gears working in his head. You can see that the emotion in his face is not anger alone. There is a deep pain there and it confuses you.
Dread settles into a knot in your stomach because suddenly you can’t shake that terrible feeling that you are still missing something vital here, something both Elvis and your traitorous brain are keeping from you, but your head is pounding and your blood is up and you can’t think straight.
You stand toe-to-toe, staring at each other, chests heaving in the heavy silence.
He breaks first, but with an almost frightening level of clarity that you don’t expect after his outburst. “Fine. Y-you w-w-wanna make me th-the-the villain in this story, then fine, I-I’m th-the fucking villain, honey. I-I-I always w-was,” he stutters wildly, cutting, his stormy eyes narrowing like a crocodile as he levels you with them.
He doesn’t deny any of it. He doesn’t even defend himself anymore.
You don’t know what to do with that.
All you know is you hurt. Everything aches, inside and out. You feel like an absolute fool. You are infuriated with him and maybe even more furious at yourself. Then, your heart breaks, sending a wave of sorrow flooding through your chest and down your limbs.
Everything with Jack was bad.
Somehow, this is worse.
It feels like your entire world has been pulled from underneath your feet. The devastation you felt about Jack feels like nothing now compared to Elvis’ betrayal, and the weight of both together is crushing you from all angles.
There is no escape. You can’t breathe.
Somehow, you’ve lost them both. Or maybe you never really had either of them to begin with.
You silly, stupid girl. I tried to warn you.
You manage to hold back the sob that threatens to break you.
Wordlessly, you nod, clench your fists, then turn and walk out.
Elvis doesn’t stop you.
*
Taglist:
@atombombbibunny @yesimwriting @uselessbutinteresting @mirandastuckinthe80s @dark-as-love
@domaniquessidehoe @im-lame-irl @allybrooke05 @hangmanswhore
@jazmin2211  @kvcssghbjbcd @coldonexx @dudinhahoff @whatstruthgottodowithit @tiredbuthappy  @amiets2  @saintmagx
@kvcssghbjbcd @butlersluvbot @babydollie43 @vainbimbo @meladollsims @wstelandbaby @dre6ming @normatural @ash-omalley @xcallmetaniax @galvz-42 @thejezebel @fullmetal-falcon @robinismywife @dre6ming @seaweedbrain00 @amiets2 @mslizziesblog @heisatroubleinapinksuit @calusussss @dont-feel-so-good-peter @rainydayz101 @pizzaisrelationshipgoals  
@liaaacantwrite @kittenlittle24 @kaitaesupremacy @butler-trouble @eliseinmemphis @russian-soft-bitch  @tattywood 
@sassanoe @re3kin @thella @suspiciousmidge @hiddlepiddlediddlewiddle @carolinesbookworld @juggernort @aesthetic-lyss @stitchattacks @donnamarie23 @ab4eva 
@fic-over-cannon @lacyluver @littlebitofgreen @paigevis @godlypresley @bugg06 
Reblogs, likes, tips, comments + feedback are extremely appreciated! Please help support your content creators!
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nrdmssgs · 5 months
Text
How to not motivate your favorite author to write
So recently this happened to a very dear friend of mine. And then this happened. I'm not tagging her deliberately, to not drag her name into any shitshow. I love her dearly and will fight with tooth and claw for this person.
I will be referring to my personal experience not because I want to make this 'a story about precious me', but because I can guarantee, that overall pattern of creative process will go along with these examples, and I don't want to torture others with interviews on their particular creative process examples.
I want to address that anon and talk a bit about how creative processes work. I am not a writer, but I have two art degrees, so I just happen to know a thing or two about creativity and its ways in human brains.
How creative process differs from creative outcome
Imagine a situation: you roam around your favorite network and find this one cool author, that seems to create something especially for you. I like their characters, their storyline, their ways with the language and overall scenery. You and them seems like a match made in heavens. There is only one 'but': you crave more.
You find your perfect fic, you read every chapter and end on a painful cliffhanger, poor you? But what if I tell you, that to complete this chapter, your favorite author had to process a ton of information, their own suggestions, 'what ifs', questions around every single detail, different dialogue and action options? What you see is a perfectly cut ice cube, but it took a freaking iceberg to make it. By the way, the same goes for illustrations. Remember this short comix?
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Well, it took a day to create it, and actually drawing it took only 4 hours. Another 8 hours were spent on concept. Here are just 2 pages of my ideas, and I have like 8 pages of this.
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And sometimes authors don't even write down their draft thoughts, but it doesn't mean, these thoughts doesn't exist. We are thinking about our stories while going for groceries, driving a car, doing laundry, taking shower and so on.
So if you read something, that is one-page long - it doesn't mean, that your favorite author spent an average 'fill one page with text' time interval to create it. You are reading an outcome, while the author went through the entire creative process!
How creating one thing may help you to create another thing
Sometimes you need to practice, just to get to know a new character/situation.
I had such difficulties, writing Nikto, that I wrote this and this just to bring this marvelous character to the latest part of my ongoing series. Yes, it took me a month to figure out this character, but it was worth it. So please, bear with an author, that makes little attempts, before going back to their magnum opus. Sketches and renders can and will help them evaluate the story, that you`ve fallen in love with in the first place!
Sometimes you need a break.
If you thought, reading some angst was not easy - just know, that writing it was also not easy. Sometimes authors speak on deeply personal topics, sometimes they express their negative emotions through hard and draining scenes and stories.
And before you say 'oh, but the author knew in advance what is yet to happen' - let me remind you, that the author relieves everything, their characters go through.
Creating something completely knew helps author to gain powers, to take a step further, to breathe and calm down.
Sometimes you just feel like shit.
You wake up, revisit, what you wrote yesterday, and you hate it. And you hate yourself for setting the bar so low. And a very right thing to do at this moment is to get yourself distracted by something completely new. Or even to force yourself to not go back to creating for a bit, so that your 'creativity muscles' get some rest.
So please don't be disappointed by your favorite creator for paying attention to other media/fandom/story/character. It may be their way (long and complicated) to go back to that very work, you liked so much.
What doesn't motivate authors
Punching them with 'hey, stop whatever you're doing and go back to that thing, I LIKED'. This will only make your fave creator freeze in a cycle of self-hate, diffidence, art blocks.
Comparison of their works. "Your Ghost fics are top, so stop writing about Gaz and turn into a full time Ghost praiser". Again, this won't motivate your fave to change their writing habits or preferences, this will make them fill guilty every single time they create something against your preferences. That 10-30-50 sketches with Gaz will eventually help them go back and write something for Ghost!
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mitsyscoolplayhouse · 2 years
Text
Drugged chocolate
I recently fell in love with the technicolor clown Sunny Day Jack. This is my first fic so please be kind -w-
Shaun and jack are friends here, fight me >:( Also Shaun can see Jack in this fic. I say this because the fact that being goth and working as morticians runs in the family, I imagine that his family can see ghosts. That is my head cannon.
THIS FIC WAS INSPIRED BY A TWEET FROM @luckycloverNB ON TWITTER https://twitter.com/luckycloverNB/status/1499480608053026822?s=20&t=u8toF7U1hrNB31Ma3xhe5g
This is a 18+ fic minors dni
Warnings this fic contains: smut, reader is afab and fem. Aphrodisiacs, accidental drugging, annoying coworkers, praise kink, over stimulation, soft dom Jack and consensual smex.
Fandom: What's wrong with sunny day Jack.
Description: You the reader accidentally eats drugged yogurt. You rush home to find two things. One, Jack doesn't only feel pain when you are in pain, but rather he feels what your feeling, and two, a note from your roommate Shaun that he is staying the weekend with his family because his Aunt and Uncle are in town.
Sorry if there are any mistakes, I am dyslexic. Constructive criticism is welcome. Although Carol is cannon Mark is not.
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
"WHY ME!?!" you shout.
It was supposed to be a normal day of work at Yogurtopia. Carol, your coworker, worked today's morning shift and you were just finishing up your day shift when Mark burst through the door and quickly rushed to the work room.
'That's odd' you thought to yourself. Mark was your favorite coworker for one reason only, you never had to cover one of his shifts and he was always on time so you could get home at the time you were supposed to rather than stay late. "Wait a minute" you say confused. You check your phone for the time. "What the-" it was too early for him to be here, 'Why is mark 40 minutes early' you ask your self.
"MARK!" you shout as you head over to the work room. "Mark, don't get me wrong I'm glad you can take over what's left of my shift considering you're here early, but like...why? What are you doing by the way?" you question.
"!!!" Mark jumps when he realizes you are in the room. "Uhhhhh well I-um she didn't-I thought she would" he stammers. "Well? you gonna tell me or what?" you ask. He takes a deep breath and starts to explain.
"Ok, so when you came to work did Carol give you anything?" "Hmmmm" you remember that before Carol left she gave you the leftovers of the chocolate that her boyfriend, Mark, gave her. You ate the rest of them half way through your shift. "Yeah, she gave me leftover chocolate, why?" His face goes pale "Oh no" he says as he covers his mouth. This of course worries you, "Were they spoiled, the last thing I need is food poisoning."
Your mind drifts to the fact that last week when you had especially bad period cramps Shaun had to take care of both you and Jack. Food poisoning is painful and you don't want your boyfriend Jack to go through that. "No" he replies "Worse." What could be worse than food poisoning" you shout. he steps closer to you and says in a hushed tone, "They had aphrodisiac in them." After you hear those words you can feel the blood drain from your face. "When did you eat them" he asks, "I don't know two hours ago!" you yell back. Of course the only time Carol does you a favor is backfires. Before another thought comes to mind Mark is pushing you out the door "GO GO GO GO GO it will start to kick in any minute."
You take off your apron, grab your things, and quickly rush out the door not even looking behind you. As you walk you start to work up an unnatural sweat, 'Oh no, Shaun and Jack are having a Jurassic Park movie marathon, I have to get Shaun out of the house.' you pull out your phone and call Shaun. He for some odd reason does not pick up 'Well this is just fantastic' you try to think of ways to get your roommate out of the house when your mind begins to wonder to your very attractive, affectionate and amazing boyfriend. How delicate yet strong his grip is, how many times he has said such wonderful things about you, how he loves you, how he makes you feel loved. Underneath your uniform you can feel your kitty drip with need. Your knees almost buckle, but you refuse and continue sprinting toward your apartment.
Little did you know how much this was affecting your beloved clown.
Aching, throbbing, knees weak, arms heavy, you're panting and gasping for air. Hot, so so hot, it feels like everything's on fire. You thank the stars above there was no one in the elevator with you. Your hands would not stop shaking as you tried to unlock your door, "Come on *huff* c-come on *ahh~*. You finally manage to unlock your door and quickly rushed inside, locking the door behind you.
You lean against the door and think of the most pleasurable scenarios of Jack, before you could relieve the ache in your crotch you remember you have a roommate/friend. Who would want their friend to hear themselves doing the devil's tango with their significant other?
You struggle to get yourself off the door, you stagger into the kitchen when something catches your eye, you pick up a folded piece of paper that says your name. You recognize the handwriting as Shaun's, you shakily open the letter.
Hey Y/N,
I wanted to tell you this in person but you didn't pick up your phone so I have to tell you through this note. My Aunt, Uncle, and cousins are in town and my parents wanted me to stay at the house over the weekend because they rarely visit. Since it was short notice I couldn't finish the movie marathon with Jack :( Can you tell him I am sorry again. I think he would like it if you finished the movie with him :) I will be back Sunday, have a happy Friday with your bf.
-Shaun
'...So if Shaun is gone for 3 days, that means I'll have 3 days to have Jack all to my- (CRASH-THUMP) !!!' The noise that came from your room alerted you. You enter your room as quick as you can trying not to moan from the friction your pants are giving your sensitive woman hood.
What you saw sent heat straight to your core.
Jack, Sunny Day Jack, was on his knees, on your bed, wearing nothing but his shirt that was hiked up and left his left nipple exposed. His right hand was gripping his hard erection, and the other was gripping your blankets.
"Sunshin-*Mmm-ahh*" he let out a desperate needy moan after your nickname. "I-I don't know what you took but I can feel it too.... I've never felt so HOT. Please... let me fill you up....
I NEED you sunshine."
"Oh...my...stars..." you mumble. You looked towards his gaze, his beautiful brown eyes full of lust, need, and absolute adoration. Jack gasped as he let go of your blankets and reached for you. Please sunshine, let me touch you, let me help you. Don't you want to feel better?" Needy, Jack sounds so needy. He sounds like if you don't help he he will die. And oh how much in that moment did you need him.
As you rush to take off your clothes all you thought of, was Jack. 'I want him, I need him, I need him to fuck me until I can't cum anymore, I need him to fill my head with praise and words of love. I-I...."
You immediately straddle his hips and begin to hump him. 'I need Jack.' Jack let out a chorus of moans and praises. "Yes, yes, *A-aahh* sunshine~ you're doing so well. I love you so much! You're making me feel amazi-*Aaah!* Jack's words of praise went straight to the part of you that needed Jack the most and only increased your desperation and speed.
"I want this, I want you, please." *Mmmffp!* you let out a strangled moan when you feel Jack enter you. He lays you down on the bed in the mating press, his arms next to your head. "You do such an amazing job making me feel so good sunshine, let me show you how good I can make you feel. I know you want me to make you feel good, and I c-can. *A-ahhhh*(gasp) only I can make you feel this good, right?"
'Yes, yes, tell me you love me Jack. Praise me, adore me, LOVE ME!' you shout in your mind wishing that Jack could hear you.
"I love you, sunshine. You're so beautiful, and caring. You are my life, *Nnhg* my world, and the only sun in my sky." He hits the spot that makes you see stars, hard.
You let out a sudden scream as white hot pleasure clouds your mind, Jack follows you seconds after. However the hot burning lust still resides in the both of you.
"Jack~ please I need more it's hot, so so hot. I n-need you- *Aggggh!* "O-oh gosh, do you like that Y/N? Do you? Do you love it when I fill you with my love? You have to, because you always do such a great job taking my love." You cum again, this orgasm leaving your legs shaking as you milk Jack as he pumps his "love" into your womb.
"J-jack it-its too much I can't, I don't think I can do it anymore b-but it's still so hot Jack, JACCCKK!!!" You moan out his name overstimulated beyond belief, but the drug is still there.
"It's okay sunshine, you're doing such a great job making me feel better, so so much better. It's only fair I make you better too, right? You'll only feel better if you keep going, if you want to stop we can, remember." He cups one side of your face with his hand "You can do it one more time right, for me? Please~."
You made up your mind then and there and gave a single nod, all it took was a few thrusts to have moaning incoherently. Then you felt it, the feeling you experienced in that moment was nothing short of a cool bliss. It felt like a cool ocean wave washing over you and left you on cloud nine.
Jack also felt this relief and collapsed next to you, he then moved both of your bodies so that way he was spooning you with your forehead on his chest.
"Oh sunshine, my sunshine I love you so much. You are and will always be the only thing I will ever need. Can you say it?"
You slowly look up at the light of your life, your Sunny Day Jack and ask,"Say what?" It takes you less than a moment to realize what Jack means. You nuzzle your face into his chest and in a soft voice say the words he will never get tired of hearing. "I love you...Jack."
He let out a soft laugh, "I love you too."
You mumbled a response "I love you more"
He held you tighter, "I love you most."
And with that you both drifted into a deep sleep.
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stewpid-soup · 2 months
Text
VENT CW!! STAY SAFE!!
anyone else find it exhausting to just enjoy things?
I don’t want to support people or companies that are actively doing things that are bad (racism, homophobia, defending SA, etc etc). but it’s so mentally draining to look through all of this terrible shit and not be able to enjoy things bc of their creators or ppl associated with it
i mean, i don’t support dream. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. I don’t support dream or the dteam as a whole - but the dsmp was such a big comfort to me through quarantine, and even now i still love the storyline and the characters.
HP, well that’s self explanatory. JKR is just a shit person and i’m not gonna give her my money bc i enjoy the plot of HP. I just take fanon on its own for the most part. I own the books and the films already (my family loves HP and has for a long time, since before JKR was outed as a transphobe) so i don’t need to buy anything from her. HP was a huge part of my childhood and the thought of not interacting with any content related to it makes me so sad, because i still love it even now.
and as controversial as it may be, i’ve enjoyed hazbin and helluva boss for years now. it was another comfort during quarantine, and i watched it with friends and got to bond over it. i do not like vivziepop or support her, and it’s exhausting to see all this back and forth about her online bc it’s so confusing. I love these shows and it makes me so happy that I get to see hazbin come together after waiting so long, and the same goes for helluva boss. of course there can be improvements to the way vivziepop writes some characters, but i still love these shows so much. it hurts my heart to feel like i can’t enjoy the content because the creator is such a bad person.
and then the number of musicians i’ve had to stop listening to because they turned out to be shitty people. or actors i avoided watching content of because they’re bad people (especially when the list of ppl who support Israel came out- of course im not supporting anyone on there, but some of the ppl on there just rlly hurt my heart because ive enjoyed their content for so long)
i know there’s not really any way to avoid this, as people are complex and can be an asshole w/o you knowing. funding people like this isn’t something i want or care to do, so of course i actively avoid it. but I just don’t know what to do when it comes to this.
a friend told me that it’s sort’ve about picking and choosing things, because you never know what people are really like. they said that with the state of the world, it’s important to stay educated but don’t let shitty people get in the way of things you enjoy. i’m just at the point where i feel like i can’t enjoy anything because anytime i get stuck in a rabbit hole of content, i see people going back and forth about who should be cancelled and who actually isn’t a bad person. cancel culture is one of the worst things about the internet, and it just makes interacting with fandoms even more toxic than it already is.
ig this is just a rant talking about comforts i have that i feel like i can’t enjoy anymore because of cancel culture and just like..people being people? i’m just so tired of finding something i enjoy and then learning out that they are or possibly could be doing/supporting something bad and just— it makes me feel so guilty because i don’t want to indirectly/directly hurt anyone. i know what i believe in and what i do and don’t support, at least for the most part (still learning everyday atp), but it doesn’t make it any easier to part with things i hold so dearly in my heart.
does anyone else feel similarly? if so, what have you found that helps or at least is a comfortable middle ground?
idk bro, my life is so exhausting with everything i deal with in real life- so to feel like i can’t even find comfort in my silly little shows anymore is really depressing. my mental health is not doing well lmfaooo
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yanderes-galore · 5 months
Note
Fandom: Star Wars
Character: Barriss Offee
Pairing: Romantic, Gender-Neutral Darling
Type of Fic: Concept
Plot: Darling is a Coruscanti civilian who has Separatist sympathies.
I can try! Did research on the character so I hope this is mostly in character! This focuses on Clone Wars. It may be a bit short as she doesn't appear often and I tried to revolve the plot around what was given. Sorry if it seems rushed :(
Potential Spoilers For Star Wars: Clone Wars
Yandere! Barriss Offee with Darling who sympathizes with Seperatists
Pairing: Romantic
Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Stalking, Manipulation, Kidnapping, Violence, Mentions of the Jedi Temple incident, Delusional behavior, Forced relationship.
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It is to be expected that the people of Coruscant are on different sides with the corruption of the government.
You were one of the ones who understood the Seperatist's beliefs.
They wanted to make a new government separated from corruption, at least that's what you think as you had no idea Sith were involved as a civilian.
Due to you being a civilian I imagine it would be difficult to be in contact with Barriss.
She's a Jedi so maybe, despite being a civilian, you have some knowledge of them?
That or maybe you just meet her while she does some work around Coruscant?
Somehow you'd manage to meet up with the Jedi.
I suspect you meet her sometime after the "brain worm incident" but before she's entirely disillusioned.
Barriss would no doubt agree with someone such as you.
You would probably end up helping her realize the corruption in what she's doing.
Even if you don't mean to....
You having such sympathies doesn't mean you hate the Jedi so she may get along with you well when she meets you.
It's not just your shared views that make Barriss grow disillusioned, it may actually be the festering feelings she has for you.
Jedi aren't allowed to have personal connections, yet Barriss is very emotionally motivated.
A poison to the Jedi.
Essentially, in this concept, you are accidentally the one to make Barriss take a dip into the Dark Side and bomb the temple later on.
You two of course start as friends.
With you she feels she can let go the stress of her duty.
Already a dangerous slope.
Barriss would relate more to your views by the time she realizes all the corruption.
She feels guilty.
She no longer wants to be part of it all... she just wants to be herself.
Especially when her feelings towards you begin to manifest.
She's conflicted, so much of her wants things to change.
Maybe being a Jedi wasn't for her?
Barriss tries to prevent her thoughts from clouding her.
She keeps herself at bay by following you around Coruscant on her down time.
She thinks fondly of you but knows it's wrong.
Or... is it wrong to give into her emotions?
Who says so? A corrupt order?
Her feelings towards the corruption and her love for you is what drives her to do heinous things.
By the time of the temple attack Barriss is overcome by her obsession.
She feels by bombing the temple it's a message.
Plus, she feels she's doing it for you.
She'll change things for you, then you can both be happy.
Isn't that what you want?
When Barriss Offee goes on the run, she makes it a goal to find you.
You better believe she's dragging you down with her.
You have no idea what's going on or what she's done.
Let alone the fact she supposedly did it for you.
She just corners you while on the run, telling you how much she loves you.
She then goes on to say she's finally done "it" all for you... just to make a change.
Already fearful, you may ask what.
Then she tells you...
and the color drains from your face.
Barriss is a murderer.
A murderer who is madly in love with you...
Before you're able to yell for help, Barriss is already knocking you out and preparing to run.
Her plan is to find somewhere with you to hide...
Sure, she's on the run, but this can be a new start for the both of you!
She'll try to find somewhere to hide from all the corruption... even if it seems impossible...
All because she feels this will make you both happy in your new life together... you'll see!
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snowbellewells · 8 months
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Belated Birthday Fic for @jrob64
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Joni (@jrob64) this is long overdue now, and probably not worth the waiting you've done for it, but I still wanted to give you the story I wrote for your birthday. It takes place in Season 2, after Emma leaves Hook on the beanstalk, but diverges in that Hook carches up with the Savior and the rest of the Princess squad again without Cora. There's some mentioned whump and I hope plenty of hurt/comfort (since you and I both enjoy that so! ;) And I hope you'll still like it, even though it's now well past your birthday. I am so glad we are friends and that this OTP and fandom lead us to meet and get to know each other!
“Consequences”
by: @snowbellewells
The logs and twigs they’d gathered for their campfire were crackling mightily, releasing occasional pops when sap ignited, but giving off the light and heat their weary and mismatched group needed as they wordlessly gathered on a fallen stump and large rock nearby. None of the women spoke. Exhausted and worried, and still not fully trusting of each other, they merely watched as Mary Margaret spun the rabbit she’d brought back for supper on the spit they had rigged up over the fire and listened as Mulan finished assembling the tent they’d soon crawl into once they had eaten at last.
This wilderness was about the furthest thing from an “Enchanted” Forest that Emma could have conjured in her naive 21st century mind, but she was simply too drained to point out the irony to either her mother - she wasn’t even ready to apply that term to her friend and roommate yet - or honest-to-goodness freaking Sleeping Beauty. And it didn’t help that she kept hearing Hook’s voice echoing in her ears, the hurt and shocked betrayal in his tone - and in those dangerously expressive eyes - as he’d pled with her, ‘Have I told you a lie? Why do this to me now?’ She had the sinking feeling that no matter how tired her body might be, when she lay her head down tonight, she wouldn’t be able to sleep for seeing his face as it had looked when she had turned away on the back of her eyelids, and her guilt at leaving him chained atop the beanstalk gnawing at her insides.
Shaking her head clear, Emma reminded herself once again that Hook had been in league with Cora; they had no proof but his word, her gut feeling, and her superpower no one else believed, that he wasn’t still working for the witch against them. She’d done the right thing, Emma savagely scolded her yammering conscience. Nothing was worth the risk of not getting back to Henry - or even worse, seeing Regina’s evil mother find her way to where Henry was. Certainly not a piercing-eyed pirate who seemed to see right through her and make her squirm doing it.
With a nod and murmur of thanks, she took the portion of roasted meat offered to her on a makeshift skewer and nibbled at it gingerly. It might just be that she was famished and too tired to be picky, but it tasted better than expected. Emma was swallowing her second bite, when noise caught her attention from the nearby treeline. She jerked upright, immediately on guard; her state of near-slumber shattered and all her nerves jangling with alarm. Her eyes met Mary Margaret’s as her mother reached for her bow and Emma stood with fists clenched, ready to defend them however she could, whether her gun was any use out here or not. Mulan had abandoned the tent at the sound as well, smoothly drawing her sword and facing the trees in front of them like a deadly sentinel.
The noise of heavy footsteps smashing through the underbrush grew nearer and louder; branches snapped, heavy, gasping breaths were heard, and Emma could only square her shoulders and wait for whatever new foe was coming forth to show itself.
What she wasn’t expecting - and what tore a harsh gasp from her throat on sight - was for Hook to stumble dazedly out of the woods toward them, momentarily leaning against a tree trunk to steady himself, his face obviously bloody and his clothing torn. He took a couple more weaving steps toward them before the toe of his boot caught a root that sent him sprawling face down in the dirt at their feet. And he didn’t get up. Didn’t move or speak. Emma was rushing forward in spite of herself before she could think better of it. Her mother called for her to be careful, and Mulan’s stern face cautioned it could be a ploy, but she paid neither of them much heed.
He still hadn’t moved, and he looked even worse close up. He’d been hurt. Badly. Surely Anton wouldn’t have…  This wasn’t what she had wanted. Was this her fault?
Crouching, Emma tried to shake Hook gently, to stir him back into wakefulness. A groan escaped him breathily, which shouldn’t have relieved her nearly as much as it did. There was nothing for it but to roll him over onto his back. At least then she could see his face and assess the damage.
But when she did, her breath caught a second time, choking up somewhere between her throat and her lungs. She couldn’t imagine there had been many times in the life of Captain Killian Jones when this could be said of him, but he looked terrible. His lower lip was busted, with rusty remnants of dried blood staining where they had trailed down his chin. One eye was swollen nearly shut, and the other was bleary to the point that she wondered how he had made his way to them through the dark. A large gash that had barely closed showed beneath the disheveled dark fringe on his forehead. Dark, purpled bruises and nasty scrapes mottled the skin of his face, neck and collar nearly everywhere she could see. Though she would have never admitted it aloud, Hook’s usually flawless countenance was horribly altered by whatever had happened to him. The shadows darkening his usual mischievious sparkle and daring turned her stomach in a way she couldn't begin to explain.
He struggled to raise his head slightly and blinked up at her as best he could through the usable slit of his eye. “Ah Swan, caught up to you, didn’t I?” he jested brokenly, somehow still teasing her through what must be immense pain.
Tilting her head to study him, Emma struggled to look unamused while inexplicably aching to place a hand to his forehead, brush back the matted hair there, and offer some modicum of comfort. Her fingers moved almost of their own accord, hovering just barely over his cheek before hesitating and pulling back, tingling at their proximity even as she resisted making contact. There didn’t appear to be a single place on him that wasn’t battered and wouldn’t cause him more pain if she tried to touch.
As if reading her concern, Hook shifted restlessly, attempting to lever himself upright and then falling back with a wince and guttural moan of protest. She also noticed for the first time how tightly he kept his hook arm pressed to his side, not sure if the injury was to the arm itself or if he were shielding his stomach or ribs, but it ratcheted her worry for him that much higher. Not certain what to do for him, or what to say, her usual half-annoyed bantering retorts fled her the longer she witnessed his vulnerability. Emma finally settled on simply answering his question, and asking one of her own. “It would appear you’ve caught me,” she acknowledged, then added softer, “But why?”
Huffing out a weary breath, Killian didn’t look at her as he barely shook his head, the motion seeming to express that he didn’t quite know himself. “I guess because, double cross and all, Lass, you lot are the safest choice for company of my rather limited options.”
Emma flushed with embarrassment at his casual mention of what she’d done. Her cheeks burned, knowing the man who lay before her could surely see how she’d colored at the reminder and could only hope that his current state made him less sharply observant than usual. That she hadn’t trusted him or the brief alliance they’d made shamed her, and then made her angry for feeling ashamed. She’d been burned before, and had learned to be more wary. That she had wanted to believe him, and had silently agreed when he’d called them quite a team, had only made her more anxious to leave him behind, to flee before he turned on her and she was left in the dust herself. Pushing the conflicting emotions aside, she tried another tack instead. “But what happene to you? How did…? Surely Anton didn’t…?”  She was tripping over her words now, flustered and chiding herself as she shook her head in frustration.
Biting her tongue until she could regain control, her eyes flew to her hand when Killian used his to clasp it and gain her attention. Though his fingers were trembling with the effort, he held on and answered her slowly. “No, that wasn’t the work of your giant admirer. Your new friend released me once the time you requested of him had passed. Bloody gargantuan numbskull threatened me to leave you in peace, but he didn’t do this damage.”
Emma exhaled air she’d hardly realized she was holding. It didn’t make things right between them, but she was grateful that she hadn’t misjudged Anton’s nature and directly caused the torture Hook had clearly undergone. “But then, who?” she whispered, finally daring to squeeze the hand that held hers in return, while at last reaching out and smoothing a light caress over his brow.
He flinched slightly at the initial contact, but then his eyes fell closed momentarily with a sigh of relief. Emma had to know, though the only other option she could think of had dread settling in her belly like stone. “Who did this to you?” she choked.
“Why Cora, of course,” he intoned, trying to appear either flippant or matter of fact and failing with the shadows that passed over his expression. “Not honestly sure why she didn’t finish the job, unless she thought she had and this old body is just too stubborn to give up the ghost.” He drew in a ragged breath before adding, “At any rate, after letting me know that she would leave me here, unable to ever gain my vengeance on Rumplestiltskin, she made certain she had demonstrated the consequences of choosing to align myself against her.”
By this point, his breathing had grown shallow and labored once more with the effort of speaking. Shushing him with a plea to rest, Emma was eager to check with the others about anything they might be able to do for his injuries. He certainly didn’t need her to keep him talking as she was. Pressing trembling lips together, Emma dashed away the single drop of moisture that had escaped her eye and laid his hand tenderly back on his chest. “Well, thankfully, Cora counted her win a bit too soon. Let’s see if we can help you live to fight another day.”
His unfairly long lashes fluttered, and a small, soft chuckle broke from his cracked lips, but Killian seemd to be rapidly giving up the fight to remain lucid. Emma wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad while they tried to tend to his wounds, but she had to do something. She wasn’t going to desert him again.
****************************************
When his eyes fluttered open some time later, Killian Jones found himself dazed and dizzy, then almost nauseous, with his throat parched and dry. Panic followed almost immediately as he struggled to gain his bearings and found himself weak as a newborn kitten, floundering even to sit up unaided. He could not have said whether it had been minutes, hours, or days since he was last aware of his surroundings, but just as he was not sure how much time had passed, he was also vaguely uncertain of where he was and whether or not he was alone - an even more disturbing condition.
His mind was reeling as he attempted to move, scrabbling around over the dry, dusty ground with his good hand in a frantic search for his cutlass. Surely he must have left it within reach. He had learned long ago, even as the captain of a mostly loyal pirate crew, that enemies were varied and numerous, and that he must never let his guard down without a weapon close at hand. He had a jagged, long-healed gash running under his ribs, which Smee had tried his best - if rather crookedly - to sew closed, but which had taught him that lesson all too well.
With a frenzied sound of frustration in his throat, Killian kept fighting to sit upright, ready to defend himself against some unknown foe, only to have hands grip his upper arms tightly, pressing him back and forcing him to remain on the ground. “Unhand me, you blackguard!” he growled, only to have his vision finally regain focus and the fight abruptly drain from his limbs when he found himself staring up at Emma Swan hovering over him, her touch the one keeping him in place.
“Easy there, Hook,” she chided, loosening her grip as he stilled and grew calmer upon seeing he was not under immediate attack. “You’ve got to settle down, or you’ll hurt yourself even more. We tried to stitch the deepest of your cuts and bandage you up. Don’t undo it all!”
She was fussing over him, Killian realized belatedly, his hazy and addled mind slowly filling in the blanks he had missed. She might be scolding and grumbling as she did so, but she was still frightened for his well-being and more concerned for his comfort than he would have dared imagine possible.
He had known there was a frisson of energy that flowed between them when he’d taken her hand in the giant’s lair, cleansing and caring for the cut on her palm despite her stubbornly self-effacing protests. And he really hadn’t thought he was imagining the way she’d held her breath and her pupils had dilated when he’d eyed her daringly while tying off the bandage with his teeth. Still, he’d been hesitant to place too much fatih in what he was reading from her either. Emma Swan was overly guarded and used to being on her own. Someone had obviously hurt her deeply enough to make her push everyone else away in response. Not only that, but she was an actual royal - the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, no less - and the fabled Savior besides. Her light was much too pure and bright to be aligned with his dark and tarnished pirate soul set on vengeance.
All the same, he had cursed himself as seven times a fool when his heart plummeted at her turning and running from him on the beanstalk. He had held out a little hope for them, in spite of his better judgement, or he would not have been so hurt by the betrayal. She was as full of shining enticement, from her flowing golden hair to her sparkling jade eyes, as any buried treasure. He couldn’t help wanting to stay by her side.
As Emma slowly moved to support him, helping him ease into a sitting position while bracing him against her own hip and shoulder, she offered him a water skin and held it up so he could take a much-needed cool drink of water. Killian was stunned to realize that maybe winning her over wasn’t as lost a cause as he had thought. Perhaps Emma Swan already cared more than she wanted to allow herself, and against her own good sense - much as he had found himself doing.
Several quiet moments passed before Killian fully registered that all was still and motionless around them. It was full dark now; the middle of the night, or perhaps early morning, if his view of the moon was accurate, yet he could hear no movements or voice’s from Emma’s royal, bandit, or warrior companions. The fire next to them was dimmed to near embers, and it seemed for the moment as if he and Emma were the only two people under the brilliant array of stars overhead.
Now that he had his bearings and his thirst was slaked, he ventured a glance beyond his lovely blonde Savior’s beguiling face, at least far enough to see that a rough tent had been staked and three bed rolls were occupied beneath its temporary shelter, explaining their privacy, but raising even more questions. Why were the rest of them willing to lower their guard enough to sleep with a virtual stranger and former enemy in their camp? It had been hard to miss the warning and distrust in the Lady Snow’s eyes, at any rate - probably largely protectiveness for her daughter, but still, why grant him this sort of uninterrupted interlude with Emma then? He was clearly in poor shape; maybe they had reckoned he couldn’t do anything to harm them, or charm Emma too thoroughly, as injured as he was.
Killian was abruptly startled from his wandering thoughts when he once more felt the cool, soothing touch of Emma’s fingertips trailing up the side of his face and into his hair. She raked the dark strands back from his fevered skin, calming even the pounding that pained him from the magical beating he’d endured and the rough impact his head had suffered when Cora finally dropped his battered body to the hard ground and left him for dead.
The Enchanted Forest’s lost princess spoke so quietly he had to strain to hear her when she addressed him again, her eyes studiously avoiding his to observe her fingers carding through the mussed, blood-caked strands of his hair. “I’m sorry… truly, I am. It was wrong of me to leave you behind the way I did, and… I should have trusted you. You may be a pirate, and awfully full of yourself, and way too flirty for your own good…” 
At that, Killian attempted to waggle an eyebrow and smirk salaciously to make her smile, only for a cringe to escape him at the motion of his brow and lip.
She noticed, of course, and rather than admonishing that it served him right, as she would have usually done, Emma hissed in sympathy and hushed him with a gentle hum in the back of her throat. “See, this shouldn’t have happened to you, Ho - Killian.” Her switch from his moniker to his real name struck him right in the center of the chest, with as much emphasis as a physical blow. He couldn’t decide if her concern, guilt, and contrition more warmed his heart or troubled him - not wanting to win her over out of mere pity. “That witch only caught up to you, found you empty-handed, because of what I did. This is my fault… b-but… I never wanted you to be hurt like this. I only wanted a head start, to get back to my son.”
If he hadn’t been shocked to his core already, the depth of emotion in Swan’s voice as she made her confession would have been enough to bowl him over. It sounded as though she might be on the verge of tears on his behalf, and Killian could hardly fathom it. Drawing a ragged breath of his own, he wet his cracked lips and managed a sincere response to her heartfelt openness. 
“Darling,” and here he couldn’t help a bit of a rogueish grin at her, despite how it pulled on the broken skin of his lip again. 
She shook her head, but didn’t scoff or interrupt, not this time, and heartened, he continued in all sincerity. “I’m not going to lie to you. I was angry when you shackled me there and left me behind. I’d been on the level with you, was doing my best to help you, and for the first the time in a long time, I felt like I connected with someone genuinely. But I also understand that your boy is your first priority. You cannot let anything else matter as much - or even possibly risk his safety.”
His battered knuckles were beginning to swell, and his fingers ached as he moved them, but Killian still managed to return the clutch of Emma’s own hand and intertwine their fingers with a sigh of rightness and relief. Glancing back up to search her gaze once more, he added, “I understand what being separated from one’s child might do to a person… more than you might think, in fact. I respect you all the more for your urgency and desire to return to him as soon as possible.”
He could see Emma wondering what his words might mean; the gears turning in her sharp mind were obvious, even if she only pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes slightly, watching him a few moments longer. Thankfully, she didn’t press the matter further, but instead released what seemed a lungful of air she must have been holding worriedly and gave him a hopeful smile. “So… you forgive me, then?”
The barest dip of his chin was as far as he dared move his aching head, but Killian assured her without hesitation, “Aye, Emma, I do,” in as strong and certain a voice as he could muster. 
By then, the faintest tendrils of light were beginning to break through the deep indigo sky and soft hints of scuffling and waking from their fellow travelers hinted that they would not be alone much longer.
Though he still hurt all over as if he had been scorched by a dragon’s breath and then crushed by an ogre’s tread, Killian couldn’t help but feel as if his situation had drastically changed. Even more so when Emma Swan’s eyes grew warmer yet; her aspect beaming crookedly at him like sunlight slowly emerging from a bank of clouds. Just before they were joined by Snow White bearing coffee for his Savior, Emma winked at him conspiratorially and leaned forward to murmur. “I’m glad, Pirate. After all, we make quite the team, remember?”
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