#i love marla this is not against marla

[livinginshambles]

I thought you'd be different | James Potter

Pairing: James Potter x Slytherin!Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.6k

Summary: A cinderella story (maybe a little romeo and juliet while we're at it) but Hogwarts - Enemies-ish to lovers. You find an enchanted parchment through wich you anonymously talk to a stranger (James). When you meet him at the Yule ball, he is not who you expected, but you give him a chance. When you realise that was clearly a mistake, you flee cinderella style.

Probably part one of two again.

Notes: Not proofread, grammar mistakes. Discrimination issues, themes of bullying. Regulus is our friend. James is an idiot, but we knew that already. Sirius sucks.

Masterlist. Part two. Part three

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You could still remember the moment vividly, as if it was engraved in your memory. That moment when the sorting hat placed you in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor like your two older sisters had been sorted. You could still see the look of surprise, concern, horror and then eventually disgust, every time you close your eyes.

“Now we finally know your true colors,” is what your sister Alyssa had hissed coldly at you. You had pleadingly looked at your other sister, but Marla had supported her twin sister, disregarding the confused and scared look in your eleven-year-old eyes.

“Don’t talk to us, don’t look at us and don’t mention us at all,” she sneered down at you and for a moment you wondered how she hadn’t been the one to be sorted into Slytherin instead. But you had cast your eyes down and agreed.

But years passed and you had become the very stereotype of a Slytherin student, completely leaning into the cold, distant, quiet but calculating persona that your sisters had created for you. Might as well, you figured after your parent’s dismay at the revelation of your house.

You were making your way down the corridor, long strides as you passed your sisters while looking them straight in the eye. They grimaced at the sight of you, but without their entire group of classmates, they didn’t dare make any comments. A feeling of victory erupted inside of you, and you couldn’t help the small smirk that crept up your face.

“What poor soul suffered for you to look so satisfied?” You turned your head to look at the person who called out to you. James Potter and Sirius Black were both leaning against a statue in the open yard. “Did you get rid of Regulus or something?” Sirius taunted. “Finally had enough of him following you around, did you L/N?”

“Go die in a ditch, Sirius,” you retorted with an eye roll, but seemed unphased.

“Why so much hostility,” James unpleasantly remarked, and you halted in your step. “10 points from Gryffindor for loitering,” you pettily decided.

“If you have nothing to do, other than insulting students, I would love to recommend you to Professor McGonagall for detention. Heard she was still looking for the person who made all the pumpkins explode last week during Halloween, and you guys are terrible at getting rid of the evidence.” With a last glance up and down, you continued your way towards the room of requirement.

When you entered the sober room with a sigh, you noticed the small scrolled up piece of parchment in the middle of the room. You frowned. This was your space. The room didn’t open this space for anyone else, you made it specifically as a safe haven.

You cautiously approached the parchment and rolled it open to reveal nothing. It was completely blank. You shrugged. If the room left this here, it was meant for you, and so you took a seat and started drawing on it.

James sat in an empty room, his invisibility cloak hiding him from plain sight as he pulled the now folded paper from his back pocket. He inspected it closely, almost pressing the paper to his glasses in a curious manner. He had gone to the Room of Requirements earlier that day and found a piece of paper floating in the air.

James unfolded the paper, and his eyebrows flew up. Lines were appearing on the paper by itself, and a beautiful portrait of a weeping willow with a girl, crying on a bench under the tree appeared.

James fumbled to find his quill and ink. Then he started to write something on it, in a handwriting that he only ever used for written exams. Credits to Professor McGonagall, who had announced that she would not be grading anything she couldn’t read. And she had looked over her glasses at him while she said it.

It’s beautiful.

You dropped the parchment at the words that formed right under your drawing. You traced it with your fingers. Then you decided to write back.

Thank you, I’ve been dreaming about this for the past two days.

You frowned at yourself, unsure why you would disclose such information, but figured no one would be able to trace this back to you anyway.

James blinked at the response he got, mouth open in surprise. He wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. It must simply be a spell of some sort after all. He stared at the sad drawing and the sentence, and then he made up his mind, writing back.

It must be lonely for that girl to cry by herself under the weeping willow.

Your eyes followed the words that formed in a trance.

If she ever feels lonely again, she can always pour her heart out on this parchment. I’ll be the mighty guardian wizard that will make all her worries magically disappear.

A grateful smile made its way up your face and when you scribbled back a response, James couldn’t help but smile as well.

Maybe she will.

You doodled a wizard sitting on the bench next to the crying girl, a consoling hand stretched out.

That's how you became James’ best kept secret. He learned that you were indeed a student at Hogwarts, but that you felt lonely. That you enjoyed butterbeer, but never got to enjoy it on a Hogsmeade outing with friends, because you rarely had any. He learned that you felt inferior to your siblings and a disappointment to your parents. He noticed how you would draw a circle as the dot on your ‘i’ and learned, when he asked, that you did that because you had once seen Professor McGonagall do that when you were in your first year, and had practiced mimicking her handwriting, should it ever come in handy.

In return, he had told you that he felt pressured by the reputation that he had to maintain. He loved Quidditch and absolutely despised Ancient Runes, to which you had replied, “who doesn’t?”. He told you that he had illegally learned to become an Animagus, a stag, and that he wasn’t sure yet what the future would hold for him. He even revealed to you that he desperately wants to protect his friends and sometimes had nightmares, which usually resulted in a sneak around the castle at midnight. When you had asked him if he’d ever been caught, he responded with, “never”, and had explained to you that he had an invisibility cloak.

Two months passed and before you knew it, you were explaining Transfiguration through the enchanted parchment. You did conclude from this that your pen pal was most likely in a year or two higher than yourself but decided not to comment on it. James on the other hand, was under the assumption that you must be from his year, as you managed to help him study for his exams.

But now, it was almost 12 o’clock midnight, and James chewed his lip while he looked at the parchment. He hesitated for a moment. Then he decided to ask you the one question he had been yearning to know the answer to.

Who are you?

You looked at the paper sadly, and sighed.

You’d be disappointed.

I understand if you don’t want to reveal yourself. But know that I could never be disappointed by you, Willow.

James sighed when you didn’t answer anymore. He waved away the light that emitted from the tip of his wand and took his glasses off. He went to put the parchment under his pillow as usual, when he saw the scribbling movement that he’d gotten so accustomed to.

He scrambled to grab his wand to shed light on the paper but accidentally nudged them off the nightstand and onto the floor, where it rolled under his bed. James’ eyes flickered back to the paper in his hand, and he managed to catch the first letter of your name as it was written in capital letters.

But your cursive handwriting, the dark and lack of glasses made it impossible to read the rest of your name. When he finally reached his wand and put on his glasses, he heard the clock strike twelve and he cursed as he grasped the parchment tightly, hurried ‘lumos’ and saw that the parchment had reset itself to a blank page again, just as every night at 12 o’clock at midnight.

Wait, please! I didn’t catch it before it erased itself. Please write it again?

You let out a sigh in relief after you had internally bashed your head against a wall.

No, it was stupid of me. I’m glad you didn’t see it.

You leaned back into your armchair with a racing heart. You couldn’t believe you had done that.

“Regulus,” you acknowledged as you pulled the chair back to sit next to him in the library. “Y/N,” Regulus quietly responded without looking up from his book, and if you didn’t know any better, his straight face would indicate annoyance. Luckily, you did know better.

“You smile any brighter, the sorting hat will transfer you to Hufflepuff, you know,” you teased him.

His face distorted in a grimace and without missing a beat, he replied, “do kill me before such a thing occurs.” You shook your head and finally sat down. Then you pursed your lips in thought.

“You know how I’ve been working all summer to earn galleons?”

“No.”

“Well I did.”

“So it seems.”

“Anyway, I rented a small flat,” you blurted out. Regulus finally looked up at you, surprise almost evident on his face. Then again, you didn’t have the most amazing home situation either. You often opted to stay behind at Hogwarts for the holidays. It is how you two had befriended each other, especially ever since Sirius left him to his own devices at home. Parents, it was a trauma bonding thing.

“Congratulations,” he nodded, his voice trailed off as he tried to see how this would concern him.

“So I thought you might want to stay with me over the Christmas holidays? Your mother doesn’t hate me, so I thought it might be possible. Gives you a chance to get out once in a while.” You tentatively brought up the sensitive subject.

“And what makes you think living with you will be any more bearable than living in my own mansion?” Regulus snarkily remarked.

You squinted your eyes at him in a scowl. “A simple ‘no’ would suffice don’t you think?”

“Do I have to pay rent?”

“Depends on whether or not the answer impacts your decision.”

“So not then.”

You huffed.

“Fine, I suppose I could join you in your small flat.”

“Merlin, don’t go doing me any favors Reg, I wouldn’t want to owe you.”

Regulus shook his head in amusement.

Satisfied with your rather successful attempt to invite him over, you got up. The chair you sat on screeched loudly as it was being pushed back. You could feel the librarian’s furious eyes on your back and rolled your eyes at her as you made your way to the door. “Alright, alright, I’m leaving,” you waved your hand in the air and exited the room.

You made it approximately two steps when you spotted your sisters again. “Of course you would cause a disturbance in the library,” Marla spat at you. You raised your eyebrows but remained unimpressed.

“I see you’ve got your buddies to back you up now?” you commented and tilted your chin slightly upwards. Your eyes flickered to your other sister, their closest friends, and the marauders.

For a moment, you considered walking away, but there was just something about that twitching lip of your sister that had you irked.

You stepped forward, narrowing the gap between you and your sister. You leaned in slightly and then, “Boo.”

It took your other sister, Alyssa about one second to have her wand pulled out and pointed at your throat.

James watched the interaction with a small frown on his face. He didn’t really speak with the fellow Gryffindor twins, but their friends and Lily were friends, so the marauders had joined them on their way towards the courtyard.

His mind flickered to a conversation he had had with ‘Willow’ about her sisters, and he wondered if you felt the same sadness and inferiority as his pen pal. And with that in mind, he pulled Alyssa back by her robe with one harm, the other lowering her raised wand.

“Let’s not,” he shrugged, when she raised her brows in question at him.

“She clearly threatened my sister,” Alyssa defended.

You scoffed at that. “I said ‘boo’. That’s hardly a threat,” you rolled your eyes and glanced at James who tried to offer you something that resembled a smile.

Was he mocking you? “Fancy yourself a hero, don’t you, Potter.”

“Hey, I was just trying to help,” he raised his hands in defense.

“Cause you’re such a good soul,” you sarcastically remarked.

“Yeah, actually. At least better than you. That hostility is so uncalled for,” Sirius mumbled under his breath, and you shot him a glare. “Right, better than me. Let me ask the two-dozen tormented Slytherin students you’ve bullied this past year. Bet Snape will buy your self-proclaimed ‘kindness’.”

You were already walking away when Sirius opened his mouth to call something out to you, but James kicked his shins in attempt to shut him up. Your words resonated in his mind.

Maybe he was a twat.

Am I a twat?

What the bloody hell are you on about?

Someone called me a twat today. Now that wasn’t necessarily true, but the implications were there.

Did you deserve it?

Sort of.

Sort of?

I mean, I am only an asshole to people who are assholes themselves and deserve it. But I guess that makes me an asshole too.

You hesitated for a moment and decided to write your opinion on the matter.

Maybe you being an asshole to people makes them assholes. And then it becomes a vicious circle. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that bogger.

You reckon?

Wouldn’t have written it down if I didn’t.

On a brighter note, do you have a date for the Yule ball after the exams?

If you’re asking me out, I already promised my friend that we’d go together.

Oh right. But would you save me a dance? Maybe at midnight under the main crystal chandelier?

James bit his lip again in suspense. The Yule ball is a masked ball anyways, if you don’t want to reveal yourself.

Midnight, main crystal chandelier. You decided to leave it at that. Besides. You could enchant the mask a little extra, so you’d be even more unrecognizable. You wondered who would be behind the kind words of the parchment.

It felt strange to you. Really looking forward to something to the point you could feel jitters in your stomach in anticipation. But it was having a certain effect on you that even the younger Black couldn’t help but miss.

Regulus squinted his eyes and moved his jaw in thought. When he had had enough, he pulled you aside.

“Out with it.”

You deflated. You knew that he knew what he was talking about, so you shrugged. “Someone asked me to save a dance next week,” you mumbled.

“And you want to?” Regulus’ tone shifted to an incredulous one.

“I found an enchanted parchment in the room of requirements and it’s connected. I’ve been using it to have conversations with a mystery person.”

It felt great to be able to share this with your friend and you leaned against the wall behind you. “So yeah.” You finished the confession with an awkward hand gesture.

Regulus took a moment to register what you said. And then, as if it was the most normal thing ever, he responded with, “I see. And you have no idea who?”

You let yourself slide down the wall and tiredly put your head on your propped up knees. “Probably a Gryffindor.”

Regulus started laughing. You snapped your head up and scowled at him, not that he was used to anything else from you.

“As long as it’s not a mudbl-“

You kicked his legs and made him lose his balance. You shot him a warning glance. “You know my opinion on that.”

Regulus sighed. You had once confided in him about your home situation, including that time when you had overheard your parents argue when you came home for the first time after having been sorted into Slytherin. Your father had addressed the matter as soon as you walked through the door.

“You’re no daughter of mine.” He had said with disapproval in his voice. It wasn’t meant as a figurative insult. It was a statement. Your father believed that you could simply not biologically be his daughter. The words had you avert your eyes to the floor in shame.

“My entire bloodline has been sorted into Gryffindor.” He had looked at your mother. “Your family does have Slytherins. She’s most likely the result of your affair with that muggle a decade ago. It is possible.” And just like that, he had practically disowned you.

“Okay,” Regulus relented. “We’ll see who it is next week.”

James was nervously looking around, standing partnerless in the middle of the dancefloor. He had long forgone the mask that he had chosen because it prevented him from using his glasses. He looked at the great clock just above the table with drinks and pulled a hand through his hair.

It was time, so where were you? Hopefully you hadn’t chickened out yet because he was absolutely dying to meet you.

There was just something about you. It sparked something in him that he hadn’t felt since Lily. He’d look forward to your messages all the time. Every morning, he practically jumped up in anticipation and excitement as he reached under his pillow to read your ‘good morning’ message for the day. A smile would pass his lips each time.

James was ripped from his thoughts when a hand was placed on his shoulder blade. It tapped twice. He stopped breathing for a moment before turning around. And then the breath was knocked out of both of you completely.

For two different reasons.

James stared in awe at you. You wore a white and silver dress, covered in diamonds. A delicate white mask covered the upper part of your face, and he stared intently at your eyes, but somehow, he still couldn’t pinpoint who you were.

He could see all of your features clearly, but as if he was in a dream, he somehow couldn’t piece everything together to identify you. A charm, he realized. He was disappointed but shook it off. If you felt insecure, then he wouldn’t push it.

James’ face broke out in a grin, and he stepped forward. He couldn’t help but reach out to your face. But you took a step back. His hand fell and he frowned at your reaction, suddenly scared. He wasn’t wearing a mask after all. Compared to you, he was completely vulnerable.

Before he could say anything, you cut him to it. “No,” you hoarsely managed. “This was a mistake.” You turned around and escaped from the center of the dancefloor. James chased you.

“Wait, please. I’m sorry!” He called out after you.

You slowed your pace when you reached the corner next to the staircase. Then you shook your head with a sight, and you pinched your nose. James could see your furrowed brows.

“You have nothing to be sorry about. But my intention wasn’t to dance with James Potter. It was a mistake. Sorry for wasting your time.”

James shook his head in his turn. “Don’t say that,” his eyes pleaded. “So you know who I am. Am I..” He hesitated. “Am I that bad? I don’t know if you’ve heard any rumors about me, or what made you have a bad impression of me, but I’m the one you’ve been talking to for the past months.” He looked at you desperately. “Give me a chance, please. I only ask for a dance.”

Your eyes flickered over his sad face. You knew James from all the pranks that he did, mostly committed towards your house. You knew him from the banters you had with him, and from crying students that you undid hexes for. You knew him from pushing him out of the way as he purposely blocked your path to throw insults at you.

But you also knew the boy from the enchanted paper. The one who listened to all your worries. Who offered advice and indulged into your hopes and dreams for the future. You knew the boy who confided in you all his deepest secrets and own insecurities. Who made your day and cheered you up with his jokes and positivity.

“I can give you a dance,” you caved, and you offered him your hand, which he scrambled to hold.

James was a fairly decent dance partner, you soon discovered as he guided you with grace. “So I suppose you dance often?”

“I just practiced a lot,” he sheepishly admitted. “I had to impress you somehow, you know. Someone like you had to be crazy out of my league after all.”

Your lips twitched. “I think you’ve got it all backwards, Potter.”

“You know you can call me James, right?”

“Well, James,” you enunciated his name. It felt weird on your tongue. You had only ever spoken his last name in contempt. “I’m not very liked by more than half the students of this castle.” You motioned towards your mask. “Hence the enchantment,” you added halfheartedly.

“You don’t have to tell me who you are,” James immediately assured you, and you did relax at his words. “I’m just really happy that you’re real.”

You let out a laugh. “Why would I not be real?”

“I don’t know,” James whined. “Maybe I was just talking to really sentient paper or something?”

His answer only made you laugh more. James’ grin only spread wider.

“Whoever you are, I wouldn’t judge you,” James added quietly. You watched him silently as you swayed around the room.

“That’d be a first,” you joked sadly, remembering your own family.

“What can I say, I’m just different,” James cheekily winked and then twirled you around.

“We’ll see about that, James. You have the rest of the night to convince me.”

The dance ended and you curtsied to each other, out of breath. “But you’ll have to excuse me while I go find a bench because my feet are killing me. These heels are no joke,” you groaned in pain and sort of started to limp your way back.

James quickly came to support you and held your waist as he escorted you back to the side of the room. When you discovered that there were not in fact any benches, you sat down on the first few steps of the staircase. He raised his eyebrows when you kicked off your heels and saw that the entire slipper was made of glass.

“I transfigured those shoes myself, you know,” you proudly stated. James looked at it in disbelief. “This can carry a human weight?”

“Yeah, it took a lot of different enchantments and attempts,” you admitted.

James’ disbelief changed to awe. He took a seat next to you and you two started chatting about random things. You looked at James’ profile as he talked about Quidditch and felt soft towards him. Maybe he really wasn’t so bad after all.

The two of you were deep into a conversation when you were interrupted .

“Who is this, Prongs?” Sirius curiously stepped forward and shook your hand. You couldn’t help but grimace at him.

You politely nodded and explained the situation, but even though you engaged into a civil, nonchalant conversation, you couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable at the presence of James’ friends.

“Anyways,” Sirius leans in towards James. “Did you see Snape over there?” He nodded his head towards Snape, and you squinted your eyes at the boy in front of you.

“You’re not thinking of doing anything to him, are you,” you sharply asked. Both James and Sirius were taken aback by your new tone.

“Nothing harmful,” Sirius laughed, but it faded when you simply raised your eyebrows at him. Sirius looked towards James for help. James hesitated. He had been reluctant to indulge Sirius’ ideas ever since his conversation with you about being a twat. But Sirius was his friend.

“We’re just having a bit of fun,” James tried to explain. “We’re just joking around, besides, he’s in Slytherin, so definitely a blood supremacist.” Your face fell at his words.

You watched his features contort in disgust and suddenly you were eleven again, and all you could see was your sisters disgusted face.

By the time you had snapped out of it, Sirius was already making his way towards Snape. James had gotten up and his head flickered between you and his friend.

You got up as well.

“I really thought you’d be different, James.” You scoffed to yourself. “You really had me convinced there for a moment. But I understand that you’re really just a bully after all, blinded by prejudice. You really are a twat.”

James’ heart dropped at hearing you say those words. He felt ashamed and shook his head pleadingly as he searched for words. But the thing is, you couldn’t care less, because you were hurt too. So you turned around and fled up the stairs as fast as you could, just in case he would come after you.

“Hey Prongs, you coming or not?” Sirius called out. James looked back at Sirius as he contemplated his next move. He mouthed ‘no’, and then tried to run after you. But by the time he reached the hallway that you had disappeared to, you were nowhere in sight.

In denial, James ran towards the moving staircases and looked up, in hopes to find you there.

Had he looked down, maybe he would have caught the last shimmer of reflection of the diamonds on your dress.

James refused to give up, however and he started to knock on the paintings, hoping that they could tell him where you went. He just had to apologize.

A symphony of protests and yelling echoed within the hall. “Quiet you!” “Have you no respect for the sleeping?” “I will complain to Filch about this, young man!” “Leave us alone!”

When the voices resided, most portraits were empty, their contents having escaped elsewhere.

Defeated, James groaned and hit his head with his fists. “You stupid git!” he yelled out in frustration at himself. James slouched down to sit on the stairs. Then he reached for the parchment and a pen in the inner pocket of his jacket and started scrambling something down.

“Please answer,” he whispered. He almost had to laugh at how pathetic he must look.

You sat on your bed after having made your way to the Slytherin dorms.

I’m sorry. You’re right, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know why I said that. I’m stupid and I ruined everything. Please let me make it up to you. I enjoy being with you, I don’t want you to think of me like this.

 Like I said before, this was clearly a mistake.

James read your words over and over again and he buried his face in his hands in shame. He stayed there for a long while and by the time he returned to the room, the party was over, and people had started returning to bed. On the left side of the staircase were your enchanted glass slippers precisely where you’d kicked the off and left them.

Preview of part two

Part two

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[eff4freddie]

Touch | Part Three

Of bar fights and ice blocks

Words: 4.3

Part Two | Series Masterlist | Part Four

Warnings: slow burn to the point we might just be embers, eventual smut but next chapter I promise, teeny bit of blood, quite a lot of masculine nonsense, Joel is hot but remains grumpy

When you were in eighth grade you fell madly in love with Johnny Hocart. He was a theatre kid, wildly charismatic for a 14 year old boy, and smart enough to recognise that you had a crush on him and use you for it. You’d signed up to help out with the school play that year, Johnny being the lead in Death of a Salesman the only motivation for your sudden interest in the arts, and he turned you into his roadie almost immediately. You used your own money to fetch him chocolate from the vending machine, you carried his water bottle around behind him on the off chance he might be thirsty. The afternoon you applied his eyeliner for him, on tippy toes and terrified to topple over and take his eye out in the process, fuelled your first fumbled attempt at an orgasm (you wouldn’t get it right until eleventh grade, but you had fun figuring it out). He made you feel something heavy and relentless and heated in your chest, something that unfurled its wings and beat against your rib cage when he walked into view. The little shit let you dote on him hand and foot right up until the wrap party when he stuck his hand up Donna D’Marco’s skirt and spent the rest of the year bragging about it. You were crushed by it, the weight of the humiliation heavy on your shoulders, slumping you forward and folding you into yourself. You vowed to never forget it. But you had, until you met Joel.

Sitting in the mess hall you wondered what happened to Johnny Hocart on outbreak day. You liked the idea that he hadn’t died immediately, that he’d lived in fear for a few months before getting shot by a raider, or maybe that he’d been traded to a slaver and collapsed one day from exhaustion, from malnutrition. You hated to think of him as a clicker, because even though he was a dick no one deserved that, but at the same time you liked the kind of dramatic irony of him as a bloater, overblown as his ego had been.

You chewed your sandwich, one eye on the door, waiting for Marla and definitely not waiting for Joel. You thought instead about the clients you had booked in for the afternoon, and how you were going to finally sort out Peter Fletcher’s tennis elbow so that he could comfortably hold his rifle, and why didn’t they call it rifle elbow since that sounded so much cooler, and you considered all of this while you kept your head down, and very purposefully didn’t think about the hazel flecks in Joel’s eyes as he gazed up at you, one hand cupping and lifting his muscle while you stood square between his knees.

He’d been grumpy and dismissive, you reminded yourself, and the minute he’d felt some relief he had just up and left. You conveniently forgot the part where you had essentially ushered him out the door, suddenly keen to exorcise your living space of him. You weren’t even sure exactly what that was about, except that you had felt the first flutterings of a wing against your ribs, had recognised the feeling as something dangerous and done your best to quash it.

You were contemplating this when a shadow appeared at your table, and you startled.

‘Shit, sorry, just me,’ Ray said, and you craned your neck up to regard him. ‘Can I?’ he asked, pulling at the chair opposite you, and you nodded while you tried to calm your heart. You could see something was up.

‘You ok?’ you asked, when he was finished apologising.

‘Me and my stupid glorious brain,’ he said, and you were tempted not to let him go on any further. ‘I intercepted a message that read like it was raiders, something about a big stash, an old pharmacy that hadn’t been hit yet. Coordinates, too.’

‘That’s great,’ you said, watching his face carefully, studying the lines across his forehead, his furrowed brow, decoding Jackson’s best decoder. ‘It’s not great,’ you concluded.

‘They called in a bunch of patrols to go check it out,’ he said, and suddenly you imagined Joel on the back of a horse, leaning to the left to try and protect his right side, gun strapped to his back and his neck muscles straining under the ache of it. You grimaced. ‘Marla’s was one of them,’ Ray finished, oblivious to your sudden turmoil.

It was a poorly kept secret that Ray was in love with Marla. Poorly kept in that the only person who didn’t seem to know was her. You suspected Ray would have happily stayed put in Chicago were it not for Marla going arse over tit for the idea of living on a ranch. She had barely had to convince him to come with you both, such that he had offered to trade and borrow to get the supplies you’d need, parting with his mother’s wedding ring that he wore on a chain around his neck in the process. You weren’t even sure if Marla noticed, as it had been lost in the service of gaining three passable sleeping bags, and Marla had wrapped her arms around Ray’s neck and kissed behind his ear when he presented them to you, and you had seen in that moment that for Ray it had been enough.

You could tell Jackson hadn’t been what he expected, not least of all now having to share Marla with an entire town.

‘Ray, you did a good thing,’ you said, reaching out and putting your hand on his bicep. He nodded his head, slowly.

‘You heading to the Bison tonight?’ he asked, and you scrambled quickly to come up with an excuse.

‘I was going to check on Maria,’ you replied, grateful for your guilt reminding you that you’d still not caught up with her. ‘It’s been a while since I saw her, and she’s due soon-ish I think. I was going to take her some dinner.’

He looked at you, his mouth downturned and his brows saddled over his eyes, and you felt yourself retracting from his sadness, from his regret. Johnny Hocart had painted your face in similar colours.

‘Yeah, ok,’ you said. You tried hard not to show on your face that the idea was making your skeleton want to crawl out of your mouth and try its luck on the road. But you could see Ray was struggling, that he was bouncing his leg up and down under the table. ‘Marla’s a fighter,’ you said. He looked at you for a long moment, then nodded his head.

‘Bison. Tonight,’ he said, with finality.

You didn’t ask if he knew who else was going on the expedition. You reminded yourself you didn’t care, taking a big swig of water to drown the butterflies.

—

Propped up at a table off to the side, you had a clear view of the bar on your right and the door on your left. You were sitting with Ray and his friend that you didn’t know, and you were trying to participate in conversation but your guts were churning. As much as you wanted to stay in the moment, you couldn’t stop yourself scanning the crowd for threats. Someone smashed a glass over by the jukebox and you felt yourself startle, nearly knocking your own drink off the table. Over by the bar Chloe Bennett, owner of lumbar back problems and occasional sciatica, demonstrated how much her yelping laugh sounded like a woman being stabbed to death with her own stiletto, and you wanted very much to push your chair back and leg it, but Ray kept glancing at you to check you were ok, and his friend Simon seemed quite nice generally speaking, and if nothing else you might be able to drum up some more business out of him.

‘So you don’t charge anything?’ Simon was asking. Simon and Ray worked the radio together most days, Ray listening in to the white noise for any sign of covert communication, and Simon dutifully twisting the knobs beside him. Some part of you registered that he was conventionally attractive, and you wondered if the way he was leaning in to you as you chatted was what passed for flirting in an apocalypse, but also you were watching Ray scanning for Marla, trying to telepathically tell him it would be ok.

‘I mean, we don’t have money,’ you answered Simon.

‘You don’t barter then?’

‘I’m grateful to be here. My home is payment. My safety is payment.’

‘I don’t buy it,’ he said, and he was grinning and you knew that it was playful, but also you felt a wrinkle of frustration in the folds of your skin.

‘You don’t agree?’ Simon shrugged at you in response, and for a reason still not clear to you it made you want to slap him a little bit. You turned to Ray for help, but Ray was looking at the door, and when you looked too you saw Tommy and Joel had just walked in.

‘Fuck,’ Ray said, and you scanned his face for anxiety but found only awe. ‘They are so cool.’

Simon nodded in agreement, and you scoffed in surprise.

‘Are they?’ you asked, and your companions turned to you, confused, and Ray even slightly betrayed.

‘Tommy basically keeps this place going, him and Maria,’ Simon informed you as if this was news.

‘Peak Mama and Daddy Jackson,’ Ray chimed in.

‘Joel. He’s just…’ All three of you turned to watch him approach the bar, nodding to the bartender, who had started pouring him a whiskey the moment he walked in, and slid it over to him.

You weren’t sure how you wanted Simon to finish that sentence. Your eyes kept being drawn to Joel, the broadness of him, the salt and pepper in his hair in stark contrast to his strength, the power under his muscles and behind his eyes. You felt warm in your palms where you had held him, flexed your fingers to try and get the heat out.

You let the conversation move on without you, staring down at your drink, tracing the droplets of condensation first from the body of the glass and then down to the tabletop. If you hadn’t rushed him out would he have let you keep massaging him? Would you have peeled his shirt from his body and explored the planes of his skin? You wiped the water away before it could damage the wood.

‘They’re heading out tomorrow, first light,’ you heard Ray saying, and suddenly your attention snapped back to the present. ‘So I want to be on the radio early, before they go. See if we can find the signal again, make sure the raiders aren’t going in first.’

‘You said you thought they were further out,’ Simon pointed out. ‘That it was bouncing off the mountain.’

‘I know but we’re a day behind.’

‘That’s a lot of ground to cover.’

‘Not on horseback,’ Ray reasoned.

‘We don’t know if they have horses,’ Simon replied. He held his hands palm up on the table, in appeasement, you realised.

‘We don’t know that they don’t, either. We’re sending seven of our people out there…’ your stomach lurched at seven, and your eyes flicked again to Tommy and Joel, and you wondered if tonight was last drinks for them, not knowing if they would both make it back, a time for two brothers to come together before heading back into war. ‘…including Marla, and I just want to-‘

‘What does Marla have to do with it?’ Simon asked, and you decided then he was either an idiot or heartless, and neither option was preferable. You exhaled slowly through your teeth, and watched Ray for his reaction, and wondered if either of them would notice if you just slipped away into the crowd.

You watched Ray gather himself. ‘Marla is a good shot,’ he said, eventually.

You could feel Simon preparing to argue but suddenly there was yelling, actual yelling not imaginary traumatised-by-the-end-of-the-world yelling, and all three of you turned to the bar.

Jacob and another man you didn’t recognise were standing at the other end of the bar, pointing fingers at Joel and Tommy. Joel had already stepped around his little brother, squaring off with them, and you could see that his body was braced, a tightly wound spring in a flannel shirt and jeans. You picked your glass up off the table and cradled it to your chest, as if that would solve it.

You didn’t know Jacob. He was one of the men who had already decided he didn’t own muscles, or feel pain. You knew that he was younger than the men he was squaring off with, that he was full of bravado and empty of brains, the type to shoot first and think later, and it wasn’t lost on you that back in the day he would have made the type of cop that was the subject of several enquires and a few unflattering news items, who would have been shunted off to be the deputy of a shithole town that’s biggest crime wave was when a couple of cookbooks went missing from the local library, a town that he nevertheless tortured until he retired.

Jacob was currently yelling so hard spittle was flying across the bar, and you could make out the carotid artery along his red neck.

‘All well and good for you two,’ he was saying. ‘Sitting back while the real men go out and defend this town.’ Joel was moving forward towards him, despite Tommy pulling on his sleeve to bring him back, and everyone in the bar was now frozen, watching. Jacob continued, because he was as dumb as he was hateful. ‘Oh I’m on the fucking town council, that means I get to decide who lives and who dies without having to put my own arse on the line. Fuckin’ weak, pathetic-‘

‘Lower your voice,’ Joel said, completely calm and also utterly terrifying. Jacob laughed, actually laughed, in Joel’s face.

‘Fuck off old man,’ he spat, taking another step towards Joel, who wouldn’t back down. ‘You don’t get a say either, ridin your little brother’s dick all the way to retirement.’

‘It’s men and women,’ Joel continued, undeterred and still deathly calm. One afternoon on the road you’d come across a snake on the path, big and brown and poised with its head up, watching you. It had taken you ten minutes to back away from it, so sure it was about to lunge. Watching Joel now, inching forward towards Jacob, you had the same feeling. Jacob wasn’t following Joel, made too stupid by his misplaced entitlement, his anger and his impotent fury. ‘We are sending the real men and women to defend this town, and Tommy and I’ll be here to keep it safe while you’re gone.’

You exhaled for the first time all day, the tension you didn’t even know you were carrying with you suddenly releasing. But Jacob was more angry now, and Tommy was backing up Joel and squaring off too, and you felt the heat in the room ratchet up.

‘I’m having a baby, you fuck,’ Tommy said, and Joel raised his hand to calm him. Tommy immediately settled back behind his bigger brother.

‘Not to say we ain’t grateful,’ Joel continued, but Jacob had noticed that the whole bar was watching, that Joel was about to talk him out of an argument, that he was about to be alpha’d by a man twice his age. He took three steps forward toward Joel, who had already reached back to push Tommy out of the way, and Jacob’s arm was swinging just a fraction slower than Joel’s, who clocked the younger man hard in the jaw and sent him spinning, landing hard on the top of the bar and shattering glasses and bottles underneath him. He was only down for a second before he was back up and swinging, landing a blow on Joel’s eye socket before he and Tommy had him by the back of the collar. You realised you had stood up and had moved towards them only when you were close enough to hear Joel grunt ‘a fuckin bar fight, really? You that fuckin clichè?’

Jacob just grunted, his airway constricted by his shirt that Joel was now using as a vice, and even in the middle of the violence you could see he was careful not to compress harder than he needed to, holding him sturdy but without gripping so hard as to injure.

The four men headed for the door, Joel pushing Jacob through first and then following, using the momentum to swing the younger man out and down the stairs and into the dirt below. His friend rushed to him, pulling him up and away, and as you followed them out you heard Jacob spitting threats of his return. Joel was puffed, leant against the railing to catch his breath. He turned to his brother, checked on him, and then to you, where his eyebrows shot up and you realised he was seeing you only now. Your breath caught in your throat. You had no idea what you were doing there, either.

‘You’re hurt,’ you said after a moment, gesturing to his fist. You could see a scrape of blood pooling on the knuckle.

‘Ain’t broken,’ he said. Turning to Tommy he more or less ignored you. ‘You ok?’ he asked. Tommy nodded, before he also nodded to Joel’s fist.

‘Take him to ours,’ he said to you. ‘We got ice in the freezer. Time to work some more miracles.’

You were alarmed, pretty much constantly, but especially so when Tommy turned back to go inside.

‘You’re not coming?’ you asked, and you hated that your panic had carried through into your voice.

‘Gotta make it right here,’ he said, without turning around.

—

The walk to Maria’s was three minutes at most and still you would have flayed your own skin clean off not to have to do it. You could feel the wings now, beating hard against your rib cage, and you swallowed only to taste acid on the back of your tongue. Joel was silent, but it was the type of silence that belies being pissed off, a general curmudgeon-ing, that set you on edge.

You thought again back to your teacher. When the clients in pain, keep them talking.

‘How’s the shoulder?’ you asked, into the darkness in front of you instead of looking at Joel’s face.

‘Thought it wasn’t my shoulder,’ he said, and it took a second for you to realise he was teasing you, not goading. ‘S’ok, I hear it’s all connected,’ he pretend to console you, and you squawked out a surprised laugh, wondering if you’d ever, up until this moment, made a sound like that before.

At no point had you considered that Joel Miller could be funny. Now, though, you discovered you had even less of an idea of how to talk to him.

‘You’re not going out on the run?’ you asked, and you hoped not to sound too relieved, too hopeful.

‘Got things to look out for at home,’ he said, and you stayed quiet in the hope that he would keep talking. ‘Ellie and me, we had a rough time of it…she’s been quiet. Thought best to…’ he trailed off.

‘Maria said you went to Salt Lake?’ you asked, and because you were still unable to look at him you didn’t see him flinch. ‘Why did you have to go there?’ you continued on.

‘Didn’t realise Maria liked to gossip so much,’ he said, and you heard it then, the hardness of it.

You rushed to defend her. ‘I was just curious,’ you started, and Joel stopped you, stopped walking altogether. You turned back to him.

‘Dangerous thing,’ he said, and you wanted to tell him that you knew that, that you weren’t normally like that, that you were clever and you had survived this long because if it, but he was already turning up the path to Maria and Tommy’s place, and all you could do was trail behind him, like a fucking lap dog, worried he’d lock you out if you took too long to get inside.

From the couch Maria called for Tommy, and when Joel responded she pulled herself up to stand. You were surprised by how big she’d gotten, trying to remember the last time you’d seen a pregnant woman. Let alone a pregnant woman about to pop.

‘I know, I’m huge,’ she said, when she saw you staring and you snapped your eyes back to her face.

‘Radiant,’ you said, and she snorted.

‘Thank you for lying,’ she replied, and you felt the warmth of genuine affection between the two of you, thought for a moment of sunshine on your skin, of your sister.

‘Tommy said you had ice,’ Joel cut in, and Maria noticed Joel’s hand, her face hardening.

‘They started it,’ Joel said, and you nodded behind him to confirm that this was indeed true. You saw the suspicion in her eyes, the way she was careful with him, and you stepped forward, taking his elbow.

‘I’ll sort it,’ you said, smiling with what you hoped was confidence. Joel looked down at your hand on his arm, then up to your face, where you ignored his obvious indignation at being herded like a child. ‘On we go,’ you said, feeling like a deranged grade school teacher, trying to get her class of unruly six year olds through to 3 pm unscathed. You didn’t see the bemused look on Maria’s face as you pushed Joel down the hallway, but you wouldn’t have wanted to anyway.

Once again you found yourself crammed into a kitchen with Joel. Sitting him at the table you put some ice in a cloth then plopped down into the chair beside him and held out your hand. He stared at you, unmoving.

‘I can do this,’ he said, and you were tired then, having dealt with quite a lot of male bullshit in just the last two hours, and so you groaned and pulled his hand to you, holding him firm by the wrist lest he try and patriarchy his way out again.

‘I can do it better,’ you said simply, and he huffed out a laugh.

‘Now that I don’t deny,’ he said, and it was quiet, just barely muttered between the two of you, and when you looked up into his eyes you found that they were crinkled with something like amusement, something like affection.

You looked down, flexed his fingers for him, heard him hold his breath when you inspected the knuckle.

‘They teach you this in school, too?’ he asked, and you heard again that he was ribbing you. You decided it was a good sign.

‘No this is purely growing up with a daredevil older sister,’ you replied.

‘Family resemblance, then,’ he replied and you looked up at him sharply, angry for a second that he was calling you meek, that he was deriding you for a perfectly normal reaction to the collapse of society, but you saw nothing on his face that belied any aggression. If anything, you saw warmth.

‘This sore?’ you asked, just gently wresting a fingertip on the bone. His hands were big, with thick and powerful fingers, and you were doing your absolute best not to consider what they could do to you, if you let them.

‘S’alright,’ he murmured. For a moment you saw outside yourself, watched you hunched over inspecting the paw of a lion, a little mouse reaching in to extract a thorn.

‘Here?’ you said, hushed under the light of Maria’s kitchen. You pressed down slightly, on exactly the same spot, and heard his breath stutter. You realised the makeshift ice pack was too bulky to fit between his knuckles, so you opened it and took a block out, resolutely not looking up into his face.

‘Tell me if this is too cold,’ you said, holding the block between your fingers and running it gently over his skin.

‘Mmhmm,’ he hummed, gently. You kept the ice moving, your eyes watching his hand for any sign of a tremble, but he stayed resolute under your touch.

The heat of his skin started to melt it, cold water running down and snaking under his palm, between his fingers. It washed away the blood, so that you could see only scratches, surface abrasions, from where knuckle met jaw. You watched the pink of it, mixing with the water, little rivers of something precious, something Joel. You were aware only of your finger tips, the push of wings against your chest present but forgotten, as you witnessed him, his essence. As you gazed down on the thing that made him, that kept him, the life in his veins. As the block melted down to just a wafer, as it healed, sealed over the hurt, you lifted it to your mouth to taste it, wanting the iron and the tang of it, the sharpness of the cold mixed with the heat of him, of your open mouth.

You heard his breath hitch. Your eyes flew open, not having realised you’d closed them, and landed on his face, where you gasped when you saw the look of pure wanting, of pure desire, painted pink and red over his features. You dropped his hand in your panic, your face burning, your legs moving before your brain had even taken a moment to collect itself.

‘Thanks Maria I gotta go think Joel will be fine I hope you’re ok will drop some food around you’re the most beautiful pregnant lady I’ve ever seen take care bye’ you vomited, gathering your coat tight around your shoulders and wanting but not wanting, terrified but hoping, to hear footsteps down the hall behind you. You wrenched the door open, felt the welcome rush of cool on your face, already halfway down the porch before you heard it slam shut behind you.

You sprinted, shuffling over ice but not slowing, back to your home. As you went you followed the wall, wondering how it could have made you feel safe now that you were trapped behind it, wondering how you could possibly live with the snake poised to lunge at you, how you could outrun it when it had taken up home inside your belly, beside your breath.

Tag list (just learned what these are, lemme know if you want me to add you)

@orcasoul

#joel miller fanfic #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #pedro pascal fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #fanfic #joel miller #pedro pascal #the last of us #tlou

[therrerium-valkryonia]

a heavily pregnant woman is overdue and trying to induce her labor. she and her husband are having sex to try if it’ll works. she squirts so much she didnt realize that its her water that broke.

This is a prompt i've had in my drafts for months and I apologize for that but I was experiencing extreme rough roads, mentally shattered and all.

I am rusty, so forgive the amount of mismatch and also amounts of exposition I am still kinda brand new to the world of writing and rusty.

I do plan to take this with a different approach, hopefully it's not a bad thing but we'll see.

Anywho, I still love this prompt and I appreciate all the given ideas. Thanks for the loyalty!

(———————————————————————)

Malignant Affection

Tw: Is for Mature Audiences, Minors DNI.

Within the comfort of cushions and pillows, all wrapped around her to ease the blinding pains and sores with deep grasps into the sheets and blankets, gasping in excaterbated aches.

Cradled between her thighs is her bump that writhes in frequenting pains, growing ever so tender, twisting muscles virtually paralyzing every movement with a hellborn pain.

Clasping on so gently, attempting to calm the ever scorching sting with deep carresses just within reach, resulting in miniscule comfort but an almost managable pain, yet near blinding.

Deep and heavy breaths, inconsitently taken while the newborn's mass rushed deep into a tight squeeze, she quietly screams with a low steamy breath, sweat drizzled along her skin.

She's near pale and is on the edge of bearing down with immense strength, she withholds every urge just before her husband returns.

The door creaked open, her husband Holland just returned home, tired and near dropping onto the couch but sluggishly makes it in time.

She adjusts onto her back, a pillow under her hips to alleviate the weight inside her pelvis & being a quite short woman, it felt devastating with the stings into deep stabs into nerves.

Gathering the courage to smirk, barely holding in tears "Com- hmmhh Come on, test me~ Oh, Holland -mmnnn" He wasn't aware of any moan or pained groan and undressed in seconds.

He crawled over her, clothes across the bedroom and hugging down on her hips, thrusting in deep. She opened into deep torturous shock as he relentlessly rams, animalistically shoving in.

Gripping onto the sheets, hands clasped shut into fists as she heaves with pained fakes of openly gasping, whimpering only to be a way just to catch a breath of air.

She'd been so worn out, the pain intensified through the overbaked newborn shifting up from the constant thrusting motion, pulling forward and she'd clamp down just to hold.

Praying the pain end soon over hours of pained thrusts, he described her in a truly perverted mannerism "You feel like a tight virgin, I think I won't last much longer- Unfh!" As he let out the last thrust and spewed his hopeless seed out.

Once he pulled off of her bruised, battered body he left, went downstairs as she grunts viciously and felt herself spewing with semen and thick fluids, gasping for a breath as the mass rushed into her tight canal forcefully pulling her apart.

Lifting her legs, near her head as she heaves and wails with a deep gruff voice bearing down with a deep strength, her stomach clenched into a semi-square as she shut her eyes with an open gape, wheezing and heaving every breath.

The child slowly dragged through her canal, it's size pulling against her insides and roughing up the way through, Marla chin pressed to chest.

Horiffically roaring, fingers clasped into the soft mattress sheets and grinded her teeth, silenced in strained chords and sapped in her strength, a sore, drowse engufled her body.

Gulping a deep breath of air, the newborn had reached the halfway point to it's late welcome, exshausting the mother who gathered herself.

Eyelids shut tight, bearing down and leaning on forward with the skullcap peeking out, slowly sliding back in from it's sheer size, her genital formed a teardrop, as tears ran down her chin.

No longer having any strength to bear down further, she laid down physically torn into a stiffened state, her skin pale, vibrant green within her eyes to a dull tiredness, silk hair turned frizzy and very unkepmt.

The pain bombed throughout her, she clenched her jaw and kept tight with her grip. Just weakly pushing as the small crown peeked through.

From there she was done, only enduring the deep clenching pains as they rush without a space to stop, the body reflexively pushed it forward by mere milllimeters as the head had crowned halfway through, the sweat beaded across her skin.

Reminiscent memories emerge, the promise she'd made to do whatever it took without a reason, feeling courage she'd bear down with remnants of flaccid muscle, progressing to a wider crown, screams growing louder.

Head pulled into the cushion, tears pummeled her eyes as they snap open..... finally the head was out as she heaves while it twists though a uncomfortable internal feeling, she began to push with newfound hope, yelping raspily.

Palms dug into her belly, pressing in further as the pressure assisted the baby to burst forth.

She wailed with a raspy sigh of relief with the child cooing and wailing, whilst she in immense exshaution faint over at three-forty five.

It felt as if time hadn't passed as she reminisced that day, she was 38 now and her son had just turned 14 and as she smiled and celebrated all the while, feeling rightfully rewarded for a son like him, she named him Roland... Roland Tembo soon, he ventured off into a great adventure.

Never had she been so proud for a son she had not expected to have, not ever but proud still.

#birth kink #painful birth #labor #labor kink #pregnant #pregnant kink #pregnancy #pregnancy kink #birth fic #labor and delivery

[n1nthrule]

(probably) clever fight club epiphanies that have smacked me in the face with a hammer recently:

marla is the centre of tyler. tyler is created as a version of narrator that he deems good enough to date marla as well as a projection of his desire for marla that he represses along with his other desires throughout the book/film. tyler is presented as a father/teacher figure for narrator (but chuck palahniuk cannot write convincing romance unless it's accidental so they actually have better grounds for a relationship than narrator and marla somehow). as narrator goes through the events of fight club and learns to accept his true self without the guidance of tyler, he is finally able to reassess and realise his desire for marla (which is def better portrayed in the book than the film). this also makes the scene in the book where marla tells narrator that she loves him instead of tyler and 'can tell the difference' hit 10x harder.

the modern world (1999 and also present day) advertises self-actualisation through consumerism ('self care' ect.). at the start of the book/film, narrator buys into these ideas of essentially 'buying happiness' though his materialism/consumerism when it comes to ikea catalogues (quote from the film- "I was one step from being complete"- also how these companies are constantly creating new stuff to stop you from ever actually feeling complete so you buy more stuff). however, throughout the events of the book/film, narrator's repressed anger towards this consumerist ideal of being 'complete' manifests itself into tyler, fight club and project mayhem- these are ways he tries to self- actualise and find himself without buying more Stuff.

fight club is created as a social model for men. the men in fight club are able to confront and find the courage to challenge their issues through fighting each other- this concept of being able to work through issues is not as widely accepted for men in other forms of therapy groups, such as the testicular cancer group at the start of the book/film that also asks men to confront/challenge their issues through talking and meditation. to the men in the testicular cancer group (who are already emasculated through their medical diagnosis), this form of therapy is seen as 'girly' and therefore shameful, which is why, in the book, the entire testicular cancer group disbands to join fight club. in this way, they are able to confront/challenge their issues in a way that society deems 'appropriate', and therefore in a way that they do not feel shame for doing so (this also serves to comment on the alluring nature of extremist groups such as incels to men seeking support who are unable to ask for help of out fear of ridicule).

(though probably not chuck's intention because this book was written in the 90s and separating sex from gender was not a common discussion) the motif of emasculation through the loss of physical attributes (the testicular cancer group/ project mayhem castrating people) points towards materialism in society and the unstable masculinity of the men in this book. these men are easily emasculated and are unable to understand how their inner identity is not directly related to their outward appearance, which is something tyler would fight against in my woke trans reality ("is that what a man looks like?" ect. ect. ).

#fight club #soapshipping #tyler durden #narrator fight club #fight club book #analysis #long post #hope these are good points and not just brainrot insanity #they've been marinating for a good week #obvs film fight club cannot connote narrator's inner thoughts about marla not loving him THAT well and that's why the ending's different #and i love the film ending i love the unstable handholding despite Everything she's put up with as the skyscrapers fall down #but 'tell me every little thing' is so dear to me. in my soul #love them both. different mediums need different things. and so on

[merrivia]

I feel like one of the things I enjoy most about the Captive Prince trilogy is where you really glimpse the hidden complexity of the books, those flashes of the engineering under the bonnet which Pacat only allows us glimpses of, here and there. There’s so many moments like that, but I feel like the idea of Auguste as a protector and Laurent’s hero-worship of his brother, has particularly stuck with me and made me want to delve into it more today.

We know Auguste is quite a bit older than Laurent; Laurent was 13, and Auguste 25, when he died at Marlas (Pacat loves her doubling and mirroring; it’s no coincidence to Laurent’s developing feelings for him, that Damen is a mirror image of Auguste in many ways, and symbolically 25 at the start of Captive Prince, like a dark resurrection, living the life Auguste should have had in Laurent’s eyes). We know that Auguste is a doting older brother; allowing Laurent to win against him when they horse raced, that they had brotherly discussions over sexuality and relationships, August giving Laurent advice (sweetly, we can assume Auguste also gave him The Talk, and that Laurent no doubt explained primly that thank you but he had already read all about That). We know that Laurent idolised Auguste, and that it was common knowledge that the two were “devoted” to each other. Even in the mind of the reader, Auguste seems special and golden; we know so little about him, and yet we love him too, especially for how much he loved Laurent. We know that tragically, Damen’s killing of Auguste, metaphorically killed Laurent also- his heart broken by the loss of Auguste compounded with the killing off of his childhood, all of his innocence, and the locking away of all the softer sides of himself, as he is abused and manipulated by his uncle.

I think a particularly heartbreaking part of it all is the rumour of Laurent having unnatural feelings for his brother.

Obviously, the source of this was the Regent, and it goes without saying that the Regent’s corruption is so malignant, that he invented this rumour to take the cleanest, purest love in Laurent’s life and turn it into something disgusting, to undermine Laurent psychologically, to disrupt his grieving process and to manipulate the political landscape. As soon as that rumour was floated, whenever it was, to grieve too much too openly, to try to honour his brother’s memory in any public way, would feed into the rumours of incest (and I am sure the Regent liked the neatly villainous irony of the fact that it is he who had the incestuous desires, and he gets to displace that onto the innocent Laurent). That’s perhaps one of the reasons why Laurent’s grief turns into such rage; firstly, there is the loss, secondly, his grief is manipulated into sexual abuse but thirdly, he was never allowed to openly grieve as he would have liked. Like a wound that festers, Laurent cannot heal as a consequence.

The really tragic thing here is that the Regent got to have Auguste; he took him so completely away from Laurent, that even in death, Laurent was denied his brotherly relationship to him, to completely and utterly emotionally isolate him. The Regent in doing so, got complete control- he could subtly destabilise any hold the memory of Auguste had over the Council and court which would transfer to Laurent, and instead cleave himself to the image of Auguste. He became the only one who gets to mention the perfect golden prince, weaponising him against Laurent, using him to highlight Laurent’s shortcomings, and his own strengths. 

And poor, poor Laurent is just not completely isolated in general, which is bad enough- he also has no-one to even talk to about his brother, it seems (especially someone who he can confide in, who might be the same or similar rank as him, which is what he needs). Even before the incest rumours, that would be a fine piece of manipulation against Laurent- boys are weak and grieve and need to talk about how they feel, where men are strong and keep hold of their emotions. And so any sign of his grieving too much, would weaken Laurent further politically. The only thing that he has then, is revenge. Revenge is his grief. I think in a way, one of the reasons why Laurent could never quite beat his uncle at his own game, was not just because he always underestimated how evil he was, but also how he was always split in two- to revenge himself on Damianos is his only way of holding onto the memory of Auguste, and yet he also needs to beat his uncle, which divided his goals. Yet I also think his rage sustained him, gave him a goal to keep living, to keep training his body hard, when he must have felt so worn out and afraid and helpless against the power of The Regent. In a way, Damen has always kept Laurent alive, whether as a shadowy figure of hate that motivated him, or as a warrior guardian, powerful enough to throw a two handed sword and impale a fellow Akielon to save him or, finally, as the man who loves him and will kill to protect him.

So Laurent’s mother died, and his father paid no real attention to him, and it is clear in the novels, that Auguste’s presence was the one barrier that stood between him and the Regent. Who guarded Laurent’s bedroom door? The Prince’s Guard under Auguste? At first I wondered whether Laurent noticed his uncle’s attentions previous to Marlas; whether in subtle ways, he went to his brother for protection. But that doesn’t fit with the phrasing Laurent uses about himself as a young teenager (”think of the greenest innocent you have ever tumbled”). Incidentally, it is heartbreaking that he cannot see the idea of a youthful boy and/or himself at that age unless it’s on sexual terms; it is a reminder of how to be young for Laurent means to be sexually exploited and how the abuse traumatised him, took away his childhood, and shaped him into this razor-sharp blade of a man in the form of a beautiful prince (it also shows how insidious it is that the Regent keeps calling him a boy, to try and reduce him over and over to the abused child he controlled). So I don’t think Laurent did see it; was too young to see it. In fact, I don’t think Laurent saw what was going to happen, until the first time he was forced onto his knees by the Regent. But I wonder whether Auguste did.

Laurent does mention that Auguste is like Damen-  as Laurent says ”“He had no instinct for deception; it meant he couldn’t recognise it in other people.”. But as I have discussed before, being an honourable warrior doesn’t mean you’re stupid, and the sexual proclivities of the Veretians doesn’t quite fall into the same category as political machinations to me. Even Laurent can recognise that yes, his uncle is a paedophile, a predator, but he can’t seem to believe that the Regent would kill his own brother or kill him till there is stark evidence to prove it. It stands to reason then that Auguste may have never thought the Regent would do as he did, but that he could see the signs of his prurient interest in Laurent. 

This also might tie into Laurent being so beautiful, and how Veretian beauty standards glorify young males (from pre-pubescent onwards). He tells Damen that he has been the recipient of offers for “as long as he could remember”- a highly disturbing statement, which suggests as a minor, Laurent was sexually propositioned over and over. Auguste must have stood in the way of that, silenced the mouths of any man who dared speak about his brother like that. Perhaps just knowing that Auguste would cut the hand off of the man who touched his brother was enough to keep Laurent safe. Did Auguste actually explicitly stop the Regent abusing him, though?

If the Regent’s victims start as young as 11, then that was a few years of sexual interest he may have had in Laurent, which Auguste may have thwarted. And just like Damen wouldn’t hear of a word against Kastor, I wonder whether Auguste knew his father wouldn’t hear a word against the Regent- after all, Aleron trusted his brother’s word so much, he marched his army on to the field at Marlas instead of keeping to the security of his fortress, a tactic that made no sense and led to his assassination. We only see the court of Vere as the Regent’s court too- was he ever so open about his child pets before the death of Aleron? We know he had them, as Paschal was the Regent’s physician and tended to them (and the medical attention they might need to their too-young bodies is another layer of quiet horror), so perhaps we can assume that it was something that everyone knew about, but simply turned a blind eye to. 

My feelings are it could be either way- Auguste may have seen the Regent’s paedophilia and kept him away from Laurent instinctively, or he may have seen him openly display sexual interest and thwarted him deliberately, or he may have simply stood in the way of anyone who tried to get to Laurent and the Regent steered clear as a consequence. We will obviously never get a clear answer on this, so I think what’s more important is simply that Auguste was a barrier and how that feeds into Laurent’s beliefs. The reader can imagine that Auguste would perhaps never have said anything too openly to him about such things (beyond advice...I can picture him sternly telling Laurent to never go anywhere alone with an older man at court or to tell him if anyone said anything inappropriate him or tried to touch him), but Laurent can see that no-one dared harass him before Auguste’s death and then after...well. Abuse at night, we assume, and at Chastillon, and any number of attempts at ‘seductions’ in the day. All Laurent knows is that the abuse wouldn’t have happened had Damen not killed his brother, so in his mind, Auguste as the shining golden protector-hero is so sacrosanct that he cannot, even after all this time, truly believe or accept that Damen beat him. It’s why, when they fight in King’s Rising, Laurent says the “ludicrous” words that Auguste would have “stopped” Damen, when we all know he didn’t (yes there is the argument that 19 year old Damen had not been fighting for hours, was fresh from the sidelines, and that played into his victory, but the point is moot...). Laurent knows what he’s saying is absurd, but Auguste is perhaps semi-mythical to him at this point, this lodestar of an ideal to live up to, the ultimate white knight, brightly alive still in his mind, who would/could/should have saved him.

The Regent’s plan to kill his brother, King Aleron, must have included a secondary plan to kill Auguste, as an obstacle to the throne, even though we don’t know what that was. Damen coming along to kill him, neatly did this for him. I wonder if it added another layer to the victory over his brother and nephew killed, to finally have access to Laurent at, horrifyingly, just the right time, less than a year before true puberty would hit and the Regent’s sexual desire in him would fade. Very little of the inner life of The Regent is revealed to us, everything being layer upon layer of machinations, facade after facade, to hide his utter cruelty, but you do wonder whether this abuse of Laurent made him feel particularly gleeful. Or whether it was simply to kill two birds with one stone- to get a man (boy) underneath you is the ultimate power play, and thus the Regents gets to both enjoy Laurent’s beauty sexually, and set up a dynamic which will ruin Laurent in the present and future and allow the Regent to have a power over him that fits in very nicely to him getting the throne. It is breathtakingly cruel I think, that the ruination of Laurent on a personal level was probably secondary, a mere byproduct of a wider plan.

One of the beautiful things about Damen and Laurent’s relationship is he can talk about Auguste again, even with the memory of his death at Damen’s hands casting a long shadow between them. Laurent does this naturally, almost unthinkingly, before he even admits to himself that they’re in love. I think the reason why is Damen’s sense of morality, his pure, uprightness. As he awkwardly says in response to Laurent trying to make clear that what Govart said was a lie, he never believed that to be true. This is a man to whom incest is unfathomable, where there is no suspicion, no cynicism, no reading into Laurent’s words to try and find the incest that isn’t there because there is no smoke without fire. Laurent finally can talk about how much he loved his brother, without being dragged in the mud for it, restoring it back, openly, in words spoken out loud, to the purity it had.

#captive prince #capri #laurent #lamen #damen of akielos #laurent of vere #another long essay I'm so sorry #honestly I know it’s too long #I could talk about this book forever #meta

[asterlark]

the thing that gets me so much about the storytelling in knives out is that it's a story within a story within a story- or i guess more accurately, it's a story about multiple stories being told and acted in and against each other. ransom/hugh/supreme scumbag wrote the story of harlan's murder and of pinning the crime on marta; meanwhile, harlan wrote the story of what marla would do in the aftermath of his death and the ensuing investigation.

problem for mr. hugh is, marta is not a flat character or a pawn in his game he can manipulate to his will to ensure he gets away scot free (and, to a lesser extent, despite harlan's insistence and marta's best efforts, marta cannot carry out his lie for long during the high-pressure investigation. even when it's in her own best interest to lie, marta cannot and will not be manipulated into telling a false story). marta is a smart and caring human being who has agency in her narrative- and since she is the heroine, the narrative wants her to win, so she has allies like blanc on her side. blanc mostly doesn't interfere with the stories being told, he observes them and then, as he says, strolls leisurely along the real story- the truth's- axis and eventually comes to its inevitable conclusion. this is when he will step in and act upon the narrative, but only to reveal the truth and to ensure the hero gets the rewards they deserve.

on top of all that, it really gets me how there's a very meta framing device of the primary murder victim in this mystery being a famous murder mystery author, and much of the plot revolving around his efforts to author what his loved ones' lives will be like after his death... and the way hugh's murder plot is like something right out of a harlan mystery novel (to the point that harlan, before he realizes he's about to die, makes a point to write down the method of murder as an ingenious way to kill someone)....... and all that isn't even considering all the stories the family members tell themselves and others about their relationship to harlan, how they view the family legacy, etc.

marta is the heroine precisely because she is not trying to tell a false story for her own gain (as the family accuses her of doing after the reading of the will)- she is simply concerned with carrying out her late friend's wishes and doing right by him. she is probably the only person who really knew harlan, the full truth of him, and was his friend without any selfish agenda. she is a good person, a person who would never try to claim another's story as her own, which is exactly why harlan trusted her with his life, his home, and his legacy. he couldn't have known what would happen, but he knew she would do her best to honor his memory after he was gone. ultimately though, no matter who else tried to write or edit it (including harlan), this is marta's story and hers alone to live and change and discover.

this has been a long post already so i'll end it here but suffice it to say that over four years post-release, i'm still so fascinated by the ways these characters actively try to either rewrite the story playing out in front of them, or reveal the truth at the heart of things (as blanc would say, the hole inside of the donut's hole). this movie just makes my storytelling and puzzle-loving nerd heart go BRRRRR

#knives out #knives out 2019 #mine #knives out meta #knives out analysis #idk what else to tag 🤷🏻‍♂️ but if you actually read all this pls reblog and tell me ur thoughts!!! #it means a lot !! #esp since tumblr tried to SILENCE ME by refreshing after i had done a lot of editing and drafting and making me lose my progress >:( #so if this seems meandering and nonsensical it's bc i had to try and rewrite a lot of it from memory lol 🙃 #anywayyyy knives out tumblrinas rise up!!!

[narutodivorcearcreal]

Marla told me that when she died she wanted to have her body embalmed.

She told me she wanted to be like one of those Catholic saints whose corpses they have on display in European cathedrals. The nuns dunk them in acid and pour a thin layer of wax over their skin, then put them in an airtight glass coffin and call them incorruptible. Eventually their fat breaks down and beads up on top of the wax so the nuns have to wipe it off with a rag.

By that point, she couldn’t get up from the stale mattresses they had at the clinic. I could count the bones in her hand without Tyler’s kiss. There was a third lump in her breast. The doctors said there was little that could be done at that point.

If only she’d come in before there was a third lump in her breast.

If only she’d noticed when her skin started to turn yellow.

If only she’d reported to the clinic that she’d been coughing up blood.

If only.

They still recommended chemotherapy, but Marla didn’t have health insurance and she said she couldn’t stomach being bald when she already looked like a shrink-wrapped skeleton.

She said that maybe if I hadn’t used her collagen trust fund for soap, it could have been used to give her a touch up before her funeral.

.

Evacuate soul.

.

The day after she died, I was the one making the arrangements since her mother could only afford to fly in for one day and Marla would rather have her be at her funeral than see her like this, and she didn’t want her mother to plan her daughter’s funeral. Embalming a body to last for more than a year would cost two months of rent for Marla’s crummy apartment. The mortician asked me if I had a wedding ring for Marla to wear during the service, and whether I’d like her to be with or without makeup.

Two days after she died, Marla was given an open-casket funeral with her mother and I attending. The mortician dressed her up in a frilly blue dress and kitten heels. Afterwards, Marla’s mother took her to be cremated and gave me a dainty little egg-cup full of Marla. The rest of her she took. I put the cup on the shelf next to her mattress still covered in slippery plastic. I don’t know why she kept it sealed when I didn’t see her bring anyone home during the last months. She told me that since Tyler, other men felt mediocre by comparison.

Oh Tyler, even now I’m thinking of you.

Three days after Marla died, I went to a gun shop where a man with a split lip and bent nose called me sir. He asked, “What is Tyler Durden planning?

“What’s next?

“What’s happening?”

I told him that the first rule of project mayhem is to not ask questions and he gave me a handgun without registration and three boxes of ammunition. Tyler’s been dead for years and he’s still getting me free stuff. Marla would’ve loved this.

.

The tub in Marla’s bathroom has a clog and her hair sticks to the porcelain like black cursive so I sit on the toilet lid instead. The corners of my mouth rip a little as I stretch my jaw around the gun. My demon smile never healed right since I kept biting the stitches open in the mental hospital. It tastes like rust and the barrel knocks against my teeth that didn’t get blown out the first time. This brings me back.

I think about how all the melanomas, brain parasites, bowel cancers, all the people on the roof that night are dead by now. I think about Marla in the little egg cup and Bob with his brains blown out and Tyler gone.

Tyler, is this what you wanted?

Tyler, I miss you.

I click the safety off.

After they’re done scraping my brain matter off the tile, my father will probably be the one to identify my body. I wonder whether I’ll join Bob as one of Project Mayhem’s martyrs, or if that title doesn’t include suicides. They wouldn’t be saying my name either way.

His name is Tyler Durden. His name is Tyler Durden. His name is Tyler Durden.

I tongue at the gnarled scar tissue of my cheek. Second time’s the charm. Was it you who missed, or me?

Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. You should have aimed straight and saved me all this trouble. Few more years and I’m right back where I was. Ground zero. I think this is bottom plenty.

I think of the New Zealand on my foot. I think of my father. I think of my boss and the mayor’s special envoy on recycling and my job. In a few seconds I’ll look like one of the car crash victims whose rear differential locked up and sent them careening into an 18-wheeler.

Oh Tyler, deliver me.

Pull the trigger.

Evacuate soul.

#tw sui #my first time writing feedback welcome #i was delivered some devastating news jn the middle kf this which helped me get into that mindset #fight club #tyler durden #narrator fight club #soapshipping #marla singer

[ashwritesmonsters]

The Thru-Hiker (interlude)

Female Reader x Male Mothperson (Desmond)

Prev: [Part 1] Next: [Part 2]

Words: 2k

Note: Just thought I'd put out something sorta cute and short to set up for the rest of Desmond's story! There's more coming, I'm just slow 😭

Long before Willow Grove wakes, Martha has already begun her day. The sky is still painted with stars when she ascends the spiral stairs of the old lighthouse.

Inside her cozy studio, built into the circular brick room just below where the lighthouse's lamp used to be, she brushes a hand over her equipment, the cool metal as familiar and comforting as an old friend.

She pours herself a steaming cup of coffee blacker than night. With the practiced ease of decades, Martha adjusts her headphones, the soft padding a familiar weight against her silver-streaked hair. She takes a moment to gaze out of the window at the slowly brightening sky. From here, she can see the town stirring to life - an early bird Selkie heading out to the sea, the night-shift Mothman flying home, a Lupine yawning on a porch.

As she takes her last sip of coffee, she turns the dials on her control panel, and with a deep breath, she begins another day in Willow Grove. The gentle crackle of the airwaves, then her voice, warm and comforting, fills the silence.

"Good morning, Willow Grove! It's your favorite voice, Martha, back again to brighten up your morning here on WG 98.5. What's the buzz around town, you ask? Well, let's dive in with the morning news!

Remember the Langston's garden gnome that mysteriously disappeared last week? Yes, that cherubic one with the red pointy hat. Well, it's been found! Our mayor's son, Desmond, found it perched on a pine tree during his nightly flight. Nothing like some harmless mischief to add a dash of excitement to our lives, isn't it?

Now, our Selkie friend, Bella, deserves some applause. She's just returned from a successful sardine run. Ah, to be blessed with such fresh catch for the upcoming town bake-off! Do drop by the dock to show some love. I'm sure she's got something delicious in the works.

On the Lupine side of things, have you seen the majestic new mural on the side of the grocer's? Talented painter and Lupine, Marla, has been adding the finishing touches under the moonlight. Don't miss it when you're in town for groceries, it's a true masterpiece.

Now, for the drumroll, folks! In just under two weeks, our favorite time of the year will be upon us. That's right, the annual Founding Festival is right around the corner! I can already taste the moon cakes and hear the shell flutes piping. Mothpeople, Selkies, Lupines, and Humans alike, let's get ready to celebrate the vibrant tapestry that makes Willow Grove our home. So, mark your calendars, folks!

That's all for the morning roundup, Willow Grove. Let's have a splendid day and remember - keep your smiles wide and your hearts open. Martha, signing off. Now, the music."

***

As you stand at the edge of Willow Grove, your heart swells with a mix of excitement and nervous anticipation. The last leg of your hike along the Appalachian Trail has left you feeling haggard, your once-neat hiking outfit now with far too many holes, and the straps of your camera bag digging into your shoulders. But as you gaze upon the town, you can't help but feel that it was all worth it.

"Here goes nothing," you whisper to yourself, taking a deep breath and stepping onto the cobblestone streets.

The quaint charm of the town immediately envelopes you. The buildings are an eclectic mix of architectural styles – from Victorian cottages to modern storefronts, each adorned with colorful shutters and planter boxes overflowing with flowers. The scent of fresh-baked bread wafts through the air, tempting you to forget everything and eat your way into a carb coma.

"Wow," you murmur under your breath, already feeling your weary limbs lightening at the sight of this picturesque haven. It's unlike any place you've ever been before, and yet, it feels strangely like home.

You walk further into town, your eyes drinking in the lush, wooded surroundings. Leaves of every shade of green rustle gently above you, casting dappled sunlight onto the cobbled path. Birds flit between the branches, their cheerful melodies sounding suspiciously like a welcome. You can't resist snapping a few photos with your trusty film camera, capturing the beauty of this magical place. Maybe Desmond would like these shots; perhaps he'd be proud that you followed through on your promise to visit his hometown.

"Keep it together," you chide yourself, shaking off the butterflies threatening to take flight in your stomach. "You came here for a fresh start, remember?"

But even as you remind yourself of your initial intentions, there's no denying that the thought of possibly bumping into Desmond again sends a thrill down your spine. You went on this insane journey seeking solace in nature and photography after the breakup, but now that you're here, the possibility of rekindling things with Desmond is too close to ignore.

"Focus," you tell yourself firmly, snapping one last photo of a particularly charming ivy-covered house before making your way further into town. "You're here for you, not just for him."

With that in mind, you continue your exploration of Willow Grove, utterly enchanted by its beauty and magic. And as you wander the streets, camera in hand, you can't help but feel that maybe – just maybe – this place is exactly what you need.

"Excuse me," you approach a group of friendly-looking townsfolk, hoping they can point you in the direction of a place to stay. "I just arrived in town and was wondering if there's an inn or something nearby?"

"Of course!" one woman replies with a warm smile. "There's a lovely little bed and breakfast run by a Lupine named Evangeline. It's just down the road, on the left side."

"Thank you," you say gratefully, already feeling welcomed by their kindness.

"By the way," another person chimes in, "You're just in time for our Founding Festival! We're all getting ready for it, so there's a lot of excitement around town."

"Sounds like fun," you reply, imagining the celebrations and camaraderie that must come with a big event in a small town. "I'll definitely check it out."

With their directions in mind, you continue on your way, finding yourself in the town square not long after. A weathered, important-looking statue stands at its center, depicting a Mothman, a Selkie, and a Lupine, all standing tall and proud in unity. The plaque at its base is weathered to the point of being near-unreadable, but it's easy to gather that the town has been quite diverse ever since its founding hundreds of years ago.

Around the statue, townsfolk are busy setting up stalls and decorations, their laughter and cheerfulness filling the air. You can't help but feel a sense of belonging in this close-knit community, and the anticipation of the upcoming festival only fuels your excitement. You raise your camera to your eye, and unlike people in the big cities, the townsfolk don't mind that you're snapping a picture with them in it. If anything, you think they smile a little wider.

After taking in the scene, you make your way to the bed and breakfast, finding it as charming and inviting as described. The scent of fresh-baked bread wafts through the air as you enter, and a fire crackles in the hearth, welcoming you with its warmth. You can't help but smile as you approach the front desk, where a friendly Lupine woman greets you, her fur dark brown and shiny. She's slightly hunched over in a way that makes you think either the ceiling is low or she is huge.

"Welcome to my bed and breakfast," she says with a kind smile, tactfully baring only the faintest hint of her sharp teeth. "I'm Evangeline. How can I help you?"

"Hi, Evangeline," you reply, returning her smile. "I'd like to book a room for a couple of weeks, if that's possible."

"Of course! We have plenty of availability." She begins the check-in process by pulling out an actual paper and pen with her paws, and you feel a sense of relief knowing you've found a place to call home during your time in Willow Grove.

As you settle into your new lodgings, the excitement of the upcoming Founding Festival mingles with the possibility of seeing Desmond again. You remind yourself not to let that prospect overshadow the personal journey you're on, but there's no denying the allure of reconnecting with him. For now, though, you focus on the present — immersing yourself in the charm of Willow Grove, camera always at the ready for picture-perfect moments in this picture-perfect town.

The late afternoon sun filters through the curtains, casting a warm glow on the room as you close the door behind you. Your new temporary sanctuary is cozy, with a plush bed and antique wooden dresser, adorned with framed photos of Willow Grove's natural beauty. The anticipation of meeting Desmond again brings a fluttery sensation to your chest, like butterflies dancing between each heartbeat.

"Alright," you say to yourself, trying to shake off the nerves. "Get it together."

As you unpack your belongings, your thoughts drift back to the night you shared with Desmond on the trail. In the grand scheme of things, it was so brief and quick. But between the vulnerability you both had exposed to each other and the heartfelt conversation around the fire (and the mind-blowing sex), you couldn't help but feel drawn to him. So deeply drawn to him that you were here now.

"Wish I could've called ahead," you mutter, placing your camera on the dresser. "Would that have been less... weird?"

You pause, staring at your reflection in the mirror above the dresser. A tired but determined face gazes back, and you take a deep breath. You paid for two weeks in this room—there's no turning back now.

"Okay, let's think this through," you tell yourself, sitting on the bed. "If Desmond thinks I'm crazy for coming here, I'll just... deal with it. We're both adults. Right? Besides, I didn't come all this way just for him. I came for me too."

You shuck off your dirty windbreaker, shaking your head. You're too tired to think things through. You lay back on the bed, the soft mattress embracing you like a specific long lost lover. The tiredness you feel goes beyond the physical. You're mentally and physically exhausted from living like a cavewoman the past few months. But here, in this cozy little room, surrounded by the enchanting beauty of Willow Grove, you finally feel a sense of peace. The kind of peace that comes from being in a place that feels like home, even if it's your first time being here.

As you close your eyes, you think of Desmond, his chitinous features and piercing carnelian eyes. You can almost feel his touch again, his mandibles on your lips, his strong arms wrapped around your body, his proboscis... elsewhere. You let out a sigh, knowing that there's no point in kidding yourself. You came here for Desmond, and Desmond alone. You're not sure where things stand between the two of you, but you know that there's a connection between you that can't be ignored. Even if it makes you look a little crazy. Okay, a lot crazy.

But for now, you allow yourself to drift into a peaceful slumber. This is the first real bed you've slept in for months, and tomorrow, you'll take the first real shower in months. And also apologize to the kind Lupine lady downstairs for getting your filth all over the sheets.

#ashwritesmonsters #monster x reader #monster x human #terato #exophilia #mothman #mothman x reader

[sutjak]

the brainrot has gotten to me again but ive become hooked onto this topic and unless i speak it into the void it will end up killing me.

In all universes of Fight Club, the narrator is transgender (to me) and Tyler is cis. I especially love this lil headcanon with them both being girls.

The Narrator is this tall, scrawny 6'0" loser ridden with insomnia and no tits. She works a horrible 9-5 and sometimes has to do field work. Because of her insomnia, she never has the energy to explore her feminity.

Tyler, and her name would be Tyler because that's hot, would be her oppisite, is everything she thinks she wants and wants to be. This woman has Tits-unreal perky Cs- and dresses like a whore. Tyler's wardrobe consists only of mesh crop tops, button-ups without any buttons, lowrise jeans, and a distinct lack of bras (she has panties, but they are all thongs). Her head is shaved and wears giant rings and earrings. Most importantly, she has a vagina.

Not to mention how outspoken Tyler is. She's bold and brash, similar but not quite like Marla because Marla is gross and the Narrator definitely doesn't like Marla. Tyler is strong and can get men down on their knees and make them do anything.

What really sold Fight Club to me was the contrast between Tyler and The Narrator, how they ended up being the same person despite, in the end, how different their goals were. How they both had the same wants- to live a little, experience things never before experienced, but only one of them wanted to expand that desire. Fight Club ends with the Narrator fighting back against what he thought he wanted and warming to what he resisted.

I think transfem!narrator would be at peace with this ending, settling down with the weird and unfriendly grunge girl and cherishing but putting away the ultrafem radical fantasies she had.

#thank you for reading #i am insane yes #fight club #fight club 1999 #narrator fight club #tyler durden #soapshipping #marla singer #tyler x narrator #fem!narrator #fem!tyler durden #marla stays a woman because no one could have her any other way god bless #forcing yourself to be something uncormfortable to both break the mold and fit into as well #and how selfharming that is #just be yourself #and love that hot goth chick who crashes all the groups that you crash

[strawbby-shortcake]

"What Animal Do You Think You Could Take in a Fight?" ✧˚ · . [all gn! reader]

☽｡⋆ JACK/THE NARRATOR You and Jack were sitting outside at a quiet cafe and there were little to no civilians passing by. He looked up towards the sky with his black shades and sighed. He seemed to be bored.

You snapped your fingers in front of his face and his gaze met yours. Well, you weren't actually sure if he was looking at you. You couldn't tell where his eyes were, only that he tilted his head.

"What," Jack mumbled.

Someone's cranky today. As he is, like, literally every day.

"What animal do you think you could take in a fight?" you asked.

Jack scoffed and shook his head, "Oh my god. How much time do you have?"

You shrugged and checked your imaginary watch.

"According to my calculations... all day."

He took off his sunglasses and stared at you intensely.

"Honestly speaking, maybe an armadillo."

ੈ✩‧₊˚ MARLA

You coughed as Marla blew cigarette smoke in your face. She never did stop smoking, even though every time you saw her, she promised to quit.

"I'll quit smoking forever next week, okay?" she teased, knowing full well she won't.

"Hell will freeze over before that ever happens," you laughed.

She playfully swatted your shoulder, and you threatened to take her cigarettes as payback. She quickly hid the carton to protect them from you.

"Hey, Marla, what animal do you think you could take in a fight?"

Marla glanced at you and smiled. You could see her sharp cheekbones clearly.

"You," she replied, blowing another puff of smoke at you.

Your eyes watered as you resisted the urge to cough. Fanning away the cloud with your hand, you gave her a "seriously?" look.

She simply cocked her head like a puppy and grinned.

シ TYLER DURDEN

Tyler was getting his waiter outfit on for his late night shift, and you were fixing his bowtie. He didn't know how to tie it correctly around his neck.

"What animal do you think you could take in a fight?" you asked, tightening the bow.

Tyler adjusted his sleeves and pondered for a moment. Before answering, he took a deep breath and placed both hands on your shoulders.

"That's a very good question. In fact, I'm glad that you asked. See, I think I'm strong enough to take any animal in a fight- especially gorillas. The whole point of fighting the animal is not to win, but to become the animal yourself. This is how you achieve great results, and scars. I've never fought any animals before. I think I should try it someday. Actually, this gives me an idea. We could release all the animals out of the public zoos! We could form an animal fight club. Instead of them eating stale peanuts, they'll finally taste sweet revenge against those that ridicule them. And let's not forget..."

You zoned out for a couple minutes while he was ranting. Maybe you shouldn't have asked Tyler that question right before he had to leave.

"...and what an amazing question that was! Thank you, truly. I know what my next objective is now. While I'm gone, I need you to search 'how to help animals escape from the zoo without anyone seeing.' Okay? Wonderful," he concluded.

He quickly left the house with a task assigned for you. You guess that there was no other choice than to complete it. In Tyler We Trust.

ʚɞ ROBERT "BOB" PAULSON

You and Bob were sitting on a park bench watching birds fly around, peck at the ground, and chirp. He seemed focused on them for some reason.

"Psst, Bob," you whispered, nudging his arm with your elbow.

"Hm? Yes? Oh, what do you need?" he asked, turning his attention to you.

He's got a serious case of sweaty pits.

"What animal do you think you could take in a fight?"

Bob's eyebrows furrowed as he tapped his chin like an enlightenment thinker. Talk about using brain power.

He raised one finger in the air and declared, "I choose peace."

"That wasn't the question, Bob," you chuckled.

"Doesn't matter, I choose peace. I love the animal kingdom. I would never hurt a fly nor an alligator."

He had a point; he couldn't harm a fly even if he tried. And he did try once, but poor Bob burst into tears before swatting it.

What a sweetheart.

[END]

#fanfiction #fight club #fight club fanfic #fight club x reader #jack fight club #narrator fight club #tyler durden #x reader #tyler durden x reader #fanfic #marla singer #robert paulson #big bob #fight club meme #haha #hilarious #canon maybe #we love it when tyler goes on a tangent

[jacksoldsideblog]

Is there any storyline in FC that you think is underdeveloped? Or maybe a relationship you'd like to devote a little more screen time to?

Marla got kinda shafted by the movie due to time constraints. There was more done in the book to flesh out her and the narrator reaching some sort of begrudging platonic acceptance, she got more of a character arc in general. It's not surprising that that was the first thing to go in the screen adaptation but it does suck and I would've loved if there was a little more time put to it.

Also, ironically, the narrators relationship with non-Tyler fight club members. The car scene got made into a talk between him and Tyler, the scene where he gets ejected from a fight club got removed as well as the one where he signs up to get pummeled into ground meat. I think it ends up subtracting from the sense of a machine that operates with Tyler's invisible orders, even against Tyler himself.

Basically I just would always be totally up for more of the book having had made it into the movie, though I get why it's the way it is (money)

#asks #fight club

[livinginshambles]

Preview: I thought you'd be different | James Potter

Pairing: James Potter x Fem!Slytherin!Reader

Summary: A Cinderella Story, but Hogwarts. (Enemies? to lovers)

Notes: Sorry I've been mia; i wrote this today, it's all I have so the full fic will probably take a while, not proofread, mistakes blah blah, enjoy!

PS. I am currently no longer making a taglist because I can't keep up with it, I'm really sorry!

Masterlist. Taglist

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

You could still remember the moment vividly, as if it was engraved in your memory.

That moment when the sorting hat placed you in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor like your two older sisters had been sorted. You could still see the look of surprise, concern, horror and then eventually disgust, every time you closed your eyes.

“Now we finally know your true colors,” is what you sister Alyssa had hissed coldly at you. You had pleadingly looked at your other sister, but Marla had supported her twin sister, disregarding the confused and scared look in your eleven-year-old eyes.

“Don’t talk to us, don’t look at us and don’t mention us at all,” she sneered down at you and for a moment you wondered how she hadn’t been the one to be sorted into Slytherin instead. But you had cast your eyes down and agreed.

But years passed and you had become the very stereotype of a Slytherin student, completely leaning into the cold, distant, quiet but calculating persona that your sisters had created for you. Might as well, you figured after your parent’s dismay at the revelation of your house.

You were making your way down the corridor, long strides as you passed your sisters while looking them straight in the eye. They grimaced at the sight of you, but without their entire group of classmates, they didn’t dare make any comments.

A feeling of victory erupted inside of you, and you couldn’t help the small smirk that crept up your face.

“What poor soul suffered for you to look so satisfied?” You turned your head to look at the person who called out to you. James Potter and Sirius Black were both leaning against a statue in the open yard.

“Did you get rid of Regulus or something?” Sirius taunted. “Finally had enough of him following you around, did you L/N?”

“Go die in a ditch, Sirius,” you retorted with an eyeroll, but seemed unphased.

“Why so much hostility,” James unpleasantly remarked, and you halted in your step.

To be petty or not to be petty, you sighed and rolled your eyes.

“10 points from Gryffindor for loitering,” you decided.

The two marauders started to protest.

“If you have nothing to do, other than insulting students, I would love to recommend you to Professor McGonagall for detention. Heard she was still looking for the person who made all the pumpkins explode last week during Halloween, and you guys are terrible at getting rid of the evidence.” It effectively shut them up, and with a last glance up and down, you continued your way towards the room of requirement.

When you entered the sober room with a sigh, you noticed the small scrolled up piece of parchment in the middle of the room. You frowned. This was your space. The room didn’t open this space for anyone else, you made it specifically as a safe haven.

You cautiously approached the parchment and rolled it open to reveal nothing. It was completely blank. You shrugged. If the room left this here, it was meant for you, and so you took a seat and started drawing on it.

James sat in an empty room, his invisibility cloak hiding him from plain sight as he pulled the now folded paper from his back pocket. He inspected it closely, almost pressing the paper to his glasses in a curious manner.

He had gone to the Room of Requirements earlier that day and found a piece of paper floating in the air. Of course, levitating stuff wasn't that strange, but it had intrigued him nonetheless.

James unfolded the paper, and his eyebrows flew up. Lines were appearing on the paper by itself, and a beautiful portrait of a weeping willow with a girl who was crying on a bench under the tree, appeared.

James fumbled to find his quill and ink. Then he started to write something on it, in a handwriting that he only ever used for written exams.

(Credits to Professor McGonagall who had announced that she would not be grading anything she couldn’t read. And she had looked over her glasses at him while she said it.)

It’s beautiful.

You dropped the parchment at the words that formed right under your drawing. You traced it with your fingers. Then you decided to write back.

Full fic

#james potter x reader #james potter x y/n #james potter x you #james potter x fem!reader #james potter fic #james potter imagine #james potter angst #james potter fluff #marauders era #marauders #james potter fanfic #marauders fanfiction #james potter fanfiction #marauder x reader

[strawbrygashez]

My moot @soap-mothership5 asked for my thoughts about Tyler & his fashion sense and I definitely have a couple thoughts on the matter!!!!! 😈😈😈😈 (also sorry some of these get off track and some are more soapshipping things 💀)

•I THINK…. He’d try almost every style at least once. He loves also finding excuses to dress up like if there was a rave he could get into for free he’s dressing to the GODS in rave wear. Same could be said if there was like a goth night at some club somewhere. He takes that kinda shit as a challenge to out do everyone in the fashion department.

•He loves wearing flashy outfits obviously. He doesn’t give a shit what people assume about him and he doesn’t give a shit when people look at him like he’s crazy or whatever. He thinks it’s funny when he gets judgemental stares from people and might even try to put on more of a show because of it (stretching so his shirt goes up more, tugging his pants down a little bit more). He also thinks it’s sweet when people compliment his fashion sense.

• Hes way too good at thrifting. Like you would never expect to be able to find half the shit he does find when he goes. He’ll come home & have a huge pair of platform boots under his arm that he got from a thrift store. The narrator is confused out of his mind because those look expensive but somehow.. Tyler just found them. Tyler has amazing thrifting luck.

•He doesn’t stick to just the men side when it comes to clothes shopping. He will look everywhere for anything. (Unrelated but someone’s probably asked him if the see thru nightgown he’s buying is for a girlfriend and he’s just like, “nah. It’s for my boyfriend.”)

•PERSONALLY I THINK HED SERVE SOOOOOO MUCH IN GRUNGE FAIRY FASHION

(Pic isn’t mine)

ALSO HE NEEDS TO WEAR THIS SOOOO BAD

•If he wasn’t sooooo against this and that and didn’t wanna do project mayhem stuff or whatever, I think he would be a really good fashion designer or model. I need a fashion designer tyler au so bad…

•He’s a hypocrite about not people ‘not being the clothes they wear’ smh. He also will take the fact that he reads fashion magazines to the grave. He’s almost gotten caught owning them a couple times but he blamed them being in the house on marla. The narrator never questioned marla about it.

•He gets the narrator clothes. Both for work and just being at home. Surprisingly he does take into account that the narrator doesn’t wanna be as flashy as him or show off that much of his body. He finds the narrator some pieces that he actually really ends up loving. When Tyler brought him home a penguin onesie, the narrator swore up and down he wouldn’t put that on bc he’d make fun of him..he has it on a minute later tho 🙄 he supposes the teasing isn’t that bad (and being called cute definitely helps)

•Tyler gets attached to certain pieces more than others. His favorite things ever are his sunglasses and red jacket. He’ll pretend they don’t mean shit to them but will obviously look really shook up if something happened to them. The narrator keeps it in mind to be gentle with the clothes Tyler seems to like a lot. The motherfucker will even clean his sunglasses for him when he’s missing Tyler and needs something to do :/

•He loves when the narrator wears his shirts to bed or around the house. They are always baggy on him :,)

•HE KEEPS IN MIND THE OUTFITS & PIECES THE NARRATOR SEEMS TO LIKE THE MOST WHEN HE GETS DRESSED UP! he’ll wear the one pair of shorts he has that are just kinda too short just bc he knows the narrator is dying over it. The narrator is gripping the arms of his seat, trying not to pounce on him whenever Tyler throws on something to get a reaction out of him.

#I feel bad some of these are more shippy 😭😭 sorry #I feel like I wanna add more to this !! I might later on but this was all I got for rn!!!

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Happy Memorial Day

Veterans and Active Service Members who support Conservatives and/or Trump, let's have a chat. I'm going to run a few things by you and see if they sit right with you....

If we're being honest here, when it comes to trusting Donald Trump on anything related to the military (or in general for that matter), maybe just don't. You've heard all this talk about how those on the left are "communists" or "fascists," meanwhile, for all you 2nd Amendment folk, here's Trump back in 2018 saying, "take the guns first, due process second."

Question: Did you know that Trump made his 2nd wife, Marla Maples, sign a prenup that would have cut off all child support if their daughter, Tiffany, joined the military? In fact, not a single member of Trump's family tree has ever served in the military; this spans 5 generations, and every branch of the family tree. Apparently, the whole reason his grandfather immigrated to America was to avoid military service.

In his 2015 biography, Trump says: “I felt that I was in the military in the true sense because I dealt with those people,” because he went to a military-style academy and that he has “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military." Matter of fact, according to Trump, he knows more about ISIS than American generals.

This self-proclaimed "military genius intellect" in action?

In 2017, he sent commandos into an ambush due to lack of intel and then sent contractors in to pick them up, resulting in a commando being left behind, tortured, and executed. Trump reportedly approved the mission because "Bannon told him that Obama didn’t have the guts to do it."

When retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal criticized Trump on his withdrawal of troops from Syria, Trump attacked him saying that he "got fired like a dog by Obama" and is "known for [a] big, dumb mouth." Let's not even get into the botched Afghanistan withdrawal...Oh, and it was definitely strategic and totally not an accident when he revealed the faces, names, and location of SEAL Team 5 on Twitter.

SIDE NOTE: If conservatives only remember 13 of the 2,420 service members that died fighting in Afghanistan over the past 20 years, then aren't they really just scapegoating your demographic?

If we're being frank, it's not just Donald that you shouldn't trust, either. It never has been, he's just a useful mouthpiece for the GOP and corporate America's impulses. Conservatives don't really care about the troops, if we're being honest with each other. You've been fed this lie that it's the liberals that hate you, when most of us don't (can't speak for everyone). You're just being used as a cudgel against people who are looking out for your own best interests. It's quite obvious and sad, actually, how much they love using the military as canon fodder for their propaganda.

When COVID reared its head in 2020, Capt. Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt wrote a letter pleading with 10 navy officers (3 were Admirals within his chain of command, 7 were to other captains on the Roosevelt), asking to offload most of the sailors on the Roosevelt in order to allow for social distancing and the sanitizing of the ship due to how crowded it was. On March 30, 2020, the day Capt. Crozier sent his letter, cases peaked as 736 of 4,085 sailors on the ship had tested positive for COVID-19, a 25% infection rate. The following day, his letter was leaked to the press. Trump attacks Crozier's letter calling it “terrible” and "not appropriate” leading the Secretary of the Navy to remove Capt. Crozier from his post. Later in the pandemic, on June 24, 2020, the White House ended the National Guard's deployments to assist the American people during the COVID-19 pandemic, which just so happened to be the day before thousands of National Guard members would qualify for early retirement and education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI bill. Convenient.

Then, in the midst of all that, he visits the troops deployed in Iraq and claims that he's giving them all a 10% raise and that it's their first raise in over a decade. False on both accounts. What actually happened was that he tried to give the military a raise that was lower than the standard living adjustment. Congress told him that idea wasn't going to work. Then, after Congress had to force him to give the military an actual raise, Trump of course lied about it, claiming that it was larger than Obama’s. (Not the first time, probably...)

This is just a guy who wants to claim he made the call, just to see his name pop up on the chyron. He admitted he believed that his administration's assassination of al-Baghdadi was more significant than the Obama administration's assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

Still think he's a patriot?

On ⁠October 8th, 2019, Trump planned to withdraw from the Open Skies treaty, giving Russia the ability to target our military aircraft. Then in 2020, the New York Times published an Op-ed on CIA intelligence claiming that Putin was paying the Taliban for the bounties he reportedly placed on US Soldiers heads, Trump said he never mentioned the rumors when meeting with Putin later that year. The validity of the intel has since been ruled inconclusive. Trump, however, also directed the CIA to share counterintelligence with their Russian counterparts despite the Russians also arming the Taliban.

Friendly reminder that in May 2019, Trump also got the bright idea to pardon war criminals Eddie Gallagher, Mathew Golsteyn, and Matthew Behenna. A few weeks later, on July 31, 2019, Trump ordered the US Navy to rescind the medals given to prosecutors who failed to convict Gallagher.

This is the same guy who demanded that US military chiefs stand next to him and made the U.S. Navy Blue Angels violate ethics rules by having them do a fly-over at his 4th of July campaign rally, really patriotic right? I mean, who else would be more preoccupied with an intelligence briefing when the leader of the free world could be ordering a milkshake? Does this sound like a "leader of men"? Because blocking a veteran group on Twitter because they criticized you and hurt your feelings, doesn't fit my mental image of "leader." Actually, kinda sounds more akin to a dictator than the Commander in Chief. Not to mention how often he likes to cozy up to dictators and autocrats.

For example: when the alt right protesters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, Trump demanded that the National Guard protect his supporters. Meanwhile, the US Army recently concluded that the DC National Guard misused their helicopters in 2020 when they flew them too low over BLM protestors, one reportedly "hovered under 100 ft."

Remember when Trump refused to sign his party’s funding bill, which caused the government to shut down from December 22, 2018 to January 25, 2019? This temporary shut down would force the members of the US Coast Guard to go without pay, otherwise they would be listed AWOL. This led to service members relying on food pantries to eat. Somehow, though, Trump's appointees ended up with a $10,000 raise.

But don't worry, it only took him 2 years of being in office and 154 vacation days at his various properties before he finally visited the troops in December of 2018. Later, the following June, Trump sent additional troops to the border to paint the fence for a better “aesthetic appearance.” Don't let this distract you from the fact that under his administration, we saw more illegal border crossings than before. (You know, just in case that was another reason you were planning on voting for him.)

Halfway through his presidency, he used troops as a political prop for optics during the midterms by sending them on a "phantom mission'' to the border and made them miss out on Thanksgiving with their families in 2018. Of course, in typical Trump fashion, he then called troops on Thanksgiving and told them he’s most thankful for himself. Even though he stopped using troops as a political prop immediately after the midterms, the troops remained in their muddy camps at the border.

Then, in early 2019, Trump tried diverting military housing funds to pay for the border wall, but a federal judge subsequently denied this. Later that July, SCOTUS ruled that Trump could in fact divert military housing funds to pay for his wall, as well as funding from military pensions and Afghan Security Forces.

That same July, Trump denied a US Marine with 6 years of service entry into the United States for his scheduled citizenship interview. The next month, his administration looked to change the policy which granted citizenship for children of deployed US troops. This change would no longer grant automatic American citizenship to children born overseas during US military deployments, including US troops posted abroad for years at a time.

Imagine coming to America to fight for a country that isn't yours on the promise of citizenship, only to be deported. But don't worry, your family isn't safe either! Trump once deported a spouse of a fallen US Army soldier killed in Afghanistan, leaving their daughter parentless. The US has thankfully overturned this as of April 16, 2019. His administration actually doubled the rejection rate for veterans requesting family deportation protections.

Not surprising, considering this is the same administration that deported veterans, too. Hell, ICE even tried to deport a US-born Marine. He later ordered the discharge of active-duty immigrant troops with good records who were already promised citizenship, just so he could say he was tough on immigration.

Or how about just before the 2018 holidays, when they discharged 2 Air Force members living with HIV? Or how his administration denied female troops access to birth control to reportedly "limit sexual activity"? In 2019, he even banned service members from serving based on gender identity, but this has since been reversed by the Biden administration.

Trump even urged the officials in Florida to not count mail-in votes, specifically those of the actively deployed.

You know, I kinda get the sense that Trump and his MAGA lackeys seem to simultaneously dislike and fetishize being in the military, because that seems to be all you are to them: drones, existing to shoot, be shot at, and die for America, a manifestation of their own gun fetish. The moment you remind them that you aren't just professional killers but human beings who need social services or housing benefits, they lash out.

Here's another FACT for you: over a decade, Trump sought to kick veterans of Fifth Avenue because he found them unsightly nuisances outside of Trump Tower. In 1991, he was even quoted saying, “While disabled veterans should be given every opportunity to earn a living, is it fair to do so to the detriment of the city as a whole or its tax paying citizens and businesses?”

During the Trump administration, the VA in Atlanta purged 200,000 veterans’ healthcare applications due to known administrative errors within VA’s enrollment process and enrollment system. When making changes to the VA at a meeting in Mar-a-Lago, Trump recruited Bruce Moskowitz, a Palm Beach doctor; Ike Perlmutter, the chairman of Marvel Entertainment; and Marc Sherman, an attorney; to run it. None of them have experience with the military or veterans. These shitheads ended up trying to sell veteran's medical records.

Trump increasingly privatized the VA, leading to longer waits and higher taxpayer costs. For example, in January 2016, Trump sent funds raised from a veterans’ benefit to the Donald J. Trump Foundation instead of the promised veteran’s charities. The foundation has since been ordered shut down because of fraud and Trump had to pay $2 million in damages as of November 2019.

When a man was caught swindling veterans’ pensions for high-interest “cash advances,” Trump’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined him $1. As a reminder, the Trump administration’s goal was to dismantle the CFPB, installing Mick Mulvaney as the director, who publicly stated the bureau should be disbanded.

Eventually, his administration tried to slash disability and unemployment benefits for Veterans to $0, and eliminate the Extraschedular Individual Unemployability (TDIU) from the VA. Trump even changed the GI Bill through his Forever GI Act back in 2018. This change caused the VA to miss veteran benefits, including housing allowances and forced many veterans to run out of food and rent.

Ironically, at one of his rallies in 2016, Trump accepted a Purple Heart from a veteran supporter in the crowd. He said to the crowd: “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.” Earlier in 1998, Mr. Bone Spurs himself was quoted saying having unprotected sex was his "own personal Vietnam." I guess naturally, when it comes to stolen valor, no one knows it better than Trump.

Don't think his contempt stops when you've died for our country, either. He apparently could care less, unless he can make it about him. Once while at a cemetery to pay respects to the fallen soldiers on the anniversary of D-Day, Trump started his commemoration speech by attacking a private citizen, Bette Midler, following later with an attack on Robert Muller, former FBI special counsel and a Vietnam War veteran. (Speaking of Vietnam, did I mention that Trump had dodged the draft 5 times, 4 for college and 1 by having a doctor diagnose him with bone spurs?) Then later, while in Europe in 2018, he didn’t even attend a ceremony at a US cemetery commemorating the end of WWI due to the rain – every other world leader went anyway.

He's insulted Gold Star families. Both, Myeshia Johnson — a gold star widow and the Khan family—gold star parents, have negative stories about being contacted by Trump. To add salt to the wound, he even forgot a fallen soldier’s name during a call to his pregnant widow. In fact, under the Trump Tax Plan, some Gold Star families had to pay increased taxes on the death benefits they received. The surviving family of US Navy Lt. Cmdr. Landon Jones in particular, went from paying $1,100 in 2017 to $5,400 in 2019.

In an apparent attack directed at the late-Sen. John McCain, Trump said he doesn’t consider POWs heroes because they were caught. Specifically, he said he "prefers people who were not caught." I mean, Trump even turned away Navy Sailors from his 2019 Memorial Day speech in Japan because they were from the destroyer USS John S. McCain. Trump initially ordered the USS John S. McCain out of sight during his visit, which led to the ship’s name subsequently being covered. Then, on March 20, 2019, after Sen. McCain's passing, Trump complained that he was never thanked for the funeral. But really, how spiteful can you actually be?

Maybe it's because I'm such a lib, but the most damning for me, is the deafening silence if you're a POC veteran. Remember Army Spc. Vanessa Guillén? Remember 2nd Lt. Caron Nazario?

10 Benghazi investigations, 0 into the Fort Hood murders. Can you guess who blocked that? I wonder what conservatives would be saying about Lt. Nazario if he had happened to have kneeled next to Colin Kaepernick?

Conservatives seem to support and/or believe in an abstract, fetishized version of the troops, all fueled by handshakes, prayers and yellow ribbons. Y'all hear about how libs strip money away from the military, because "we don't care" or whatever Fox News is saying, right? Meanwhile, here's Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) sitting on the House Armed Service Committee and using his position on the committee to make over 90 trades of stock, some in a major defense contractor, earning millions of dollars in the process.

Do you honestly believe that any conservative, let alone Trump, thinks you should even have the benefits of healthcare?

$725 billion annual military budget, but instead everything goes to the NSA, the CIA, the DHS, ICE...How many times were we lied to about help coming with regards to the VA? This is the best help we can give our veterans? Is this a joke? “You can count on us to serve, but we can’t count on the VA to make a deadline,” as one veteran said. No one steals from service members while lying through their teeth like these MAGA conservatives or Trump!

Let's not pretend he's an advocate for mental health, either; look no further than Ashli Babbitt. Talk about being used as a political prop! (Sadly, nearly 1 in 5 of those arrested for storming the US Capitol have served.) They only seem to like you when you're a martyr, it seems. But he's just pulling on your heart strings, making you feel like this is the next Pat Tillman.

Do you ever ask yourself why it always seems to always suddenly shift from "lives spent" to "lives wasted" whenever the other guy's in office?

Speaking of lives being used for political gain, how many of you enlisted after 9/11? Never forget how the GOP fought tooth and nail to not have to pay for 9/11 first responders medical treatments.

Bennington College published documents showing the US military ordered the clandestine burning of over 20m pounds of AFFF (Aqueous Film Forming Foam) and AFFF waste between 2016-2020, emitting these toxins into the air and onto nearby communities, farms, and waterways.

Is this the America that you signed up to fight for? Cuz if not, then vote like it.

Here's to hoping y'all read this and choose to make a difference again.

#us politics #us military #republicans #conservatives #donald trump #happy memorial day #gop #trump administration #long post #my thoughts

[wlw-webcomic-bracket]

THE WLW WEBCOMIC COUPLES BRACKET

Your nominations are in, your votes have been counted, and the WLW Webcomic Couples Bracket is assembled! There are 64 entries, broken up for early rounds into eight groups of eight couples or poly ships.

It will take me a while to find images to use in the polls, so keep the propaganda coming while I get them ready! (And if your propaganda includes original images from the webcomic that I can use, it will help the process go that much faster.) A text version of the matchups, along with a short note on seeding, is below the cut.

<3

The bracket is lightly seeded - the eight couples or ships with 10-15 nominations each were given the first seed in each group, then couples with 3-7 nominations were given second through fourth seed, and the remaining slots were filled by couples with two nominations. The exception is a handful of cases in which two couples from a single webcomic qualified, in which case they will go up against each other in the first round regardless of seeding.

First-round matchups are as follows:

Group 1

Undine and Kokoro (Sleepless Domain) vs Aarya and Liza (Facing the Sun)

Dani and Christy (My Dragon Girlfriend) vs Tess and Mira (Seven Days in Silverglen)

Sun and Babs (Unfamiliar) vs Arachne and Scarlet (Bugtopia)

Adrian and Hildegard (A&H Club) vs Mia and Grace (On a Sunbeam)

Group 2

Boo and Mimi (Rainbow!) vs Mina and Valerie (Paranatural)

Aya and Mitsuki (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All) vs Radiant Goddess and Acolyte (Lady of the Shard)

Almond and Peridot (Cucumber Quest) vs Sylvia and Jerry (Charity Case)

Becky and Dina (Dumbing of Age) vs Beau and Julie (Offbeat)

Group 3

Camille, Dendro, and Nyra (Muted) vs Jen and Rocker (Starward Lovers)

Daphne and Veronika (Lesbiampires) vs Claire and Robin (Hard Lacquer)

Sapphia and Odette (High Class Homos) vs Sapphia and Marla (High Class Homos)

Evie and Jack (Pandora's Devils) vs Faye and Bubbles (Questionable Content)

Group 4

Sunati and Austen (Almost Human) vs Honey Hart and Turpentine (Band vs Band)

Mari and Mica (The Four of Them) vs Fiona and Lia (YU+ME: Dream)

Tara and Darcy (Heartstopper) vs Shiina and Mimi (My Wish Is to Fall In Love Until You Die)

Hotaru, Kayla, and Elise (Shootaround) vs Selva and Alice (Namesake)

Group 5

Rose and Kanaya (Homestuck) vs Alex and Lucky (Finding Wonderland)

Delilah and Cheryl (I Want to Be a Cute Anime Girl) vs Hazel and Willie (A Week in Warrigilla)

Allison and Cio (Kill Six Billion Demons) vs Shim Chong and Madam Jang (Her Tale of Shim Chong)

Nell and Jolie (Cursed Princess Club) vs Tabitha and Poppy (Vampire Girlfriends)

Group 6

Lenore and Annabel Lee (Nevermore) vs Mica, Liv, and Red (The Greenhouse)

Ludovica and Luck (Tiger, Tiger) vs Jock, Prep, Nerd, and Goth (Boyfriends)

Roomie and Lillian (Go Get a Roomie) vs Lola and Sugar (Drop-Out)

Kat and Paz (Gunnerkrigg Court) vs Zimmy and Gamma (Gunnerkrigg Court)

Group 7

Rei and Hanna (Not So Shoujo Love Story) vs Claudia and Ava (Console Her)

Quinn and Hana (Encore!) vs Rina and Noa (Us Right Now)

Sun Jing and Qiu Tong (Tamen De Gushi/Their Story) vs Eliza and Darcy (Wilde Life)

Charo and Alesea (Dame Daffodil) vs Sophia and Olivia (It's Okay to Like Girls)

Group 8

Malori and Velverosa (Mage & Demon Queen) vs Connie and Carla (Rock and Riot)

Isaline and Theodora (Isadora) vs Penny and Bianca (Sunflowers & Lavender)

Ellen and Nanase (El Goonish Shive) vs Catalina and Rhoda (El Goonish Shive)

Lili and Sera (Monsters and Girls) vs Mad Spade and Miss Sunshine (My Sweet Archenemy)

[paintedvanilla]

hey!! i would love to hear some of your head cannons for your ‘every man you’re every been’ fic because i am literally obsessed with their dynamic as a domestic couple who still struggle to express their emotions still.

i love you writing so much btw, you are fuelling my fight club obsession in the best way possible!!

Punching the air thank you SO MUCH for asking I am OBSESSED with their dynamic in this au

Me and manar were literally talking about this last night about the balance of domestication between the two of them, and we agreed that like. Tyler absolutely undomesticated the narrator in a sense, but the narrator also has a little bit of a counter balance effect on Tyler? He domesticates him slightly. They eventually reach an equilibrium. And maybe one day they’ll even get a bed frame who knows. Probably not.

Anyway this is corny of me but I took the love languages test for both of them and the results were actually very fascinating. Gift giving didn’t place for either of them so I’m completely ignoring it here. Both of them scored physical touch as their second place and quality time as their third place, but interestingly their first and last places were flipped. The narrator has words of affirmation as his first place, Tyler has it as his last. Tyler has acts of service as his first place, the narrator has it as his last.

I think this affects their dynamic very much as seen in “every man you’ve ever been” when Tyler says I love you to the narrator for the first time after they’ve been together for seven years. Which is an absurd amount of time to wait to say such a thing. But the thing is from Tyler’s perspective that’s not the first time he’s said it. Every little thing he does for the narrator is meant to be a declaration of love. But the narrator doesn’t necessarily interpret them like this because Tyler has never laid a foundation for what he’s trying to communicate with his actions. He just does things and expects the narrator to understand what they mean. He thinks it should be unspoken. And the narrator cannot function like that. The narrator doubts himself and the way Tyler perceives him constantly, and Tyler’s unwillingness to communicate how he’s feeling Does Not help. I think this causes a lot of issues in their relationship. They’ll figure it out eventually but it is a touchy subject for both of them.

Additionally how they met and get together in this au is something I’ve kind of referenced but I really want to eventually write a full on fic for. The way I’m writing it, Tyler and the narrator briefly meet on a nude beach in florida, Tyler immediately becomes obsessed with him and follows him home, stalks him for 18 months and then blows up his condo. The plot proceeds as it does in the movie, the narrator calls him after meeting him on the plane, they get a drink, they fight, they both really enjoy the fight (it awakens many things in both of them), they go back to the paper street house, the narrator starts living there, the encounter with Marla takes place, she and Tyler start sleeping together, the narrator wants to kill himself, yadda yadda yadda

Throughout all this tho the narrator is dealing with a whole identity crisis because prior to meeting Tyler the narrator had noooo idea he was into men. Like it never once occurred to him. He just thought he had the worlds lowest sex drive and was coincidentally not attracted to any woman he had ever laid eyes on. Then he meets Tyler and he’s already like Jesus Christ why does he look like that and why does it make me feel things. And then they have their little fist fight and oohhhhh god does it awaken things in the narrator. He thinks of little else. He’s agonizing and obsessing over this man and unaware that Tyler is just as obsessed with him.

Anyway, Tyler won’t make a move because he can tell the narrator is so incredibly repressed and is actively fighting against any impulse to do something about how he feels, so he waits until the narrator fucking snaps and then the two of them are all over each other, literally inseparable. Tyler tells the narrator about the whole stalking situation and the narrator is a little freak who thinks that’s the hottest thing he’s ever heard in his life, like, genuinely gets way too excited about it. And now the two of them are practically sewn together and cannot be pried apart. Bonded pair do not separate.

Other miscellaneous headcanons:

the narrator cannot swim

Tyler kisses the little mole on the narrators chin

the two of them have never and will never utter the word “cuddle” it’s always “laying down”

Tyler is the fucking miracle cure for the narrators insomnia. When they’re in bed together, the narrator can sleep. When they fight, Tyler uses this against him and will purposefully make sure he can’t sleep for days at a time.

The narrator cannot remember dates for the fucking life of him. He’s great at math, can calculate tip and tax in his head, has a fuck ton of formulas memorized for work, but cannot remember dates

He also frequently loses track of what day it is. He never knows the date.

By the time Tyler and the narrator have been together 7 years the narrator has only remembered two of his birthdays within that time. The others passed without him noticing. He has to do math with the year he was born to remember how old he is.

Tyler on the other hand remembers all dates, always, the instant he’s been told them. He always remembers the narrators birthday, their anniversary, and Valentine’s Day, among other important dates in his head

The narrator still has to sing the months of the year song they teach to you in kindergarten in his head to remember the order of the months

The narrator is autistic. I am an autistic narrator truther. He does not know this about himself nor will he ever know this about himself. He just thinks he’s a little quirky

The narrator is scared of driving and being a passenger in cars. He has his license but never wants to drive

The narrator wishes he’d studied something like English literature in college instead of finance

Tyler learned how to make soap from his mom

Tyler makes the narrator come to work with him at the theater sometimes because he cannot stand being apart from that man

That’s all I can think of at the moment I hope this suffices. Thank you for your kind words I’m going to explode. <333

#op #fight club #finchers-ipad #:0)