#it's weird the tangents your brain goes on sometimes

[banamine-bananime]

AITA for trying to save my friend and keep the rest of my asshole friends safe from their bad decisions?

I (M26) just went through this real shitty breakup. So basically, my ex C (M lmao man fuck if i know his age idek if knows it. or has one i guess) has this god-fucking-awful habit of deciding to solve every problem by dying about it and/or fucking off without so much as a word to the people unfortunate enough to give a shit about him, except maybe his sister (unhelpful for the rest of us because she also inherited the "fucking off without a word" gene. man fuck this whole family for making me care about them. whatever). Also, killing himself inside peoples brains thats like a whole hobby for him. like okay either ghost us OR kill yourself in front of us altering the trajectory of our lives forever PICK ONE like a NORMAL person.

Okay wait im not explaining this well. So years ago C and W (M37 now) were partners but C was, uh, in a really bad place mentally (S is telling me this is more diplomatic to say than "crazy af") and that situationship ended as badly as a situationship can end. I mean W's told me he pretty much had his sense of identity as someone separate from C totally destroyed by that for a while, which like, in hindsight its kinda an accidental dick move that our team made him take C's legal identity, but in our defense a) the fuck were we supposed to know?, b) tbf he really did need it not to go back to prison, c) it's not like C was using his identity, on account of the fucking off and effectively-dying-as-a-solution habits, and d) i mean. i gotta admit it's also pretty funny in a really fucked way.

aw shit derailed on a tangent again

recently its just like, we just get so focused on one thing its hard to remember anything else, you know?

S is so good at getting us back on track though. thank god because you would not believe the number of irons weve got in the fire to keep track of, its ridiculous. (i love making my partner be the planner in the relationship lol. highly recommend being a passenger princess in the body sometimes. fuck massages, i'm telling you THIS is what you need after a long day getting shit DONE and taking care of everyone else's messes)

So I met C 6 years ago, right out of basic, when we were privates stationed at the same base. middle of nowhere. shit, this is gonna be hard to explain, just realized i should use different names for C to keep them straight. I knew "A" and W knew "E", i didnt meet E until years later. theyre alters and also the same guy but also not the same guy. dont worry about it if you dont get it bc ive dated both of them and i dont think i do. my life is stupid.

Bunch of bullshit happened, A ghosted (lol. you'd be high-fiving me if you knew him) and then found a problem to solve by dying. you get it by now.

Then i meet E, E encounters a problem and tries to die about it round one (i guess round two, after exploding in W <- LOL. you should be high-fiving me right now), E's sister drags him back to the land of the living, E ghosts, W and i start dating, W tries to martyr himself and disappears because i guess E rubbed off on him (dude i am on a fucking roll. you should be high-fiving me out of pity for my glamorously miserable soap-opera life if nothing else. homophobic not to), our team gets W back, E strolls back like he has no idea why im mad at him, we fight about it, makeup-makeouts about it, and E tries to die about it round two: in my brain boogaloo.

So thats how S and i meet. oops, guess i never introduced S? Feels weird to have to introduce ourself twice, people dont really meet us separately anymore LOL. S (M, ageless) is also C's alter, my partner in life and badassery and brain and body. and obviously freaky sex stuff, that goes without saying but i'm saying it anyway to brag. the swish swish to my stabbing people who really deserve it. Not really interested in your opinion on our relationship, it's not what i'm asking about. we're aware its not conventional, because we're not fucking braindead. Im so sick of all the "oooohhhhh this isn't healthy", "he's a male manipulator and youre codependent i know bc i learned psychology from tiktoks by girls with green hair", "why are you wearing your ex-boyfriend's armor colors while wearing his dead ex-boyfriend's armor while dating and sharing a brain with your dead mutual ex's alter", "have you considered going to therapy instead of a quest against death itself" blah blah blah. If youre so bored you need to judge our life then just get your own 🙄🙄🙄

we've been really on that sigma grindset the last few weeks. S has got our sleep optimized down to a tight triphasic 3.46 hours and we're minmaxing the fuck out of the rest of every day. Biohacked to shit over here. too much to do, so we have to make there be enough of our time to do it. who else is gonna? my teammates? the REDS? we're half batman half babysitter to a gaggle of idiots who can barely be trusted to wipe their own asses, let alone fight their own battles and make decisions like "wah wah wah A is dead let's just give up and cry about it or whatever".

Don't even get me started on W. Oh youre all about character-building wake up and grind self-improvement and taking leadership until we're making decisions you dont like, i guess. WHATEVER. this is why we dont listen to you.

its hard, okay. like, you cant understand the sheer fucking stress were under trying to keep all our plans going smoothly while keeping these guys safe while they're basically actively trying to unravel every carefully-laid thread and also strangle themselves in them. im probably going prematurely grey and also losing some time. its hard to remember when we need to hold back and use the kiddy gloves. i really didnt want to come to holding - uh, we'll call him MC (M25) - by the throat, passed-out. he's like a brother to me, been through thick and fucking thin together, so yeah, i feel really bad about that, my bad, we were the asshole there, but like, maybe stop throwing yourself in the way? like run out into the road you're gonna get hit by a truck no matter how hard they slam the brakes. mfw the conses quence. but im NOT asking about that. everyone's been on our dick about "please god stop doing all of this" and abandoning A and trying to break us up way before that, and THAT'S what im asking about

Anyways tl;dr are we the asshole for getting shit done when it takes methods that all our monday morning quarterback friends dont like

_____

OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:

it really was a dick move to dangle my teammate's limp body in a chokehold even though it was basically an accident and also not even directly relevant to the question

OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might not be the asshole:

okay but we're right

#red vs blue #rvb restoration #lavernius tucker

[mecachrome]

Hi k! I love reading your ojp scholarship, as he has crept up on me and taken over my brain. Weird question but why do you think he picked Lando as his guy to be a bit weird about?

hi anon 🥺 first off thank u for indulging me & also that is not a weird question at all!!!

ok obviously this is just me saying Anything so i apologize in advance T__T but tbh i think a lot of it ultimately goes back to the idea of lando's ~Proximity~ and how a very specific mélange of career circumstance laid out a foundation for oscar's interest extremely early on... which. let me explain!!! more behind the cut:

not to go on too much of a tangent but if you look at the current drivers in f1 who are roughly within a few years of oscar's age and could have feasibly been someone he'd looked up to coming up the ranks, i'd say the cutoff is like, 2018? so the group is basically charles/george/alex/lando, of whom the first 3 were alr in intrepid together (albeit in diff categories) when oscar had barely started karting at all. also alex moved up to single-seaters very early and his career/road to f1 is obviously a lot more complex than the others, so in reality the only ones oscar would have properly "followed" are lando and george, and then having gone through rfm & british f4 himself it makes sense that he'd lean more toward lando.

...idk how to put this succinctly but basically it's Like: so you're a kid in australia who believes in yourself so much you're willing to move halfway across the globe and attend boarding school by yourself while all your friends and family and the World As You've Always Known It grows and changes without you, and the team you're determined to prove yourself at has semi-recently achieved victory with a guy named lando norris, who is now british f4 champion and runs three separate series the same year you move to europe and goes on to win them all, who is extremely accessible on social media and is kind of awkward but charming and uses dumb unfunny gifs that match your level of online humor exactly, and all the while you're learning to navigate a new country, learning what it really means to prioritize the endless grind of motorsport, and you wouldn't dare look too far ahead into the future but sometimes you see him and think if he can keep winning everything then why not you?

So. also i think what always krills meeee about young_814 lore is that you have to really envision what they looked like circa 2016 like they were undersized dweebs for a majority of their lives!!! anyway. but also nasdlfnagk every time oscar is like i thought you were 30 with your goatee going on haha xD it's like U knowww he's flashing back to that image of little baby lando in his mind..... ok i need to relax.

there are of course other people oscar could have been weird about but in the end it's kind of just a Skill Issue thing / matter of attrition. like from the rfm pack max and logan and guanyu never progressed the same way lando did, and you also have to remember that by the time lando was a mclaren junior he was genuinely their Golden BoyTM, and i know we often talk about lando's competency kink but oscar is also similar to that but in like a ........ he needs to respect you on some fundamental level to be obsessed with you. so the fact that he genuinely rates lando contributes (imo) massively to the fundamentals of their dynamic!!!

also tbh to me one of oscar's biggest mental strengths is specifically that he isn't a very sentimental person, as in if he left to another team i don't think he'd be torn up or anything about not having lando as a teammate lol. but i DO believe he's someone who adapts very well to unfamiliar environments and is always willing to match someone's energy/meet them where they're at (again - especially when he respects them), so he's basically the perfect person to vibe with lando's idiosyncrasies and engage in all the lighthearted push/pulling they have going on. because like he genuinely thinks lando is funny and is more than happy to follow along his meandering bantz and the weirder lando is the weirder oscar is in response and that's just how they Work ?__? so At the end of the day it's: oscar was once a teenage boy who followed (still does) at ladbible instagram and watched the same gaming streamers lando likes or whatever and has seen lando grow into the man he is today (way more confident and "visible" and successful, very much a menace, brutally honest as ever) from this Very Specific vantage point of basically the only other junior after lando to have followed the same path to f1 and been Equally as good / achieved the same stock.

*__* does any of that make sense. 

do u ever think about how lando (extensively nurtured by the team as their only junior) and oscar (basically crashlanded belatedly into his seat) are the only driver pairing in team history to have both debuted with mclaren........ do you ever think about how in a way lando's karting success indirectly influenced oscar's move to europe. do you ever think about how if alpine weren't an abject mess we would have never gotten 814 as teammates and lando would have just been Another Guy On The Grid to him........ 😮‍💨

#ask #me: i'll be brief. also me: (writes 20 paragraphs)

[zzthezany]

brains are weird because sometimes you'll be looking for a monologue and your mom will joke that you should do a monologue from star trek and the first monologue that pops into your head is that tangent that bashir goes on in the emissary about why he chose to be cmo on ds9 and you'll be like "wait, how does that go again?" and your brain will be like "something something frontier medicine, something something heroes are born in the wilderness, something something easy hookups" and you'll be like "brain, wHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?!"

brains are weird.

#for reference he never says anything about hooking up with anyone in that speech #it's kinda in the subtext though if you read between the lines because it feels like bashir is never not thinking about that #either way it was weird that my brain went there first #brains are weird #thoughts #star trek ds9 #julian bashir

[propalitet]

Your post got me thinking, and I'm kinda going off at a tangent here. So you basically get a bunch of words because you made a cool post...?

Like, I feel connected to my culture to an extent. I think it's cool. I love our literature, the things my people've made, the stories we always told. But like. Most of our culture, nearly all of our history, and especially our early, medieval history is like. Heavily connected to the far-right. Like, very heavily. And something at the back of my brain goes "Ew." every damn time I want to pick something up. Also even looking up some things online will sometimes lead you to some really fucking weird nationalist websites.

I feel connected to my culture! And fortunately I don't want to touch nazi shit! But like, I wish more people I don't want to deck cared and put effort into learning about things...?

When I'm talking about culture and tradition I usually invision how people used to live in smaller villages. I think about the way they dressed, their everyday tasks, the songs they sang, the food they ate.

When I talk about tradition I do not ignore the circumstances of the history however we do not live in the past.

I see a lot of people denounce their culture because their tradition is conservative, but I think they fail to realize that you can take aspects of your culture and tradition and make them fit yourself.

You can take the way people dressed and the food they ate, but you do not need to hold their values.

#am i making sense i hope i am #asks

[edith-moonshadow]

I read a post earlier about how everyone talks about how big Steve’s dick is in stories (I was going to say this is relevant I promise but I don’t know if I can claim that) and I thought ‘huh I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about his dick, have I?’ 

Now I write about bottom Steve so maybe not such a big deal but apparently my brain didn’t agree because even though I’ve got my second chapter of Ever Since We Met to edit I’ve written 3,500 words about big dicked Steve who thinks he’s an Alpha due to this but then Nancy leaves him for Jonathan in the same week that Alpha asshole extraordinaire Billy Hargrove arrives in town while listening to Lana Del Rey sing Brooklyn Baby on repeat and the end doesn’t seem to be in sight. 

Someone really needs to come along and take the internet off me.

#harringrove #alpha beta omega #alpha billy hargrove #omega Steve Harrington #top billy hargrove #bottom steve harrington #my writing #it's weird the tangents your brain goes on sometimes #also I've travelled back to season two again #although sometimes it's just too irresistible #I saw another post today about how they only share four minutes of screen time #that's wild #but I love how the fandom has taken it and run with it

[hotwings0203]

Guys I’m having another Bakugo brainrot

Tw: bullying, noncon, nonconsensual peeping, manipulation

Remember that one episode of MHA where the class goes to the sauna and M*neta tries to check da girls out over the wall?

Imagine the same scenario, but years later when they’re all older

The class wanted a reunion, just to relax and blow off some steam

You’re with the girls, and you all lay back in the hot water reminiscing about the older days when everyone was still getting the hang of their own quirks

Mina brings up this exact same scene but years ago.

“Ohmigosh, do you guys remember the last time we came in our first year here and Mineta totally tried to get a peek at us?”

“Ugh, I hope Iida is keeping a good hold on him right now,” Ochacko giggles, kicking her feet up to rest on a rock

You hum in agreement, tilting your head back to rest against the wooden wall separating you and the boys.

As it was, Uraraka was almost spot on with her hopes. Except, Iida and Tokoyami were out getting refreshments for the rest of the boys, leaving the remaining group to their own plot.

Which was lead by Mineta, of course, who had the brilliant idea to spy on the girls, just like they almost did years back.

“Guys, come on, please they’re right there!” He practically salivates, wildly gesturing to the tall wooden wall in front of them.

Most of them shift uncomfortably and groan about him being a creep as usual, but the rest stay silent.

Mineta takes their lack of outright refusal as fuel to keep blabbering.

“Look, we almost got away with it back then-“

“-You mean you got away with it, we didn’t do shit. And you didn’t exactly get off scot-free, Kota completely demolished your attempts and you landed ass down on Four-Eyes’ face,” Bakugo drawls, leaning his head backwards and looking up at the obsidian sky. The boys laugh, remembering the ridiculous event.

The night is cool, the stars littering the inky atmosphere take the pressure off of Bakugo’s lungs. For weeks now they’ve been training like dogs, battling each other and even minor villains for extra practice of their quirks. This trip was supposed to be a leisure getaway, not a free porno.

But the grape-headed perv is insistent, scoffing and waving the blond’s quip off like some annoying fly.

“You know, there’s something in it for you too, Bakugo. I’ve seen the way you look at Y/N.”

This causes a murmur and a couple of light beers towards the blond, who in turn snarls and ignites his hand to quell the commotion. All of them had an inkling that Katsuki Bakugo had finally set his sights on some poor girl, and that was you. It was such a rare sight to see his face flush slightly when you walked past him, the way he stuttered over his words a bit when you two would be conversing amongst the same group, and best of all, when they would see how he would excuse himself to the bathroom or locker room occasionally when your hero suit would tear in certain places after battles.

“Shut the fuck up 3’2, unlike you I don’t need to ogle at those brain dead bimbos.”

“Oh? I didn’t realize you thought of Y/N as a ‘brain dead bimbo’, Bakugo, I’ll be sure to let her know how you feel” Mineta grinned maliciously, and the boys ‘oooo’ed at the jab.

Bakugo’s voice caught in his throat.

“You wouldn’t,” he growled, rising slightly out of the water.

“I already know you’ll kill me afterwards, but I’m prepared for the repercussions if you don’t help...cooperate here,” Grapehead inspected a cuticle and feigned a yawn.

“Come on Bakugo, it’s not like it’s gonna hurt anyone! Well keep this to ourselves,” Denki chimed in a little too eagerly.

“Yeah, I mean, we’re only asking for your and everyone’s support so that we can focus better on training y’know? A little fun never killed anyone.” Sero threw his arm over Kirishima’s shoulder, who blushed at the whole ordeal but kept silent all the while.

Katsuki looked around. Slowly, others were starting to really listen in and look interested at the outcome of Mineta’s plan. Surely a little peeping wouldn’t be too bad would it? And plus, it was only a one time thing.

Shoto was faring the same way as Kirishima, quiet and maybe embarrassed at what they were planning on doing, but no outright refusal. Even Deku had a weird longing glint in his eye, the same kind he would get when he used to fawn over All Might.

He thought about it for a minute more, a chance to see you, naked, honest, and pure, splashing around with your friends as you let your femininity dangle as it pleased.

“Do whatever the hell you want. I’m not taking blame if the bird and glasses come back, though.”

Hushed cheers and excited murmurs erupt from around the spring, and they huddle together to form a plan.

A couple minutes later, the boys were grouping around the wooden panels. Todoroki had burned a hole into the soft wood, and sero had used his transparent tape to cover it up so that the girls couldn’t see it from their side.

And there they were, completely bare, hair flowing, curves showing, voices mature and high pitched giggles emanating from around the water and bank.

Bakugo seeks you out immediately after the hole is made, shoving his way through the crowded bodies much to the amusement of others. But he doesn’t care, all he wants at the moment is to see you in your most honest element.

He doesn’t have to look long, because you’re right there, you’re right in front of them, only a few meters away. Your back is facing them, but the sight of your smooth, naked back and the round curve of your ass squishing against the rocks underneath you is enough to make Bakugo’s cock bob painfully above the water. It’s not too hard to hide his erection since the boys’s attention is elsewhere at the moment.

Your hair is open, and he wants nothing more than to feel it in his hands, run his fingers though your scalp and pull so hard that your neck is snapped back, he wants to know what kind of noises you’ll make for him, would you sound shrill and high pitched or would you wail and bellow for him to let go?

They can hear the girls talking amongst themselves, the hole in the wall makes their voices more audible and clear.

“Quit playing coy, Jirou, we know you’ve got your eye on someone,” Hagakure’s body is nowhere to be found as usual, but her chipper voice rings out from the middle of the hot spring.

Jirou is a few feet away from where you sit, her body also being shown for everyone to see. Bakugo glances at Kaminari to confirm his suspicion, but gags and quickly looks away when he gets an eyeful of his friends’ erect cock.

Not that Bakugo himself has room to talk, though.

“I mean, not really, it’s not a big deal.” The ravenette shifts and hides her head from the rest of girls’ cooing.

“Uh huh, sure. You’re not fooling anyone Kiyoka, I’ve seen the way you look at Denki. You two can’t keep your eyes off each other, it’s cute,” you purr, and Bakugo holds himself back from shoving the other guys out of the way just so that he can hear your voice the best.

Squeals and sounds of splashing fill the air, and Sero and Kirishima whisper excitedly and clap their red-faced friend on the back. Denki can’t keep the 50K watt smile off his face, and even Bakugo grunts and knocks shoulders with him, letting him know that he was happy for the human charger.

But then Jirou claps back with her own snarky observation, and the boys fall hush at the new revelation.

“Alright, you wanna talk about ogling Y/N? Then tell me, how’s Deku doing?”

“Or Bakugo, too,” Mina adds slyly, and now all the girls’ attention, as well as the boys’, is on you.

Bakugo felt like he had whiplash. He would’ve been elated, on Cloud 9 even to hear that maybe you had something for him too, had shitty Deku’s name not have been thrown in there too.

And he looks around wildly for the green haired freak, the freckles dusted across the expanse of his face even more prominent from the deep blush quickly forming, his scarred hands holding the sides of his face shaking in awe and gleeful shock.

But the rest of the boys aren’t as oblivious to how Bakugo seethes at his rival’s joy, from the way the water gets hotter from his quirk sparking underneath the rippling waves. Kirishima scoots closer to his friend and gently lays a hand on his shoulder as if to say, calm down, man. Not right now.

And so the hothead leaves it for the time being, opting to hear your response.

“I-it’s really nothing, they’re both just good classmates like the rest of the guys,” and although your back is turned to them, it doesn’t take a genius to know that you’re embarrassed too, your leg skittishly bouncing in front of you is making your ass jiggle from the back, much to the delight of the salivating boys.

Bakugo wants to spill blood when he suddenly realizes your body is being shown for the rest of these dogs to see

The girls start teasing you, your splutters being drowned out by their playful accusations.

“Come on L/N, whose cuter?”

“Dont act all coy now, I know how nervous you get when you’re all close to Bakugo. I mean I don’t blame you, have you seen his muscles? He could crush someone’s head with those things!”

“Yeah, but have you seen the way she giggles when Deku starts his mumbling tangents? That’s a classic crush right there.”

Bakugo is getting desperate to hear your answer now, some of the boys have left, feeling like they had their full of excitement for the night. They saw some tits and ass, heard some gossip, end of story.

The only ones remaining were Bakugo and his gang, as well as IcyHot and Shitty Deku.

Shitty Deku, who seemed equally eager to hear your response.

It pissed him off that he wasn’t getting the message to fuck off, even after all the growling and death stares he was receiving from his childhood friend.

But he guesses after a lifetime of dealing with it, it doesn’t scare Deku as much as it does anymore.

Maybe he’ll have to amp it up, later

“W-well I mean both of them have their own respective...flaws and strengths I guess..sometimes Deku can be kinda hard to talk to ‘cuz he’s so shy, but Bakugo can be a real jerk at times, too.”

You trail off, and Bakugo scoffs to himself. Him? Flaws? Those two words didn’t go well in one sentence together, but nonetheless he continues to listen. He wouldn’t refute the notion of him being an asshole, he wasnt that delusional.

“And yeah, I mean Bakugo definitely intimidates me sometimes with how aggressive he can be, but Deku is definitely getting up there in terms of physical prowess. But in terms of who I like, I’d have to say-“

“Midoriya! Bakugo! What are you two doing over there?”

Iidas voice booms across the water, and all 6 of the boys jump back, startled at the intrusion.

“No, wait-“ Bakugo hisses, clawing his way towards the hole to hear the rest of what you had to say, but Sero and Todoroki shove him back and patch the hole up with fire and tape, shutting off your confession.

Deku waves his arms around wildly, stammering some excuse of dropping his towel in the spot where they all were sheepishly gathered. They eventually waded their way over to where Tokoyami had set the drinks down, but the blond was shaking with hot rage despite the cool refreshment that was shoved into his hand by a wary Kirishima.

“Don’t sweat it dude, it’s not like her and Midoriya are gonna da-“

“Finish that sentence and I’ll blast both your and his head off,” he glowers at the redhead, shorting a dark look to where an all-too-happy Deku was chatting with Todoroki, as if they hadn’t been drooling over their naked classmates merely a couple minutes ago.

Kirishima backs off with raised hands in surrender, leaving Katsuki to mull over the situation by himself.

You couldn’t seriously be interested in that green haired freak, right? I mean he could barely talk to a girl without tripping over his own damn tongue, for fucks sake.

Not that he was any better himself. He failed to acknowledge the times where you had merely asked him for an extra pencil, when he snapped at you for being such a fuckin’ dumbass that you couldn’t even remember to bring your own shit. He had done that out of pure impulse, but he regretted it the moment he saw your face fall, his heart clenching at the sight

He’d have to show you that he was the better option, regardless of if you wanted it or not.

And so when they had all gotten out of the water and gotten ready for food, Bakugo already knew what he had to do.

You were all eating outside in the camp pavilion, each at their own separate tables. He was sitting with the boys, all of them joking around and throwing food at each other while he was staring you down.

He couldn’t keep his eyes off you. How could you expect him to, after he had seen half of you bare already? It was sinful almost, the way you were completely in the dark about what he had seen and heard, while he himself was fantasizing about what you looked like and felt like on the front.

So when Deku came by your table, no doubt also having the same conversation of the springs in mind, wanting to get closer to you, Bakugo felt his sanity snap.

The fork he held in his hand started melting in his ignited hand, steam curling from his palm. He watched as the green-eyed fuck made successful shitty attempts to make you laugh, his eyes trained on where you gently laid a hand on his shoulder after something he said that made you throw your head back and howl with glee.

“Hey man, your fork-!” Kaminari yelped, pointing at the disfigured mess of metal in his friend’s steaming hand.

“Huh?” Bakugo was pulled out of his irate daze, and he quickly dropped the fork when he saw what he unconsciously did.

They all looked at him for an uneasy minute after noticing the expression on his face, no doubt understanding he was furious about being compared to Deku once again in front of you.

“Look, Bakugo, don’t really take what Y/N said to heart. We don’t know who she actually likes, and Midoriya’s just her friend...” but Sero trails off hesitantly after glancing in your direction, seeing Deku’s dreamy expression as your hand still continues to rest on his shoulder.

“Just let her come to you, yeah? You don’t wanna force anything on her, that’ll make her really uncomfortable-“

-“Shut the fuck up Shitty Hair, and mind your own damn business,” Bakugo interjects, abruptly unscrewing his drink and standing up, unable to lose you to some broccoli- headed bug-eyed fuck.

He stiffly walks across the pavilion to where you two sit, and feigns a swig from his bottle. Your focus is still on Deku, so you don’t notice him approach until he comes up behind you two and ‘trip’s, falling forward and strategically spilling the liquid all over Deku’s back and your front.

You squeal as your blouse is drenched, and Deku shoots up from his seat to grab some napkins while searching for the perpetrator.

“What the- Kacchan?”

“Oops.”

Bewildered, you look at the two while dabbing the wet splotches on your shirt, Mina and Tsu jumping into action to help you.

The boys exchange a weird look, and although Bakugo gave his version of an apology, he doesn’t look very sorry. In fact, if you saw it right he looked almost...smug? With a bit of anger?

Deku wasn’t any easier to understand either. His voice was lilted as usual while he grabbed napkins, but his gaze never left his childhood friends’ and his eyes weren’t exactly the big doe-eyes you had grown fond of.

They were darkened, and narrowed as they bored into Bakugo’s eyes. Neither one of them was looking away from each other, and there was a weird tension in the air that everyone could sense.

But you couldn’t focus on that right now, you had to go and wash up.

“I gotta change and maybe take a shower, I can feel it sticking to my skin,” you scrunch your nose in disgust and tell Mina as you stand to leave. Deku offers to walk you, but you wave him off kindly.

As you pass by Bakugo, you can feel his eyes rove up and down your body, very obviously staring at the way your white shirt clings to your chest from the liquid, sending chills up your spine.

But he doesn’t come after you, not yet.

It’s only after everyone has finished up from their dinner and headed off to bed almost 20 minutes later that the showers finally, finally warm up enough for you to dip a hesitant toe in.

Curse the old pipes.

*******

He watches you from the dark, the only light you’re provided with is the dim emergency light from the rusty bulb, the camp counselors having been shut the facility’s lights off merely a half hour ago. But you were stubborn in waiting for the water to warm up so you were left alone in the showers, shifting uncomfortably in your sticky wet clothes.

And then miraculously you get up for the umpteenth time to check the temperature of the water, and it’s finally deemed appropriate for you when you sigh in relief and start taking your shoes off.

He hides in the door partition, his cock hardening slowly as he thinks of you alone with just him and his mercy. You were going to pay for almost breaking his heart and prancing around with stupid fucking Deku instead.

But asides from his rage, he still liked you, a lot. He wanted you to want him as much as he wanted you, so he decided to try and attempt to make your first time with him as gentle and as special as he could in the dirty cabin showers.

Bakugo waits with bated breath for the right moment, and the second your hands grip the end of your shirt to pull it up, he slowly emerges from the dark.

“You know, I’m glad you came here alone, at night. It’s almost like you wanted this.”

You jump violently at the low voice coming from seemingly nowhere, and you wildly look around for the source until you see him...coming at you slow from the inky abyss of the room, like a predator stalking his prey.

His figure seems to loom even larger than he actually is, the shadows of his tall body bouncing off the walls and grazing over the top of your head. He seems to be in no rush, taking his time with his hands in his pockets, eyes flashing dangerously at you as he stalks forward until he’s backed you up against the deteriorating wall, chest to chest with you.

“W-what the hell, Bakugo,” you stammer nervously. “This is the girls room, you can’t be here-“

And the hand you raise to push him away is caught in his calloused ones, your other wrist is quickly seized as well and slammed above your head. You cry out in pain and try kicking out, but he wedges a bulky knee in between your thigh and shoves his face mere millimeters away from yours, a mean leer adorning his normally-attractive face.

“What, I can’t be here? And here I was thinking that you almost liked me. But oh, I forgot, Deku’s your favorite, right?” The grip on your wrist tigthens and his leg flexes from in between your thighs.

You squirm and sob, about to ask what the hell he was talking about-

Oh.

Oh no.

He sees the understanding pass over your face, and he laughs cruelly at the horror that comes with it.

“You heard me? How?”

“Not just heard. I saw you, too.”

He lets his eyes drop from your neck, to your chest, and then to the juncture between your legs which was being massaged by his knee.

Tears well up in your eyes as you realize he was watching you this entire evening in the springs. How he got away with it, you didn’t want to even know.

“I saw your hair open for the first time, and not in that stupid hairdo you always do for school.”

He trails his hand softly up the sides of your body and up your neck until he reaches his big hand into your scalp. You whimper and gasp as he laces his fingers through your locks, seeming to caress you but then harshly yanking your head back so you had no choice but to look at him head on.

“I saw your ass pressed up against the rocks, and I wished it was up against my cock instead.”

He removes his hand from your hair and snakes it down to your bottom, kneading and slapping it lightly. You writhe even harder now, too scared to make a noise in case he hurts you even worse, just wanting him to get the hell off of you.

“But I didn’t see the front of you. I imagined what you would look like with tears streaming down your face while I was stuffing you full of me”

He plays with the edge of your shirt, a dark look in his eye as he plays with you. You try to budge your hands but to now avail, only serving in annoying him and shoving his knee up further into your crotch. The pressure on your clit is immense, and your legs start shaking as you’re forced to be suspended almost midair on his knee.

“Take this off,” he says softly, the rasp catching in his voice.

“Bakugo, please. You don’t have to do this, I swear I won’t tell anyone-“

“You think I’m worried about if you’ll tell anyone? Hah! I already know you won’t, wanna know why?”

He leans in, inhaling the scent of your hair and grazing his nose along the side of your neck. You force yourself to breath in and out, feeling an impending heart attack.

“‘Cause if you do, I’ll make sure to fuck you in front of everyone, especially on Deku’s broken body.”

And then you can’t stop them, the tears fall from your body shaking in pure fear at his threat.

You knew he wouldn’t actually do something like that, but hearing it snarled in your ear so softly made you believe it all the same, the power he held while you were fucked, literally and metaphorically.

“Now I’m not gonna ask you again. Take this shit off before I burn it, bitch.”

You don’t want to piss him off further, so with trembling hands you lift the edge of your sticky uniform and start to pull it off, but he stops you with a frustrated grunt.

“Slowly. I wanna savor this while no ones here.”

You bite your lip and suppress a scream as you do what he says.

And oh, does he ever savor it. The shirt clings deliciously to your breasts, and he licks his lips as it ruffles up and over your head. Your skin is perspiring from the humid air, a sheen of sweat lightly decorating your collarbones. Bakugo can’t hold himself back any longer, and you yelp when he comes at you suddenly.

He lunges at your face and pins your arms down by your side again as his lips mesh against yours, his kiss filled with clacking teeth and a thrashing tongue against your lips. The knee you’re straddling is bouncing lightly up and down, jostling you on it and causing your cunt to pulsate with heat.

You let out a distressed moan, and he swallows it greedily, using the advantage of your open mouth to delve deeper into your wet cavern. You open bleary eyes and flinch when you find his already wide open, staring back into unforgiving vermillion orbs.

He pulls back slightly, panting. “I bet Deku didn’t get this kind of treatment, huh? It’s all for me right?”

You don’t know if he’s genuinely asking you or just being insane, so you don’t answer him. Fortunately and unfortunately for you, he doesn’t care for your response, rather more focusing on dragging you by your neck towards the hot showers.

You slip and stumble as he shoves you in a stall, gaining your balance only too late when he turns and locks the door.

“Look, I’m sorry okay? I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings, just forget you saw or heard anything at the springs, it was just girl talk, stupid stuff that didn’t mean anything-“

“-even if it didn’t mean anything to you I’ll make sure you believe what you’ll feel after I fuck you senseless.”

And with that, he tugs off his clothes and licks his lips at the sight of you cowering against the wall, naked and oh so vulnerable.

He slowly shifts towards you, pressing his body flush against your trembling one. You can feel the outline of his erection on your thigh, and you swallow at how big it is.

“I don’t wanna have to close your mouth or restrain you when I’m balls deep in that tight cunt. So don’t do anything stupid and this’ll be a whole lot easier for you.”

He reaches a hand down and lightly strokes your labia, relishing in how you whimper and jerk against him, but don’t dare try to stop his hand.

Smart girl

Another hand finds its way to your tits, tugging and pulling at your hardened nipples. You gasp and arch into his touch, slowly coming undone from his ministrations. He humps against your leg like a teenage kid, grunting while he does so.

His mouth is attacking yours once again, but now you’re too tired from the constant surge of adrenaline coursing through your veins to even move your head. You just let him play with your body, your heart, your soul.

“I think the princess is wet enough for me now,” he leers at you when he pulls his fingers away, scissoring his digits to show the strings of wetness he pulled from your pussy.

You squeal and grab onto his chiseled arms as he suddenly hikes his hands underneath your upper thighs and picks you up, forcing your legs to wrap around his middle for support.

He slams you against the wall, the water cascading down your head is making your hair stick to your face, and in a strange and sudden show of intimacy Bakugo softly moves your locks away from your eyes. Your gazes lock, yours desperate and tear filled while his scarlet hues show no signs of mercy, but rather a strange predatory hunger.

Your arms scrabble behind his head and on his shoulders for balance as he slowly sinks you down on his length. You hiss and throw your head back at the sensation of being filled, and he eats it up.

He watches the way your mouth opens, your eyes widen, as every sinful sound your body can make escapes you.

As if he needed more of an ego boost

You wail as the last inches are sucked into your dripping hole, and he lets out a mean breathy laugh.

“Fuck, you really were ready huh? I should’ve taken you weeks ago, little slut.”

Your brows furrow and you try to turn your face away but he snatches your chin in a hardened grip.

“Uh-uh, none of that shit. You were doing so well, don’t turn away from me now.”

He slowly starts to roll his hips minutely into yours, not exactly thrusting but enough movement to make your cunt flutter and throb.

“What do you want me to say? You got what you wanted!” You whisper to him, more tears falling down freely down your cheeks.

He can’t help himself, he groans and surges forward to lick the salty rivers up, gripping your ass tightly when you flinch.

“Tell me you love me. Tell me how much you want me, how much better I am than that green-haired bastard and I won’t shove it up your ass.”

You can feel his abdomen clench and shake from the effort he’s making not to completely batter your cervix so you give in quickly, afraid of what he’s like when his thin strands of self restraint snap.

“I...I love you Bakugo. I really want y-ooh!”

The last bit of your sentence is choked off as he lifts you up all the way to his tip and slams your hips down his length. You gasp and weave your hands through his hair for support, your legs violently shaking at the pain.

He grunts and starts really giving it to you, setting a fast pace as he bounces you on his cock. Your head is bobbing around, you’re fairly certain there’s drool coming down your lips but you can’t find it in you to care as he fucks you into oblivion.

After a couple of more painful thrusts he pushes you against the wall and removes your hands from his hair, holding them above your head against the wall. You’re trapped with your upper half plastered against the dingy tile while your lower half is wrapped his dick.

Your cunt swallowing him down is the only leverage you have, so your whole body weight presses down on his shaft. He moans loudly at the pressure on his tip, your gooey hot walls clamping around him from every angle and you yourself can’t help it when your eyes roll back at the sensation.

He rocks his hips up, and up you go as well, whining and clawing at the wall behind you, desperately grappling onto your sanity as well. Your tits bounce with each thrust, and his glinting eyes take perverse joy in their obscene movements.

Bakugo starts moving in earnst now, deeming the slow strokes enough prep for you. He batters your womb, reaching places not even your fingers could access, making you go cross eyed.

He sees this and snickers at your pathetic state.

“Fuck yeah you little whore. You’re gonna learn no one else can satisfy this slutty pussy like I can.”

You give him nothing but a choked gasp in response. You head moves like a bobblehead, you can’t even see clearly from the water cascading into your eyes. He’s just a towering blob of ashy blond hair and large muscles.

His hips start stuttering in their rhythm, drawing to a close from his contrasting pounding minutes earlier. Your nails rake over his forearms, holding on for dear life as he pants and groans into your ear like an animal. His dick spasms inside you for a second or two, and then Bakugo suddenly holds you tight against him, wet bodies pressed against each other as he cums.

He lets out a loud moan as you whine into his shoulder at the sensation of his hot seed filling you up. You’re held against his heaving chest for a moment of two, the both of you catching your breath until he slowly backs up and lets you slip to the ground.

It’s suddenly very quiet, the sound of the shower is drowned out by the ringing in your head. You’re shaking, shock overcoming your abused body as you refuse to look at him.

But he won’t have any of that. He steps forward, and you flinch yet again, scrambling backwards to put very necessary space between him and you.

“You got what you wanted. Please leave, I won’t say anything to anyone.” You breath out shakily.

He’s silent for a moment before you hear him chuckle. His low chuckles grow louder and more derisive, he’s booming with sinister laughter and you snap your head up in horror at him.

“You think this is done?”

He crouches to your level suddenly, elbows on his knees as he cocks his head at you, eyeing your naked body that he so recently claimed as his. His gaze travels down to where his cum seeps from between your legs, and you quickly cross your limbs over to prevent him from seeing the lewd sight.

“You’re mine now, Y/N. I already told you, you’re not gonna be talking to Deku, or any other guy apart from me. You think they’ll even want you when they find out how you loved being fucked in the dirty showers? Everyone’s gonna call you a slut, nothing else.”

“No, that’s not true you-“

He crawls to you, and it’s so mesmerizingly terrifying to see a man of his build crawl to you like some deranged humanoid that you shut up, words caught in your throat.

“Shut the fuck up.” He says softly. “You’re my bitch now, and you’ll do whatever the fuck I say, when I say it.”

Bakugo might’ve felt a little bad to see the girl he liked so scared of him all because of his doing, but the way you trembled and crossed your legs like the stupid, helpless little girl that you were erased every hesitancy from his mind.

He grabbed your cheeks and smushed them together, paying no mind to the pleas and whimpers you let out in retaliation.

Licking a long stripe up your neck, you shivered when he growled, “now clean up and be outside in 10 minutes, you’re sleeping in my bunk tonight. The guys are all asleep so we’ll just take an empty room in the cabin.”

He released you and stood back up, grabbing a towel for himself along the way. Drying his hair off, his back was turned to you as he started picking his clothes up too.

You just sat there in a daze, wondering what the hell just happened.

“Oh, and Y/N?” He was dressed, and he was at the door now.

“If you think about doing anything stupid or take longer than 10 minutes, I’ll come back in and get you personally. And I’ll make sure that we stay here for the rest of the night, just in case you like your little time alone that I’m giving you too much.”

#tw: noncon #bakugo smut #yandere bakugo katsuki #bakugo x you #bakugo mha #bakugo bnha #yandere bakugo x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #mha yandere #yandere Bakugo #bnha yandere #bnha smut #mha smut

[blush-and-books]

i am always yours

canonverse juke one-shot, light angst with a happy ending :) as a part of the effort to get juke back on the tumblr fandometrics ship list! title from the end of all things by p!atd. again, fuck brendon urie, but i’ve had this hc about luke for awhile (you’ll see what i mean) and had to get this out! <3 enjoy!

When Julie told Luke about Panic! At The Disco, she didn’t just give him a list of songs to check out. She advised to listen through entire albums. 

“You have a lot to catch up on,” she said, grinning over a mug of steaming tea. Her smile could convince him to do anything. “And these guys were a phenomenon. Despite… A lot that has happened with their lead singer, you’ll appreciate the music. Just give it a try when you feel like it.”

Julie never rushed him on anything. It was one of the things he loved most about her -- she only really insisted he know how to use her phone and the internet and maybe know some memes, but the rest was up to him. She loved him -- he hoped -- even if he wanted to stay in 1995. 

However, whenever she told Luke to do something, like “look into it if you’re interested” or “check it out if you��re ever bored,” he would jump on it in an instant. 

He wondered if she ever noticed. Acts of service was one of those love language things that Flynn was always talking about, right? Does making the effort to show an interest in the other person’s life by listening to every album by a band they like count?

He would ask Reggie or Alex, but Reggie doesn’t have much experience in the love department and Alex and Willie are much better at communicating than he is with Julie. 

To be clear: Luke doesn’t have experience either. In fact, Reggie probably has more romantic experience between the two of them. 

But none of it was as serious. This weird thing he has with Julie; this undefined, label-lacking supernova of passion and emotion that he has curled up in his chest is so strong sometimes it hurts. When Julie was upset at him and ignored him, it felt like the time his mom took his guitar and locked it away for a week. 

But when Julie is around, and she’s smiling at him, he could swear that not even a roaring audience could spark the kind of nirvana he feels. 

So, the day after she gives him the name of every Panic! album to date, she goes to school for six hours and he sneaks her laptop down to the garage and starts his deep dive. 

(Yes, Julie gave him computer privileges. He knows boundaries. She’s just broadened hers.)

Blissfully and with few interruptions from his other bandmates, he goes through the first albums quickly. He skips most of Pretty Odd -- Julie should have warned him about that one -- and is enjoying himself until he gets to the later projects which are significantly less his sound. 

But he keeps going. He reaches their album from 2013, which has this neon-angsty-alt-pop vibe that he honestly has a neutral opinion on. The songs are all good until he realizes that half of them have a painfully romantic overtone that ropes his mind back to Julie every time he tries to stray. 

Fuck, one of the songs is literally titled Girl That You Love. How is he not supposed to have a montage of Julie in his head?

And then some shit called Far Too Young To Die comes on, and yes, he agrees, he was far too young to die. He also vows to never listen to it again in the next 24 hours because he is ultimately tempted to loop it until Julie comes back and kiss her breathless the second that she walks through the door. 

Moving on, Collar Full doesn’t make things much better. He is sick and tired of waiting and dancing around his feelings for her, and every time they are together he is filled to the brim with lyrics and love from just minutes in her presence. 

(“If you’re gonna be the death of me, that’s how I want to go” definitely shatters him. But only briefly. He wants to soak up every ounce of love he can get from her before the world catches up to them and he’s crossing over without his consent.)

Luke thinks that he’s out of the woods when he hits the album-ending ballad, The End of All Things. 

And then he sees that he’s still in the thick of it. 

The way it hits him is nearly indescribable -- but every line hits like a read-aloud of his diary. 

No matter where he is, or where he ends up, his soul will always belong to Julie Molina. And that’s the truth of it. He can cross over or the band could break up and he could wander the planet as a lost ghost for the rest of eternity, but his soul will linger; tied with Julie’s in an unsolvable knot. 

He is hers. 

He is hers, he is hers, he is hers. 

And he’s in love with her. 

He can’t ask her to love him back. But he can hope, right? For just a single moment where they can lay together and be Julie and Luke like they should have been.

The tears on his cheeks and under his eyes don’t register until they are streaming down his neck and onto the pillow that he’s laying on. 

He doesn’t deserve Julie, he knows that. And he knows how fucking selfish it would be to even try. But sometimes the wanting reaches inside of him and individually snaps each and every one of his ribs, and that feeling keeps him pushing and pulling like the tide. Get close to her, make her smile, make her laugh. 

Leave her alone. Stop flirting. Don’t you dare hurt her. 

Think about somebody other than yourself. 

This song, he ends up looping. Over and over and over until his emotions are exhausted and he doesn’t have any tears left to cry. He’s on his… Probably his ninth listen when the doors crack open, and the piano music is leaking out of the garage as Julie slips in. 

“Luke! Hey, uh… Oh! You’re listening to Panic!”

He guiltily allows his heart to skip at the pleasant surprise in her smile. Clearing his throat, he swipes his hands viciously across his cheeks to rid of the tear stains and shoots her one of his classic smiles. “‘Course, Boss. You told me to.”

Her backpack hits the coffee table as she slowly approaches the couch to settle next to him. “Yeah, well… I didn’t actually expect you to. People normally just say ‘yeah, I’ll check it out!’ and then no one talks about it again.”

Something rubs him the wrong way about her not thinking that he would actually follow through with her recommendation. Does she doubt him? How does she not know that she could say jump and he would ask how high?

“Well, I’m not normal people. I care about what you care about.”

He knows he got her when she averts her eyes to Alex’s drums across the room; giving Luke a perfect view of her blush. Maybe he lets himself revel in it for a moment longer than necessary. 

“Anyways, how was school? Did you have a good day?”

“It was fine,” she shakes off her previous flusteredness, tucking her leg under her body so that she can turn to fully face him. “But there's nothing to tell. I would much rather hear about what you thought of Panic! And you have to tell me why you were wiping tears off of your face when I came in.”

Luke mirrors her position and gives her a joyful grin, trying to ignore the fact that she clearly noticed him trying to clean his face and wants to talk about it. The two of them have been so good at communication, and if it were about anything else, he would tell her. 

But he was nearly sobbing because of how much he loved her and couldn’t have her, so… 

“They were pretty cool, I’ll give it to you. I liked the album… Vices and Virtues?” Julie nods her head. “Yeah, that one. I was finishing the Vegas one when you got home.”

“Did you like it? The album you just finished. It sounded like End of All Things when I came in.”

With wide eyes and an exaggerated nod, Luke is praying internally that she will move on and go on a tangent about her favorite albums and songs because he just wants to listen to her talk and quietly love her instead of dodge questions about his emotions. 

“Okay, and did you like it? Is that-” She chuckles. “Is that what got you emotional? I mean, I get it, that song hits different sometimes, but-”

Luke stays quiet. If he keeps his mouth shut, and just smiles and stares and nods, it won’t slip. 

“... Luke? Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, of course!”

“... So? Are you… Are you okay? Did it remind you of your mom?”

It reminded me of you, he instantly corrects her with the little voice in his head. 

But the voice sounds louder than usual, and then Julie’s eyes widen, and Luke couldn’t even smile and nod well enough to cover this up. Since when is he so bad at bottling up his emotions?

Right. Since he couldn’t write songs about his feelings. Because if he did, Julie would see them, so every word of affection toward her was shoved into an overflowing filing cabinet in his brain that was probably waiting to explode at any moment. 

“It- Really?”

Mental checklist: She isn’t running away. She isn’t crying. She isn’t running away while she’s crying. 

She isn’t slapping him, or screaming at him, or expressing any negative emotions. 

Maybe he can push another inch… Just for some relief.

“Y- Yeah.” The single word takes considerable effort to stutter out, but he says it. 

Julie formulates her next move. “And… Like, what about it? What reminded you of me?”

Is Luke imagining things, or did she just shift closer to him? Oh, God. The selfishness has already done it’s damage. He’s initiating something that he definitely shouldn’t for both of their sake, but-

God, why does she look so pretty?

“Y’know,” he scratches the back of his neck, “the… The lyrics.” 

“The lyrics?” “Yeah.”

“Which ones?”

She’s leaning in. Her fingers are trailing up the side of his leg, and he wants to poof himself out of this conversation but what would hiding do? Just create a bigger gap between them?

His mom always told him he was selfish. He really, really doesn’t want to be selfish to Julie. He wants to protect her. He wants to put her health and happiness and life before his. Hurting her will never give him peace. 

Is he being selfish either way? Telling her his feelings to make himself feel better, and avoiding his feelings because he thinks it will be better without talking to her about it -- neither are ideal, are they?

His hand, which was previously resting in his lap, inches down to brush against hers. “The first verse…” Their index fingers wrap around each other. “And the chorus, and the second verse…”

Both of their hands tangle until Luke doesn’t even remember what his hand looked like before, because all he sees is a bronze-ivory marble of skin and he knows he doesn’t ever want to see his hand without hers again. 

“Luke…”

“Yeah, Boss?” “Why were you upset?”

She really won’t let it go. She clearly knows him too well, because he would hope any other person would be distracted by the fact that they were about to kiss, but this is Julie. They’re friends first. Family first. 

He owes her honesty, doesn’t he?

“Because the song was right,” he answers, staring deadlocked at their joined hands. “No matter where I am, or how much time goes by… It’s gonna be you. On my mind. My feelings will never change.”

He can’t tell, but Julie’s heart ignites in her chest. 

“Feelings? What-”

Somehow, the words still don’t want to come out. The eight letters are resisting every opportunity she has offered him, so he resorts to actions and cuts her off by raising their joined hands to kiss the back of her hand. 

His lips linger before their union drops back into the space between them.

“... Oh.”

“Yeah.”

In a moment of courage, Luke peeks up at her, just to see how she looks. If he can read everything she’s feeling in a millisecond of a glance. 

There are tears in her eyes. 

“Whoa, Jules, why are you crying?” “Why were you crying?”

“Because I’m afraid of doing this!” Her hand tightens around him at his volume. “Julie, I- I don’t want to do anything selfish. I can’t have you thinking I’m selfish. I’m afraid of-” He has to take a deep, shaky breath. “When we hold hands or when you smile at me and I just feel so much and then I tell myself that I can’t, because you have so much ahead of you, and I don’t even know what’s in my future.”

The tears well in her eyes. “What would you be doing that’s selfish, Luke? You have a second chance at life. You should fucking live it. You have a future, and it has the boys, and the band, and me. I’m in your future.” 

There’s a beat, because he’s looking at her, and he wants to cry but he wants to say it so badly. 

He still doesn’t know how much time he has in the future, but Julie is telling him that she’ll be there. And he needed that more than anyone would understand. 

“Well, aren’t I?”

Julie’s question shocks him a little because he hadn’t realized that he had been quiet for so long. Her bottom lip trembles the smallest amount when she sucks in a deep breath, and it sets him off to do what he had once deemed to be the most selfish act of all. 

His free hand tucks itself in the hair on the base of her neck and tugs her towards him before he covers her mouth with his in a kiss that he has furiously dreamed of for a long time. For such a sweet moment, there is an overload of passion behind it. All of his fantasies were rushed and adrenaline-fueled after shows before he would talk himself down; and now, that is translating to this kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps as he pulls away. “That’s the selfish thing I was worried about. Fuck, I-”

Her hand wrestles free from his, and suddenly, two hands are on his cheeks like the night after the Orpheum and the love of his life is pulling herself into his lap. On autopilot, he untucks his leg from underneath him and shifts to sit normally on the couch while Julie’s legs hold her up on each side of his hips. 

And she’s kissing him again, touching him again, before he can let the panic set in. She moves her lips against his like she has her own overflowing filing cabinet of feelings and fantasies and lyrics just for him.

Her hands wondrously drain every jolt of worry and anguish from his nervous system as they run from his face to his arms to his chest and back again. Kissing Julie Molina is a thousand little feelings and it’s own feeling  in itself.

When you get cold water from a water fountain and it’s so refreshing that you insatiably want more. When the set ends and Luke is taking his bows and watching people scream and clap for their performance, knowing once again he’s succeeding in the one thing he’s ever wanted to do. 

Only now, making music is now tied with making Julie happy on that list of priorities. 

Holding her under his hands is stupidly one of his favorite things, and in this context, it is leaving him clawing for more. He applies more pressure against her back to try and press her closer, but it never feels like enough. 

Julie is an endless fountain of fervor, and he can only drink up everything he can get. 

She’s the one who pulls away this time; but she keeps her fingers knotted in his hair because she plans to not stray far. 

“You’re not selfish,” she sighs, chest heaving with deep breaths. “If you think that’s selfish, then I’m selfish. And we can do this together. We deserve it.”

Hearing the words tumble from her lips cancels out every fight he’s ever had with his mother. 

She’s right -- they do deserve it. She shut the world out for a year, he was locked away from the world for 25, and by some miraculous turn of fate, they were brought to each other. 

“We deserve it,” he repeats, a little distracted by her blown pupils and delirious smile. “We deserve it.”

They lean in at the same time to fall back into one another like it’s a new routine they’ve set. Luke doesn’t say the words, not yet, at least-

Because like she said, they deserve this. Julie Molina is on his lap, in his arms, playing him with her soft hands like his skin is the ivory keys she’s been playing since childhood. He loves her, and he’s pretty sure that she loves him -- so maybe, even though the future is uncertain, he can just wait a little longer to tell her. There’s simultaneously less of a delay and less of a rush. 

Later, when they’re in her room and staying up way too late for a school night in deep discussion, he mumbles it against her forehead while she has her head tucked into his shoulder and their shared earbuds are playing The End of All Things. 

Any concerns of selfishness fade when she wastes no time in reciprocating his declaration and punctuating her feelings with a cripplingly soft kiss above his collar bone. 

If any of this is selfish, they can be selfish together. Luke can find himself to be content in that if Julie is right there with him. 

--

tags: @lydias--stiles @bluefirewrites @willexx @moreflowersthanweeds @ruzek-halstead @xxprettylittletimebombxx  @unsaid-emily

#juke #jukebox #jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp fanfic #juke fanfic #julie molina #luke patterson #julie molina x luke patterson #palina

[jinpanman]

Vampire’s Wine

pairing: vampire boyfriend!jungkook x fem human!reader

word count: 1.4k

genre: 18+, fluff, slightly nsfw, established relationship

warnings: this whole thing is a disgusting bloody mess and not in the way you think. menstruation talk - from the use of hygiene materials to the smell of period blood, jk loves period blood - oop., casual conversation about sex and genitals

summary: You decide to brave the mystery that is menstrual cups. Jungkook is intrigued to say the least.

a/n: i needed a break from all my long af fics. u can blame my brain. u can also blame Jess @shelive-shelove​​ for telling me to write this. and for helping me pick a member to write about - but then again, she always picks jk. also @joonie-mono​ kept judging me so now that it exists she has to read it. :-)

The simple matte black box sits on the bathroom counter and it’s incredibly intimidating despite it just sitting there. You pick it up and open the case to reveal an equally black menstrual cup sitting on top of a black pouch. A slip of paper falls out when you open it and you pick it up.

Greetings Y/N! We’re so glad you’ve decided to become the owner of a BLAKD cup. We understand some people don’t want color stained cups so we went ahead and…

You toss the card to the side and pick up the cup and turn it around in both awe and trepidation. There’s a knock on the open door but you don’t bother to look up.

“What’s that you go there?”

“JK honey, tell me. How am I supposed to stick this up my nether region?”

Jungkook snorts and plucks the cup from your hand.

“Well, my dick is bigger than this and you do such a good job taking it all in so I know my baby can handle this small thing.” He pats your cheek lovingly

You squeak and swat his arm away in disbelief. “Jungkook! I swear! You—that’s different! I’m not horny when I’m trying to stick this-this monster inside of me.”

He laughs and quickly covers the little distance between you, pulling you flush against him.

“First of all, that’s an insult to my dick because this,” he waves the cup in front of you and you roll your eyes at him “is no monster. Secondly, maybe we should get you horny first so it won’t be an issue.” He wiggles his eyebrows and licks his bottom lip in anticipation.

You scoff and push him away, taking the cup back from him.

“I need to figure out how to stick this up my very unaroused vagina, so please go and do your vampy things and leave me alone for a few minutes.”

He merely shrugs but of course your boyfriend who must know everything about everything asks, “But babe, what’s wrong with what you usually use?”

Ah, now that’s a good question. You’ve used pads and tampons for so long and frankly you are so utterly fed up with the mess that is Aunt Flo. 

“Jungkook, you won’t even understand even if I told you.”

“Try me.”

You raise a brow but proceed anyway. “Well they stink, for one.”

“False. I love the way you sme—okay, sorry. Go on.”

“Pads are so annoying especially when you’re sweaty and they stick to your butt and somehow you always end up bleeding everywhere except on the pad! And then tampons! Just the general scare that it’ll be stuck there for too long or it’ll poison you or that you’re actually not bleeding as much as you thought you were and you’re dry af and it gets so uncomfortable to take out!” you voice dies out, nearly out of breath because you failed to pause after each sentence. Jungkook watches you with amusement painted throughout his face and relaxed posture resting against the counter.

Your chest is heaving but you continue after taking a few short breaths, “Period panties are okay but I’d like some extra insurance y’know? Also everything is so fucking expensive! Tell me why we’re being paid to tend to something we absolutely cannot control? I fucking bet you if men had periods, they’d free bleed every month and expect everyone to be okay with it. But because we’re women we have to hide it because it makes—”

Jungkook breaks you off mid-tangent kisses you and grins. “Had to stop you before you start ranting for a whole 10 minutes and then forget why you were talking in the first place.”

You return the kiss and give him an appreciative smile. Most people aren’t into the “kiss someone to get them to shut up” but in your case, you appreciated the kisses because one, Jungkook gives the best kisses and two, you really would go off forever if he didn’t shut you up.

“Thanks, baby. Now please leave,” you say before shoving him out the bathroom and locking the door behind him.

After what felt like (and probably was) two hours you are finally out of the bathroom, feeling so utterly defeated and exhausted. You had gotten it in, but at what cost? Both your hands still reek of blood despite scrubbing thoroughly for several minutes with soap. Your thighs are aching from squatting for so long as well. You plop down on the couch beside your boyfriend who’s occupied playing some rando shooting game on the PlayStation. He inhales deeply and shoots you a quick glance. You give him a questioning look but he doesn’t say anything.

After his match, he leans in close to your stomach and takes another big whiff. You’ve long passed being surprised at how much Jungkook likes smelling you. You’d think he was a werewolf or something. Not that you’d tell him that because you were not in the mood to be dicked down just to “prove a point.”

“Hm? You don’t smell like you normally do?”

“Huh, I’m honestly shocked considering how much I bled all over my hands and thighs.”

“Careful, Y/N. You might make me horny,” he muses as he enters another match.

“You’re gross.”

“So, what does the blood just… sit there?”

“Mm, yeah. The cup keeps it all inside and when I take it out the blood will be there.”

“Tell me when you’re gonna take it out, okay?”

Without breaking eye contact with the television screen, he tilts his head to plop a quick kiss on your forehead. You pull a blanket over you and watch on as your endearing thousand year old boyfriend destroys the hundredth controller because he’s still very much a baby vampy and sometimes he forgets his own strength.

“Ohhh my goood this is so fucking weird,” you mutter in disgust.

Here you are, at the end of a full day of doing absolutely nothing, squatting in the tub once again. This time, instead of sticking a foreign object up your vagina, you’re trying to pull it out. You finally have a grip on the stem and your thighs are screaming at you but you fight through the burn because no way in hell are you gonna risk dropping your cup in the toilet bowl. The several guides you found on the internet said it helped to use your muscles to push it out.

“Okay, here goes nothing.”

You push and you eventually feel the suction giving way. A few drops of liquid spill out over your hand and you grimace at how warm it is. You finally pull it out from inside you and you lift it up to inspect the contents of the cup. God it was startling how warm the cup is. It was both disgusting and fascinating to see how much blood you can bleed within half a day. And the best thing—it doesn’t smell! You’re done being weirdly fascinated with your blood now. You’ve definitely been with Jungkook for too long. You hold the cup away from you and tilt it to pour down the—

“NNOOOO!!!! STOP Y/N!!!!”

Your boyfriend stumbles into the bathroom and you watch him with absolute befuddlement as he inches closer to you with crazed eyes.

“Baby,” he reaches out to you, “what were you just going to do?”

“Um, pour out my period blood?”

“Baby!!” he practically whines and kneels beside the tub.

“...Yes? Jungkook?” You’re at a complete loss for why he came bursting here in such a hurry.

“I thought I asked you to tell me when you were gonna take it out.”

“I’m sorry hun. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. I’m just taking it out?”

“Babe.”

“Mhm?”

“I’m a vampire.”

“Mhm.”

“And I’m your boyfriend.”

“Okay.”

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“Jungkook, I don’t even know what you’re talking about so if you could just tell me, that’d be great.”

He groans into his hands and peeks at you through his fingers.

“I wanna drink it.”

Oh, for god’s sake. You restrain yourself from rolling your eyes at him. You weren’t ignorant to his obsession with blood, especially during that time of the month. He was a vampire, after all. This was a whole new experience though with nearly an ounce of your blood right in your hand. Before you can second guess yourself, you hand the cup to your very pouty boyfriend who takes it with a now huge smile gracing his face. 

He brings the cup directly under his nose and takes a quick whiff. You wrinkle your nose in distaste. And then he lets out a deep, guttural moan. He flicks his tongue in the pool of blood then promptly empties the blood into his mouth. A normal person would not shiver at the sight of their boyfriend drinking their blood, but you’ve long resigned the fact that you were not normal. Your eyes fixate on the trail of blood that missed his mouth and now fall down the side of his mouth to his chin. You swallow in sync with Jungkook who hands you back the empty cup.

His voice is hoarse when he speaks. “Please never stop using this cup. It is the greatest creation of the modern times… Next to the internet. Also don’t ever drain your blood anymore. Give it to me. Save the ocean.”

“You absolute dork,” you laugh and continue your downward gaze of his body. That’s when you see it.

“Oh my god. Jungkook. Did you… baby are you horny?”

#jungkook fanfic #btsghostie #vampire jungkook #jungkook fluff #bts fanfic #f:vampire's wine #i'm so sorry #also black menstrual cups do exist #omg you guys tell me to stop re-editing this every 10 minutes

[the-hidden-writer]

Over The Edge

Whumptober 2021 - Day 4

Alison only wanted to know if any of the ghosts saw her fall that day. Instead, she finds out about which of them was responsible for the fall in the first place.

Day 4: "Trust Fall” Prompt: Pushed Fandom: BBC Ghosts Words: 948 TW: neck injury, being pushed out of a window

Over The Edge (part 1)

Alison wakes up with a sore neck sometimes. 

And that’s fine, it’s not excruciating or anything, but it does usually put her in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Mike can testify to that.

(She will moan endlessly to him about the ache, but doesn’t tell him about the nightmares that tend to cause them. She knows he feels semi-guilty for not being able to prevent the fall, even though there was literally no way he could have, and she doesn’t want to put that burden on him.)

Often she’ll have variations of the nightmare. Instead of falling onto the grass, she’ll fall onto hard concrete- shattering her spine and killing her instantly- causing her to wake up with a jolt. Granted, that’s one of the worst variants and there are some funny ones too.

One time she fell on top of The Captain as he was doing his morning run. Though her brain knew that it would be impossible, a part of her can’t help but chuckle whenever she sees him passing under that specific window. Her dream had conjured up a very funny flabbergasted expression on his face and Alison hopes to see it in real life someday. The Captain makes some very strange faces, so she knows it’s possible.

But they were still nightmares for a reason. Every dream starts the same way: she’s leaning out of the window, looking for something or other, when she unexpectedly loses her balance and goes plummeting towards the ground. She finds herself on her back, her whole body numb from the pain, as she looks up at the hazy figures above her.

This leads her to a thought. Did any of the ghosts see her fall?

Wincing as she rubs her sore neck, she finds them all gathered in the living room playing charades. It’s Mary’s go, and she resists the urge to cringe at the (probably unintentional) phallic imagery she’s creating. The ghosts are shouting on top of one another with completely random guesses; all apart from Julian, who’s snickering at the movement of Mary’s hands, and The Captain, who’s looking away in… shame?

Pat’s the first to notice Alison and he looks almost relieved to see her.

“Ah, Alison!” He cries, briefly quieting the (very loud) ongoing row between Kitty, Thomas and Robin. 

“Hi Alison~!” Kitty calls, but accidentally shouts in Robin’s ear, causing the argument to start up again and the resuming the din in the room.

“Oh, Alison.” Greets Mary. “We was just playin’ the sh...charades.”

“Ah ah ah! No talking!” Tuts Julian from the sofa.

Mary looks sad. “B-But I was just-”

“Nope! No ‘buts’!” Julian interrupts. “It’s your turn for charades, so you have to follow the rules. No talking.”

Fanny sighs from a corner of the room. “Just let her speak, Julian. Honestly, you male politicians and silencing women...”

Julian pouts but doesn’t respond. Probably because he can’t deny that, Alison imagines.

“What did you want?” Asks Pat, now having to shout over the noise in the room.

“Nevermind.” Alison mumbles, because God she can’t handle this right now. “I’ll come back later when you’re not busy.”

“WHAT?” Pat shouts as she leaves the room. Once she’s gone, he shrugs. “Guess it wasn’t important then.”

The second she shuts the door behind her, Alison lets out a loud sigh. The ache just won’t go away.

As much as she loved the ghosts, they were non-stop and sometimes she just needed a break. All she was asking for was for the ghosts to be serious for a change. A bit of sympathy, maybe? Or at least enough self-awareness that she could ask a personal question without going off on weird ghosty tangents.

“You alright?”

Alison screamed. Which she really shouldn’t have, but she wasn’t expecting to hear Humphrey’s voice right now.

Looking down, she spies the head in a corner next to the door.

Seeing Humphrey really put her own neck pain into perspective…

“Yeah. Fine.” She snaps, completely ready to storm back to her room and away from the ghosts. She just wants to rest.

Humphrey hums. “You don’t sound it. Wanna talk?”

“I just…”

Alison breaks, clumsily stepping backwards to support her back against the wall and to see Humphrey’s head better. Tilting her head down hurt pretty badly at the moment.

“I just wanted to ask a question, but they never stop.” She’s well aware that she sounds whiny, but she can’t bring herself to care. She also can’t bring herself to complain about her neck in front of Humphrey of all people.

“Hmm.” Says Humphrey with a contemplative look. “Yeah, I can’t imagine seeing ghosts all the time is easy. What was the question, if I may ask?”

There’s no point trying to hide it.

“Just if anyone saw me fall that day, is all.”

Humphrey’s face lights up. “Oh! Uhh, Julian did!”

“Wait, really?” She honestly hadn’t thought Humphrey could help her.

“‘Course he did,” he replies, “he’s the one who pushed you, after all.”

Alison feels her heart stop. Julian..?

No. No, she must have misheard. Either that or Humphrey was mistaken. There’s no way...

But the look on Humphrey’s face betrays all.

“Whoops… shouldn’t have said that.”

Her ears ringing and her sore neck forgotten, Alison storms back towards the living room (leaving behind a very regretful Humphrey) and slams the door open, gathering the attention of all the ghosts in the room and making them fall silent. Honestly, she should use that tactic more often.

Absolutely fuming and desperate for answers, she thrusts a finger in an accusatory point at the MP still lounging on the sofa.

“YOU PUSHED ME?!”

To be continued...

#whumptober2021 #no.4 #pushed #bbc ghosts #fic #injury #alison cooper #julian fawcett #humphrey bone #sir humphrey bone #pat butcher #the captain #thomas thorne #kitty #mary #robin #fanny button

[vivithefolle]

Not sure if you already talked about this. (I’m pretty sure you have) but someone seemed to notice that when the trio get into fights, Hermione’s always in the right. Even when she’s supposed to be wrong she always seems to be half right. That kind of bothers me. Especially since it’s evident in the whole Scabbers situation.

I have indeed, on Quora, so let’s move yet another answer of mine to Tumblr!

Hermione is seldom wrong in the Harry Potter books. Sometimes she makes mistakes but those mistakes are either completely swept under the rug or downright ignored.

It’s partly due to lazy writing and partly due to Rowling’s own growing bias in favour of her Author Avatar that was fuelled by Steve Kloves, the primary advocate of the Hermione Granger Is The Perfect Girl Ever line of thinking (an utterly ridiculous line of thinking mind you).

Lizo: Steve, Hermione is a character that you have said is one of your favorites. Has that made her easier to write?

Steve: Yeah, I mean, I like writing all three, but I've always loved writing Hermione. Because, I just, one, she's a tremendous character for a lot of reasons for a writer, which also is she can carry exposition in a wonderful way because you just assume she read it in a book. If I need to tell the audience something...

JKR: Absolutely right, I find that all the time in the book, if you need to tell your readers something just put it in her. There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue. One is Hermione, the other is Dumbledore. In both cases you accept, it's plausible that they have, well Dumbledore knows pretty much everything anyway, but that Hermione has read it somewhere. So, she's handy.

Now this, right here, is the exact core of the problem.

Rowling herself admits it: if she wants the readers to have information, she puts Hermione in the scene. Hermione is our primary means of exposition because, like *grits teeth* Sssssteve puts it, it’s easy to assume that she’s read about it somewhere and it makes sense.

That’s all well and good but at first, if you notice, Ron also gave us exposition about the wizarding world, mostly about its culture. He was able to recall the exact year of the Wizarding Confederation that outlawed dragon breeding in Philosopher’s Stone! He explained what were respectively a “Mudblood”, a “Squib”, and Parseltongue, Hermione doing a little exposition about the history of that last one! He was also able to identify Sirius, after being dragged into the Whomping Willow, as an Animagi!

But then Goblet of Fire happens and you can notice the first change that will exponentially grow through the books: instead of Ron, pureblood Ron, born-before-the-end-of-the-war Ron, lived-through-the-aftermath-of-the-war Ron, identifying the Dark Mark, it’s instead Hermione, muggleborn Hermione, lived-as-a-Muggle-for-most-of-her-life Hermione, has-no-idea-about-the-emotional-impact-of-the-Mark Hermione who looks terrified as the Dark Mark shoots into the sky!

And it only will get worse, by the end of the series, Hermione pretty much knows about everything the plot needs her to know, instead of having to work with things she knows but can’t always apply to the situation:

Suddenly has a deep knowledge of Magical Law (in the will of Dumbledore’s chapter, while we had Rufus Scrimgeour who could have provided it to us, or to a lesser extent, Ron could have explained how a wizarding will basically worked)

Is suddenly an expert at finding edible plants and mushrooms. Apparently books are always the goddamn answer in JKR’s world, you can literally learn anything from them

She can decipher all the Tales of Beedle the Bard (may I remind you that they were written in Runes, okay Hermione may have a few years of Ancient Runes education BUT I once tried to translate a 3k+ story I had written for fun, from French to English, which means I knew what the subtleties and intentions were, I knew which turns of phrase I had to preserve so it would make sense in the end, and it still took me two gruelling weeks to get a satisfying result!)

Has suddenly grown a sense of quick-thinking (escaping Xenophilius’ house, using the jinx to make Harry’s face weird-looking) despite it being the only remaining flaw she had at the time (remember when she turned her back on her enemy while he was still conscious just to compliment Harry, and almost died as a result, even though she had been training in the DA to learn how to fight Death Eaters?) Quick-thinking under pressure can be learned, but it takes time and a lot of work to force your brain to override its instinct - and it’s fine because we’re all human and different. But no suddenly Hermione is the Greatest Strategist Evah™ and those silly boys (who actually were the original quick-thinking ones, and one of them was established as the strategist early on) better be grateful for this literal goddess because she protects them from all harm with her superhuman brain.

Somehow knows about Quidditch stuff - she knows about a Snitch’s “memory-touch”. Why should she give all the answers? Why can’t Ron give us this particular tidbit of information?

And then when we come to something Ron actually knows, the damn narration itself goes “woah a book that Ron has read but Hermione hasn’t??? shocking!! incredible!! Ron is not dumb, somebody call the news channel”. But… is that really so surprising? We’ve never seen Hermione read wizarding fiction or even Muggle fiction. We’ve never seen Hermione with anything other than schoolbooks in her hands. Of course Ron has read books she hasn’t read since she doesn’t seem to read fiction at all!

Sorry, bit of a tangent over here.

There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue.

So, that’s one part of the problem: the fact that Rowling, after making Ron our insight into magical culture and Hermione our provider of knowledge, ended up saying “eh whatever I guess Hermione can tell us everything we gotta know because it’s more convenient for me”. Which is a decision that was not based on Hermione’s character, but simply lazy writing. Long story short, it probably went: “Could Ron explain this bit of trivia? Meh, better make Hermione say it cause she’ll have read it in a book. It’s convenient and I won’t need to bother myself with exploring Ron’s characterisation.”

(And thus completely forgetting that Ron could maybe ask his big brothers via owl and provide us with a good heap of extra advanced knowledge - Bill is supposed to have aced his NEWTs after all.)

The other part of the problem is quite simply that Hermione is more often than not, either painted as a victim by the narrative (which makes more people take her side, classic manipulation tactic), or made to be right anytime it’s about a plot point.

Hermione’s mistakes are never explicitly stated, corrected, or even pointed out as being unethical.

Hermione only gets one mistake expressedly pointed out as being a mistake: her misadventure in Polyjuice Potion. The rest of them? Even her crush on Lockhart can’t be counted as a mistake - people get crushes all the time, based solely on physical appearance, it’s not something awful or terrible (Except when it’s Ron who crushes on someone. Ron crushing on someone is absolutely forbidden, and he must be punished with much ridicule and humiliation if he thinks he can get away with not worshipping Hermione like the goddess she is. The nerve of him, really.).

Throughout the books Hermione eventually morphs into Rowling’s Powerful Angel of Vengeance, that punishes the people who dared to do something she disliked - Rita is silenced but at a very ethically dubious price; Marietta gets scarred for life because she was more loyal to her mother than to a bunch of people her friend insisted she hang out with; Umbridge is led to a very, very alarming fate that is never made clear but some people have ideas and they’re not all very kid-friendly; Ron first is “helped” without knowing it because Hermione can’t be bothered to have faith in his capabilities, then when he fails to dutifully reward her for “helping” him, she causes him bodily harm before actively bullying him for not mind-reading her interest in him; causes even more bodily harm to Ron because that’s how feminism works; etc.

Hermione’s mistakes are always justified through the plot itself (which is lazy writing).

Turning into a cat? Only affects her.

The Firebolt? Scabbers? Well, in the end, it was really sent by Sirius Black and Crookshanks really wasn’t the culprit. Therefore all the feelings that were hurt and all the trust lost are irrelevant because Hermione was right all along.

Trying to free the house-elves? Well, it’s the intent that counts, right? And we’re never told enough about house-elf lore to know whether they’re poor brainwashed victims or powerful Penate-like symbiotes who need to serve a wizard to survive?

Kidnapping Rita Skeeter, trapping her and blackmailing her? Rita may be one foul little beetle, but that’s going a bit far, isn’t it? Harry approves? Oh, well, I guess it’s okay then…? A main character can’t have a dubious morality, right?

Manipulating Harry into forming Dumbledore’s Army and forcing him to relive a traumatic event with the same woman she’s kidnapped and blackmail and that she knows he hates? In the end, it all works out for the best and Harry’s hurt feelings don’t matter since it’s all about the greater good.

Using the centaurs to get rid of Umbridge (which poses the highly distressing question of what did the centaurs do to her?), realizing that the centaurs aren’t nice little horsies that are going to gently obey her every orders like good Disney princess’ companions, my goodness could this be an opportunity for character growth - nevermind, here comes Grawp the Giant Ex Machina, saving her arse and protecting Hermione from all that scary possibility of introspection. Thanks, Grawp Ex Machina.

Trying to dissuade a highly stressed-out and irrational Harry from rescuing Sirius by telling him exactly what he needed not to hear, a.k.a. “you have a saving people-thing” which causes Harry to completely go bonkers and go save his godfather without thinking twice? Well she was right after all, it was a trap! Nevermind how mind-boggingly insenstive and inadept at dealing with someone else’s feelings she was being, she was right! That means it wasn’t Hermione’s mistake!… probably. (Geez, I’m sensing a pattern here…)

Endangering Cormac’s life (Confunding him WHILE HE’S ON HIS BROOM) to promote Ron’s success? Oh but that’s so romantic! (Yeaaaah, how romantic to display exactly how much faith you lack in your crush. Top it off with a broken neck and that’s a picture perfect first date!)

Assaulting Ron with magic and causing him even more scars than he already had? But he was being cold with her first, right? And he totally should have known she was asking him out! It’s not like her invitation was even worse than his attempt to ask her out two years earlier! Plus she’s just a teenage girl expressing her emotions, anyone who tries to find fault in this is a disgusting abusive misogynist pig! Ha!

Getting all jealous that Harry is better than her at Potions, then pretending she’s not jealous by claiming that TEH BOOK IS EVIL, HARRY, and giving him the cold shoulder too? But no, she’s right, look, Harry used Sectumsempra and he almost killed Draco, nevermind that he’s very horrified about it! Hermione was right, like she always is!

Hermione Obliviating her parents, which pulls her from the “ethically dubious” zone into the “wow okay I’m pretty sure that this counts as a violation of basic human rights” zone, makes her one of those quirky wizardfolk who have the privilege to control those simple-minded Muggles because it’s for the greater good? But nooo she’s crying about it so it’s obviously very sad and angsty and it shows her devotion to the cause!

Splinching Ron while fleeing from the Ministry? Eeeh, but he’s fine, they’ve got Dittany, he’s good as new!… blood loss? Anaemia? What’s that?

Hermione was wrong about the Deathly Hallows not existing? Um, um, that doesn’t matter, LOOK DOBBY IS DEAD AND HARRY IS BACK TO LOOKING FOR THE HORCRUXES!! Therefore Hermione was right, the Hallows weren’t important for their quest, therefore the Hallows might as well not exist, HERMIONE WAS RIGHT NO REALLY I’VE GOT RECEIPTS -

The books never forget to remind Harry and Ron of their own shortcomings and moments of weakness.

Harry’s wrath and recklessness cost Sirius his life. This is the lesson he has to learn from his entitled behaviour in OotP: actions have consequences, and the greater your responsibility, the greater the cost will be.

Ron’s envy and insecurity lead him astray; they’re used to humiliate, ridicule and torture him throughout the books. They’re supposed to teach him that he’s worth something - but how is he supposed to believe that, when nobody ever tells him he’s worth anything? When nobody ever apologizes to him? When his feelings are taken for granted over and over? When his two friends seem to discard him whenever he does one thing wrong?

Hermione is never punished. Hermione is never said to be wrong, never shown to be wrong, never called out on her behaviour. From Prisoner of Azkaban to mid-Deathly Hallows, she stays exactly the same character. She doesn’t grow up. She doesn’t learn. She doesn’t change. She has virtually no character arc.

The only time, THE ONLY TIME IN SEVEN BOOKS, the only time we have something remotely resembling a call-out of Hermione’s horrible behaviour is with this sole quote in HBP:

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.

Note how it’s about “girls” and not Hermione in particular, which implies that any girl would do what Hermione does to Ron. Thanks for the generalization, JKR, but I like to believe I’m actually a decent sort of person that doesn’t resort to petty cruelty and exploits my friends’ insecurities whenever I’m angry with them.

Hermione NEVER has to apologize. Hermione NEVER has to learn from her mistakes because she’s always presented as a victim when she really isn’t. Hermione NEVER develops into something more - she’s emotionally stuck at fourteen years old. Even less than that when you consider that her reaction to Ron’s return in Deathly Hallows is to trash him with her fists - and she was going to get her wand!! The utter psychopathic b- wanted TO THROW BIRDS AT HIM AGAIN!!! - and this reaction is an appropriate one for a four-years old girl, but certainly not for a supposedly “mature” seventeen-years old.

(Yes, because what separates a child from an adult is the ability to reign in your emotions and not succumb to your impulses. Exactly what Ron did when he left the tent (notice that he had drawn his wand, then he left before he could start hexing Harry), he left to calm himself down. Exactly what Hermione fails to do when Ron returns (she has the impulse to strike him and immediately succumbs to it, which proves to us that The Brightest Witch Of Her Age has all the maturity of a very small child).)

All of that, on top of the awful portrayal in the movies which removes all of Ron’s characteristics to stuff them into Hermione and turns her into some impossible epitome of perfection, eventually contributed to the portrayal of Hermione as the one who is always right and knows everything.

Add to it JKR’s own ridiculous bias (“Ron was quite emotionally immature compared to the other two”, yeah right I don’t see him trying to force freedom onto unwilling creatures or making Harry fly into an irrational rage with mere words but you do you, Jo) and the sexist misconception that “girls are innately more mature than boys”, and you get yourself this apparent behemoth of righteousness that was literally the sole reason why those two silly boys survived everything, and don’t you dare criticize this angel of perfection OR ELSE.

#vivi answers #ask #hermione granger critical #hermione granger #hermione critical #harry potter series #ron weasley #jk rowling #anti jk rowling

[rallamajoop]

...and the unironic joys of better living through chemistry

How do I love Venom: The Hunger, let me count the ways…

It’s by far the shippiest Venom/Eddie story to come out of the character’s heyday. It’s the only story of the era to treat Venom’s violent wild-animal instincts not as an immutable fact, but as something that can be managed. It pulls off an aesthetic like nothing else that was being done at the time.

And then there’s the way it says, Does the world around you seem sinister and foreboding? Do you lie awake at night contemplating metaphorical oceans of despair? Well shit, son – have you considered you may be suffering from a mundane neurochemical imbalance, and a round of the right meds could clear that right up for you?

It does all this without breaking the atmosphere, without a whiff that our story has been interrupted for a Very Special Message about mental health.

In the near-decade since I was first prescribed anti-depressants, I don’t think I’ve read another story that lands the message “Sometimes, it’s not you, it’s just your brain chemistry,” so well.

Fair warning: if you have not read The Hunger, I am about to spoil every major plot point. If you have, well, maybe I can still give you a new appreciation for a few details you might have missed.

It’s a strange book, whatever else you take from it. It’s almost the only thing either author or artist contributed to the Venom canon, and it’s so different stylistically and tonally from the 90′s Venom norm that it feels like a tale from some noir-elseworlds setting instead of 616 canon. When you take risks that big with a property, you leave yourself precious little landing space between 'unmitigated triumph’ and ‘abject failure’: if this book hadn’t absolutely nailed it, I’d be dismissing it as edgy, OOC dreck. Fortunately, if The Hunger is nothing else, it is a story that $&#@ing commits – to basically everything it does.

Now, I'm not going to tell you Venom: The Hunger is a story about overcoming depression, because I don't know whether author Len Kaminski even thought about it that way while working on it. There's always space for other readings, and this one take is not gospel. That said: holy shit is this thing unsubtle with its metaphors. And with that in mind, let’s start by talking a little about Kaminski’s take on Eddie himself.

As I may have mentioned before, I like to divide 90′s Eddie into two broad personas: the Meathead, and the Hobo.

Kaminski’s Eddie nominally belongs in the angsty, long-haired Hobo incarnation, but that’s a bit of a simplification: this version certainly has plenty of angst and plenty of hair to his name – but nowhere, not even at his lowest ebb, does he doubt that he and his Other are meant for each other, which is usually Hobo!Eddie’s primary existential quandary.

He’s also taken up narrating his own life like a hardboiled PI.

So that’s... novel.

The only other time Eddie’s sounded like this is, er, in that one other Venom one-shot Kaminski penned (Seed of Darkness, a prequel that sadly isn’t in The Hunger’s league), so I think we can safely file it under authorial ticks.

Then again, Hobo!Eddie’s always been one melodramatic SOB, so maybe this is just how he’d sound after learning to channel his angst into his poetry. You can’t argue it fits the aesthetic, anyway.

We’d also be remiss not to mention Ed Halsted’s art, which I can only describe as gothic-meets-noir-meets-H.R.-Giger. Never before or since has the alien symbiote looked this alien: twisted with Xenompoph-like ridges and veins.

But Halsted doesn’t treat Venom to all that extra detail in every panel. Instead, the distortion tends to appear when the symbiote is separated from Eddie or out of control – and I doubt you need me to walk you through the symbolic importance of that creative decision. More importantly, Halsted’s art provides exactly the class of visuals that Kaminski’s story needs.

Did I mention this is a horror story? You might be surprised how few Venom stories really fit that genre, but if all those adjectives about Halsted’s style above didn’t clue you in, this is one of them.

Anyway, with that much context covered, let’s get into the main narrative of this thing.

As our first issue opens, Eddie’s world has become a dark and foreboding place. He’s not sleeping, though he mostly brushes this off. (Fun fact: trouble sleeping is one of those under-appreciated symptoms of depression. Additional fun fact: the first doctor ever to suggest I might be suffering from depression was actually a sleep specialist. You can guess how that appointment was going.)

Just to set our scene, here’s all of page 1.

Eddie’s narration has plenty of (ha) venom for his surroundings, but the visuals are here to back him up: panels from Eddie’s POV are edged in twisted, fleshy borders and drained of colour, the people rendered as creepy, goblin-like creatures. A couple of later scenes go even further to contrast Eddie-vision with what everyone else is seeing:

As depictions of depression go this is a little on the nose, but then, you don’t read a comic about a brain-eating alien parasite looking for subtlety, do you?

Eddie  doesn’t see himself as depressed, of course. As far as he’s concerned, he’s seeing the world’s true face: it’s everyone else who’s deluding themselves. He’s still got his symbiote, so he’s happy. He’s yet to hit that all-important breaking point where something he can’t brush off goes irrevocably wrong.

But he’s also starting to experience these weird... cravings.

He just can’t put a name to exactly what he’s craving until a routine bar fight with a couple of thugs takes a turn for the horrific.

(I include this panel partly to point out even in The Hunger, the goriest of all 90′s Venom titles, you’re still not going to see brains getting eaten in any graphic detail. We don’t need to to get the horror of the moment across. The 90′s were a more innocent time.)

Eddie himself is horrified when he comes back to himself and realises what he’s done.

Or rather, what his symbiote’s just made him do.

Kaminski doesn’t keep us in suspense about why, though. Eddie may have just done something horrific, but there’s a reason, and it’s as mundane as a vitamin deficiency. He’s bonded to an alien creature, after all, and his symbiote is craving a nutrient which just happens to be found in human brains. And if Eddie can’t or won’t help it meet that need, it’ll do so alone. 

Now, giving us that explanation so quickly is an interesting creative decision: this is a horror story, and horror lives in what we don’t know. Wouldn’t it be all the more horrifying had the symbiote been unable to explain what’s going on, leaving Eddie without the first real clue as to where this monstrous new hunger had come from?

The Hunger doesn’t take that route though, and I love it. Eddie isn’t a monster, this isn’t his fault: he has a fucking condition, and wallowing in his own moral failings is going to get him nowhere. You might as well try to cure scurvy or rickets with positive thinking. Just like depression can make you feel like an utter failure at the most basic parts of being human, and all the affirmations in the world won’t fix it when it’s fundamentally your brain chemistry that’s the problem. Or like addicts aren’t weak-willed for struggling not to relapse, they’re dealing with genuine chemical dependency – or even like how someone who’s trans isn’t at fault for being unable to reconcile themselves to the bodies and the hormones they were born with by pure force of trying. Free will is more than an illusion, but we’re all messy, biological organisms underneath, and your own brain and biochemistry can and will fuck you over in a hundred wildly different ways for as many wildly different reasons and it’s not your fault.

We aren’t monsters. But if we do, sometimes, find ourselves identifying with the monster, there might be a reason for that.

(Ahem)

I’m just saying, that’s fucking powerful, and we need more stories that say it.

Anyway, in case you missed it during that tangent, issue #1 closes with the symbiote having torn Eddie’s heart in two itself free to go hunting brains without him.

I’m trying not to get too sidetracked at this point talking about Kaminski’s take on the symbiote itself. Suffice to say there are broadly two schools of thought on how it ought to function while separated from its host: the traditional ambulatory-slime-puddle version, and the more recently popular alternative where anything-you-can-do-with-a-host-you-can-also-do-without-one. I’m not much of a fan of the latter, personally: if your symbiote doesn’t actually need a host, I feel you’ve sort of missed the point. (The movie takes the route of saying symbiotes can’t even process Earth’s atmosphere without a host, which is a great new idea that appears nowhere in the comics, and I love it. Hosts or GTFO, baby!)

Kaminski has his own take, and I can only wish it had caught on. Without Eddie, the symbiote becomes an ever-shifting insectoid-tentacle-snake-monstrosity, driven by an animalistic hunger. It’s many things, but it’s never humanoid.

If you absolutely must have your symbiote operating minus a host, I feel this is the way to do it: semi-feral, shapeless and completely alien (uncontrollable violence and cravings for brains to be added to taste).

Issue #2 comes to us primarily through the perspective of the mild-mannered Dr. Thaddeus Paine of the Innsmouth Hills Sanitarium (yes, really).

Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone. Meet our official villain! He joins our story after Eddie is picked up by the police and handed off to the nearest available institution, on account of how completely sane and rational he’s been acting.

Naturally, Dr. Paine soon has copious notes on Eddie’s ‘crazy’ story about his psychic link to a brain-eating alien monster. Fortunately for Eddie, Paine also runs some tests and makes an interesting discovery. 

Congratulations, Venom: the ‘vitamin’ you were missing officially has a name!

Finding the right meds isn’t always this easy. I got lucky – the first ones my psych put me on worked pretty well – but I have plenty of friends who weren't so lucky. In fact, the treatment for Eddie's problems is so straightforward it arguably has more in common with, say, endocrine disorders like thyroid conditions or Addison’s disease, which differ from clinical depression but present many similar symptoms (but can sadly be just as much of a bitch to get correctly diagnosed – please do read author Maggie Stiefvater’s account of the latter when you get the chance, because forget Venom, that is a horror story).

‘True’ depression remains much less well understood by medicine, either in its causes or how to effectively treat it. But simply having a name for what was wrong with me made so much difference, and that’s an experience I imagine anyone who’s dealt with any long undiagnosed medical condition could relate to. It put my life in context in a way nothing else had in years.

(I can’t speak to the accuracy of the way phenethylamine is portrayed in this comic – a quick google suggests there may be some real debate that phenethylamine deficiencies have been overlooked as a contributor to clinical depression, but having no medical background, that one’s well beyond me. Either way, scientific accuracy really doesn’t matter in this context – it’s how it works in-universe for story purposes that we should pay attention to.)

Since this issue is mostly from Paine’s POV, we don’t get Eddie’s reaction to having a healthy amount of phenethylamine sloshing around in his brain again, just the assurance that treatment appears to be ‘completely successful’.

He’s still a paranoid, hostile bastard though. Meds can turn your life around, but they won’t make you not you.

But even if Eddie’s feeling better, he’s still psychically linked to someone who isn’t. Symbiote-vision still comes through drained of colour and edged in viscera.

That’s the thing about meds: they won’t solve all your problems overnight. If you’ve been depressed for a while, there are good odds you have problems stacking up. But working meds can be a godsend when it comes to getting you into a space where you can deal with your problems again, whether said problems are doing-your-laundry or all the way into not-giving-up-completely-and-just-accepting-you’ll-die-alone-on-the-street.

For Eddie, ‘dealing with his problems’ begins with stealing a keycard and busting out of the asylum.

Of course, that’s the easy part. How do you solve a problem like a feral symbiote? Like any good 90′s comic book protagonist, Eddie tackles it by putting on his big-boy camouflage pants and kitting himself out with weapons and pouches while quoting “If you live something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, hunt it down.”

We can add this to the list of things I love about this comic. Even if The Hunger is a weirdly-stylistic tract about depression at heart, it’s also still a goddamn 90′s Venom comic, and not ashamed to be.

We’re into issue #3 now, and back to hearing the story from Eddie’s POV.

Eddie is very much aware that his symbiote has murdered innocent people while they’ve been separated. Even if this is the result of extreme circumstances, there’s a good case to be made that the symbiote is too dangerous to be allowed to live. Plenty of heroes would treat it like a rabid dog at this point.

But Eddie isn’t a hero, he’s a mess of a character and an anti-hero at best, so we don’t have to hold him to the same standard. He’s well aware his symbiote may be too far gone to save, that he may have to put it down – but that’s only his backup plan. He wants to help it. He wants it back. He’s down in that sewer with screamers and a flamethrower because he knows all his symbiote’s weaknesses, but he’s also carrying a large jar of black-market synthesised phenethylamine, because if he can just get close enough...

Depression can’t make you a literal monster, but it can make you an asshole. Miserable to be around, lacking even the energy to care who else you’re hurting. The depression doesn’t excuse that, but it makes everything harder, and it’s that much easier to sink back into your spiral when everyone around you has given up. It can make you think everyone around has given up even if that isn’t true.

So to have Eddie here say, in effect, I don’t care how many people you’ve eaten, I know it wasn’t your fault. I still love you. You’re still worth fighting for – god, does that get me right in the id.

There’s still a whole issue left at this point – we’ve still got to deal with our real villain, Dr. Paine, who we’ve just learned is into eating brains himself and torturing his patients recreationally, and who wants to capture the symbiote for his own purposes. There’s the scene where Eddie and his symbiote finally bond again, and Venom beats up all Paine’s goons while singing David Bowie because like I said, this is still a 90′s superhero comic and this is what Venom does.

But for our purposes, I'm going to skip to the penultimate page of the story, because the way it mirrors our opening page is really lovely.

Remember that shot of Eddie dealing with a beggar back at the beginning of the story, thinking about how these people would 'get their despair all over you'? Here he is again, cheerfully forking over the last dollar in his pocket to the next man to ask him for change. For all the gothic atmosphere and gore, it’s moments like this that make The Hunger easily one of the most positive, uplifting Venom stories ever written. Funny, that. (I could probably write a whole other essay on sympathy for the homeless as a recurring motif in Venom stories, but that... well, whole other essay and all that.)

What’s Eddie learned from this experience? Don’t take your symbiote for granted. Is ‘symbiote’ a metaphor for mental health here, is paying attention to its needs an allegory for paying attention to your own? I still don’t know how literally Kaminski meant us to take this, but it’s a lovely note to end on no matter how you parse it.

At the end of the day, The Hunger isn’t flawless. The conflict with Paine ends on a thematic but slightly unsatisfying note. Eddie makes much of his symbiote's loneliness and desire for union, but when the two of them are finally reunited, the only reaction comes from Eddie's side. In fact, the symbiote seems to have no response to being able to return to Eddie at all, and that’s an omission that bugs me.

But Kaminski is more interested than any other writer of the era in the truly alien nature of the symbiote, in its relationship with Eddie from Eddie’s side, and though plenty of others talk about the symbiote's love/hate relationship with Spider-man, no-one else had the guts to portray their relationship this much like a romance.

And Venom: The Hunger is no less interesting in the context of Len Kaminski’s other work. You don't have to look far into his Marvel and DC credits to pick up that the guy has a real thing for monsters. (“All of my favourite characters are outlaws, misfits, anti-heroes,” he says, in one of the very few interviews I could find with him, “I wouldn't know what to do with Superman.”) He's written for vampires, werewolves, victims of mad science, and all of three at once, littering his work with biochemistry-themed technobabble, melodramatic monologues, gratuitous pop-culture references, and protagonists who must learn to embrace their inner demons. So The Hunger represents more than a few of his favourite running themes.

For our context, his more notable other work includes Children of the Beast, in which a werewolf must make peace between his human and animalistic sides, and The Creeper, in which a journalist must make peace with the crazy super-powered alter-ego sharing his body. In fact, The Creeper and The Hunger share so much DNA (including an evil doctor posing as a respected psychiatrist who uses hypnosis on our hero while he's trapped in a mental institution) that it’s quite the achievement that they still feel like such very distinct entities beyond that point.

The human alter-egos of both werewolf and Creeper even use prescription meds while wrestling with their respective dark sides. The difference, in both cases, is that these are stories where meds play their traditional fictional role – and that's a role that could be as easily filled by illegal drugs or alcohol without making any substantive difference. You see, if a protagonist is using them, it's a sign of unwillingness to tackle their 'real' problems. Even among work by the same author in the same genre, The Hunger represents an outlier. And that's just a little disappointing – at least to me.

In real life, of course, prescription meds are no magical cure-all elixir. Depression meds that work for one person may not work for another, or may not keep working in the longer term. Everyone has heard stories about quack doctors who prescribe them to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, about lives ruined by addictions to prescription painkillers, or the supposedly-damning statistics about how poorly SSRI's perform in rigorous clinical trials. The proper way to treat depression is obviously with lifestyle and therapy. People will still airily dismiss medications that we all know previous generations got along just fine without, or suggest that figures like Van Gogh would never have created great art if they hadn't been mad enough to slice off an ear. I mean, the fact you think you need those bogus mediations is probably the best possible sign of just how broken you are, right? Who do you think you’re kidding?

Our popular fiction loves stories about manly men who bury their trauma under a gruff, anti-social exterior and come back swinging at the world that broke them, bravely refusing even painkillers that might dull their manly reflexes. Other genres make space for broken people confronting their demons in grand moments of catharsis, finally breaking down into tears when someone gets through to make them face their problems. "I could barely make it out of bed in the mornings until I found a doctor who started me on this new prescription" is not only wildly counter to the accepted social narrative, it's a hard thing to know how to dramatise.

 Even other Venom comics have been guilty of this.

Believe me, I recognise all of this, and just how much progress we've made in the last few decades. But I haven't the slightest doubt that for so many vulnerable people, the stigma against prescription medications does infinitely more harm than those same meds could ever do. And just having the right to externalise my problems into it's not you, it's your brain chemistry, may have helped me more than the meds themselves.

(And again, no, being prescribed SSRI's didn't fix me overnight, but I honestly don't know if all the talk therapy and tearful conversations with family members in the world could've got me as far as I've come without them.)

I love Venom: The Hunger. It's no-one's idea of high art, but it doesn’t need to be. There is a whole other post’s worth of things I love about it that I’ve already cut out this one as pointless tangents, and that may actually be it’s biggest drawback as a go-to example: I fully recognise that I would not be making this post if The Hunger hadn't also also grabbed me as a great bit of Venom canon, being the massive fan and shipper that I am. Other people who are just as desperate as me for more stories with the same core theme, but not into weird 90's comics about needy goo aliens, probably won't get nearly as much out of it as I have.

But if it sounds anything like your jam, maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.

If nothing else, it proves that you can make a viscerally satisfying story out of a message that shockingly unconventional. And you may even have people still discovering it and falling in love with it 25 years after the fact.

#Venom: The Hunger #Venom #depression #SSRIs #Symbrock #Venom meta #meta #Venom comics #Len Kaminski

[bearseokie]

dear readers and writers

— a little advice i wish i would have heard before i started this blog and writing in general. sorry i’m that writer that makes post like these, i just want you to understand that things like this change everything. if this looks like a lot, just find the ones that pertain to you.

writers

➤ 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝

there are so many good works that come from you focusing on the genres you are most comfortable with, and only writing those is not a bad thing. it’s not a “you’re not growing as a writer” situation, it’s a comfort zone situation. just because smuts do well doesn’t mean you have to force yourself to write them. just because angsts come in bulk because you can never ignore the emotional bits of writing doesn’t mean that has to be the main focus of every work. just because fluffs are the most reblogged content doesn’t mean it’s the only genre people will enjoy from you. focus on what you love, others will follow!

➤ 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐛𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥

if you don’t consistently open your inbox, do it at least once. close it when you feel overwhelmed or at any time you feel necessary. don’t believe that you have to write them all in a short period of time. be statistical about it: only open it for a short game or blurbs. use the requests to fill in blanks or practice writing in different ways. play with the word counts. change up the tone. delete a few, you’re not obligated to actually write them, this is your free time and your work. but sometimes doing requests can change how you write, maybe even give you a breakthrough you wouldn’t have had with writing things from your own mind. and have fun.

➤ 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

filling the warnings up with silly little comments or parts from the story is important, too. even if it’s a paragraph’s worth of potential warnings or triggers, never skip adding them. even if you think it’s something not worth mentioning, it will be to someone. add as many as necessary.

➤ 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝟏𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞

word counts don’t determine how good of a writer you are. from brilliant blurbs with two paragraphs and one line of dialogue, drabbles with less than a thousand words, or full on double digits fics: what counts is that you enjoyed writing it. it made you excited. you paused just to mention to a friend how much you love writing it. you got chills piecing together that one line. that energy gets put through your work and into your reader, seriously.

➤ 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐩𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐮𝐭?

everyone reads. anything. everything. you name it, one person’s read it. whether your confidence in your writing ability is low or not, the process will only benefit you. and you get to spend time writing about some of your favorite people/characters, it’s a win-win. it’s no competition, only a fun time that you get to create and share with the world. try it.

➤ 𝐚 𝐟𝐞𝐰 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠

the more detail, the better the mental picture. if you read something and love visualizing every scene, hearing every line, then you should work for the same within your stories. close your eyes and put your scene into your surroundings, every little detail counts. and although i said word counts don’t mean anything, if your brain does focus on you having large word counts (it happens to every writer, big word counts make you feel cool for writing so much), then this is a sexy step to use because it heightens that number pretty quickly.

short sentences look weird, but are better than run-ons.

vocabulary is sexy and thesaurus dot com is your best friend. need a word but can only think of something similar, you’ll find it there. used the same word three times now and think you’re starting to look insane, you are, use your sources.

you don’t need a banner or aesthetics for everything you write. the writing does all of the work itself. don’t stress about the accessories.

burnt out on writing the same thing / can’t think of what else to put down? break time. take a tangent, write something else, cut it off there (maybe post it) and leave the rest for the future, the cliffhanger or abrupt ending will have everyone on the edge of their seats. you’re still doing well.

if you’re writing to gain a following or have extensive amounts of notes to brag about, you’re into writing fanfics for the wrong reasons. hoping for feedback is one thing, feasting for it as your only source of inspiration for writing is just hurting yourself and other writers in the long run. write for yourself and no one else.

writer’s block? hell if i know, i’ve had it since before i started writing.

readers

➤ 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐠𝐢𝐛𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤

a little feedback goes a mile. a simple emoji as a reaction, keyboard smashes, even tagging topical things can make a fanfic writer smile.

but long paragraphs also go a long way. imagine watching a movie you love to bits, so much so that you go online and read reviews of it. that commentary can shift the way you look at the movie forever, and stick with you during other films. it’s the same with receiving and reading feedback on fanfics. I’m not saying go crazy critical with your feedback, do not do that unless the writer says they want criticism, but maybe writing why you love one particular line so much could change the way the writer feels about the entire work or make a reader begin to love the same line so much that they quote it or recommend it. it makes a difference!

➤ 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧’𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬?

tell the writer. this isn’t an “i wrote this and it mentions all of these other things, so you should have expected this” game. if it bothered you, it will probably bother someone else, and that needs to be told to the writer. i don’t know what to tell you if a writer writes back being degrading or negative about your concern for that warning, but i promise you that most writers will not argue with whether it should be a warning or not and will just add it. do not be scared to mention something that triggered you if it was not mentioned in the warnings. also, please remember writers are humans and cannot think of everything all the time. we might miss one or two warnings within the work when writing the description, so please tell us.

➤ “𝐈 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬, 𝐢 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠.”

pain. straight pain. your reblog shares that post with your followers. you like it, why wouldn’t they? that reblog stays on your page, it’ll be seen. the tags you put in could help others find more works on your blog, essentially helping more works be found. maybe they’re old and haven’t seen the light of the recent tags in months, but your reblog could help more people still see it, and that makes a difference. we all have those lazy moments where we don’t want to do all of the steps, but even doing them sometimes helps.

➤ 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐜 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞?

readers can scroll through the list for their preferences, find new writers that amaze them, maybe they gain the courage to put together their own fic recs list. all of those recommended fics are still floating around and being shared, they don’t get lost in the tags or the writer’s masterlists. you find/make a recs list: congratulations, you’re contributing to helping fanfics thrive (as they deserve). also, who doesn’t love an entire list right in front of them so they don’t have to go on a scavenger hunt to find new things to read? answer: no one.

➤ 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐬 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐡𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐥𝐞?

tags to organize, fics to go through/find/read, oh my. let me let you in on a little secret:

have you ever had that moment where you suddenly remember one line or scene from a fic you read months ago, and you have the vaguest details to go off of in order to search and find it? your fics recs blog would have you covered, just scroll through the feed or the tags and boom, it’s at your fingertips.

now imagine someone else looking for more fics to read stumbling upon your blog. might look a little strange and coded to them, but eventually they navigate and find a new fic they’ll be talking about for months. they reblog it, add their own feedback, their followers see it and join in, and that writer feels immensely appreciated all because you started a recs blog and just-so-happened to reblog their fic. tah dah.

➤ 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐩?

well, so did i. i asked my followers on this blog and my recs blog to send in their favorite fics with some extra details and feedback thinking i wouldn’t get anything, but i got an entire list! guess what’s even better? that list went straight into the tags (thanks to tumblr working properly for once) and now anyone that searches up ‘kpop fic recs’ can find it at any time. same goes for your own. there’s no specific way of organizing a recs list, just make sure the links work and the writers are credited! it helps.

read more! it’s a vast world in your hands, enjoy the words that go along with it.

sorry for this technical rant/advice post, this has just been in me for a while and i wanted to talk about it. I might add more to this as things come up, but for now i hope this helps! <3

#bearseokie.txt #this is a lot but hey it's a silly dawn rant again #i hope this gets through to anyone having a hard time writing right now #and to the ghost readers bc we still know you're there bro #take care of yourself ! #bearseokie navigation #writing.tips!

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

hello lia! just here to remind you how much i adore you and your content. i was wondering, since you seem to be very much aboard the logince train right now but seeing as you're still captaining the losleep ship - has brain been offering up anymore rolosleep? thought i'd give you an opportunity to ramble about them, if you wanted :) have a nice weekend! - ✨🌟

ROLOSLEEP YOU SAY

well if i’ve been given an opportunity it really would be rude to pass it up-

this ship is best summed up as ‘two chaotic fools + a braincell who is coincidentally the only reason they’re still alive’

logan loves remy and roman dearly but that doesn’t make them any smarter

not that they’re dumb, of course, they’re both very smart, they just... don’t like to apply their smartness often

aka

they also lack common sense

logan helps keep them alive and they are both very grateful for this

they all have different things in common

for logan and roman it’s poetry + classic literature (especially plays)

it leads to a lot of good-natured debates between the two of them

it also leads to them killing remy a lot

if they use poetry on each other, the other will simply respond with more poetry and it will become a battle

if they use poetry on Remy, they become a gay mess and die

for logan and remy it’s video games

roman likes them too but logan and remy get DEEP in lore for them

remy likes them a lot bc they burn their energy so they can sleep and logan likes learning the strategies of them

and ofc, as said, they both like getting deep into the lore of the games and learning every thing they can about them

they have many inside jokes bc of this that roman doesn’t understand but it’s okay bc he thinks it’s cute nonetheless

for remy and roman it’s chaos fashion

all the types of fashion- make-up, hair, clothing, shoes, everything!

why yes this does include the beautiful fashion of sweats and oversized shirts

they like to do each other’s make-up and paint each other’s nails and do stupid things to their hair and if they’re allowed to go to the mall they will be there for hours just to try on  e v e r y t h i n g  in the store

sometimes logan will tease them about this and they’ll say ‘but lo we have to be pretty :(’

and logan will kiss their cheeks and tell them they’re already pretty and no matter how many times he says it remy and roman never flush any less

ofc... for all the good things they share... they share less than good ones too

roman and logan share overworking

roman mostly does it on accident- caught up in an idea, he loses track of time and doesn’t remember to stop to rest or eat or anything

he does it on purpose a few times too, tho, normally when he feels like he isn’t creating enough and pushes himself even when he knows he needs to rest

logan almost always does it on purpose, sadly- he’s aware of his limits, but in his attempts to keep up with work (even when he’s plenty caught up) he’ll often ignore those limits and keep working

remy has become skilled in both figuratively and literally dragging the two of them away from their work as a result

logan and remy share sleep deprivation

logan normally ends up with it as a result of overworking, but there have been nights where he’ll just... stay up. no clear reason aside from that he just doesn’t want to/can’t go to bed

remy does it more regularly

it’s normally due to drinking too much coffee or insomnia, but too much energy + too many thoughts can also be causes

they normally play video games through the night when this happens- a problem for when logan’s also up, since more often than not remy will let him join the game and then neither of them’s going to sleep that night

luckily, roman is very warm and a very good hugger/cuddler, so if he can catch either of them staying up he can normally get them to sleep or at least rest by cuddling them

remy and roman share insecurity

roman easily gets insecure over his work- is it good enough? is it good at all? has he created enough? will he ever create enough?

he also gets insecure over his personality- is he too much? is he too loud, too dramatic, too out there? does he annoy everyone?

remy gets insecure more over lack of their own work- logan’s so smart and roman’s so talented, after all, and they’re... just them. they don’t contribute anything to the world or to their relationship

a majority of their confidence + flirty attitude + etc is to cover the fact that they really don’t think they’re worth anything

logan loves both of them very much, however, and if they’re feeling too insecure he can and will Kill their insecurities with love and facts

angst aside

these bois like to CUDDLE

roman’s naturally cuddly, and both logan and remy are lowkey touch starved

they can’t be left together for longer than five seconds without ending up wrapped around each other

their friends think this is ‘weird’ and ‘kinda clingy’ but they know their friends are just jealous

they also like kisses!!

roman’s a sucker for back of hand/palm kisses but he’s happy to pepper his partner’s faces in kisses too

logan likes to kiss his partner’s heads + foreheads but will kiss the tips of their noses to Kill Them on occasion

remy just does all the kisses. face, head, neck, hands- if they can smooch they will smooch

there is a difference for lip kisses tho

logan’s normally okay for brief little ones but never more, remy’s always good for lip kisses but only sometimes down for making-out, and roman is ALWAYS down for lip kisses and making-out but he RESPECTS HIS PARTNERS’ BOUNDARIES

this does, however, mean that when remy’s in the mood to make-out logan will not be getting either of his partners’ attention for at least half an hour

for the sake of my heart i must also note it never goes further than making out- they’re all ace, remy + roman being sex-repulsed and logan being sex-neutral. they like to cuddle kiss and sometimes make out- that’s all

slightly random but important tangent: they can all break into their house and every room in their house

remy can open any window- locked or not-, logan can lockpick any door, and roman can and will break down any door/window

this is mostly so none of them can isolate themselves but also bc remy and roman often forget their keys and logan can’t always save them

that tangent aside, a new one: how they got together

roman and remy were dating first, and logan was their friend who kept them from doing every thing they wanted to do, aka, kept them alive

and then somewhere along the way... he accidentally fell in love with them

whoops

he kept the lid on it pretty well at first

but then remy one day was reallllly tired and they kissed logan’s cheek while the three of them were hanging out

roman pulled remy away and rushed to apologize about how remy gets extra affectionate when tired and they also have a tendency to mix up who their dating and who they’re not

except logan just blushed and mumbled something about how he didn’t mind and... well... that’s Gay

for a while, logan and roman were metamours of remy, but logan already loved roman and roman’s gay and dramatic and logan knows poetry so, really, it was only a matter of time before they started dating as well

i could probably say more but my wrist’s starting to hurt something fierce so i’m cutting it off there

#rolosleep #ts logan #ts roman #ts remy #ts sleep #nb!remy #hope you enjoyed my ramble sdjfkhbnsd #i just.... love them very much\ #the cryptid speaks #the cryptid answers #sparkle star anon

[bibliothesoph]

these days (let’s talk about your mental health)

There’s sunlight streaming through the window––too bright for however early in the morning it is right now. Henry goes to move his arms over his eyes to block out the vicious light, but his arms won’t budge. His eyes snap open then shut again because the light is practically blinding, but he gets his vision back (for the most part) after a minute of blinking. It’s a white room which is probably why it felt so bright. There’s a window to his right letting a sunny day in New York into the room, but it’s not his window and this isn’t his room. This might not even be anyone’s room at all. Based on the weird, cheap-looking picture of a watering can full of plants, he guesses that it’s some impersonal room that hundreds of people filter through. And it smells clean––too clean. Like bleach.

Something’s beeping to his left so he looks over and sees what looks and sounds like a heart rate monitor there. There’s an IV drip, too, that he follows to the back of his hand. His hands are cuffed in some sort of white material that wraps around his wrists and tie into the bed somewhere. His feet, it feels like, are in the same boat. He tries to sit up but he can’t fucking move and there’s no one in here to help him. Where’s Alex? What happened? Why is he here and why is he in restraints? He feels his breathing go shallow and rapid like he can’t get air. He has no idea what’s happening and he’s terrified and alone and where is Alex?

The door opens and, like he somehow conjured him with his mind, Alex is standing there with a cup of coffee in one hand and cup of water in the other. He looks sad––teary-eyed, puffy-faced, downturned lips.

“Alex?” he asks in a hoarse voice.

Alex’s head instantly snaps up and looks at him. His lips turn into a slight, sympathetic smile as he moves over to the seat by Henry’s bed, setting the drinks down on the small table and taking one of Henry’s hands in his own. “You really awake this time?”

Henry furrows his brow, completely baffled. He doesn’t remember any other times. “I think so,” he says.

Alex strokes the back of Henry’s hand with the pad of his thumb. Gently––like Henry might break. “You were out for a while. I’m glad you’re back, though.”

Henry shakes his head because he still has no idea what’s going on. He doesn’t feel like he was in an accident of some kind––he doesn’t feel any physical pain. He’s got a headache, but it feels more like from his brain going into overdrive than from some sort of external damage. Also, an accident wouldn’t warrant the use of these restraints. That’s probably the most troubling part about all of this. “What happened?”

Alex sighs and leans down to kiss Henry’s knuckles. “There was a bit of an incident,” Alex explains. “You don’t remember?”

Henry shakes his head.

“Why am I here? Why am I in restraints? Alex, what’s going on?”

“Shh,” Alex coos, using his other hand to push some of the hair off of Henry’s forehead. “I’ll explain everything, okay?”

Henry nods, silently agreeing to stay quiet as Alex explains what’s going on.

“When I got home last night, I couldn’t find you for a while,” Alex begins. His voice is thick with emotions and, for a moment, Henry almost wants to tell him to stop talking if it hurts him so much, but Henry needs to know what’s going on. “I found you out on the balcony and I don’t know if you had been drinking or what was going on, but you clearly weren’t yourself. You were saying all kinds of things––worrisome things. It––it scared me to see you like that, you know? You were crying and on this long tangent about your work and the world and all of this stuff and then you just sort of…collapsed. Into my arms.” Alex pauses and wipes at his eyes. “I called Shaan because I thought he might know what to do. Like maybe this was something that had happened before? Anyway, we brought you here to see what was going on. The restraints were more of a precaution than anything because…you were pretty worked up. When you came to, you kept crying and trying to leave and you kept saying you were fine but…”

Henry squeezes his hand. He doesn’t remember a single moment of this, but he believes Alex with all his heart. He knows that he’s the kind of person to be reluctant to accept help, even when he needs it, so it makes a sort of sense to him. He doesn’t think he was drinking, though. Or, at least, he doesn’t recall drinking. Maybe he was drinking, though? Maybe that would explain the headache?

“Do they know what happened?”

Alex shrugs. “They have theories, I guess. They didn’t find alcohol in your system, though. They think it might have been some combination of dehydration and exhaustion. I had to tell them that you hadn’t been sleeping much recently and about how you feel sometimes.”

Henry nods and tries to process this. It seems possible that the way his mind is contributed to this little incident, at least partially. He’s had a few experiences with this sort of thing before––times where he isn’t sleeping or drinking enough water and his thoughts just get louder and louder until he doesn’t even remember anything but what he’s shouting at himself inside. It’s like he’s hearing himself scream over and over again but no one ever hears him––no one’s there to help him. He’s never really seen it as an issue before, though. Everyone he’s known has periods where they’re not themselves. And he’s sure he could remember what happened if he wasn’t feeling so drowsy from what was most likely a sedative.

“You okay?” Alex asks. Alex scoffs at himself and shakes his head. “Sorry, that was a stupid question. I mean, obviously you’re not okay. It’s just…what can I do? Besides get you out of here?”

Henry stares at him for a moment, so overwhelmed with love for him that he can hardly stand it. “I don’t know,” he tells him honestly.

Alex nods thoughtfully and thinks about it for a moment. “Can I make a suggestion that you totally don’t have to listen to?”

Henry nods.

“I think you should see someone.”

“I’ve got a therapist an––”

“No. I mean, I’m sure that’s good, too, but I mean, like, someone that can get you help. A diagnosis, maybe? Medication?”

It’s not something he’s ever talked about. Mental health. His family very pointedly ignores and sidesteps all conversations about it because, well, he’s a prince, right? He’s not supposed to be sick. But he’s not really sick, is he? Not in the way the Queen and Philip might see it. He’s struggling––he knows he’s struggling. And medicine or at least some sort of plan on how to deal with it will probably help him. When he thinks about it, it seems silly that he hasn’t thought of it before. It’s something he should have done as soon as he came to New York and didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to go to a doctor.

When he’s discharged from the hospital, they get a referral for someone he can go meet with and talk to about how his brain works and the thoughts that sometimes drown him. Alex goes with him, of course, but waits outside with Shaan while Henry steps into the office. It’s a nice place––very private and cozy. Not half as clinical as he thought it would be. The doctor––Dr. Sanders––smiles at him warmly when he comes in and gestures for him to sit in an oversized armchair across from her.

“I have to admit,” Henry chuckles as he sits down, “I think my boyfriend will be offended that there isn’t a sofa or a chaise lounge or something in here.”

Dr. Sanders smiles at him and writes something down. “Your boyfriend might watch too many soap operas.”

“I’ll have to have a word with him about that, won’t I?”

She smiles again and offers her hand to him. “I’m Doctor Sanders,” she says as he shakes her hand. “Are you ready to begin?”

It’s only an hour-long and it’s mostly just Henry explaining how he feels and the various coping strategies he’s used in the past that don’t seem to work all that well. By the end of it, he’s holding his breath while she smiles at him and starts to tell him her thoughts and next steps they can take.

Depression.

It’s the first time someone’s said it aloud to him.

She explains what this means both in general and for him as an individual. It’s oddly comforting to hear someone talk to him about this sort of thing so openly. Alex has done a wonderful job as being as supportive and understanding as possible, but it’s not really the same. It’s not a diagnosis. It’s not a word that Henry can hold onto and repeat and know why he is the way he is. And the doctor explains that, from the sounds of it, it’s something he’s been dealing with for a while. At least since his dad died. And maybe it’s silly, but he feels like there’s a weight being lifted off his chest when she talks him through different possibilities for medications and coping strategies.

When he leaves her cozy office, he has a slip of paper in one hand and a smile on his face. Alex stands as soon as Henry reenters the waiting room and wraps him up in a massive hug.

“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart,” Alex tells him into the crook of his neck. “You’re so brave.”

Henry kisses his cheek and shows him the paper. “There’s a word,” he says with a smile.

Alex––still smiling––tilts his head. “A word for what?”

“For me,” Henry tells him. “For what I am––for how my brain works. I––Alex, I have depression.”

“And that makes you happy?” Alex asks. There’s no malice or judgment in his voice––just baffled curiosity.

Henry nods and kisses him. “Very.”

Alex makes Shaan stop on the way home so they can get the prescription filled. And Here knows that it’s going to be a long journey of finding the right medication and that there are some rough patches in front of him, but he’s got Alex’s hand in his own and a word he can use to describe the swirl of emotions that have been churning inside of him for so long now.

Depression.

Christ, it just feels so wonderful to know that he’s not alone––that this diagnosis puts him in a never-ending group of people who are just like him. It fills him with hope to know that there are people he can talk to about this––people that will understand his occasional bouts of melancholy and non-responsiveness. Even though he knows that Philip and his gran would never approve, he doesn’t even care.

He’s Henry, the Prince of Wales, and he has depression.

And he’s going to make damn sure that he uses that to help other people like him.

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #prince henry of wales #alex claremont diaz #henry fox mountchristen windsor #mental health #support #depression #getting help #fanfic #one shot

[quillium]

Timothy Drake Learning to Dance

Yeah, you read that right.

So obviously Dick knows how to dance. That’s like a no-brainer. He learned a lil performative dance (a LOT) when he was in the circus and then it just low-key never stopped, he just kept going to lessons and then started joining dance teams and now he could probably be a pro if he wanted to

Steph starts learning to dance when Bruce tells her something like “I’ll get you whatever you want” and Steph’s like ha! Yeah right! and starts doing crazy stuff

like it starts with using Bruce’s money for lil drinks and treating her friends but then it goes to buying clothes and more and more ridiculous stuff and she got dance lessons somewhere in the middle

(it all ends when she buys a really expensive sports cars, donates it to cars for veterans, and Bruce looks her in the eye and says “I’m glad you’ve decided to help charities, that’s really nice, Stephanie” and she’s like TAKE YOUR MONEY I DON’T WANT IT I’M SO STRESSED I HATE BEING RICH and Bruce is like no problem I’ll just put it in a trust fund for when you’re older, and then yo can find out through a secret scavenger hunt that involves you travelling around the world like you always wanted to wait we got off track sorry someone remind me to get back to this because i think it’d be real cute as a steph and bruce oneshot)

ANYWAYS so Steph and Dick both dance and so obviously they rope TIM into it

Tim is minding his own business, making his coffee, when Steph creeps in and sorta just stands behind him

Tim is so tense that he accidentally spills a lil bit of coffee on himself and luckily he gets his shirt off on time but he spends like ten minutes under the shower because he got a superficial burn and Steph gets lectured sorry I know tangent AGAIN

Anyways Tim is stuck in the shower with the cold water for like ten minutes he is FREEZING and Steph is sorta still there and he’s like “can you not. I am not wearing clothing” and Steph’s like “nothing I haven’t seen before it’s not that exciting whatever ANYWAYS I’m here to offer you a very exciting opportunity” and Tim is like “YOU MADE ME BURN MYSELF. MY COFFEE IS GONE. I AM FREEZING MY TOES WENT NUMB THREE MINUTES AGO” and Steph’s like “okay yeah BUT that’s not the point”

TIm’s freezing he is tired he wants Steph to go away so he can freeze to death in peace so he’s like “ugh what”

Steph signed up for a tango class with Dick but then Dick, being--well, Dick--met this really sweet old widow who was feeling sad and lonely and decided to invite her to go to the tango class with him and now Steph doesn’t have a partner

Why Tim? Why not Cass? Because Cass has her ballet classes on Thursdays, Tim, literally the only reason Steph took the Thursday class when it’s such a weird day to have Tango class is because that’s when Cass isn’t around and Steph wants to try to keep as much free time for them to be together as possibly duh

Why is Steph not syncing her schedule with Tim? Because Tim is literally a bat, he’s a... uhh I forgot the word... NOCTURNAL, he’s NOCTURNAL, I can English, anyways, Tim’s schedule is like workworkworkmoreworkzzzzcoffeeworkwork

Tim: “I have a day job??? That I work at normal hours???” Steph: Yeah but I can’t, like, talk to you at work. Work and personal life separate, dude Tim: ??? okay 

So Tim ends up agreeing, of course, because he and Steph are best buds despite the fact that Steph caused Tim to burn himself (but REALLY superficial like he doesn’t even really feel it although that could be because his nerves are like busted)

Side note: Bruce is SO mother-henning over the burn like he goes out and buys burn cream and gauze and makes a new cup of coffee which he blows on and Tim’s like “this is sweet but we literally have all this stuff in the cave? You didn’t have to drive to Shopper’s Drugmart” Bruce is like “I was anxious I needed something to do”

Anyways Tim goes with Steph to Tango Thursdays and actually... really likes it? He realizes that having a break for his brain is actually really nice

So later on after Tango Thursdays ended Dick is trying to coerce Damian into learning kpop dances with him and Damian sees Tim and gets smug and is like “I’ll do it if Drake does it” and Tim is a) actually enjoying dancing and b) hohoho is that how we’re going to do it, Damian? “sure I’ll do it” Damian’s like oh no wait this is not the plan abort abort

Tangent: Damian’s like REALLY GOOD at dancing. Like REALLY GOOD. This kid learned katas and footwork all his life, he’s really good. He’s not, like, Cass-level, but he’s really good at dancing. His control over his body is insane. 

So Tim’s back to dancing

And NOW Dick has the perfect excuse to get Tim away from work!

Tim: *has been awake for 36 hours, is on his nth cup of coffee, was past flagging like 24 hours ago* Dick, bouncing in: “Heeey, Timmers, mind working on the choreo with me? I wanted to adjust the placements a bit after practicing” Zombie Tim, always trying his best to be helpful: Yeah... I... okay... Tim always, inevitably, falls asleep, and Dick loves it

(Yet another side note: Steph and Dami start dancing together and it’s wonderful)

Tim starts eating healthier because between dancing and his nightlife he needs more energy

Yeah, this au’s just all one convoluted plot to get Tim more sleep and healthier eating habits, and what of it?

I realize 99% of this was just shenanigans but just. Tim dancing. Having fun. Batfam fluff.

Final Bonus: Dick convinces Bruce that joining in their lil kpop dance group will help him bond with Damian.

(It works.)

I lied here’s my post script: While this entire thing is happening, Jason, Cass and Babs are working on a case where Jason has to go undercover at a pole dancing studio to take down a mob boss. It’s a mixture of Cass teaching Jason how to dance in a feminine manner, Cass and Babs laughing at Jason as he tries to seduce the mob boss’ son (who I think is actually a sweetheart aside from being okay with killing people, and vibes really well with Jason. He probably ends up in like witness protection or something after helping the trio take down his dad’s organization), and just overall fluff. But also there’s one conversation where Babs talks about how even though she has accepted and isn’t upset about the fact that she’s in a wheelchair, she sometimes feels sad that there’s a lot she can’t learn without the use of her legs and it’s a bittersweet conversation that makes you tear up a bit.

anyways, our coffee-loving, sleep-deprived workaholic boy dancing

#dc #batman #timothy drake #tim drake #red robin #batfam #yeaaaah #stephanie brown #timeline what timeline

[deathstakes]

How to be Buffy Summers — A Slayer How-To Guide: Tips, tricks and wood chips.

PREFACE: So you want to be the Slayer, huh? Well, newsflash. Everyone wants to be the hero. In the movies, it is flashy and cool. Well, here is a newsflash. Slaying isn’t exactly glam-o-rama. The movies really pump up the whole what it is like to be a hero, and let me tell you, it isn’t as cute.

Disclaimer: You might have heard a lot from the fang-population. They like to spread their gossip faster than a bunch of ladies sipping their afternoon tea. I’m here to clear the rumours and give you the insiders scoop.

I am more than just the Slayer. I am also Buffy. They go hand in hand like…. Hands going in hand. I like my weapons as much as I love a good sale. There’s nothing wrong with liking pink, dressing cute and also being able to kick some major ass, and trust me, if you ever doubt it, I can show you what a Slayer really is.

TIPS, TRICKS AND WOODCHIPS

1. There is nothing fashionable about eye bags. Concealer is your best friend.

Patrol usually ends around 3 a.m, if the vampires aren’t biting much. If I am lucky, I get about four hours of sleep a night, and if I am even luckier those four hours are free of nightmares or weird, cryptic-y apocalyptic messages. Most of the time, I am not, and my dreams aren’t steamy with Swayze but the uglies, but we never go past second base because they always seem to die when they try to handle my stake.

Those sleepless nights are going to make you want to wear a caffeine drip. Speaking of, coffee will be your other best friend. Thank me later.

Oh, and you’re also going to need a concealer for the bruises. Trust me on this, you’re going to find bruises in places you didn’t even know you could have bruises. Those rough tumbles aren’t without consequence. Sure, they’ll go away in a bit, but in the meantime, do what Elsa said. Conceal, don’t feel. Cover it with translucent powder to really set it in and don’t forget to colour correct! This works for both bruises and for those vampire bites. Totally hickey-proof.

2. Sisterly duties.

Make sure Dawn is up for the school day. I used to get up much easier, in my opinion. Also, remember to pack a stake in her lunch and some holy water, just in case. You never know when she is going to need them considering she has a habit of getting kidnapped every other Tuesday. Replenish the supply every so often and get your witchy best friend to put in protection trinkets that you can slip into her backpack.

IMPORTANT: When it comes to her safety, nothing is off limits, at all. Monsters will play dirty if they have to, and the ones closest to you are the most susceptible. It’s a hard knock life.

3. Because this gig isn’t really big on the paying front, you also need a day job. Glamorous.

Remember that thing about how being a superhero isn’t like how it is in the movies. I was being dead serious about that. There isn’t a batmobile or really cool headquarters, unless you want to count the Magic Shop, and oh, that thing about getting paid? Hah. Yeah, you’re not really going to be rolling in the dough unless it is cookie dough. It is a whole, long-winded thing, so just make sure you have some resistance to temptation when you see a really, really good shoe sale. I am talkin’ goes with everything, cute but also practical heel. Don’t do it.

You might have to play pool shark, might need to flip some burgers and learn how to give your Buffy best smile while being dead inside, or you might need to bust an undercover demon black market. Get creative. Just don’t rob a bank. Morals still apply, you know.

TIP: Having a boyfriend who is good at forging credit cards is really helpful. Though, sometimes, he gets too crafty with the aliases.

4. Unchipped manicures? Puh-lease.

I’m going to give it to you straight, so it doesn’t get hard later on. You know that feeling of freshly painted nails? Don’t get used to it. There has yet to be a patrol that I go on that doesn’t end up with me chipping my polish.You’d think someone would get into the market for this stuff and break the bank, but nope. Well, considering I would probably be their only customer... Don’t even think about acrylics, who has the time and also, not great for grip. Gel? You’d think it would hold, but let me tell you, not even the best formula can stand against the roughest of tumbles.

Having pretty, polished nails was nice while it lasted. That isn’t to say I don’t do my nails, now, because I do. I’m not letting fangs take that away from me. They already took away my sleep.

5. Healing.

So, right about now, you might be starting to realize that being a superhero isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. So, let me throw in a decent thing. This isn’t to get recruits or anything. This job position is filled until further notice (or until I get the axe.) One of the good things about the gig is that you heal faster. That isn’t to say you don’t get hurt, because oh boy, do you get hurt. The pain aspect is still there, but you’ll heal a broken bone in days compared to weeks only to break it again. I’ve made with the stabby, and gotten out of the hospital the same night because I was healing quickly. Other than the limping, the bruises that go away in a day or two and the scars are barely there scars, you’re golden.

But that doesn’t mean that I am invincible.

If Slayers were invincible, I wouldn’t be here.

I still have my scars (the ones that can be seen) on my neck. From the Master, from Angel and those couple rounds with Dracula that I went, but that’s for another time. The naked eye can’t really see them, but get me under some great selfie taking lighting and it's there, just a sheen paler than my skin tone.

TIP: If you are trying to hide fresh ones, try scarves. Fashionable, but practical. Ascots if you’re into looking like Fred Jones, hubba hubba.

6. The weapon of the tongue. No, not that weapon.

Anyone can learn high kicks and how to throw a punch. Well, most anyone, anyways. But if you really want to know the inner workings of how to be Buffy, try me on for size. I only come in a small, though. When I do my rounds, I like to provide a double feature slayer combo, you know? Throw in a pun or two between my punches, give them a real show. You know why? It gets them going. It drives them crazy, and they get angry. That anger helps fuel the whole show. Also, I am great at talking circles, so sometimes, you just keep going and going and watch their undead brains try to scramble it together, and while they are doing that?

PRESTO-POOF-O.

It really is a Buffy skill, even if Giles doesn’t think so.

Well, except when it gets me in trouble because part of being me is realizing that my mouth speaks faster than my brain tends to comprehend and then it just becomes a whole intangible tangent that really shouldn’t even be called a tangent, because really, who---

7. Sacrificing fashion for slayage.

This one hurts me to write. This one hurts me because it is still something I struggle with, but what can I say? I’m a lifelong learner, dedicated to becoming the best. Nerd alert. There was a time when I used to dress cute. You know, the minis and the halters? The to-die-for booties? Well, guess what? Long gone are those days. Now, I aim for pr… for… prac… for practical. Sorry, it is still a touchy thing.

That doesn’t mean you still can’t dress cute, because you totally can. Have I given up my style? Nope, not a chance, and hey, sometimes my halters still see the life of patrol because I believe when we look and feel our best, we slay the best (Can I get an amen?) I wear booties all the time, but it’s because I know how to run in heels.

Body con dresses and tight skirts? Save them for a day you aren’t slaying, because otherwise, you’ll be sitting in a bank and suddenly be faced with a bank-robbing demon and you’ll have to slit your favorite pencil skirt with shears so you have enough leg room to fly-kick that ugly.

That was a nice skirt, it was.

8. Accessorizing is important.

It is no secret that accessorizing can make an outfit go from nay to yay. Come on, that is a given. But, being the Slayer, there are some accessories I have to make sure that I am wearing at all times. Keeping a cross on you all the time would be too bulky, and it isn’t for the religious aspect of things, so what do I do? Cross necklaces, chokers, rings or little dangly earrings can be the perfect way of making a vampire weak in the knees. Also, punching with rings really hits differently. For them, not me.

Keep some scarves on you, too, because well, it isn’t any of my business what happens to your necks, fangy or not.

TIP: Scrunchies? Make great face flingers if you need a real quick distraction to get out of a fangy situation. Just some tricks of the trade, you are welcome.

9. That appetite.

Let’s get personal, here. You think that you’re going to do all that cardio and vamp-ass slayage and not feel like you could eat a horse? Oh, it’s bad. Sometimes, the first thing I do when I am done patrol is hit whatever place is open or go straight for the fridge. It’s never cravings for a salad, either, nope. It’s 3 a.m, and all you want is a stack of double chocolate chip pancakes, some sunny side up eggs, hash and extra greased up bacon, maybe even some triple scoop chocolate shakes.

Dawn says she always feels like she is interrupting the fridge and I when she walks in on us, because my head is just always sticking inside it, but what do kids know, huh?

Also… there is another kind of appetite. This is why this book isn’t in the kids section. We’re all grown ups here. Sometimes, all you need is to get rid of that tickle that seems to always find a place. It’s explosive until you give in and have to do something about it. It’s kind of why I prefer solo-slaying, it gets real intimate.

A low-fat yogurt does the trick, too.

10. Weapons, ooh.

So, we talked about the power of words, but here comes the good stuff. Let me tell you, nothing feels good as the first poof after a freshly shaven stake. I never thought I would ever admit to that, but here we are. It is important to always keep your weapons ready to fight like it was the end of the world, because most times? It is.

Try to keep a knife in your boots. Pockets are important because you can slip in stakes discreetly enough, but don’t make them too bulky. Keep important spells on your phone because you’re not carrying around books everywhere you go. Never forget your phone, your gloss, crosses and holy water. You know, the essentials.

My favourite weapon? My precious baby. My scythe. It looks sweet and is just as killer. I like it for its double functionality because it does both the beheading mucho smoothly and the point of the stake? Talk about hot.

…. Yes, we all get attached to our weapons.

As for guns, they are still pointless.

Keep your weapons hidden. Somewhere they won’t be found. I went through storing them in places I knew my mom wouldn’t bother looking (crosses and holy water vials between the bookshelves, stakes in the closet…) Maybe build a trunk for it, for all your storage needs. This is where I plug Xander Harris. He built me a beautiful trunk on my 21st birthday. Give him a call.

11. Do NOT sleep with vampires.

So, here’s the thing. I don’t want to be a hypocrite but, sometimes, I just have to say it. Do not sleep with the enemy. Here’s the thing. I get it. I know. There’s this whole mysterious aspect to it, and sometimes at the end of it all, you just want to knock your boots with someone, BUT DO NOT SLEEP WITH THE UNDEAD. It never works out good for anyone. There are too many complications, like the loss of souls and dignity. The only shaft they should be getting worked is the stake.

There are plenty of living, breathing, normal human fish in the sea.

Seriously, screw vampires. By that, I mean don’t.

This message was brought to you in part by the Learn from Buffy’s Mistakes Association, because clearly she never did.

12. Don’t let it turn you into stone.

I’m going to get real with you. Being the Slayer… it is so easy to cut yourself off. From the world and everyone around you, because you think that it is easier that way. That it’ll hurt less if you keep this unbudging wall between you and the people you care about. Somewhere along the way, the hard heartens from all the losses that turn you into a ghost of who you were. Somewhere along the way, you stop wearing your heart on your sleeve because you’re not that innocent or naive girl anymore.

Being the slayer… it makes me different. It makes me different in a way that I don’t think anyone will ever truly understand, even when they say they do. I’m not saying that because I think highly of myself or I am trying to keep people at bay. It is just the way it is. This is a fight that belongs to the Chosen One, even when she didn’t ask to be Chosen.

It is about trying to find that balance. For a long time, I cut myself off, and sometimes I still find myself having a hard time letting other people in because I tend to swallow in myself when things get hard. I don’t like putting that on other people… they deal with enough just by slayer association. Now, I try.

I try to embrace the way my emotions give me power, the way they make me feel, even when I feel the most vulnerable - even more than I am mid-battle.

13. Don’t fight it, just accept it. - stop being so hard on yourself, you’re one girl.

One girl in all the world...

I used to hate it. I used to despise Destiny and wanted to give it the finger. For a long time, I hated this life. Hell, there are still times when I wish I wasn’t ‘the One.’ Being the one sucks, sometimes. The losses, the sacrifices, the constant worrying about everyone around you?

It hits harder when I think about the ones I couldn’t save. Yeah, I saved a bunch of people, but what about the ones I couldn’t? That is on me and only me. This is the heavy, so-not-star spangled stuff that sleeps with me every night. The guilt. The could-haves, the should-haves…

I have grown from not accepting this role to embracing what I bring as the Slayer. I know I am damn good at it, total humble-brag. Hey, longest lived for a reason, okay. My stats are impressive.

Sure, there are days where my bones are downright tired. There’s an ache I can’t really explain, and hurt that never goes away and sits in my chest. I have to remind myself that if it is not me, then it is some other girl and I want to save that girl and have her live a normal life for just a little bit longer, you know? She might have something important to get to. She might be Dawn’s age. I could never do that to her.

Every day, I am doing the best I can. There’s only me, and sometimes, only me needs to cut herself a break. Just like most everyone needs to cut themselves a break, sometimes. Have a break, have a Kit-Kat.

*** BONUS TIP: Practice safe necks. Just, please, people. We live in Sunnydale, this should be obvious. Don’t give into Sunnydale Syndrome, have a little awareness.*

CONCLUSION: There you have it, folks. A little intel about the oh so (not) glamorous life of a Slayer. Not coming to a theatre nowhere near you because books on my life are enough, thank you very much. If you have any questions, please contact your local library or that idiot named Carver Edlund. Spam him, spam him good, maybe even send him some hate-mail while you are at it.

END NOTE: If Giles finds this, I repeat, I did not write this. This was written by someone else who knows way too much about me. Probably Dawn because she reads my diary all the time.

                                                                      A Buffy Summers Publication ™

#✞ :: | ✦ ❛ Drabbles of the Chosen One